To be near unto God - pagina 368

drop of saliva is dried up, and the swollen throat with difficulty allows the breath to pass through. With such a thirst it becomes a serious, and ever more anxious longing for moisture, and passionate craving for water; and he alone who so understands it, fathoms the depth of the longing after God's presence, which is so often expressed by the congregation in worship of song or reading of the Psalter, without real appreciation of the panting of the hart after water brooks. In last

like

manner, who knows anything now, of

''thirst-

righteousness" such as a St. Paul, a Luther or a Calvin knew it? Even when the cup filled with righteousness is placed before us, much is made of the fact that more than one stretches out a heavy hand for it, and slightly moistens the lips with it. But thirsting after it, calling for it. inability to longer go without it, a weeping after God, where do we see it? There are still those who thirst, but has not their number diminished? And is not this very lack of real thirsting after God and after righteousness the banal danger of our times? This is occasioned by sin. Sin is the cause that, unless God shows mercy, the stimulus of this thirst scarcely operates. At times it requires Such special grace strongly to revive it again. grace operated in the days of the apostles, and again in the days of the Reformation. In these times this thirst operates, 0, so weakl}^; and O, among so few; and even with these, so faintly. Let us be grateful to God, if at any time in our own heart we perceive something of this real Thousands upon thirsting after the living God. thousands live and die, without ever having ing

after

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