HOW shall I attain to having my heart filled with love to God? is a question not infrequently put by true people. We should reply, in the same way as a pitcher under a fountain attains to being filled with the sparkling water. The province of the pitcher is not to produce water, but to hold it. The believer is but a vessel for the reception of the Divine fulness, and our way to be filled is first, not to be full of ourselves, and next, to give ourselves to God to be filled.
Our efforts to produce love in our own hearts are often no better than filling up the pitcher with little stones, each one of which takes up the place of so much water.