■[[ I think there is something implanted in man's heart, fallen creature as he is, which defies him to be content with anything
1 M. Doda.
ST. JOHN IV. 13, 14 231
but God alone. It is a trace of original majesty, which leaves a mark of what he was before the fall. He is always panting for something fresh ; and that is no sooner attained than it palls upon his taste. And this strong necessity of loving something makes a man form idols for himself, which he invests with fancied perfections, and when all these fade away in his grasp, and he finds their unsubstantiality, he must become either a misanthrope or a Christian. When a man has learned to know the infinite love of God in Christ to him, then he discovers something which will not elude his hold, and an affection which will not grow cold; for the comparison of God's long-suffering and repeated pardon, with his own heartless ingratitude, convinces him that it is an unchangeable love.^
0 God, where do they tend — these struggling aims?
What would I have ? What is this " sleep " which seems
To bound all ? Can there be a waking point
Of crowning life ? The soul would never rule ;
It would be first in all things, it would have
Its utmost pleasure filled, but, that complete,
Commanding, for commanding, sickens it.
The last point I can trace is — rest beneath
Some better essence than itself, in weakness ;
This is " myself," not what I think should be :
And what is that I hunger for but God ? ^
XL
The Wells of the Wokld.
All things that are of earth are unsatisfactory. Our spirit craves for something more than time and sense can yield it. Nothing which comes of earth, even if it should yield a transient satisfaction, can long maintain its excellence. Pointing to the water in Jacob's well, our Lord said, " Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again " ; and therein He took up His parable against all earthly things, whether they be fame, or riches, or fleshly pleasure, or aught else beneath the sun. He that drinks at these shallow wells shall not quench his thirst, or if for a time he imagines that he has so done, he will be undeceived, and in a little season the old craving will return. " That which is born of the flesh " is flesh even at its best, and * lAft and Letters of F. W. Rohertson, 57. ^ Browning, Faulim.
232 NO MORE THIRST
"all flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth/' The religion of the flesh shares in the common fate, if it has a man's own self for its author, his own energy as its impulse, and his own opinions for its creed. It may for a little while flourish like the flower of the field, but " the wind passeth over it and it is gone." Waters from his own cistern may stay a man's desires for a space, but ere long he must thirst again.
^ Too often we try to allay a spiritual thirst by a carnal draught. When Newman in his early life was burdened with the sense of his own shortcomings in the presence of his Lord, and his letters home lacked their usual buoyancy, his mother wrote to him : — " Your father and I fear very much from the tone of your letters that you are depressed. We fear you debar yourself a proper quantity of wine." That is a type of suggestion which is often made to people who are troubled with spiritual unrest. They are recommended to material ministries by which their feverish unrest is only intensified and inflamed. But they " thirst again." Others make an attempt to realize satisfaction and peace by immersing themselves in stimulants like novel-reading and theatre-going, and in the manifold pleasures of society. They intensify the social stimulant. Yet they " thirst again." Others plunge more deeply into business. The songster is languishing ! How then? Re-gild his cage. The soul is languishing! How then? Re-gild her cage. Seek for more gold, more gold, and surround the soul with material treasure. And yet the soul refuses to be appeased, and " thirsts again." Or, again, we give opiates to our disquieted and feverish souls. How many people find an opiate in making a promise to amend. They find content- ment in their intentions. But the satisfaction is only transient. They speedily awake out of their unnatural rest, and they are thirsty still. Others give themselves the opiate of self-disparage- ment. Many a man thinks he is becoming better because he severely condemns himself. They esteem it a sign of virtue to denounce themselves as fools. They discover a sort of spiritual comfort from their own self-severity. All these are pitiable evasions. At the best they are only transient ministries, which, when their immediate influence passes away, leave us in deepened disquietude and intensified unrest.^
H No man is so poor, so low, so narrow in capacity, so limited in heart and head, but he needs a whole God to make him restful.
* J. H. Jowett, Thirsting for the Sjirings, 140.