It has sometimes been represented that the quest of good is better than its attainment. The truth and justice of this representation lies in the unquestionable fact that it would not be for our good to possess without effort, without perseverance, without self-denial. Yet the end is superior to the means, however excellently adapted those means may be to the discipline of the character, to the calling out of the best moral qualities.

I. MAN'S NATURE IS CHARACTERIZED BY STRIVING, DESIRE, APPETITE, ASPIRATION. Man's is a yearning, impulsive, acquisitive constitution. His natural instincts urge him to courses of action which secure the continuance of his own being and of that of the race. His restless, eager desires account for the activity and energy which distinguish his movements. His intellectual impulses urge him to the pursuit of knowledge, to scientific and literary achievement. His moral aspirations are the explanation of heroism in the individual, and of true progress in social life.

II. OF HUMAN DESIRES, NONE CAN EVER BE FULLY SATISFIED, MANY CANNOT BE SATISFIED AT ALL. The testimony of these who have gone before us is uniform upon this point.

"We look before and after,
We pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." Thus it becomes proverbial that man is made to desire rather than to enjoy. Of our aspirations some can never be gratified on earth. The lower animals have desires for which satisfaction is provided; but whilst their life is thus thoroughly adapted to their constitution, this cannot be said of man, who has capacities which cannot be filled, aspirations which cannot be satisfied, faculties for which no sufficient scope is attainable here on earth. His, as the poet tells us, is

"The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow;
The longing for something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow."

III. EVEN WISDOM DOES BUT ENLARGE THE RANGE OF MAN'S INSATIABLE DESIRES. It is not only upon the lower grade of life that we observe a discordance between what is sought and what is attained. For the philosopher, as for the uncultured child of nature, there is an ideal as well as an actual. Prudence may enjoin the limitation and repression of our requirements. But thought ever looks out from the windows of the high towers, and gazes upon the distant stars.

"Who that has gazed upon them shining
Can turn to earth without repining,
Nor wish for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal day?"

IV. THESE CONSIDERATIONS TEND TO INCREASE THE UNHAPPINESS OF THE WORLDLY, WHILST THEY OPEN UP TO THE SPIRITUAL AND PIOUS MIND A GLORIOUS AND IMMORTAL PROSPECT. They to whom the bodily life and the material universe are everything, or even anything regarded by themselves, may well give way to dissatisfaction and despondency when they learn by experience "the vanity of human wishes." On the other hand, such reflections may well prompt the spiritual to gratitude, for they cannot believe the universe to have been fashioned in vain; they cannot but see in the illusions of earth suggestions of the heavenly realities. The storms of life are not to be hated if they toss the navigator of earth's sea into the haven of God's breast. The wandering of the desire may end in the sight of the eyes, when the pure in heart shall see God. "In his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand am pleasure forevermore." - T.

Do you know what the wise man means when he offers this question to your consideration, "Do not all go to one place?" The thing, no doubt, here spoken of is death; the place here spoken of, no doubt, is the grave. An amazing consideration! part of the first sentence that the great and holy God ever denounced against fallen man, to one and all, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." But in another case we may venture to contradict even Solomon: for ii we consider the words of our text in another view, all do not go to one place; it is true, all are buried in the grave either of earth or water, but then after death comes judgment; death gives the decisive, the separating blow. Suppose, then, in our enlarging on the text, we should confine the word "all" to the unregenerate; these, indeed, die when they will, all go to one place. O awful thought I and yet it is n certain truth, all on earth must go to one place; if we live like devils here, we must go to, and be with them, when we die, for ever! A blessed minister of Christ, in Scotland, told me a story he knew for truth, of a dreadful answer a poor creature gave on her deathbed. This person when dying was asked by a minister, "Where do you hope to go when you die?" Says she, "I do not care where I go." "What," says he, '"do not you care whether you go to heaven or hell? No," says she; "I do not care whither I go." "But," says he, "if you were put to your choice, where would you go?" Says she, "To hell." To that he replied, "Are you mad — will you go to hell?" "Yes," says she, "I will." "Why so?" says he. "Why," says she, "all my relations are there." But I have another place to tell you of, and another sort of people to speak of, who shall all, as well as those I have spoken of, go to one place; blessed is it to live in God. When death closes the eyes, an actual separation is made, and instead of hearing "Depart, ye cursed," they will hear, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." If you ask where that place is? I answer, to heaven; if you ask to whom they shall go? I answer, to the spirits of just men made perfect; and, what will be best of all, to Jesus Christ, the heavenly inheritance. If we were not to go to Him, what would heaven be? If we were not to see Him, what would glory be?

( G. Whitefield, M. A.)