ow rest in the full
enjoyment of my labor and be satisfied." But when he does reach the
end, when every pleasure tried, every beauty of surrounding created,
and he expects to eat the fruit of his work, instantly his mouth is
filled with rottenness and decay. "Then I looked on all the works that
my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; and,
behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit; and there was no profit
under the sun." Thus he groans again,--a groan that has been echoed
and re-echoed all down the ages from every heart that has tried to fill
the same void by the same means.

Ah! wise and glorious Preacher, it is a large place thou art seeking to
fill. "Free and boundless its desires." Deeper, wider, broader than
the whole world, which is at thy disposal to fill it. And thou mayest
well say, "What can the man do that cometh after the king?" for thou
hadst the whole world and the glory of it at thy command in thy day,
and did it enable thee to fill those "free and boundless desires"? No,
indeed. After all is cast into that hungry pit, yawning and empty it
is still. Look well on this picture, my soul; ponder it in the secret
place of God's presence, and ask Him to write it indelibly on thy heart
that thou forget it not. Then turn and listen to this sweet voice: "If
any man thirst" (and what man does not?) "let him come unto Me, and
drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water." Thirst not only quenched,
but water to spare for other thirsting ones,--the void not only filled,
but running over with a constant flow of blessing. Who can express the
glories of that contrast?

Pause, beloved reader: turn your eyes from the page, and dwell on it in
thy spirit a little. What a difference between "no profit under the
sun" and "never thirst"!--a difference entirely due simply to coming to
Him--Jesus. Not a coming once and then departing from Him once more to
try again the muddy, stagnant pools of this world: no, but to pitch our
tents by the palm-trees and the springing wells of Christ's presence,
and so to drink and drink and drink again of Him, the Rock that follows
His people. But is this possible? Is this not mere imaginative
ecstasy, whilst practically such a state is not possible? No, indeed;
for see that man, with all the same hungry longings of Solomon or any
other child of Adam; having no wealth, outcast, and a w