‘As for me,’ says the great-hearted, the hungry-hearted Psalmist, ’I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.’  One would have said that David had all that heart could desire even before he fell asleep.  For he had a throne, the throne of Israel, and a son, a son like Solomon to sit upon it.  A long life also, full to the brim of all kinds of temporal and spiritual blessings.  Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.  All that, and yet not satisfied!  O David!  David! surely Desires-awake is thy new name!  One of our own poets has said:—­

   ’All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
      Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
   All are but ministers of Love,
      And feed His sacred flame.’

Now, if that is true, as it is true, even of earthly and ephemeral love, how much more true is it of the love that is in the immortal soul of man for the everlasting God?  And what a blessed life that already is when all things that come to us—­joy and sorrow, good and evil, nature and grace, all thoughts, all passions, all delights—­are all but so many ministers to our soul’s desire after God, after the Divine Likeness and for the Beatific Vision.

   ’Oh!  Christ, He is the Fountain,
      The deep sweet Well of Love! 
   The streams on earth I’ve tasted,
      More deep I’ll drink above;
   There, to an ocean fulness,
      His mercy doth expand;
   And glory—­glory dwelleth
      In Emmanuel’s land.’

CHAPTER XIX—­MR. WET-EYES

   ’Oh that my head were waters!’—­Jeremiah.

   ’Tears gain everything.’—­Teresa.

Now Mr. Desires-awake, when he saw that he must go on this errand, besought that they would grant that Mr. Wet-eyes might go with him.  Now this Mr. Wet-eyes was a near neighbour of Mr. Desires-awake, a poor man, and a man of a broken spirit, yet one that could speak well to a petition; so they granted that he should go with him.  Wherefore the two men at once addressed themselves to their serious business.  Mr. Desires-awake put his rope upon his head, and Mr. Wet-eyes went with his hands wringing together.  Then said the Prince, And what is he that is become thy companion in this so weighty a matter?  So Mr. Desires-awake told Emmanuel that this was a poor neighbour of his, and one of his most intimate associates.  And his name, said he, may it please your most excellent Majesty, is Wet-eyes, of the town of Mansoul.  I know that there are many of that name that are naught, said he; but I hope it will be no offence to my Lord that I have brought my poor neighbour with me.  Then Mr. Wet-eyes fell on his face to the ground, and made this apology for his coming with his neighbour to his Lord:—­