^ R. M. M'Cheyne, Additional Remains, 308. ST. JOHN — 2 2
S3S LIVING WATER
and drink " ; for He directs streams of kindness to every one who comes to Him by means of His new commandment, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." We thirst for knowledge, and Jesus says, " Come unto me, and drink." " Learn of me." Those who come to Jesus are instructed by Him in the highest subjects. To all such Jesus is Himself the truth, and the truth concerning all that it is essential we should know. We thirst for God, and Jesus says, " Come untc me, and drink." He manifests God's name to us, and shows ue how He Himself is to us the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His Person. Thus if any man thirst for life, activity, pleasure, social fellowship, knowledge, power, the love of others, or for God, He may come to Jesus Christ and drink.
3. No one who has not come thus to Christ and trusted Him has found perfect satisfaction in this world. What- ever good we have, we liave not the highest good. Deep down in our hearts there is some want that has not been met, some secret thirst which yet torments us. We moralize, we philosophize about the discontent of man. We give little reasons for it ; but the real reason of it all is this — that which everything lying behind it really signifies — that man is greater than his circumstances, and that God is always calling to him to come up to the fulness of his life. Dreadful will be the day when the world becomes contented, when one great universal satisfaction spreads itself over the world. Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not for ever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is the child of God.
I asked for Peace, —
My sins arose
And bound me close; I could not find releasa
ST. JOHN VII. 37 339
I asked for Truth, —
My doubts came in,
And with their din They wearied all my youth.
I asked for Love, —
My lovers failed, —
And griefs assailed Around, beneath, above.
I asked for Thee, —
And Thou didst come
To take me home Within Thy heart to be.^
* Digby Mackworth Dolben.
The Light of the World.
Literature.
Aglionby (F. K.), The Better Choice, 51. Banks (L. A.), Christ and His Friends, 254.
„ „ Sermons which have won SoulSy 75,
Brooks (P.), The Light of the World, 1. Churcli (R. W.), Cathedral and University Sermons, 80.
„ „ Village Sermons, iii. 46.
vJieenhougli (J. G.), The Cross in Modern Life, 88. Herford (B.), Courage and Cheer, 138. Hopkins (E. H.), in The Keswick Week, 1908, 10. Home (C. S.), Tlte Light of the World, 1. Ingram (A. F. W.), The Gospel in Action, 23. Jerdan (C), For the Lambs of the Flock, 54. Jowett (J. H.), The Silver Lining, 69. Lewis (J.), The Mystic Secret, 143. Little (W. J. Knox), The Light of Life, 1. Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Jolin i.-viii., 319. Marten (C. H.), Plain Bible Addresses, 100. Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 250. Maurice (F. D.), Lincoln's Inn Sermons, iv. 174. Miller (J.), Sermons Literary and Scientific, ii. 218. Newman (J. H.), Oxford University Sermons, 1. Porter (N.), Yale College Sermons, 204. Pulsford (J.), Loyalty to Christ, ii. 7. Ragg (L.), Christ and our Ideals, 51. Ross (J. M. E.), The Self-Portraiture of Jesus, 80. Tulloch (J.), Some Facts of Religion and of Life, 209. Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), Nos. 375, 687. Walters (C. E.), The Deserted Clvrist, 21. Westcott (B. F.), Tlie Bevelation of the Father, 47. Christian World Pulpit, xxxi. 380 (Horder) ; xxxvi. 138 (Wbiton), 362
(Perowne); xlvi. 310 (Lang); Ivi. 161 (Hughes); Ixvii. 177
(Ingram) ; Ixxvii. 70 (Marshall). Clergy mam,' s Magaaine^ iii. 193 (Bersier).
The Light of the World.
Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world : he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. — John viii. 12.
1. Jesus spoke these words in the Temple at Jerusalem. He was sitting in the treasury, within the court of the women ; and it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, when this court was crowded with pilgrims.
The purpose of the Feast of Tabernacles was to commemorate a chapter in the life of the Hebrew nation away far back in its history. The observance of it was bound up with thoughts of the forty years' wanderings in the wilderness. It was held at the close of the harvest and the vintage, after the farmers had finished the round of the year's labours in the fields. When the set time arrived, the people quitted their homes to go up to Jerusalem ; and they lived there during the week of the festival in small booths made of branches of olive, and palm, and myrtle, the purpose of this being to recall the tent-life of their fathers in the Arabian Desert. The little huts of greenery were set up in the open courts of the houses, upon the flat roofs, along the principal streets, in the open places of the city, and in some of the outer courts of the Temple.