The fact is, it is the very grandeur of the soul which leads it thus to pant after God. Small things satisfy a small capacity, but what is made receptive of the vast and glorious can only be satisfied with great things. The mind of the child is satisfied with the toy or the bauble; the mind of the untutored savage with bits of painted glass or tinsel; but the man, the sage, the philosopher, desiderate higher possessions, purer knowledge, nobler themes of thought and objects of ambition. Some insects are born for an hour, and are satisfied with it. A summer's afternoon is the duration of existence allotted to myriads of tiny _ephemera_. In _their_ case, youth and age are crowded into a few passing minutes. The descending sun witnesses their birth and death;--the lifetime of other animals would be to them an immortality. The soul, being infinite and unlimited in its capacities, has correspondingly high aspirations. Vain would be the attempt to fill up a yawning gulf by throwing into it a few grains of sand. But not more vain or ineffectual than try to answer the deep yearnings of the human spirit by the seen and the temporal. Yes! on all the world's fountains, drink at them as you may, "_thirst again_" is written. Of the world's mountains, climb them as you may, you will never say, "I have reached the coveted summit. It is enough." Men go sighing on, drinking their rivers of pleasure and climbing their mountains of vanity. They feel all the while some undefined, inarticulate, nameless longing after a satisfying good; but it is a miserable travestie to say that it has been found, or can be found, in anything here. "_Who will shew us any good?_" will still be the cry of the groping seeker till he has learned to say, "_Lord, lift_ THOU _upon me the light of thy countenance._" We know how hard and difficult it is to convince of these sublime verities. The soul, even in its hours of trouble and deep conviction, is like a castaway from shipwreck, who sees from his raft-planks something cresting the waves. He imagines it an island! As he nears it, he fancies he sees purple flowers drooping over the solid rock, and the sea-birds nestling in the crevices. But it is only an aggregate of withered leaves and rotten branches, which the receding tide has tossed together, the wayward freak of old ocean. "All are wanderers gone astray Each in his own delusions; they are lost In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd And never won. Dream after dream ensues; And still they dream that they shall still succeed, And still are disappointed. Rings the world With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, And add two-thirds of the remaining half, And find the total of their hopes and fears Dreams, empty dreams."[18]--_Cowper's Task._