HUMANITY is longing continually for more of satisfaction and of happiness, more of sunshine and less of storm, more of justice and less of antagonism, more of love and less of criticism. Throughout the Scriptures this desire is proclaimed as legitimate. Many a promise is made in both the Old and the New Testament that this constant longing will be satisfied here as well as hereafter, but always upon one condition —namely, that the human heart be willing to love and obey God. The promise is that those who enter "the house of the Lord" shall be satisfied; that it is the one who has God for his Helper who will attain happiness; that it is he whose heart is stayed upon his Maker who will be kept in perfect peace; that he who dwells in "the secret place of the most High" will there be kept under the protection of God—in short, that, as Jesus declared, the fact of continuing in God's Word brings with it the knowledge of the truth, and that knowledge or understanding of God's Word makes free.
These and kindred statements, found in many passages in Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, and in almost every chapter of the New Testament, when accepted and demonstrated must eventually destroy every whispered temptation to envy or rivalry or covetousness in the human heart; for the call is directly to each individual to receive all these blessings. From the opening chapters of the Old Testament the challenge comes, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." The poet speaks of the longing of humanity for
"The freer step, the fuller breath,
The wide horizon's grander view,"
