is athirst come.' They had been athirst for Life. They had had
instincts and longings; very simple and humble, but very pure and
noble. At times, it may be, they had been unfaithful to those
instincts. At times, it may be, they had fallen. They had said 'Why
should I not do like the rest, and be a savage? Let me eat and
drink, for to-morrow I die;' and they had cast themselves down into
sin, for very weariness and heaviness, and were for a while as the
beasts which have no law.

But the thirst after The noble Life was too deep to be quenched in
that foul puddle. It endured, and it conquered; and they became more
and more true to it, till it was satisfied at last, though never
quenched, that thirst of theirs, in Him who alone can satisfy it--the
God who gave it; for in them were fulfilled the Lord's own words:
'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
they shall be filled.'

There are those, I fear, in this church--there are too many in all
churches--who have not felt, as yet, this divine thirst after a
higher Life; who wish not for an Eternal, but for a merely endless
life, and who would not care greatly what sort of life that endless
life might be, if only it was not too unlike the life which they live
now; who would be glad enough to continue as they are, in their
selfish pleasure, selfish gain, selfish content, for ever; who look
on death as an unpleasant necessity, the end of all which they really
prize; and who have taken up religion chiefly as a means for escaping
still more unpleasant necessities after death. To them, as to all,
it is said, 'Come, and drink of the water of life freely.' But The
Life of goodness which Christ offers, is not the life they want.
Wherefore they will not come to Him, that they may have life.