The invitation is as universal as if it had stopped with its third word. " Ho, every one " would have been no broader than is the offer as it stands. For the characteristics named are those which belong, necessarily and universally, to human experience. If the text had said, " Ho, every one that breathes human breath," it would not have more completely covered the whole race, and enfolded thee and me, and all our brethren, in the amplitude of its promise, than it does when it sets up as the sole qualifications, thirst and penury — that we infinitely need and that we are absolutely unable to acquire the blessings that it offers.
IT The sharp shrill cry of "Acqua! Acqua!" constantly pierces the ear of the wanderer in Venice and other towns of sultry Italy. There is the man who thus invites your attention. Look at him. On his back he bears a burden of water, and in his hand a rack of bottles containing essences to flavour the draught if needed, and glasses to hold the cooling liquid. In the streets of London he would find but little patronage, but where fountains are few and the days are hot as an oven, he earns a livelihood and supplies a public need. The present specimen of water-dealers is a poor old man bent sideways by the weight of his daily burden. He is worn out in all but his voice, which is truly startling in its sharpness and distinctness. At our call he stops immediately, glad to drop his burden on the ground, and smiling in prospect of a customer. He washes out a glass for us, fills it with sparkling water, offers us the tincture which we abhor, puts it back into the rack again when we shake our head, receives half a dozen soldi with manifest gratitude, and trudges away across the square, crying still, " Acqua ! Acqua ! " That cry, shrill as it is, has sounded sweetly in the ears of many a thirsty soul, and will for ages yet to come if throats and thirst survive so long.
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11.
The Vain Search for Satisfaction.
1. The phrase "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread ? " in the Hebrew, referring to the custom of ancient times, reads : " Wherefore do ye weigh money for that which is not bread ? " We see here how in their foolishness men are weighing out their lives, spending their energies, wast- ing their affections upon that which is not bread, and which brings no lasting satisfaction to the soul. The soul is fed and fed, but the sense of hunger remains. The soul is filled and filled, and yet the sense of emptiness continues ! The Hebrew term " for that which is not bread " reads more correctly " for that which is no-bread," it is the negative of bread ; it is the very opposite of bread. It is that which not only does not alleviate our hunger, but makes us more hungry ! It does not fill our emptiness, but makes us more empty than ever ! Not only does it fail to satisfy, but it makes us more dissatisfied ! Just as salt water not only fails to quench the thirst but aggravates it.
The excessive striving which is so evident to-day betokens a thirsty, unsatisfied world. Men are searching for happiness and contentment ; it is natural they should, and they imagine that if they had certain things their hunger would be appeased. The poor man asks for money, the rich man seeks to be richer still, the ambitious longs for fame and power and position, the sensual for the means to gratify his passions, and each fancies that were his wishes to be granted, he would then know what happiness meant, and would be content.
2. In how many ways do men try to quench the thirst of the soul ? Some of the most manifest are Sensuality, Work, Privation, Amusement.
1. Sensuality. — It is a common endeavour to make the body receive double, so as to satisfy both itself and the soul with its pleasures. The effort is, how continually to stimulate the body by delicacies, and condiments, and sparkling bowls, and licentious pleasures of all kinds, and so to make the body do
356 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
double service. Hence, too, the drunkenness, and high feasting, and other vices of excess. The animals have no such vices, because they have no hunger save that of the body ; but man has a hunger also of the mind or soul, when separated from God by his sin, and therefore he must somehow try to pacify that. And he does it by a work of double feeding put upon the body. We call it sensuality. But the body asks not for it. The body is satisfied by simply that which allows it to grow and maintain its vigour. It is the unsatisfied, hungry mind that flies to the body for some stimulus of sensation, compelling it to devour as many more of the husks, or carobs, as will feed the hungry prodigal within. Thus it is that so many dissipated youths are seen plunging into pleasures of excess — midnight feastings and surfeitings, debaucheries of lust and impiety ; it is because they are hungry, because their soul, separated from God and the true bread of life in Him, aches for the hunger it suffers. And so it is the world over ; men are hungry everywhere, and they compel the body to make a swine's heaven for the comfort of the godlike soul.^