human good, take their rise in the fact of God's dwelling with men. From
beneath the Temple threshold comes the water of life; and wherever it
is true that in any heart--or in any community--God dwells, there will
be heard the tinkling of its ripples, and freshness and fertility will
come from the stream. The dwelling of God with a man, like the dwelling
of God in humanity in the Incarnation of His own dear Son, is, as it
were, the opening of the fountain that it may pour out into the world.
So, if we desire to have the blessings that are possible for us, we must
comply with the conditions, and let God dwell in our hearts, and make
them His temples; and then from beneath the threshold of that temple,
too, will pour out, according to Christ's own promise, rivers of living
water which will be first for ourselves to drink of and be blessed by,
and then will refresh and gladden others.

Another thought connected with this source of the river of life is that
all the blessings which, massed together, are included in that one word
'salvation'--which is a kind of nebula made up of many unresolved
stars--take their rise from nothing else than the deep heart of God
Himself. This river rose in the House of the Lord, and amidst the
mysteries of the Divine Presence; it took its rise, one might say, from
beneath the Mercy-seat where the brooding Cherubim sat in silence and
poured itself into a world that had not asked for it, that did not
expect it, that in many of its members did not desire it and would not
have it. The river that rose in the secret place of God symbolises for
us the great thought which is put into plainer words by the last of the
apostles when he says, 'We love Him because He first loved us.' All the
blessings of salvation rise from the unmotived, self-impelled, self-fed
divine love and purpose. Nothing moves Him to communicate Himself but
His own delight in giving Himself to His poor creatures; and it is all
of grace that it might be all through faith.