appraises. When, by divine grace, we escape from the voice of the
crowd, and from the cry of custom, from the delirium of desire, that
poor lonely self within us pleads to us in a cry like the call of
the starveling crying to the rich man that passes by, "Oh, will you
gratify desire? Oh, will you gratify pleasure? Oh, will you stimulate
activity, and will you leave me alone? I, yourself, your very self,
the foundation of your life, the permanent expression of your
immortality--I must be satisfied, and being infinite and immortal, I
know but one satisfaction: 'My soul is athirst for God, for the living
God; when shall I come, and appear before the presence of God?'"

If that be true, or if it be approximately true, dear friends, let us
ask ourselves this morning these questions. Let us be quite practical.
What do you mean, you may say for a moment, by the thirst for God? I
remember long ago in Paris, in conversation with one whom I deem
one of the greatest modern statesmen, tho not one of the most
successful--I remember, when a mere boy, talking to that thoughtful
man just at the moment when he was standing amidst the ruins of his
activity, and gazing with the placid spirit with which a good man
gazes when he feels that he has done his duty, tho the world can see
that he has failed--I remember talking to him on such questions as
these, and what he said, among other things, was this: "In dealing
with mankind and in dealing with yourself you must rise by degrees,
you must advance from point to point; there is a point of achievement,
but you cannot reach the point of achievement unless you have gone
up the ladder of progress." I follow his advice. What do we mean by
thirsting for God? My friends, on the lower round of that ladder, I
mean thirsting for and desiring moral truth. I mean that the soul
within you is thirsting and imploring for the satisfaction of its
moral instincts. Turn for an instant to the ten commandments; they are