ong procession of precious
memories. Within the golden circle of that ring there is room for a
thousand sweet recollections to revolve, and you think of the great
contrast between the hour when, at the close of the "Wedding March,"
under the flashing lights and amid the aroma of orange-blossoms, you
set that ring on the round finger of the plump hand, and that other
hour when, at the close of the exhaustive watching, when you knew that
the soul had fled, you took from the hand, which gave back no
responsive clasp, from that emaciated finger, the ring that she had
worn so long and worn so well.

On some anniversary day you take up that ring, and you repolish it
until all the old luster comes back, and you can see in it the flash
of eyes that long ago ceased to weep. Oh, it is not an unmeaning thing
when I tell you that when Christ receives a soul into His keeping He
puts on it a marriage-ring. He endows you from that moment with all
His wealth. You are one--Christ and the soul--one in sympathy, one in
affection, one in hope.

There is no power in earth or hell to effect a divorcement after
Christ and the soul are united. Other kings have turned out their
companions when they got weary of them, and sent them adrift from the
palace gate. Ahasuerus banished Vashti; Napoleon forsook Josephine;
but Christ is the husband that is true forever. Having loved you once,
He loves you to the end. Did they not try to divorce Margaret, the
Scotch girl, from Jesus? They said: "You must give up your religion."
She said: "I can't give up my religion." And so they took her down to
the beach of the sea, and they drove in a stake at low-water mark, and
they fastened her to it, expecting that as the tide came up her faith
would fail. The tide began to rise, and came up higher and higher, and
to the girdle, and to the lip, and in the last moment, just as the
wave was washing her soul into glory, she shouted the praises of
Jesus.

Oh, no, you can not separate a soul from Christ! It is an everlasting
marriage. Battle and storm and darkness can not do it. Is it too much
exultation for a man, who is but dust and ashes like myself, to cry
out this morning: "I am persuaded that neither height, nor depth, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor any other creature shall separate me from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus my Lord"? Glory be to God that when Christ and the
soul are married they are bound by