You have heard of the rage of bodily thirst. Here is a picture of it from a graphic pen: "Many years ago, when the Egyptian troops first conquered Nubia, a regiment was destroyed by thirst in crossing this desert. The men, being upon a limited supply of water, suffered from extreme thirst, and deceived by the appearance of a mirage that exactly resembled a beautiful lake, they insisted on being taken to its banks by the Arab guide. It was in vain that the guide assured them that the lake was unreal, and he refused to lose the precious time by wandering from his course. Words led to blows, and he was killed by the soldiers whose lives depended on his guidance. The whole regiment turned from the track and rushed towards the welcome waters. Thirsty and faint over the burning sands they hurried, heavier and heavier their footsteps became, hotter and hotter their breath, as deeper they pushed into the desert, farther and farther from the lost track where the pilot lay in his blood; and still the mocking spirits of the desert, the afreets of the mirage, led them on, and the lake glistening in the sunshine tempted them to bathe in its cool waters, close to their eyes, but never at their lips. At length the delusion vanished, the fatal lake had turned to burning sand. Raging thirst and horrible despair! the pathless desert and the murdered guide! lost! lost all lost! Not a man ever left the desert, but they were subse

quently discovered parched and withered corpses by the Arabs sent on the search." *

Such is life, a mocking mirage, the phantom of the wilderness; thousands, lured by the brilliant spectre, hurry on in the chase after happiness, in hot pursuit after the vain and unreal. But all is illusive, ending in mockery and disappointment, as a dream when one awaketh,' leaving the thirst of the deathless soul unquenched; and, unless a nobler Fountain be timeously resorted to, this the irreparable doom, the unchanging destiny-" Him that is thirsty, let him be thirsty still."

But, thanks be to God, there is no such malediction now ringing in our ears. We may listen rather to one of the blissful cadences of the Bible,-a sweet strain, a sublime harmony, wafted from the heights of heaven— "They shall HUNGER no more, neither THIRST any more." It is further added, in the same beautiful passage, "The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and lead them to LIVING fountains of waters." Yes, He it is, this slain Lamb of the Heavenly Paradise, who has solved the problem of human happiness. He is the true "Pleroma" or "Fulness," the alone satisfying Good groped after by the Platonic philosophy. "In Him all fulness dwells." It is over the portico of the Gospel Temple, not over any heathen * Sir Samuel Baker's Abyssinia, p. 12.

shrine, the superscription is written, "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house, and Thou shalt make them to drink of the rivers of Thy pleasures!" What is to be our choice? The phantom or the reality?—the substance or the shadow?—the earthly waters, with their inseparable characteristic, "thirst again,”—or the 'rivers of pleasures' springing up into everlasting life? At any moment the curtain of the seen and temporal may be rent in twain, and the world and all its hopes scattered like the leaves of autumn. As we are seated in thought at Jacob's Well, listening, from holy lips, to the contrast of the earthly with the perennial stream, may it be ours to breathe the fervent prayer :

"Hear me ! to Thee my soul in suppliance turneth

Like the lorn pilgrim on the sands accursed.
For life's sweet waters, God, my spirit yearneth:
Give me to drink; I perish here with thirst!"

XI.

First Ebasion and Reply.

THE WOMAN SAITH UNTO HIM, SIR, GIVE ME THIS WATER, THAT I THIRST NOT, NEITHER COME HITHER TO DRAW. JESUS SAITH UNTO HER, GO, CALL THY HUSBAND, AND COME HITHER. THE WOMAN ANSWERED AND SAID, I HAVE NO HUSBAND. JESUS SAID UNTO HER, THOU HAST WELL SAID, I HAVE NO HUSBAND: FOR THOU HAST HAD FIVE HUSBANDS; AND HE WHOM THOU NOW HAST IS NOT THY HUSBAND IN THAT SAIDST THOU TRULY. THE WOMAN SAITH UNTO HIM, SIR, I PERCEIVE THAT THOU ART A I'ROPHET. OUR FATHERS WORSHIPPED IN THIS MOUNTAIN; AND YE SAY, THAT IN JERUSALEM IS THE PLACE WHERE MEN OUGHT TO WORSHIP. JESUS SAITH UNTO HER, WOMAN, BELIEVE ME, THE HOUR COMETH, WHEN YE SHALL NEITHER IN THIS MOUNTAIN, NOR YET AT JERUSALEM, WORSHIP THE FATHER. YE WORSHIP YE KNOW NOT WHAT WE KNOW WHAT WE WORSHIP: FOR SALVATION IS OF THE JEWS. BUT THE HOUR COMETH, AND NOW IS, WHEN THE TRUE WORSHIPPERS SHALL WORSHIP THE FATHER IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH FOR THE FATHER SEEKETH SUCH TO WORSHIP HIM. GOD IS A SPIRIT AND THEY THAT WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH."-JOHN IV. 15-25.