KNOX LITTLE

BORN IN 1839

THIRST SATISFIED[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London.]

_My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come and
appear before the presence of God?_--Psalm xlii., 2.


The verse, dear friends, which I have read to you for a text is one
of those verses which justify in the highest degree the action of the
Christian Church in selecting the Hebrew Psalter as, in fact, her
prayer-book. There are many passages, as you will feel with me, in the
Hebrew psalter that express in a very high degree the wants of the
human soul; but perhaps there is no passage more telling, more
touching, more searching, more expressive than that solemn and that
exalted sentiment which is spoken in the text, "My soul is athirst
for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the
presence of God?" The passage is a justification, then, of the action
of the Christian Church. People sometimes ask why in the daily
service, why on Sundays, you rehearse the Psalms, which have about
them so much that is incomprehensible, so much that requires
explanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies,
why there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touch
wants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a real
justification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the general