The Water of Life and Other Sermons | Page 4

if they were learned; or

rank, if they were cultivated; or bodily organization, if they were
beautiful and strong: that this noble and gentle life of theirs was
independent of their body, of their mind, of their circumstances? Nay,
have you not seen this,--I have, thank God, full many a time,--That not
many rich, not many mighty, not many noble are called: but that God's
strength is rather made perfect in man's weakness,--that in foul garrets,
in lonely sick-beds, in dark places of the earth, you find ignorant people,
sickly people, ugly people, stupid people, in spite of, in defiance of,
every opposing circumstance, leading heroic lives,--a blessing, a
comfort, an example, a very Fount of Life to all around them; and
dying heroic deaths, because they know they have Eternal Life?
And what was that which had made them different from the mean, the
savage, the drunken, the profligate beings around them? This at least.
That they were of those of whom it is written, 'Let him that 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. Meanwhile, they have no right to sneer at the
Fountain of Youth, or the Cup of Immortality. Well were it for them if
those dreams were true; in their heart of hearts they know it. Would
they not go to the ends of the earth to bathe in the Fountain of Youth?
Would they not give all their gold for a draught of the Cup of
Immortality, and so save themselves, once and for all, the trouble of
becoming good?
But there are those here, I doubt not, who have in them, by grace of
God, that same divine thirst for the Higher Life; who are discontented
with themselves, ashamed of themselves; who are tormented by
longings which they cannot satisfy, instincts which they cannot analyse,
powers which they cannot employ, duties which they cannot perform,
doctrinal confusions which they cannot unravel; who would welcome
any change, even the most tremendous, which would make them nobler,
purer, juster, more loving, more useful, more clear- headed and
sound-minded; and when they think of death say with the poet, -
''Tis life, not death for which I pant, 'Tis life, whereof my nerves are
scant, More life, and fuller, that I want.'
To them I say--for God has said it long ago,--Be of good cheer. The
calling and gifts of God are without repentance. If you have the divine
thirst, it will be surely satisfied. If you long to be better men and
women, better men and women you will surely be. Only be true to
those higher instincts; only do not learn to despise and quench that
divine thirst; only struggle on, in spite of mistakes, of failures, even of
sins--for every one of which last your heavenly Father will chastise you,
even while He forgives; in spite of all