will ever make a sufficiency. You may fill the heaven all over with
stars, bright and thickly set as those in the whitest spot in the
galaxy, and it will be night still. Day needs the sun, and the sun is
one, and when it comes the twinkling lights are forgotten. You cannot
make up for God by any extended series of creatures, any more than a
row of figures that stretched from here to _Sirius_ and back
again would approximate to infinitude.

The very fact of the multitude of helpers is a sign that none of them
is sufficient. There is no end of 'cures' for toothache, that is to
say there is none. There is no end of helps for men that have
abandoned God, that is to say, every one in turn when it is tried, and
the stress of the soul rests upon it, gives, and is found to be a
broken staff that pierces the hand that leans upon it.

Consult your own experience. What is the meaning of the unrest and
distraction that mark the lives of most of the men in this generation?
Why is it that you hurry from business to pleasure, from pleasure to
business, until it is scarcely possible to get a quiet breathing time
for thought at all? Why is it but because one after another of your
gods have proved insufficient, and so fresh altars must be built for
fresh idolatries, and new experiments made, of which we can safely
prophesy the result will be the old one. We have not got beyond St.
Augustine's saying:--'Oh, God! my heart was made for Thee, and in Thee
only doth it find repose.' The many idols, though you multiply them
beyond count, all put together will never make the One God. You are
seeking what you will never find. The many pearls that you seek will
never be enough for you. The true wealth is One, 'One pearl of great
price.'