ATHIRST! who is not athirst? It is the attribute of universal humanity! Who does not feel that this world is presenting us with muddy streams and broken, leaky cisterns? Who does not feel, in their moments of deep and calm reflection, when we are brought face to face with the great enigma of existence, that the world is serving up faded flowers instead of those redolent with imperishable fragrance, and glowing with unfading bloom? _Friendless one!_--thou who art standing alone like a solitary tree in the forest whom the woodman's axe has spared--thy compeers cut down at thy side--COME! _Child of calamity!_--the chill hand of penury laid on thine earthly comforts--the widow's cruise fast failing, her staff of bread diminishing--COME! _Child of bereavement!_--the pillars in thy heart-shrine crumbling to decay, thy head bowed like a bulrush--thou who knowest that fortune may again replace and replenish her dismantled walls, but that nothing can reanimate thy still marble, or refill the vacant niche in thy heart of hearts--COME! _Prodigal!_--wanderer from God, exile from peace, roaming the forest-haunts of sin, plunging deeper and deeper into their midnight of ruin and despair--has an arrow, either from the quiver of man, or of God, wounded thy heart? Art thou, in thy agony, seeking rest and finding none,--having the gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction with all created things, and an undefined longing for a solace they cannot give? Yes! for _thee_, too, for thy gaping, bleeding wound there is "balm in Gilead, and a Physician there." I repeat, Jesus this day stands by the glorious streams of His own purchased salvation, and cries, saying--"_If any man_ THIRST, _let him come unto me and drink_!" "Yea, Lord!" be it yours to reply--"Lord, I _come!_ thirsty, faint, forlorn, wounded, weary! I come, 'just as I am, without one plea.' Thou art all I need, all I require, in sickness and health, in joy and in sorrow, in life and in death, in time and through eternity. The snow-clad hills may cease to feed the brooks;--that sun may cease to shine, or nature grow weary of his loving beams;--that moon may cease on her silver lyre, night by night, to discourse to the listening earth;--the birds may become mute at the voice of the morning;--flowers may droop, instead of ringing their thousand bells at the jubilant step of summer;--the gasping pilgrim may rush from the stream, and prefer the fiery furnace-glow of the desert sands,--but 'this God shall be my God for ever and ever;' and, even when death is sealing my eyes, and the rush of darkness is coming over my spirit, even then will I take up the old exile strain--the great sigh of weary humanity--and blend its notes with the song of heaven--'AS THE HART PANTETH AFTER THE WATER-BROOKS, SO PANTETH MY SOUL AFTER THEE, O GOD.'" III. The Living God.