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The most obvious analogy which the spring suggests is —

I. THE RESURRECTION OF MANY FORMS AND KINDS OF LIFE, WHICH FOR A PERIOD OF TIME WERE DEAD.

1. Spring represents us with a marvellous example of the sufficiency of means to produce, in a short time, a great change in the appearance of the earth. The existence of this power is calculated to remove all doubt from the mind regarding those agencies which shall be employed to awaken the buried inhabitants of Time from their wide-spread places of rest.

2. As spring brings back to us familiar objects, so the resurrection will re-unite us to those we loved and from whom we had parted on earth, with sorrow. As then, we visit the resting-places of those clear to us on "God's acre," as the Germans term the graveyard, and see the violets blooming above their tombs, and the buds appearing on the trees, the heart is comforted by those emblems of hope, and feels that those from whom it has parted are not lost, but gone before, and that they shall meet them on the resurrection morn.

II. THE RENEWING OF THE FACE OF THE EARTH IS A TYPE OF A RENEWING OF THE SOUL. AS the day comes out of night, or as the spring emerges from winter, so the soul passes from death into the flesh light of a new life by the power of the Holy Spirit. "Old things pass away and all things become new." And as spring gives a tone to the sky, the cloud, the air and the fields, so the new life of the soul, being diffusive, gives a tone and colouring to the thoughts, the feelings, and the actions of the Christian.

1. This progress of the soul in the Divine life is, like the progress of the spring, gradual. Sin does not easily relax its grasp; old habits are not thrown off at will; so that the virgin joys of the new life of the soul are often chilled by the cold influences of sin, striving to renew their reign like the winter.

2. This progress of the soul in the Divine life is, like the progress of spring, irresistible. Winter must give place to spring. So faith, like a grain of mustard seed in the soul, will germinate and expand, and progress, and establish itself in holy desires, fervent affections, and correct thoughts, under the life-giving influence of the Sun of Righteousness.

3. This progress of the soul in the Divine life is, like the progress of spring, pleasing. As spring introduces us to new pleasures; the renewing of the soul leads us to fresh delights.

III. SPRING IS ILLUSTRATIVE OF YOUTHFUL LIFE. Spring is a period of importance to the husbandman; so is youth.

(Homilist.)I will arise — I who have resisted so long — and go to my Father. It may be so with them there; but here there is but little chance for them. "The moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall devour them like wool."

(Stopford Brooke, M. A.)

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KJV: My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

WEB: My beloved spoke, and said to me, "Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.