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I. ITS REALITY. "My soul thirsteth for God." Do human beings desire God in that intense way? We are all acquainted with some physical sensations of that intensity. We have all felt thirst, or at least we can imagine thirst, which is almost delirious in its desire for water. But is there anything in the human mind in connection with God that is as intense as that? I dare say most of us have had feelings to some fellow-creature that this would hardly be too strong to describe. The absence or the loss of somebody has made us sick with desire, almost sick unto death, whereas the return or the presence of the same person has made us indescribably happy. But are there any feelings in the human heart towards God comparable to these? Is there in human nature a thirst for God to be compared with the thirst for knowledge or the thirst for beauty? Open a book like St. 's "Confessions," or "The Imitation of Christ," and on every page you will find it.

II. ITS UNIVERSALITY. Wherever men are found they are religious beings. Religion is an element of human life everywhere, and everywhere it is an ideal and a refining element. In fact it is now generally acknowledged that the blossom and flower of every civilization is its religion, and even the most sceptical of men will now sometimes allow that the rational satisfaction of man's religious nature is, and always will be, the greatest desideratum of the human race.

III. ITS MANIFESTATIONS.

1. It is often an intellectual thirst, a thirst for an explanation of the tangle and mystery of existence. You have a classical illustration of that in the Book of Job, where the hero, blinded with the whirl and confusion of things, cries out for a sight of Him who rides upon the storm.

2. Still oftener, perhaps, the thirst for God is a thirst of the heart. All men, especially all women, know in some degree what it is to wish to be loved, to be thought about and cared for. These sentiments, as a rule, find their satisfaction in the domestic affections, and sometimes these are so satisfying as to fill up the whole desire. But this satisfaction is not conceded to all; and from some who have had it, it is taken away; and I rather think that all sometimes feel that they require love larger, more sympathetic, more intelligent and enduring than any human love. In fact it is only the love of God that can thoroughly satisfy the heart.

3. The thirst for God is still oftener, and more conspicuously, a thirst of the conscience. The conscience, although generally a very quiet element in our nature, may become a very clamorous one. It cries out for deliverance from guilt. It cries out for deliverance from temptation and sin. And the reason why Christianity has been such a consolation to mankind is because it has so thoroughly answered. "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin." Under the lashes of conscience, man cries out, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But Christianity answers, "Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

IV. ITS CULTURE. The religions faculty requires constant exercise, if there is to be any comprehensiveness and certainty of religious experience. Are you cultivating your religious faculty, or are you neglecting it, and allowing it to atrophy?

1. The first thing that is needed for the culture of the religious faculty is the careful observance of the Sabbath. The cessation from toil, the preaching of the Gospel, the atmosphere of peace, the influence of united worship, tend to call the religious nature out, encouraging it to revel in its native element.

2. The other opportunity for this kind of culture is prayer. That brings the religious nature nearer to its object than anything else. I remember, when a boy, hearing some one say, "backsliding always begins at the closet door."

(J. Stalker, D. D.)

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KJV: My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

WEB: My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?