of the seed never comes up at all; and what
we gather is always less than what we expected. The prize gleams before
us; when we get it, is it as good as it looked when it hung tempting at
the unreached goal? A fox-brush is scarcely sufficient payment for
riding over half a county. Ah! but you say, there is the enthusiasm and
stir of the pursuit. Well, yes; it is something if it is _training_ you
for something, and if you can say that faculties worth the cultivating
are developed in that way: and whether that is so depends on what you
think a man is made for, and on whether these are faculties which will
last and find their scope as long as you last. Consider what you are,
what you seek; and then say whether the most fruitful harvest from which
God and His love are left out is not little.

This fruitlessness of toil is inevitable unless it springs from a motive
which in itself is sufficient, pursues a purpose which will surely be
accomplished, and is done in hope of the world where 'our works do
follow us.' If we are allied to Christ, then whether our work be great
or small, apparently successful or frustrated, it will be all right.
Though we do not see our fruit, we know that He will bless the springing
thereof, and that no least deed done for Him but shall in the
harvest-day be found waving a nodding head of multiplied results. 'God
giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him'; and 'he that goeth forth
weeping shall doubtless return, bringing his sheaves with him.' 'Your
labour is not in vain to the Lord.'

II. A godless life is one of unsatisfied hunger and thirst.

The poor results of the exiles' toil did not avail to stay gnawing
hunger nor slake burning thirst, and the same result applies only too
sadly to lives lived apart from God. There are a multitude of desires
proper to the human soul besides those which belong to the bodily frame,
and these have their proper objects. Is it true that the objects are
sufficient to satisfy the desires? Does any one of the things for which
we toil feed us full when we have it? Do we not always want just a
little more? And is not that want accompanied with a real and sharp
sense of hunger? Is it not true the appetite GROWS with what it feeds
on? And even if a man schools himself to something like content, it
comes not because the desire is satisfied, but because it is somehow
bridled. Cerberus often breaks his chain, in spite of honied cakes that
have been tossed into the wide mou