say with David in the text, One thing do I desire? There should be many so desiring saints here; for Christ's beauty is far better and far fairer, far more captivating, far more enthralling, and far more satisfying to us than it could be to David. Shall we call you Desires- awake, then, after this? Can you say--do you say, One thing do I desire, and that is no thing and no person, no created beauty and no earthly sweetness, but my one desire is for God: to be His, and to be like Him, and to be for ever with Him? Then, it shall soon all be. For, what you truly desire,--all that you already are; and what you already are,--all that you shall soon completely and for ever be. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. 'As for me,' says the great-hearted, the hungry-hearted Psalmist, 'I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.' One would have said that David had all that heart could desire even before he fell asleep. For he had a throne, the throne of Israel, and a son, a son like Solomon to sit upon it. A long life also, full to the brim of all kinds of temporal and spiritual blessings. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. All that, and yet not satisfied! O David! David! surely Desires-awake is thy new name! One of our own poets has said:-- 'All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed His sacred flame.' Now, if that is true, as it is true, even of earthly and ephemeral love, how much more true is it of the love that is in the immortal soul of man for the everlasting God? And what a blessed life that already is when all things that come to us--joy and sorrow, good and evil, nature and grace, all thoughts, all passions, all delights--are all but so many ministers to our soul's desire after God, after the Divine Likeness and for the Beatific Vision. 'Oh! Christ, He is the Fountain, The deep sweet Well of Love! The streams on earth I've tasted, More deep I'll drink above; There, to an ocean fulness, His mercy doth expand; And glory--glory dwelleth In Emmanuel's land.' CHAPTER XIX--MR. WET-EYES 'Oh that my head were waters!'--_Jeremiah_. 'Tears gain everything.'--_Teresa_.