below, let us look at the question, which has a great deal more bearing
upon our present condition--viz. whether a greater continuity of that
consciousness is not possible than we attain to to-day. It does seem to
me to be a foolish and miserable waste of time and temper and energy for
good people to be quarrelling about whether they can come to the
absolute realisation of this desire in this world, when there is not one
of them who is not leagues below the possible realisation of it, and
knows that he is. At all events, whether or not the line can be drawn
without a break at all, the breaks might be a great deal shorter and a
great deal less frequent than they are. An unbroken line of conscious
communion with God is the ideal; and that is what this singer desired
and worked for. How many of my feelings and thoughts to-day, or of the
things that I have said or done since I woke this morning, would have
been done and said and felt exactly the same, if there were not a God at
all, or if it did not matter in the least whether I ever came into touch
with Him or not? Oh, dear friends! it is no vain effort to bring our
lives a little nearer that unbroken continuity of communion with Him of
which this text speaks. And God knows, and we each for ourselves know,
how much and how sore our need is of such a union. 'One thing have I
desired, that will I seek after; that I, in my study; I, in my shop; I,
in my parlour, kitchen, or nursery; I, in my studio; I, in my
lecture-hall--'may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life.' In our 'Father's house are many mansions.' The room that we spend
most of our lives in, each of us, at our tasks or our work-tables may be
in our Father's house, too; and it is only we that can secure that it
shall be.

The inmost meaning of this Psalmist's desire is that the consciousness
of God shall be diffused throughout the whole of a man's days, instead
of being coagulated here and there at points. The Australian rivers in a