are not ashamed to do what you would be very much ashamed to say, and
you practically answer the question, 'What are you seeking?' by
pursuits that you durst not call by their own ugly names.

There may be many of us who are living for our lusts, for our
passions, for our ambitions, for avarice, who are living in all
uncleanness and godlessness. I do not know. There are plenty of
shabby, low aims in all of us which do not bear being dragged out into
the light of day. I beseech you to try and get hold of the ugly things
and bring them up to the surface, however much they may seek to hide
in the congenial obscurity and twist their slimy coils round something
in the dark. If you dare not put your life's object into words,
bethink yourselves whether it ought to be your life's object at all.

Ah, brethren! if we would ask ourselves this question, and answer it
with any thoroughness, we should not make so many mistakes as to the
places where we look for the things for which we are seeking. If we
knew what we were really seeking, we should know where to go to look
for it. Let me tell you what you are seeking, whether you know it or
not. You are seeking for rest for your heart, a home for your spirits;
you are seeking for perfect truth for your understandings, perfect
beauty for your affections, perfect goodness for your conscience. You
are seeking for all these three, gathered into one white beam of
light, and you are seeking for it all in a Person. Many of you do not
know this, and so you go hunting in all manner of impossible places
for that which you can only find in one. To the question, 'What seek
ye?' the deepest of all answers, the only real answer, is, 'My soul
thirsteth for God, for the living God.' If you know that, you know
where to look for what you need! 'Do men gather grapes of thorns?' If
these are really the things that you are seeking after, in all your