THE church of God seems to have lost her delicacy of touch and sensation. There are some members of Christ's body who do things in business they ought not to do, and they are not conscious of doing wrong, because they have not enough life in them to be delicately sensitive of the approach of sin. Some good people neglect their Christian duty, and they are scarcely aware of it; they do not attach any importance to it, because they have not life enough to make them sensitive. If we are ever to do anything for God, we must get back the delicate touch of abundant life. There are some persons who may lose an arm and scarcely suffer so much as another having an ordinary wound, because they are constituted with abundance of life. There is something in the constitution of the brain that makes them sensitive all over, and they will have greater pain. Do not try to escape from spiritual pain. I would like to feel the burden of the Lord pressing upon me day and night, till the thought of a soul being lost will not let me rest. There is not the feeling that there ought to be; and till God gives us life which will make us feel for sinners so as to weep over cities as Christ did, we will not see any great work done. The Lord wants us ministers, especially, to be delicately sensitive against everything that is wrong and would lead us to neglect the souls of others! We want to have more and more of that delicacy and quickness of apprehension. We read of our Lord that he was quick of understanding. We want to be just like that. You who employ servants know the difference between those who must be told every time there is a thing to be done, and those whose eye is on their mistress; just a look from you, and that is enough. You need not speak at all; they know what they should do, and do it with alacrity. We want that kind of delicacy restored to us, that we may know the Lord's will quickly, and not be as the horse or the mule, but ready to be moved at once by the will of God. We should not be like the "Great Eastern," that wants a huge wave to move it, but like the feather on the lake, that is driven along by the softest breeze of the gale. Oh, to be delicately apprehensive of the mind of God, to know it, and to follow it! Sometimes life in certain parts of the body has been cultivated to such a high degree, that our bodily system is capable of much more than it has ever displayed. Look at the red Indian, as he puts his ear to the ground and listens, and says, "They come!" Just so, if our ears get quickened, we shall hear the footsteps of the coming Lord, and say when others hear it not, "He comes!" We shall be like the Highland woman at Lucknow, who cried, "They are coming, they are coming!" She could hear the music of the Highlanders. Oh! to be able to hear the music of heaven, and to say— 'Home of my soul, how near at times
Thy golden gates appear!' to get sensitive to unseen things, and realize and see the things that are yet to be revealed to us!—Spurgeon.