to find enjoyment in God, and if our hearts are empty now, there is nothing for it but to fill up the hollowness of the soul with God.

Let not that expression—­filling the soul with God—­pass away without a distinct meaning.  God is Love and Goodness.  Fill the soul with goodness, and fill the soul with love, that is the filling it with God.  If we love one another, God dwelleth in us.  There is nothing else that can satisfy.  So that when we hear men of this world acknowledge, as they sometimes will do, when they are wearied with this phantom chase of life, sick of gaieties and tired of toil, that it is not in their pursuits that they can drink the fount of blessedness; and when we see them, instead of turning aside either broken-hearted or else made wise, still persisting to trust to expectations—­at fifty, sixty, or seventy years still feverish about some new plan of ambition—­what we see is this:  we see a soul formed with a capacity for high and noble things, fit for the banquet table of God Himself, trying to fill its infinite hollowness with husks.

Once more, there is degradation in the life of irreligion.  The things which the wanderer tried to live on were not husks only.  They were husks which the swine did eat.  Degradation means the application of a thing to purposes lower than that for which it was intended.  It is degradation to a man to live on husks, because these are not his true food.  We call it degradation when we see the members of an ancient family, decayed by extravagance, working for their bread.  It is not degradation for a born labourer to work for an honest livelihood.  It is degradation for them, for they are not what they might have been.  And therefore, for a man to be degraded, it is not necessary that he should have given himself up to low and mean practices.  It is quite enough that he is living for purposes lower than those for which God intended him.  He may be a man of unblemished reputation, and yet debased in the truest meaning of the word.  We were sent into this world to love God and to love man; to do good—­to fill up life with deeds of generosity and usefulness.  And he that refuses to work out that high destiny is a degraded man.  He may turn away revolted from everything that is gross.  His sensuous indulgences may be all marked by refinement and taste.  His house may be filled with elegance.  His library may be adorned with books.  There may be the sounds in his mansion which can regale the ear, the delicacies which can stimulate the palate, and the forms of beauty which can please the eye.  There may be nothing in his whole life to offend the most chastened and fastidious delicacy; and yet, if the history of all this be, powers which were meant for eternity frittered upon time, the man is degraded—­if the spirit which was created to find its enjoyment in the love of God has settled down satisfied with the love of the world, then, just as surely as the sensualist of