iv. THE THIRST OF GOD. 67 



ment. What does the creation of the world indicate, 

 but the fulfilment of God's desire for self-manifestation, 

 for giving away that He may get back again? He 

 created the multitude of waters upon which He sitteth, 

 to satisfy a want in Him corresponding to the sensation 

 of thirst in man. This is the final end of water, not 

 merely to quench the thirst of plant and animal, and 

 make the earth fertile and beautiful these are second- 

 ary and mediate ends but to minister to God's own 

 enjoyment; for we are expressly told that for His 

 pleasure water and all other objects of nature are and 

 were created. Long ages before there was any rational 

 self-conscious being who could understand and enjoy 

 this most wonderful, and yet most familiar element, to 

 whose wants it might minister, God called it into ex- 

 istence. He thirsted for water, and water appeared in 

 the desert world ; deep called unto deep, and the sea 

 without responded to the sea in the Infinite Being. 

 And for unknown aeons He drank a divine joy from the 

 boundless ocean and the flowing river, from the foaming 

 cascade and the sparkling fountain. He needed all 

 these forms of water to satisfy the mighty thirst of His 

 nature ; and He was satisfied, for He said of them all 

 that they were very good. The beauty and the glory of 

 the multitude of waters form a fountain of joy, of which 

 only He who created them can drink in its fulness. It 

 can be said of all the waters of the earth, in the highest 

 sense, that they are rivers of God which are full of 

 water, which He keeps ever full and flowing, that they 

 may be sources of perpetual refreshment to Himself. 



