^ Augustine tried the broken cisterns and he was thirsty still. " Turned from Thee, the One Good, I lost myself among a multiplicity of things. I wandered into fruitless seed-beds of sorrow, with a proud dejecteduess and a restlesa weariness. I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose it I found not." So the eager and often disappointed quest went on, until, under the fig-tree in the garden at Milan, in the year of our Saviour 386, he put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and made no provision for the flesh. Then his lips were opened, and he could sing : " This is the happy life, to rejoice to Thee and of Thee and for Thee ; this is it, and there is no other. Too late I learned to know Thee, 0 Thou Beauty of ancient days, too late I learned to love Thee ! Many and great are my infirmities ; but Thy medicine is mightier."
5. The use of the brook is to give refreshment and strength to continue the battle. Each age has its own impulse which carries it a little way, but then there is the temptation to relax and to rest in what has been attained, as if that were the measure of the thought of God. But with another age a new call has come and courage to deal with it. Men have not come to the end of the warfare to which Christ has committed them. The gospel has a promise for every creature under heaven ; it has an application to every variety of condition ; it proves its power in men of every age. "It starts each epoch and each century witli renewed ardour and redoubled vigour." The things that have been are tlie pale shadows of things which are to be. But ' A. Smellie, Service and Iiispiralion, 70.
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every victory over sin in the present or in the future has its explanation in the greatness of the heart of the Redeemer, who still passes uudiscouraged on His way.
At the extreme limit of his vision this poet saw not rest and quiescence, but the King setting forth upon yet greater conquests. We are a laggard race, ever anxious and unready, afraid of what may come, doubtful if righteousness can really win the day ; and our chief need is to kindle faith for the world afresh by a better study of the world's King. " He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth ; and the isles shall wait for his law."
^ I think I have sometimes noticed in you an impatience of mind which you should guard against carefully. Pin this maxim up in your memory — that Nature abhors the credit system, and that we never get anything in life till we have paid for it. Any- thing good, I mean; evil things we always pay for afterwards, and always when we find it hardest to do it. By paying for them, of course, I mean labouring for them. Tell me how much good solid work a young man has in him, and I will erect a horo- scope for him as accurate as Guy Mannering's for young Bertram. Talents are absolutely nothing to a man except he have the faculty of work along with them. They, in fact, turn upon him and worry him, as Actaeon's dogs did — you remember the story ? Patience and perseverance — these are the sails and the rudder even of genius, without which it is only a wretched hulk upon the waters.^
^ The husbandman sows his seed and toils on, and persistence reaps the harvest. The scholar opens his books and toils on, and persistence reaps fame. The reformer attacks the evil and toils on, and persistence destroys the evil. The force that is constant will always overcome the force that is less constant. Indeed, there never lived a man that came to anything who lacked this quality of pertinacity and adherence. How is it that the mountain-climber reached that summit of 23,000 feet ? Plainly by going on and on until his foot was on the last stone and the whole earth was under his feet. The motto of David Livingstone was in these words: "I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose." When Livingstone's work in Africa was done, the Dark Continent was mapped out and spread fully before the merchants of the world. He crossed Africa four times, and marched for days up to his armpits in ^ Letters of James Rvssell Lowell, i. 183.
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water, endured twenty-seven attacks of fever, was surrounded with enemies on every side, faced mutiny, poisoned arrows, wild beasts, the bite of serpents, but never gave up. By sheer, dogged persistence and faith in God he conquered, acting as if he thought his body was us immortal as his spirit.^
^ By his zeal, constancy, and wisdom, by his mechanical genius and his gift of languages, Mackay had made himself a household word and a power in the whole region of Uganda. His hopefulness and courage never failed him. The misfortunes which overtook the Uganda mission at various times were regarded by timid and fearful souls at home as indications from God that the work there should be abandoned. When Mackay heard of these proposals, he wrote : " Are you joking ? If you tell me in earnest that such a suggestion has been made, I only answer. Never! Tell me, ye faint hearts, to whom ye mean to give up the mission ? Is it to murderous raiders like Mwanga, or to slave-traders from Zanzibar, or to English and Belgian dealers in rifles and gun- powder, or to German spirit-sellers? All are in the field, and they make no talk of ' giving up ' their respective missions ! " That was the spirit which burnt in the heart of Mackay to the end of his brief life.^