IT A Chinese traveller, describing the Japanese of the early centuries of our era, mentions this interesting custom : " They appoint a man whom they call an ' abstainer.' He is not allowed to comb his hair, to wash, to eat flesh, or to approach women.
1 W. E. H. Lecky, Poevis, p. 99.
* A. S. Geden, in the JSncyclopcedia of Religion and Ethics, ii. p. 8?,
ISAIAH 359
When they are fortunate, they make him presents ; but if they are ill or meet with disaster, they set it down to the abstainer's failure to keeps his vows, and unite to put him to death." ^
IF " My father, my father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it ? " Would you not ? Swung at the end of a pole, with hooks in your back ; measured all the way from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, lying down on your face and rising at each length ; done a hundred things which heathens and Eoman Catholics and unspiritual Protestants think are the way to get salvation ; denied yourselves things that you would like to do ; done things that you do not want to do ; given money that you would like to keep ; avoided habits that are very sweet ; gone to church and chapel when you have no heart for worship ; and so tried to balance the account. If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, thou wouldst have done it.
4. Amusement. — Another stream to which the world repairs, in hopes to refresh its weariness, is pleasure. Here it thinks to find fulness of satisfaction. In amusement, in gaiety, in excite- ment, many would find their greatest good. Nothing, they imagine, can be better than to have within reach the means of being constantly amused. So they wander from place to place, from entertainment to entertainment. For a time they may find satisfaction, but as the experiment is repeated, the simpler pleasures and innocent amusements of life pall upon the taste, and no longer yield the enjoyment they once did. New means are sought of satisfying a restless appetite, till we see the devotee of pleasure sinking lower and lower, throwing aside every restraint, and giving the rein to every base inclination of a pampered nature. If gain has slain its thousands, pleasure has slain her tens of thousands.
She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips :
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine.
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine ;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung." ^
* M' Revon, ibid. ii. p. 96. ^ Keats, "Ode on Melancholy^."
36o THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
IIL The True Source of Satisfaction.
Men not only make the mistake of seeking rest in the pursuit of such definite things as gain and pleasure, but they make the fundamental mistake of seeking to quench the thirst of an immortal spirit at a human fountain. That cannot be done. The human fountain runs dry, and the soul is not satisfied ; for the soul must rest in God, the immortal in the immortal, spirit in spirit, the infinite in the infinite. Nothing short of this will satisfy ; the soul's true and only true environment is God ; outside of Him there is no rest for a weary world. " Lord," says the saintly Augustine, " Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it finds rest in Thee." More possessions, more pleasures, cries the man of the world, and we shall be satisfied. It is not so. The man in the valley looks up to the hills, and imagines that were he on the top of the peak he sees he would have gained the highest point of the hill, but when he climbs up it is only to discover that there are other reaches yet. It is not by adding to your possessions that satis- faction comes to you. Nothing this world can give, even were you to get it all, is proportionate to your need. Your need lies deeper than you yourselves know, deeper than your own desires ; it lies in the immortal part of you, which can be fed with no earthly bread. It is because men think it can that they never find rest. They spend their money for that which is not bread, which cannot satisfy the life of man, which can no more feed the spirit than the wind of heaven can feed the body.
IT They tell an old story about the rejoicings at the coronation of some great king, when there was set up in the market-place a triple fountain, from each of whose three lips flowed a different kind of rare liquor, which any man who chose to bring a pitcher might fill from, at his choice. Notice the text, " Come ye to the waters " . . . " buy wine and milk." The great fountain is set up in the market-place of the world, and every man may come ; and whichever of this glorious trinity of effluents he needs most, there his lip may glue itself and there he may drink, be it " water " that refreshes, or " wine " that gladdens, or " milk " that nourishes. They are all contained in this one great gift that flows out from the deep heart of God to the thirsty lips of parched humanity.