XII
HUNGER AND THIRST.
(1883)
Religious men have in all times and climes compared the eager yearnings of the soul for righteousness to hunger and thirst. The remarkable difference between the truly religious and the utterly worldly in spirit is the restless and passionate way in which the former are ever engaged in quest of something which to them is of paramount importance; while the latter are content, and even happy, as they absorb themselves in the pursuit of the trivial interests of a busy life. The insatiable thirst of the religious man as against the undisturbed indifference of the man of the world, in matters of religion, is a phenomenon strange but true. While we, too, are painfully conscious of the latter frame of mind, shall we not for a few moments endeavour to realise what the former really signifies ?
