fail to get men to attend to every Christian duty
where love is wanting; but it is not difficult to persuade men to obey
God and do all they can to glorify him when they love him with all their
hearts.

There was much in the life of the angel of the church at Ephesus that
was praiseworthy; but something was lacking. He had left his first love.
But, what is the first love? There is no difference between first love
and last love if it be love. Pure, genuine love is the same
always--first, last, and all the time. The overseers of this church,
and doubtless the church in general, had lost the ardor of the love
which they had at the first. Oh, the warmth, the sweetness, of first
love! Do you not remember it, dear reader? When you were so clearly and
wonderfully born of the Spirit of God, how ardent was the love in your
heart! It thrilled you with delight. There was a delicious, sweet taste
all through your soul. How gladly you would have taken wings and have
flown away to the arms of Him whom your heart loved. The word of God was
to your soul like honeyed dew upon your lips. How delightful it was to
labor for Jesus! How preciously sweet to make the greatest sacrifices
for his sake! and to go away into some secret place and pray was dearer
to you than can ever be told. You found the greatest pleasure in
attending to every Christian duty. I should be glad if I could describe
to you just what that first love was in your heart. I can not do this,
neither can you; but you know how it felt, and how joyful was your soul.
Oh, blessed happy day, when your sins were washed away, and love sang
its sweetest lay within your soul!

Now, if you do not have the same ardor; the same warmth; the same sweet
relish for prayer, for the word of God, for a meeting; the same
thrilling sense of sweetness in your soul; that same precious drawing
toward God and toward the brethren; that same delight in laboring for
Jesus; that same joy and happiness in making sacrifices for him and for
your fellow man: if you do not feel those symptoms of love as deeply and
as delightfully, and if they are not in you as actively as they were at
the first,--you are like the church at Ephesus--you have left your first
love. In Wilson's excellent translation this text reads, "Thou hast
relaxed thy first love." They had lost the intensity of their first
love. It had relaxed, or lost tension, and had become languid. It does
not matter to what you testify, or who you are,