sire, which has
reached such a pitch as to be comparable to the physical craving of a
hungry man for food or to the imperious thirst of parched throats, seems
a strange kind of blessedness; but it is better to long for a
higher--though it be unattained--good than to be content with a lower
which is possessed. Better to climb, though the summit be far and the
path be steep, than to browse amongst the herds in the fat valleys.
Aspiration is blessedness when it is worthily directed. Let us, then,
look at these two points of this Beatitude; this divine hunger of the
soul, and its satisfaction which is sure.

I. Note, then, the hunger which is blessed.

Now 'righteousness' has come to be a kind of theological term which
people use without attaching any very distinct meaning to it. And it
would be little improvement to substitute for 'righteousness' the
abstraction of moral conformity to the will of God. Suppose we try to
turn the words of my text into modern English, and instead of saying,
'Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness,' say,
Blessed are the men and women that long more than for anything else to
be good. Does not that sound a little more near our daily lives than the
well-worn and threadbare word of my text? Righteousness is neither more
nor less than in spirit a will submitted to God, and in conduct the
practice of whatsoever things are noble and lovely and of good report.

The production of such a character, the aiming after the perfection of
spirit and of conduct, is the highest aim that a man can set before him.
There are plenty of other hungers of the soul that are legitimate. There
are many of them that are bracing and ennobling and elevating. It is
impossible not to hunger for the supply of physical necessities. It is
good to long for love, for wisdom. It is better to long most to be good
men and women. For what are we here for? To enjoy? To work? To know?
Yes! But it is not conduct, and it is still less thought, and it is
least of all enjoyment, in any of its forms, which is the purpose of
life, and ought to be our aim here upon earth. We are here to learn to
_be_; and the cultivation and production of characters that lie parallel
with the will of God is the Omega of all our life in the flesh. All
these other things, even the highest of them, the yearning desire

'To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the furthest bounds of human thought,'

ought to be subordin