passions, purified by exhaustive cultivation into what we call the affections of a higher life.  By them we deal with our fellow-creatures; by them, when we are young, we form great friendships; by them, as we grow older, we form around us certain associations that we intend to support us as life goes off.  We have all known it.  There is the friend, there is the sweetheart, there is the wife, there is the child, there are the dear expressions of the strong heart that after all beats in Englishmen.  But as life goes on, first in one object and then by anticipation and terror perhaps in others, we watch those who have been dear to us pass in dim procession to the grave, and we find, after all, that in the world of affections that old strange law that pervades one branch of the contrast prevails; it can stimulate, it can support, it can console, it can delight, it can lead to delirium at moments, but it does not satisfy.  And, my brothers and sisters, because you and I are born not for a moment, but for infinite moments; not for the struggle of time, but for the great platform and career of eternity—­because that is so, never, never, never, if we are true to ourselves, shall we pause in the midst of our mortal pilgrimage until we find, and grasp, and embrace, and love that which satisfies.  When you awaken up a young heart to that truth, then that heart, as I hold it, is on the path of conversion.  When amidst the struggle of sin you have determined the soul to strive after that truth, then that soul is in progress of solid conversion and final perfectibility.  But, at any rate, all human nature joins that cry of the Christian, and the Bible speaks of it as it always does—­its ultimate truth expressing what we need.  No; there are many things given, there are many attractions to draw; they will stimulate, they will help, they will console, they will give pleasure; there is one thing that satisfies the immortal, there is one life that meets your need:  “My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?”

Why, dear friends, why is it that these things do not satisfy?  There lies a city in the Volscian Hills, fair and beautiful, climbing in its peaks and pinnacles up little ledges of the rocks, and down into the depths of the valleys.  And if you wander some two days from Rome, and gaze upon those mountains, historic in their memories and splendid in their beauty, you are struck by the tenderness and the attraction of that city.  It is a city of flowers.  The flowers stream up its streets in grave procession; they climb up the pillars of churches, embracing them and holding on with arms of deep affection; they laugh in the sunshine, they weep in the shadow, they are shrouded in the clouds of night, but they blaze again in the blaze of the morning.  There is the dim funereal ivy, there is the brightness and glow of the purple convolvulus, there is the wild-rose clustering round the windows.  They are lying asleep on the