We often see engravings of those grand Cathedrals and churches which are so common abroad. There is one in almost all the old towns of England. Their tall spires or massive towers stand majestically over the country, and their whole exterior is elaborately worked in stone. On the inside they are poor and cold enough, it is true, for a false worship has been set up there, which has stripped them of their fine statuary and paintings, banners and rich hangings, which formerly decorated the sanctuary and walls, and they are no longer what they once were, "the Temples of God." {239} There is no correspondence between the size and magnificence of those churches of the olden time, and the formal service that is held in them now; and so a few square yards are penned off in the middle for the handful who will assemble. But there has been a time when those walls were two narrow to enclose the thousands who came to follow their Lord as He made the circuit of his Temple, in the procession of Corpus Christi. Those floors have been covered with kneeling multitudes who waited for his benediction in the Blessed Sacrament. Then, gold and silver, lights and flowers, massive candlesticks and rich vestments adorned the altars with something approaching to regal splendor, for it was the Temple of God. Those cathedrals and churches are now standing, after the lapse of hundreds of years, as monuments of the ancient faith that inspired their erection; but the day will come when, as our Lord said of Jerusalem, "_one stone shall not be left upon another_." But our souls are everlasting Temples. How strong, then, as well as how beautiful, God must have made them! {240} The soul is a "Fountain" of never-failing water. This is what our Lord told the Samaritan woman. "_The water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up unto everlasting life_." [Footnote 104] [Footnote 104: John iv., 14.] I think our blessed Saviour could not have said any thing which would have given us a more beautiful idea of the effect of his presence upon our souls. The deserts of the East are like the ocean in their great, boundless wastes of hot sand. Travellers tell us that for days there is no living object to be seen, even to a blade of grass. Occasionally, however, they come upon what appears like an island, where there are trees, grass and flowers. Invariably it is found that in the middle of these "oases," as they are called, there is an overflowing spring of the purest water. This is the cause of all that verdure in the midst of so barren a wilderness. How beautiful such places must be to the weary traveller, and how grateful to the eye, as he catches sight of them in the distance! How he must bless God as he sits under the cool shade of the rich foliage, or as he bathes his feverish brow and limbs in the cool waters! {241}