expectation seems to be right in the teeth of all experience and far too
high-pitched ever to be fulfilled. It appears to demand in him who
should bring it to pass powers which are more than human, and which must
in some inexplicable way be wide as the range of humanity and enduring
as the succession of the ages.

It is worth while to realise to ourselves these two points which seem to
make such words as these of our text a blank impossibility. Experience
contradicts them, and common-sense demands for their fulfilment an
apparently impossible human character.

All experience seems to teach--does it not?--that no human arm or heart
can be to another soul what these words promise, and what we need. And
yet the men who have been disappointed and disenchanted a thousand times
do still look among their fellows for what their fellows, too, are
looking for, and none have ever found. Have _we_ found what we seek
among men? Have we ever known amongst the dearest that we have clung to,
one arm that was strong enough to keep us in all danger? Has there ever
been a human love to which we can run with the security that _there_ is
a strong tower where no evil can touch us? There have been many delights
in all our lives mediated and ministered to us by those that we loved.
They have taught us, and helped us, and strengthened us in a thousand
ways. We have received from them draughts of wisdom, of love, of joy, of
guidance, of impulse, of comfort, which have been, as water in the
desert is, more precious than gold. Our fellow-travellers have shared
their store with us, 'letting down their pitchers upon their hand,' and
giving us drink; but has the draught ever slaked the thirst? They carry
but a pitcher, and a pitcher is not a fountain. Have there been any in
all the round of those that we have loved and trusted, to whom we have
trusted absolutely, without having been disappointed? They, like us, are