. When Earth's Wine Gives Out,
by J. R. Miller. When the wine was
gone, Jesus' mother said to him, They have no more wine, John
2.3. This incident is a very fitting
illustration of the failure of all this world's joys. The wine
gave out at a wedding feast. There was not enough of it to
last through to the end of the feast. It is just so with all
earth's pleasures. It comes in cups, not in fountains,
and the supply is limited and soon exhausted. It is especially
so with sin's pleasures. The prodigal son soon ran out
of money. and began to be in need, a poet
compared the pleasures of sin to a snowflake on the river,
a moment white, then gone for ever. But it is true in a sense
also of pure pleasures. Even the sweetness of human love
is but a cupful which will not last for ever. The joy which
so fills us to-day, to-morrow is changed to sorrow. Amid the
gladness of the marriage altar, there is the knell of the end,
in the words, until death do us part. One of every two friends
must hold the other's hand in farewell at the edge of the valley
of the shadow of death, and must stand by the other's grave, and
walk alone for part of the way. The best wine of earthly life
and of love will fail. If there were nothing better
in this world, how sad it would be! But it is here that we see
the glory of Christ's gospel. Jesus comes when earth's wine
fails, and gives heaven's wine to supply the lack. How beautiful
and how true is the picture here! the failing wine, and then Jesus
coming with power and supplying the need. That is what He is
doing continually. He takes lives which have drained
their last drop of earthly gladness, and He satisfies them with spiritual
good and blessing, so that they need nothing more. when human
joy fails, Jesus gives new joy, better than the world's and in
unfailing abundance. How sad it is for those who have
not taken Christ into their lives and who have nothing but the
empty cup when earth's wine gives out.