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THE
GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE

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THE GREAT T
OF THE BIBLE

EDITED BY THE REV.

JAMES Hastings, d.d.

EDITOR OF "THE EXPOSITORY TIMES" "THE DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE*

"THE DICTIONARY OF CHRIST AND THE GOSPELS" AND

"THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS"

PSALMS XXIV.-GXIX.

NEW YORK

CHARLES SGRIBNER'S SONS

EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK

1914

CONTENTS

TOPICS.

•

PAGE

The Secret of the Lord ...... 1

Waiting Courageously .

The Transiekce of Sorrow

Room to Live ....

The Beatitude op Forgiveness

The Guiding Eye

The Goodness of God .

God of Nature and God of Grace .

117

Life and Light .

137

Delighting in the Lord

153

The Crowning of the Year .

167

The Burden-Bearing God

179

A Sun and a Shield .

195

The Home of the Soul

209

The Right Use of Time

225

God's Inner Circle

239

Strength and Beauty .

255

Light and Gladness

269

All His Benefits

. 283

The Father's Pity

. 303

The Day's Work.

317

Leanness of Soul

337

A Volunteer Army

351

The Brook in the Way

. 367

What shall I Render?

383

The Day which the Lord made

. 397

The Clean Path

. 413

The Wondrous Law

. 427

Liberty in God's Law .

. 445

CONTENTS

TEXTS.
Psalms.

XXV.

XXVII.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

LXV.

LXVIII.

LXXXIV.

xc.
xc.

XCI.

XCVI.

XCVII.

cm.
cm.

CIV.
CVI.

ex.
ex.

CXVI.
CXVIII.
CXIX.
CXIX.
CXIX.

1,2

5, 6

1-5

13, 14

12-14

MOK

21
39
53
69
85
99
119
139
155
169
181
197
211
227
241
257
271
285
305
319
339
353
369
385
399
415
429
447

The Secret of the Lord.

PS. XXV.-CXIX. — I

Literature.

Banks (L, A.), Tlie King's Stewards, 142.

Brooks (P.), New Starts in Life, 271.

Clow (W. M.), The Secret of the Lord, 1.

Cowl (F. B.), Digging Ditches, 79.

Holland (C), Gleanings from a Ministry of Fifty Years, 150.

Johnston (J. B.), TJie Ministry of Reconciliation, 323.

Jowett (J. H.), Brooks hy the Traveller's Way, 172.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year : Ascension Day to Trinity

Sunday, 343.
Morrison (G. H.), The Afterglow of God, 3G6.
Potts (A. W.), School Sermons, 78.
Selby (T. G.), The Divine Craftsman, 142.
Simeon (C), Works, v. 168.
Vaughan (C. J.), Memorials of Harrow, 270.
Literary Churchman, xxxviii. (1892) 45 (C. W. Whistler).
Sunday at Home, 1910, p. 629 (G. H. Morrison).
Treasury (New York), xvii. 404 (G. B. F, Halluck).

The Secret of the Lord.

The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him ;
And he will shew them his covenant.— Ps. xxv. 14.

When the Hebrew poet spoke of the secret of the Lord he meant
the knowledge of the God of Israel, the unseen and eternal Jehovah.
When he thought of them that fear Him, he remembered the
stalwart saints who shall ever be the heroic leaders of the faith.
He recalled Abraham coming out of Ur of the Chaldees with a
wisdom and a knowledge that no Babylonian star-gazer ever
divined. He thought of Jacob rising from his midnight dream at
Bethel, saying in penitence and awe, " Surely the Lord is in this
place ; and I knew it not," He saw Moses at the burning bush,
putting off the shoes from his feet, for the place whereon he stood
was holy ground. He remembered Samuel coming out of the
temple in the morning light, having heard the voice of God, with
a message he dared not tell to Eli, Each of these had entered
into a solemn experience. Each of them had come forth with
a secret. A new and deeper understanding of God's ways, and
thoughts, and purposes had been given them. He marks the law
of their experience. It was the law of fear. They had that fear
of God which is an awe and a reverence, a passion of desire to
know, and a willingness to submit and to obey. Therefore God
made known the secret to them,

^ Thompson dwells on St. Paul's unspoken message, which,
designated by the name of wisdom, he withheld from many of the
Corinthians because they were not fit to hear it. He communi-
cated it to the spiritual not to the animal man. Origen says that
that which St. Paul would have called wisdom is found in the
" Canticle of Canticles." Thompson dwells further on the hidden
meanings of the Pentateuch, believing that there was " an inex-
haustible treasure of divine wisdom concealed under the letter of
Holy Writ." Thompson saw wise men whispering, and guessed
that there were secrets ; their presence discovered, they were open

4 THE SECRET OF THE LORD

secrets for such as he. " You have but to direct my sight, and
the iutentuess of my gaze will discover the rest." ^

^ There were three courts in the Temple at Jerusalem. There
was the outer court, where even the Gentiles who cared nothing
for the God of Israel or the faith of the Hebrew people might
freely come. There was the holy place with its sacred things,
where only the Hebrew worshipper might walk. There was the
most holy place, over which the veil of the Temple hung, and into
whose unseen and unknown seclusion the high priest entered once
every year, alone. There are these three courts in the life of a
Christian man. There is the outer court, where a man who is
living his life in the world must keep company with all who enter
its circle. He must rub shoulders with the crowd, although he
never forgets that they cannot enter into his secret. There is the
holy place, where fellow-believers may pass, and speech and
thought of the things of God have a gracious liberty. But there
is the most holy place, and what passes there between God and
the soul is to be kept with a guarded reticence until there is need
for its being told.^

^ When the ancient Jew approached his sanctuary, he found
an outer court of the Temple full of activity with the coming and
going of those who touched the whole natural life and the daily
sacrifice on the altar. But behind lay the still silent room where
the golden lamp burned and the bread of life was resting on the
golden table. And behind again the silence of the Holy of Holies
where man and God merge in union. Even so it is not the great
activity, touching national issues — it is not even the sacrificial life
of Dr. Paton that has most attracted me and, I believe, others.
But here was a priest of the Most High God, in the sanctuary of
whose heart the light burned and the bread of life was broken.
And with reverent awe we knew that behind lay communion with
the Inspirer and Hearer of Prayer. So that out of him from the
Divine source flow " rivers of living water." Thus heaven touched
earth through our intercourse, and the passion for service of his
soul entered ours.*

The secret of the Lord, as the Psalmist conceives it, may be
held to include (1) Knowledge; (2) Character; (3) Happiness.
Knowledge is the secret of the Teacher, Character is the secret of
the Friend, Happiness is the secret of the Lover.

» E. Meynell, Tht Life of Francis Thompsoji (1913), 223.
» W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, 247.
» J. Marcliaut, J. B. Palm, 311.

PSALM XXV. 14 5

Knowledge.

1. Every teacher has his secret. He scans his scholars, eager
to find a receptive mind to whom he can reveal it. When the
responsive glance, the significant word, or the searching question
reveals the student's promise, the teacher has an exquisite joy in
revealing his secret.

^ The great painters of the Middle Ages took pupils into their
studios. To every aspirant they gave honest attention. When
one came who was swift to understand his master's conceptions,
eager to imitate his strength of line and purity of colour, humbly
and patiently reverent in his zeal, the secret was disclosed. In
our own day Edward Burne Jones became a disciple of Dante
Gabriel Kossetti. He spent still and strenuous hours in copying
his master's works, studying their distinction, and aspiring after
their spirit. With a trembling heart young Burne Jones took his
drawings to Kossetti to receive his judgment upon them. The
honest painter looked at them in silence, and with a word of
emotion he said, " You have nothing more to learn from me." He
had entered into the master's secret. But mark the law. It is
not to the carping critic, the scorning and cynical scholar, the
contemptuous idler, that the secret is revealed. The secret is
"with them that f ear." 1

God keeps His holy mysteries

Just on the outside of man's dream. . . ,

Yet, touching so, they draw above

Our common thoughts to Heaven's unknown ;

Our daily joy and pain advance

To a divine significance.*

2. There is a mystery in every Christian life. When the
words are said in our hearing, " The secret of the Lord is with
them that fear him," they seem to give a momentary glimpse of
the truth. There is a secret in such lives, and that secret is God's.
He has to do with them. There is a communication between
then- souls and Him. He has told them a secret, and they keep it.

» W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, 4.
» E. B. Browning.

6 THE SECRET OF THE LORD

Others may see that they have a secret ; but intermeddle with
it they cannot. There is only one way to attain it — by going
through the same process as these have gone through. We may
not at present think it worth our while to do so, or we may have
an undefined dread of the supposed difficulty and irksomeness of
that process : but at least let us lay it up well in our hearts that
there is such a process, and such an end ; that the Christian's life
is a reality, whether we ever attain that life or not ; a mystery,
whether we be ever initiated into that mystery or not ; let us
accept and reverence the inspired declaration that " the secret of
the Lord is with them that fear him."

^ The more of a man a man is, the more secret is the secret
of his life, and the more plain and frank are its external workings.
A small and shallow man tries to throw a mystery about the mere
methods of his life, he tries to make his ways of living seem
obscure. Where he goes, how he makes his fortune, whom he
talks with, what his words mean, who his friends are — he is very
mysterious about all these, and all because the secret of his life
is really weak, because he is conscious that there is no really
strong purpose of living which he himself understands. It is a
shallow pool which muddies its surface to make itself look deep.
But a greater man will be perfectly frank and unmysterious about
these little things. Anybody may know what he does and where
he goes. His acts will be transparent, his words will be in-
telligible. Yet all the while every one who looks at him will see
that there is something behind all, which escapes the closest
observation. The very clearness of the surface will show how
deep the water is, how far away the bottom lies. There is hardly
a better way to tell a great man from a little one.^

^ He always lived with his Uinds up, and you saw all
the workings of his mind. Had he not been steeped in the
spirit of love he could never have survived the self-exposure
which was a habit with him. But his very caprices were always
unselfisli, and he could afford to let his friends look him through
and through.^

As in some cavern dark and deep,

My soul within me here lies low.
Where, veiled, she dreams in wondrous sleep

Of things I may not know.

• Pliillips Biooks, New Starts in Life, 272.

2 Love and Life : The Story of J. Denholm Brash (1913), 1(53.

PSALM XXV. 14 7

And if perchance she wake awhile,
I probe her radiant eyes in vain :

She turns from me with misty smile
And, sighing, sleeps again.^

3. God may be expected to keep some things hidden. In the
most intimate and sacred of our friendships it is not for us to say
what secrets shall be made known to us, and what secrets shall be
guarded from our cognizance. A government reserves to itself
the right of saying what information may be imparted to its
friends, and what, for sufficient reasons, shall be kept back. A
general on the battle-field, whilst putting safe and suitable
selections of news at the service of authorized war correspondents,
cannot allow them unlimited access to his plans. It is necessary
to respect official reserve. And is not the temper which accepts
such conditions binding on a true servant of God ? Let God
Himself choose the things He sees fit to make known to us. If
we live in reverent and believing fellowship He will treat us as
confidants, and our knowledge of His methods and purposes will
surpass that of the world ; but at the same time we need to be
told once and again that He cannot admit us to equality with
Himself by making known the veiled things we petulantly
demand. It ought to satisfy us if His heart trusts us, and
He comes to us in forms of revelation withheld from the world.
He who is thus initiated into His deep counsels and led to
know His will makes few mistakes in his prayers, and the faith
he cherishes does not suffer the bitterness of disappointment or
betrayal.

^ I have heard Sir Clifford AUbutt and Signor agree that the
necessity or, perhaps better, the love of the mysterious, was an
essential and valua]3le part of the human mind ; far from being
all disadvantageous or an impediment to progress, it had been in
the main a stimulus towards something transcending man's best
efforts. Signor said: " It is in fact the poetic element; and what
in the superstitious mind is mere dread, in Browning and
Tennyson is aspiration. You cannot take away the mysterious
from man, he cannot do without it." ^

^ One of the most beautiful of the Bishop's sonnets

^ Laurence Alma Tadema.

^ M. S. Watts, George Frederic Watts, ii. 177.

8 THE SECRET OF THE LORD

was composed at Trondhjem on August 12, 1888. It runs

thus : —

And was it there — the splendour I behold ?
This great fjord with its silver grace outspread
And thousand-creeked and thousand-islanded ?
Those far-off hills, grape-purple, fold on fold?
For yesterday, when all day long there rolled
The blinding drift, methinks, had some one said
" The scene is fair," I scarce had credited ;
Yet fairer 'tis than any tongue hath told.
And it was there ! Ah, yes ! And on my way
More bravely I will go, though storm-clouds lour
And all my sky be only cold and grey;
For I have learnt the teaching of this hour:
And when God's breath blows all these mists afar,
I know that I shall see the things that are.^

4. Knowledge comes by obedience. It would be hopeless to
try to tell the secret, even for the sake of inducing others to
treasure it for themselves. The fact is that the secret might be
told, and told in the best of words, without its ceasing to be a
secret to those who heard. Words are necessary in religious as
in other matters; but there is no fear of their telling anything
which ought not to be told : first, because the secret is designed
for all, and revealed to all who will listen to it ; and next, because
it lies deeper far than the understanding, and never becomes the
possession of any man till he takes it into his heart. For the
obedience by which comes knowledge is the obedience of the
heart. Obedience to law, and acts of worship arising out of fear
of penalty, are merely hiding from God among the trees of the
garden. Even obedience from duty can never be a satisfactory or
final state ; it is merely educational, to make manifest defect of
life. " I was alive without the law once ; but when the command-
ment came, sin revived and I died." When the glory of the Lord
has filled all the courts of His temple, man's outward nature
becomes reconstituted, not after the law of a carnal command-
ment, but after the power of an endless or indissoluble life. The
tree of knowledge becomes one with the tree of life which is in
the midst of the city, and on both sides of the river of life,
proceeding from the tlirone of God and of the Lamb.
» F. D. How, Bisliop Walsham How, 399.

PSALM XXV. 14 9

^ I have known more than one Highland saint who never
had any intellectual training. They had had little schooling, they
never were at college, and their libraries were of the scantiest
kind. Yet in every true sense of the word they were men of
culture ; their language was choice and their thoughts large and
just; and they had singular power in complicated questions of
seizing on the things that really mattered. What was the secret
of that mental clarity ? — " If any man willeth to do his will." To
God they had prayed — in Christ's name they had wrestled — they
had clung to the right and beaten down the wrong ; until at last
that life of deep obedience — that faithfulness to God in what was
least — all unexpectedly had reached their intellect, and made it
a sphere of mastery and joy.^

Just to ask Him what to do

All the day,
And to make you quick and true

To obey.
Just to know the needed grace

He bestoweth,
Every bar of time and place

Overfioweth.
Just to take thy orders straight

From the Master's own command.
Blessed day ! when thus we wait
Always at our Sovereign's hand.^

5. Obedience is rendered easy by sympathy and an open mind.
The man who is full of himself, bent on his own will, seeking his
own ends, is not in a frame of mind to have the secret of the Lord
revealed to him : probably he does not want it, or wish to have it
revealed to him. It is a check upon him. He does not want the
key to the Kingdom of Heaven, because he has no wish whatever
to enter into it. To enter into the Kingdom of God is to do the
will of God, and to try to love it, and the will of God is human
duty — what is due from us to God as poor, weak, ignorant
creatures at the best; coming we know not whence, going we
know not whither ; seeing but a little way into things ; living by
faith, by trust in the power over us, trust in the good about us,
trust in the good in other people ; and what is due from us to

^ G. H. Morrison, The Wings of the Morning, 19.
* F. R. Haversral.

lo THE SECRET OF THE LORD

others, for we are related to each other as brethren, because we
are all related to God as the Father over all.

^ " See how that noble fellow Collingwood leads the fleet into
action ! " exclaimed Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar, as he looked
on the ship of his second bearing down upon the French line under
a press of sail. " Ah ! what would Nelson give to be here ! "
exclaimed Admiral Collingwood at the same moment. It seemed
as if the two heroic men were animated by one spirit ; as if by
completeness of sympathy they knew each other's thoughts.
And have we not all seen something like this in our own ex-
perience ? Have we not known persons so congenial in thought
and feeling that scenes in nature lighted up their faces with the
same delight, or cast over them the shadows of though tfulness and
awe ; sights of distress and tales of sorrow drew forth from them
kindred tears of compassion ; a noble poem or an eloquent oration
awakened in their bosoms the same pure and generous emotions ?
And such, too, is the power of sympathy between ,man and God.
Just as a man tells his secret only to his friends, knowing that it
would often be unsafe, and at other times impossible, to tell it to
others ; and just as they, knowing his great aim and motive, can
make more of a nod or look or word than others can of a lengthened
statement ; so God reveals, as He did to Abraham His friend in
the matter of Sodom's destruction, the depth of His mind and will
to them who fear Him, and who by fearing Him have been made
like Him ; and they, loving in general as God loves, and hating in
general as God hates, enter as others cannot into the meaning and
spirit of God's declarations.^

11.

Charactek.

1. God unveils His character by entering into friendly relations
with man. It is always a sign of deepening friendship when
people Ijegin to open their inner rooms to us. To be made the
depositary of a rare secret is to be sealed as a friend. When any
one tells us a secret joy, it is a mark of intimacy ; when any one
unveils to us a secret grief, it is a proof of the closest fellowship.
When we are taken from tlie suburbs of a man's being to the
centre, it is a proof of an enriching communion. " No longer do
I call you servants ; but I have called you friends ; for all things
' J. B. Johnston, The Ministry of Reconciliation, 335.

PSALM XXV. 14 • II

that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you."
Is there not something tenderly suggestive in the word which
tells us that " when they were alone, he expounded unto them " ?
When He had His familiar friends to Himself, He told them His
secrets and showed them His covenant.

Are these the tracks of some unearthly Friend,
His foot-prints, and his vesture-skirts of light,
Who, as I talk with men, conforms aright
Their sympathetic words, or deeds that blend
With my hid thought; — or stoops him to attend
My doubtful-pleading grief; — or blunts the might
Of ill I see not ; — or in dreams of night
Figures the scope, in which what is will end?
Were I Christ's own, then fitly might I call
That vision real ; for to the thoughtful mind
That walks with Him, He half unveils His face;
But when on earth-stain'd souls such tokens fall,
These dare not claim as theirs what there they find.
Yet, not all hopeless, eye His boundless grace.^

2. Fellowship with God is the secret of the highest character
in man. If a man admires, reveres and attaches himself to any
one, he is naturally led to imitate him ; and the tendency of all
worship is to make a man like his God. The deities of heathen-
dom are the product of the vain imaginations, unholy passions
and guilty fears of their votaries, and the contemplation of them
continues to quicken the foul source whence they have issued.
The sins as well as the sorrows of those who follow after other gods
are multiplied. And the worshippers of the true God are, in
accordance with this principle of our nature, brought to godliness,
induced and taught to love and hate, to approve and condemn,
according to the perfect model. In every one that fears God,
there is a real and growing assimilation.

^ Some words of Kingsley's written in 1872, in which he
defines a " noble fear " as one of the elements of that lofty and
spiritual love which ruled his own daily life, may explain why he
speaks of entering the married state with " solemn awe and self-
humiliation," and why he looked upon sucli married Love as the
noblest education a man's character can have : " Can there be
true love without wholesome fear ? And does not the old Eliza-

' J, H. Newman.

12 THE SECRET OF THE LORD

bethan ' My dear dread ' express the noblest voluntary relation in
which two human souls can stand to each other ? Perfect love
casteth out fear. Yes ; but where is love perfect among imperfect
beings, save a mother's for her child ? For all the rest, it is
through fear that love is made perfect; fear which bridles and
guides the lover with awe — even though misplaced — of the beloved
one's perfections ; witb dread — never misplaced — of the beloved
one's contempt. And therefore it is that souls who have the germ
of nobleness within, are drawn to souls more noble than them-
selves, just because, needing guidance, they cling to one before
whom they dare not say, or do, or even think an ignoble thing.
And if these higher souls are — as they usually are — not merely
formidable, but tender likewise, and true, then the influence which
they may gain is unbounded — both to themselves, and to those
that worship them." ^

3. To enjoy this fellowship we must "fear" the Lord. In
order to read any one's secret we must respect him. You cannot
show the real secret of your life, the spring and power of your
living, to any man who does not respect you. Not merely you
will not, but you cannot. Is it not so ? A man comes with
impertinent curiosity and looks in at your door, and you shut it
in his face indignantly. A friend comes strolling by and gazes in
with easy carelessness, not making much of what you may be
doing, not thinking it of much importance, and before him you
cover up instinctively the work which was serious to you, and
make believe that you were only playing games. So it is when
men try to get hold of the secret of your life. No friendship, no
kindliness, can make you show it to them unless they evidently
really feel as you feel, that it is a serious and sacred thing. There
must be something like reverence or awe about the way that they
approach you. It is the way in which children shut themselves
up before their elders because they know their elders have no
such sense as they have of the importance of their childish
thoughts and feelings.

^ You must believe that there is something deep in nature or
you will find nothing there. You must have an awe of the
mystery and sacredness in your fellow-man, or his mystery and
sacredness will escape you. And this sense of mystery and
sacreduess is what we gather into that word "fear." It is the

^ Charles Kingxley, i. 164.

PSALM XXV. 14 13

feeling with which you step across the threshold of a great deserted
temple or into some vast dark mysterious cavern. It is not terror.
That would make one turn and run away. Terror is a blinding
and deafening emotion. Terror shuts up the apprehension. You
do not get at the secret of anything which frightens you, but fear,
as we use the word now, is quite a different emotion. It is a large,
deep sense of the majesty and importance of anything, a reverence
and respect for it. Without that no man can understand another.
And so " the secret of a man is with them that fear him." ^

^ We have listened to some sweet melody, and we cannot
escape from its gracious thraldom. It pervades the entire day.
It interweaves itself with all our changing affairs. We hear it in
our work and in our leisure ; when we retire to rest and when we
awake. It haunts us. The analogy may help us to some appre-
hension of what is meant by the fear of God. The man who fears
God is haunted by God's presence. God is an abiding conscious-
ness. God is " continually before him." Everything is seen in
relationship to God. The Divine presence pervades the mind and
shapes and colours the judgment. Here are two descriptions from
the Word of God, in the contrast of which the meaning will be
made quite clear. " God is not in all his thoughts." The Eternal
does not haunt his mind. Everything is secularized, and nothing
is referred to the arbitrament of the Divine Will. He is not God-
possessed. " Pray without ceasing." Here is the contrasted mind,
from which the sense of God is never absent. Like an air of
penetrating music the Divine presence pervades the exercise of
all his powers. He is God-haunted, and in the consciousness of
that presence he lives and moves and has his being. He fears
God.2

III.

Happiness.

1. The secret of happiness is love. The people of God love
Him, and He loves them; their habitual feeling is that their
affection and gratitude bear no proportion to the greatness of His
claims. Like the penitent disciple who had had much forgiven,
they can solemnly appeal to His omniscience and say, "Lord,
thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee." And
He loves them with a love which has a height and depth, and

1 Phillips Brooks, New Starts in Life, 275,

^ J. H. Jowett, Brooks by the Traveller's Way, 173.

14 THE SECRET OF THE LORD

length and breadth passing knowledge — a love which has thrown
open to them the book of Nature that their eyes might be filled
with its beauty and their souls with its truth — a love which sings
sweet songs in the carol of the bird, in the murmur of the brook,
in the whispering of the breeze, and in the joyous music of the
domestic hearth — a love which covers the earth with golden grain,
and casts abundance into the lap of life — a love which has toiled,
and bled, and died that the soul of man might be taken from the
spoiler who has held it under his cruel and polluting sway, and
be brought under the dominion of its rightful Lord and made
fully happy, and that for ever, in His fellowship.

^ He looked out on the world through the eyes of Love, and
that is why it was to him ever beautiful in its infinite variety,
and in its amazing friendliness. He lived to be seventy-one as
the world counts years, but even then he was Youth and Joy — in
the best sense of the word he refused to grow up.^

^ Though Mr. Paynter was a deeply spiritual man, there was
nothing in his life or speech to suggest gloom ; certainly there
was not in his looks. Many a laugh have we had together, over
some amusing incident or story, in the lighter interludes of life ;
and though he himself rarely told a story, yet sometimes he would
make a " dry " remark, which showed that the sense of humour
was not absent. He was a happy man — happy in all the domes-
ticities of his home and family life — happy among his flowers —
happy in his work — happy always in doing good to others, and all
because he was happy in God, and had learned what St. Paul
meant when he said, " All things are yours." ^

Just to recollect His love,

Always true;
Always shining from above,

Always new.
Just to recognize its light

All-enfolding ;
Just to claim its present might,

All-upholding.
Just to know it as thine own,

That no power can take away.
Is not this enough alone

For the gladness of the day ? ^

> Love and Life : The Slory of J. Dcnholm Brash (1913), 8.

2 S. M. Niigfiit, Life Radiant: Memorials (ftlie Rev. F. Paynter, 228.

' F. R. Havergul.

PSALM XXV. 14 15

2. We learn the secret of happiness as we try to express our
love in noble character and unselfish conduct. Men are so con-
stituted that obedience is its own reward. There is no delight so
deep and true as the delight of doing the will of Him whom we
love. There is no blessedness like that of the increasing com-
munion with God and of the clearer perception of His will and
mind which follow obedience as surely as the shadow follows the
sunshine. There is no blessedness like the glow of approving
conscience, the reflection of the smile on Christ's face.

To have the heart in close communion with the very Fountain
of all good, and the will in harmony with the will of the best
Beloved; to hear the Voice that is dearest of all ever saying,
" This is the way, walk ye in it " ; to feel " a spirit in my feet "
impelling me upon that road ; to know that all my petty deeds
are made great, and my stained offerings hallowed by the altar on
which they are honoured to lie ; and to be conscious of fellowship
with the Friend of my soul increased by obedience — this is to
taste the keenest joy and good of life, and he who is thus
" blessed in his deed " need never fear that that blessedness will
be taken away, or sorrow though other joys be few and griefs be
many.

^ To Florence Nightingale, communion with the Unseen
meant something deeper, richer, fuller, more positive than the fear
of God. The fear of God is the beginning, but not the end, of
wisdom, for perfect love casteth out fear. It was for the love of
God as an active principle in her mind, constraining all her deeds,
that she strove.^

^ The income from his books and other sources, which might
have been spent in a life of luxury and selfishness, he distributed
lavishly where he saw it was needed, and in order to do this he
always lived in the most simple way. To make others happy was
the Golden Rule of his life. On August 31 he wrote, in a letter
to a friend. Miss Mary Brown : " And now what am I to tell you
about myself ? To say I am quite well * goes without saying '
with me. In fact, my life is so strangely free from all trial and
trouble that I cannot doubt my own happiness is one of the
talents entrusted to me to ' occupy ' with, till the Master shall
return, by doing something to make other lives happy." ^

* Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingalt, i. 50.

* S. D. Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, 325.

i6 THE SECRET OF THE LORD

3. And thus we are brought round again to knowledge.
For the final verdict upon the realities of religion rests not
with the highest intellect, but with the purest heart. Humboldt
tells that the Arab guide employed in one of his desert journeys
had such a keen and highly trained power of vision that he could
see the moons of Jupiter without a telescope, and that he gave
the date when one of those moons was eclipsed, a date afterwards
verified by the traveller on his return to Europe. The watch-
maker, the line-engraver, the microscopist, who for years have
been poring over minute objects a few inches from the face, could
not emulate the feat of the Arab whose eye had been trained for
a lifetime by use in the desert, and might possibly doubt the fact.
In that respect the man of science himself, with his wide know-
ledge, exact observation, many accomplishments, was inferior to
his unlettered guide. A devout soul seeks wistfully after God,
accustoms its faculties to discern and interpret His signs, and
acquires a vision penetrative beyond that of his neighbour.

^ In one of his saddest poems — in the series entitled " Men and
Women " — Browning tells the story of Andrea del Sarto, who was
called the faultless painter of Florence. In his youth he had
loved and married a woman of rare and radiant beauty. He
rendered to her an almost worshipping homage. He longed to
lift her to the high plane of thought and desire and holy ambition
on which he moved. But she was a shallow, thin-natured, mean-
souled woman. She was the woman who smeared with a careless
fling of her skirt the picture he had painted in hours of spiritual
ecstasy. She was the woman who craved him for his hard-earned
money that she might spend it at the gaming-table with her
dissolute companions. Browning sets down the tragedy of their
years with his usual unerring insight. It was not that she dis-
appointed him, robbed his hand of its power, dulled his mind,
shadowed his heart, and, as he foresaw, would sully his fame. It
was this more piteous thing, that he could not disclose himself to
her. She was not able to see and to understand him at his
highest and noblest. She never discerned the moral majesty of
his mind or the spiritual hunger of his heart. The poet sets the
sorrow of it all in a sigh, which is the climax of his story.
But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow.
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare —
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind !

PSALM XXV. 14 17

Lover he was, with the lover's secret, but she brought no mind,
and the lover's secret she never knew. For the lover's secret is
only with them that fear.^

4. The nearer we live to Christ, the further shall we see into
the Unseen and discern the secret of God. The vision of the
godly man, like that of the prophet at Bethel, pierces into the
unseen, and he is sensible of things to which others are blind. If
he cannot envisage horses and chariots of fire, the vindicating
ministries of the covenant, he can read the terms of the covenant
in letters clear as the stars, and these revelations are enough, and
assure as perfectly as glimpses of the hosts God leads. Doubts
and misgivings are dispelled by spiritual insight. In the things
which, to a worldly mind, suggest the anger of Heaven, he is made
to see occasions which discipline the character into higher fitness
for receiving the awaiting blessings of an immutable covenant.

^ For many years a lady made her livelihood by taking
Greenwich time round to the jewellers' shops in the small towns
to the west of London. She was the daughter of a watchmaker,
and possessed an excellent chronometer which had been be-
queathed by her father. When necessary, the authorities of the
Observatory kindly regulated it. Every Friday she went to
Greenwich, got the standard time, and carried it to her clients,
who paid a small fee for the service rendered. She belonged to
the old dispensation, and may stand for one of its types. Many
provincial towns, and even private firms of watchmakers, are now
in direct electric connexion with Greenwich, and get the standard
time every day, ... In the United States of America, every post
office is linked with the Observatory at Washington. Under the
earlier Covenant, men who wished to learn of the things of God
had to avail themselves of the ministries of the prophets, or sit at
the feet of scholars, whose office it was to interpret the books of
the law. But under the New Covenant the regenerate soul is
brought into direct contact with God, and acquires Divine wisdom,
not by listening to a neighbour, but by heeding swift inward
impressions wrought by the wonderful Spirit of God.^

Love touch'd my eyes — these eyes which once were blind,
And, lo ! a glorious world reveal'd to view,

A world I ne'er had dream'd so fair to find.
I sang for gladness — all things were made new.

1 W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, 10.
/' » T. G. Selby, The Divine Craftsman, 175.
PS. XXV.-CXIX. — 2

i8 THE SECRET OF THE LORD

'Twas Love unstopp'd my ears, and every sound

Borne through the silence seem'd a psalm of praise:

Bird-song, child-laughter — yet o'er all I found
Thy voice the music of my happy days.

Love chang'd life's draught and made the water wine,
And through my languid senses seem'd to flow

Some pow'r enkindled by the fire divine,
Some inspiration I can ne'er forego.

Love rais'd the dead to life — and never more
Can many waters quench th' eternal flame.

Love open'd wide the everlasting door,
And bade us enter, called by His name.^

* Una, In Life's Oarden, 6.

Waiting Courageously.

Literature.

Bright (W.), Morality in Doctrine, 115.

Craig (R.)> Rock Plants with Gospel Roots, 27.

Dyke (H. van), Manhood, Faith and Courage, 53.

Jowett (J. n.), From Strength to Strength, 65.

Maclaren (A.), Creed and Conduct, 15.

Newman (J. H.), Sermons on Subjects of the Darj, 47.

Spurgcon (G. H.), Morning by Morning, 243.

„ „ Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxiii. (1877), No. 1371.

Steel (T. H.), Senions in Harrow Cliapel, 315.
Vauglian (J.), Sermons in Christ Church, Brighton, 2nd Ser., 51.
Wj'nne (G, R.), In Quietness and Confidence, 50.
Christian World Pidpit, xliv. 321 (C. S, Home) ; liii. 136 (H. Black) ; Ivii.

27 (J. G. Rogers) ; Iviii. 401 (J. H. Jowett).
Church of England Magazine, xxxiv. 168 (R. W. Dale),
Church of England Pulpit, Ix. 286 (C. Wordsworth).
Churchman's Pulpit : Sermons to the Young, xvi. 40G (R. Q. Scans).
Twentieth Century Pastor, xxx. 20 (A. B. Macaulay).

Waiting Courageously.

Wait on the Lord :

Be strong, and let thine heart take courage ;

Yea, wait thou on the Lord. — Ps. xxvii. 14.

This is the concluding verse of a psalm which glows with lofty
faith, and yet is clouded by a sense of depression. The magnificent
opening, with its fulness of glad, exuberant energy, its high-hearted
disclaimer of all fear in view of a host of enemies, and its fervid
avowal of one supreme desire — to dwell in the Lord's house and
to gaze upon His beauty — is followed up by entreaties which
represent a change of mood. It is one of those transitions so
common in the Psalter, which make it so truly human a book.
Acting on the invitation, " Seek ye my face," the Psalmist begs
his Lord not to cast him away, not to forsake him ; he describes
himself as an orphan whom God will adopt, and he glances
tremblingly at a contingency which would surely have over-
whelmed him —

What if no faith were mine, to see
Thy love in realms where life shall be?

But the psalm goes back to the major key at last, and in the
closing verse prayer passes into self-encouragement. The heart
that spoke to God now speaks to itself. Faith exhorts sense and
soul to " wait on Jehovah." The self-communing of the Psalmist,
beginning with exultant confidence and merging into prayer thrilled
with consciousness of need and of weakness, closes with bracinig
him up to courage, which is not presumption, because it is the
fruit of waiting on the Lord. He who thus keeps his heart in touch
with God will be able to obey the ancient command, which had
rung so long before in the ears of Joshua and is never oat of date,
" Be strong and of a good courage " ; and none but those who wait
on the Lord will be at once conscious of weakness and filled with
strength, aware of the foes and bold to meet them.

22 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

Waiting.

The word " walk " describes almost the whole of Christian life,
and so does this word "wait" ; for, rightly understood, waiting is
active as well as passive, energetic as well as patient, and to wait
upon the Lord necessitates as much courage as warring and
fighting with enemies. It may seem an easy thing to wait, but
it is one of the postures which a Christian soldier learns only
with years of teaching. Marching and quick-marching are much
easier to God's warriors than standing still. There are hours of
perplexity when the most willing spirit, anxiously desirous to
serve the Lord, knows not what part to take. Then what shall
it do ? Vex itself by despair ? Fly back in cowardice, turn to
the right hand in fear, or rush forward in presumption ? No, but
simply wait.

^ The English Prayer-Book version of the Psalms gives a
quaint but beautiful rendering of the phrase " Wait on the Lord."
It runs, " 0 tarry thou the Lord's leisure." This rendering brings
out the exact meaning of the word " wait," which we have inter-
larded and lost sight of by making it mean such things — and
legitimately enough — as prayer. It just means " wait." Wait
for Him as you would wait at the try sting-place for a friend
who does not come. Wait for Him, and wait, and wait until He
does come.^

When He appoints to meet thee, go thou forth.

It matters not
If south or north.

Bleak waste or sunny plot.
Nor think, if haply He thou seek'st be late.

He does thee wrong;
To stile or gate

Lean thou thy head, and long!
It may be that to spy thee He is mounting

Upon a tower,
Or in tliy counting

Thou hast mista'en the hour.

1 Hugh Black.

PSALM XXVII. 14 23

But, if He come not, neither do thou go

Till Vesper chime ;
Belike thou then shalt know

He hath been with thee all the time.^

1. Let us wait with faith. It is faith that secures the Divine
blessing — persistent, expectant faith. He cannot be said to wait
upon God who disbelieves that God will come to his aid, or who
doubts whether He will. Loitering about to see if anything will
turn up is not the same thing, by any means, as waiting for a
particular person to appear, or a particular event to happen.
Faith and expectation characterize the latter condition as distinct
from the former. And these qualities belong to the very nature of
the exercise of " waiting on God." The more unwavering a man's
faith is, in fact, and the higher he stretches on tiptoe of expecta-
tion, the more accurately may he be described as a man waiting
on God. " My soul," cries the Psalmist, " waiteth for the Lord
more than they that watch for the morning." How eager he
represents himself to be by that figure of the anxious watchers
scanning the eastern skies for signs of daybreak ! And how con-
fident, too ! For more surely than the sun shall climb up over
the horizon and dispel the shadows of night, his God, he believes,
shall cause His face to shine upon him. His God and our God —
it is not to immensity or infinity, or some dimly comprehended
and overwhelming attribute, precariously personified, that we
look up for help and a response to our supplications. It is to the
living, self-revealing God, who hath " of old time spoken unto the
fathers in the prophets," and who " hath at the end of these days
spoken unto us in his Son."

^ There is a school of philosophy, much current in our day,
which tells us that religious truth is relative to the individual ;
the way to test a religion is to live it. If the philosophy of the
pragmatists be right, then few forms of religious creed can claim
better witness to their truth than that wherein Florence Nightin-
gale lived and moved and had her being. She had " remodelled
her whole religious belief from beginning to end," and had " learnt
to know God" in the years immediately preceding her active
work in the world. Her belief helped to sustain her natural
courage amidst the horrors of Scutari, and the fever and the cold
of Balaclava. It inspired the life of arduous labour to which she

* T. E. Brown, Old John and Other Poems, 244

24 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

devoted herself on returning from the East. It informed her
unceasing efforts for the health of the Army and the people, for
the reformation of hospitals, for the creation of an art of nursing.
Does some one doubt whether any vital force can have proceeded
from a belief in Law as the Thought of God, and suggest that to
herself as to others she was offering a stone instead of bread ? It
was not so. To her the religion which she found was as the
body and blood of the Most High.^

^ In the early spring of 1881 Captain Catherine Booth and
her intrepid lieutenants, Florence Soper, Adelaide Cox, and Kuth
Patrick, began life in Paris. With her own hand Catherine
raised the flag at Rue d'Angouleme 66, in Belleville. Here was
a hall for six hundred, situated in a court approached by a
narrow street. The bulk of the audience that gathered there
night after night were of the artisan class. Some were young
men of a lower type, and from these came what disturbance there
was. The French sense of humour is keen, and there were many
lively sallies at the expense of the speakers and .singers on the
platform. Meetings were held night after night, and for six
months the Capitaine was never absent except on Saturdays.
Those were days of fight, and she fought, to use her own phrase,
like a tiger. She had to fight first her own heart. She knew
her capacity, and God had done great things through her in
England. The change from an audience of five thousand spell-
bound hearers in the circus of Leeds to a handful of gibing
ouvriers in the Belleville quarter of Paris was indeed a clashing
antithesis. A fortnight passed without a single penitent, and
Catherine was all the time so ill that it was doubtful if she would
be able to remain in the field. That fortnight was probably
the supreme trial of her faith. The work appeared so hopeless !
There was nothing to see. But for the Capitaine faith meant
going on. It meant saying to her heart, "You may suffer, you
may bleed, you may break, but you shall go on." She went on,
believing, praying, lighting, and at last the tide of battle turned.^

2. Let us wait with patience. Patience is just the other side
and the practical side of faith. Faith is the breath of life to the
religious man. Without faith he cannot live. But there may be,
and there often is, a faith which is extremely lacking in patience,
a faith whicli is even impatient, a faith which, in the name of God,
almost rebukes God for His leisure with the world, and with the

* Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale, i. 488.
' J. Stialiau, 'The MuivcJicUe (1913), 51.

PSALM XXVII. 14 25

Church, and with ourselves. We know it to be a Christian duty
to be patient with our fellow-men ; have we ever thought of the
necessity and the duty of being patient with God ? Let us have
patience with God. And this patience, about which the Bible is
full, is not the sickly, complaining counterfeit of it which we often
hear of under the name of patience ; it is the power to suffer, the
power to sacrifice, the power to endure, the power to die, and, if
need be, sometimes harder as it is, to continue to live for His sake.
Let us wait God's time. If there were no other reason why we
must wait God's time, this is one, and one all-powerful — because He
knows the whole, and because we know only a part. The Psalmist
cries out, under protracted and aggravated trials, " Lord, how long ? "
but he never complains or murmurs, " Lord, this is too long ! "

^ It is worthy of remark that Bishop King's first Charge
elicited warm commendation from the prelate who, of all the
Bishops at that time on the Bench, possessed the acutest and
most vigorous intellect. Bishop Magee, of Peterborough, wrote
on November 28, 1886 :—

"What I write specially to thank you for is simply one
sentence in your Charge — a very pregnant one, and to me, I
confess, a new one — it is, ' The Soul is impatient of the Mediatorial
Kingdom.' This is a thought which runs out very far and very
deep under all our Christian life. The ' 'impatient,' instead of the
' patient, waiting for Christ,' is seen, when we come to think of it,
to be the source of no small part of our ecclesiastical and even our
personal errors and troubles." ^

Say, did impatience first impel

The heaven-sent bond to break ?
Or, couldst thou bear its hindrance well,

Loitering for Jesu's sake?

Oh, might we know ! for sore we feel

The languor of delay,
When sickness lets our fainter zeal,

Or foes block up our way.

Lord ! who Thy thousand years dost wait

To work the thousandth part
Of Thy vast plan, for us create

With zeal a patient heart.^

* G. W, E. Russell, Edivard King, Bishop of Lincoln, 122.
' J. H. Newmau, Verses on Various Occasions.

26 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

3. Let us wait with assurance. According to our English
Versions, the 62nd Psahn begins with the words, " Truly my soul
waiteth," or " My soul waiteth only upon God." The adverbs do
not matter at present, but the verb does. What the Psalmist
actually wrote, as we can see from the word which he used, was,
" My soul is silent unto God." The same expression occurs else-
where in the Old Testament. It is a very striking one. The
condition of silence before God, inward silence, with every fret
and murmur and disturbing thought hushed, was recognized as
the condition suitable for hearing the still small voice of the
Eternal One. Those that achieved it were rewarded. And have
we no experiences of our own to corroborate the testimony of
these Old Testament writers ? Matthew Arnold tells us that —

From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs and floating echoes and conv.ey
A melancholy into all our day.

But other airs and other echoes as well are upborne from the
depths of the soul. There is conveyed into the day of the soul
that waits upon God and is silent unto Him a peace and a quiet
sense of assurance that passes all understanding. Language
cannot describe the source and nature of these inward ministries
of strength and consolation, but the soul knows that God has
responded to its waiting.

^ " Does it hurt you severely ? " one asked of a friend who lay
with a broken arm. " Not when I keep still," was the answer.
This is the secret of much of the victoriousuess we see in rejoicing
Christians. They conquer the pain and the bitterness by keeping
still. They do not ask questions, or demand to know why they
have trials. They believe in God, and are so sure of His love and
wisdom that they are pained by no doubt, no fear, no uncertainty.
Peace is their pillow, because they have learned just to be still.
Their quietness robs trial of its sharpness, sorrow of its bitterness,
death of its sting, and the grave of its victory.^

4. Let us wait with prayer. Let us call upon God and spread
our case before Him; tell Him our difficulty, and plead His
promise of aid. In dilemmas between one duty and another, it is
sweet to be humble as a child, and to wait with simplicity of soul

» J. E. Miller,

PSALM XXVII. 14 27

upon the Lord. It is sure to be well with us when we feel and
know our own folly, and are heartily willing to be guided by
the will of God. Let us remember that God has always loved
intervals. Intervals there are generally, if not always, in His
best dealings with His children — intervals before He bestows
His greatest blessings, intervals before He answers prayer. And
a great part of man's education lies in these intervals. The
intellect is humbled, the heart is curbed, faith is trained, hopes
are pointed, promises are sweetened, God is magnified. And are
they not the growing times of mercies — the darkness brought in
for no other end than that the light may be seen in it ?

^ By prayer we link ourselves on to the inexhaustible riches
of God. How it comes that, when I pull a switch down in my
study, the room is flooded with light no man can say, save that by
doing so I have linked my need on to the great centre of light
energy in the town. So, all that we can say about those who
keep their hearts open towards God and in the love of Christ is
that by this means they link their weakness on to the grace and
strength of the Eternal. But, mark you, the electric current does
not break into my room of itself when my need arises. I have to
make a way for it, and more, / have to heep that way open}

Tl Prayer was the white flame at the very centre of his life.
To the throne of Grace, with unfailing mindfulness and with
childlike simplicity, he would bring, day by day, his friends, his
people, those in special sorrow, sickness, or sin; so filling his
petitions with engrossed and concentrated intercession for them
in their needs that he became wholly forgetful of his own. Once,
when I had been ill, he said to me, " I have prayed for you night
and morning for five months." And I knew that it was true.
In his long life it was true of thousands of others. And he
believed, with such intensity and simplicity of conviction as no
man can ever have surpassed, that every word of intercession that
he uttered went straight to a heavenly Father's ear, and found an
answering chord in a heavenly Father's lieart.^

Unanswered yet, the prayer your lips have pleaded,

In agony of heart these many years ?
Does faith begin to fail ? Is hope departing.

And think you all in vain those falling tears ?
Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer;
You shall have your desire sometime, somewhere.

^ Archibald Alexander.

2 Frances Balfour, Dr. MacGregor of St. Cuthberls, 532.

28 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

Unanswered yet, though when you first presented
This one petition at the father's Throne,

It seemed you could not wait the time of asking,
So urgent was your heart to have it known ?

Though years have passed since then, do not despair ;

The Lord will answer you sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet ? Nay, do not say ungranted ;

Perljaps your part is not yet wholly done;
The work began wlien first your prayer was uttered,

And God will finish what He has begun.
If you will keep the incense burning there,
His glory you will see sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet ? Faith cannot be unanswered,
Her feet are firmly planted on the rock ;

Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted.
Nor quails before tlie loudest thunder shock.

She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer,

And cries, It shall be done — sometime, somewhere.

5. Let us wait with regularity. The most prominent feature
of our waiting is too often its spasmodic character. Now and
then we draw near to God, but by fits and starts, with long
intervals of indifference and prayerlessuess between. And tliat
is just about as hopeless as it would be to expect to keep our-
selves clean by bathing once a week. Daily our strength drains
away, both physical and spiritual, and as the one must constantly
be replenished, so must the other. Even earnest bursts of effort
at intervals do not count for anything like so much as the quiet,
constant keeping in the love of God. Volcanic eruptions have
done something to transform the earth's surface, but not nearly so
much, geologists tell us, as the quiet, constant forces, the sun, the
rain, frost, heat, and wind. And it is by the regular daily waiting,
far more than by the infrequent upheaval of desire, that the
power of God and the likeness of Christ pass slowly but visibly
into the lives of His people. It is the daily meeting with God in
spirit, the daily thought of one's humble task as God's call to us
to serve Him, the daily sense that we are His cliildren, destined
and called in Christ to fellowship with Him, the sense that we
are not alone in our little corner, but that He is all about us, so
that we live and move and have our being in Him, like islands in

PSALM XXVII. 14 29

some great sea — it is that, repeated and continued till it becomes
the habit of the spirit, that transfigures life and lifts it to
blessedness and power.

^ It is related of Schwabe the German astronomer that,
wishing to determine the relation between sun-spots and earth-
magnetism, he gave himself to the recording of the varying
appearances of the sun's surface. For forty-two years the sun
never rose a single morning free of clouds above the flat horizon
of the plain at Dessau where Schwabe lived but his patient
telescope was there to confront it ! The man of science believes
in Nature. He waits for it, in the faith that it is, and that it is
the rewarder of those that diligently seek it. If only Christian
people would realize that it is infinitely more worth their while
to wait thus patiently upon God, what wonders of Spirit-filled
lives we should see ! ^

^ The other day I stumbled across a little book in which he
wrote the names of those for whom he prayed, and the day of the
week on which he interceded for them. It was a revelation — for
one would have thought that many of those names had been
forgotten by him years before. There is a great unity in the list ;
they all sorely needed the Divine help. He also prayed daily by
name for the members of his family, and each worker of our
Church on the Foreign Field was remembered by him. With
the map before him he interceded for the many nations of the
world.2

II.

COUEAGE.

As many as are the conflicts and perils and hardships of life,
so many are the uses and the forms of courage. Courage is
necessary, indeed, as the protector and defender of all the other
virtues. Courage is the standing army of the soul, which keeps
it from conquest, pillage, and slavery. Unless we are brave we
can hardly be truthful, or generous, or just, or pure, or kind, or
loyal. " Few persons," says a wise observer, " have the courage to
appear as good as they really are." You must be brave in order
to fulfil your own possibilities of virtue. Courage is essential to

' Archibald Alexander,

' Love and Life : The Story of J. Denholm Brash, 65.

30 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

guard the best qualities of the soul, and to clear the way for their
action, and make them move with freedom and vigour.

Courage, an independent spark from Heaven's throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone;
The spring of all true acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.

If we desire to be good, we must first of all desire to be brave,
that against all opposition, scorn, and danger we may move
straight onward to do the right.

^ The Ecv. Henry Parnaby, M.A., writes : " Only six days ago
I had a long talk with the surgeon who attended Principal Simon
in Liverpool — Dr. Armour — and he told me souietliing very
characteristic of the old Principal. When his trouble had reached
a certain stage, Dr. Armour suggested to Dr. Simon that by a very
delicate and difficult operation he could be cured. The operation,
however, was attended with very great risk, and possibly Dr.
Simon would not survive. The decision was left to him, and he
took a week to think over it. He went off and consulted his
family, and returned a week later to announce that he had decided
not to undergo the operation. His reason was this. He was in
such dreadful and continuous pain that he felt he would go into
the operation with eagerness, because it promised an end of his
trouble either by cure or death. He felt that he would welcome
this as an end of his pain, and that therefore he would be dis-
playing an unwillingness to endure the purifying pain which he
accepted as a means of spiritual discipline from God. Dr. Armour
assures me that never in all his wide experience has he found
another patient who could give so courageous and honourable a
reason for declining to undergo an operation.^

^ One winter night the Mar^chale and two young comrades,
Blanche Young and Kate Patrick, went out with shawls on their
heads, and made their way to one of the boulevard cafes. The
leader passed the door, and passed it again. She turned to her
lieutenants and said, "You have never known your Mar^chale
till now ; you see what a coward she is ! "

" No, no, no ! " they both protested.

At last she put her hand on the door, pushed it open, and went
in. A man in a white apron was selling drink. Going up to him,
she said, " May I sing something ? "

He stared open-mouthed.

' F. J. Powicke, David Worlhmglon Simon, 297.

PSALM XXVII. 14 31

Trembling from head to foot, she repeated, " I should like to
sing somethinci;,"
"Very well!"
She began :

Le ciel est ma belle patrie,

Les anges y font leur s^jour;
Le soldat qui lutte et qui prie
Y sera bientot k son tour.

While she sang, Blanche chimed in with her guitar and her
second voice. As they proceeded, the smoking, drinking, and
card-playing ceased, and every face was turned towards them.
They sang on :

En marche, en marche,

Soldats, vers la patrie !

En marche, en marche,

Soldats, vers la patrie !

When they had finished the hymn, the Mar^chale thanked
her audience, adding that they could hear her again at Rne Auber
Hall ; and that she knew a Eriend, of whom she wished to tell
them. As she and her comrades turned to walk out, the man in
the white apron bowed, as if they had done him a service.

" May I come another time ? " said the Mar^chale.

" Certainly, Mademoiselle ! " ^

1. What is the source of courage ? It is waiting on the Lord.
That is the truest and deepest source of courage. To believe that
He is, and that He has made us for Himself ; to love Him, and
give ourselves up to Him, because He is holy and true and wise
and good and brave beyond all human thought ; to lean upon
Him and trust Him and rest in Him, with confidence that He will
never leave us nor forsake us : to work for Him, and suffer for
His sake, and be faithful to His service — that is the way to learn
courage. Without God what can we do ? We are frail, weak,
tempted, mortal. The burdens of life will crush us, the evils of
sin will destroy us, the tempests of trouble will overwhelm us,
the darkness of death will engulf us. But if we are joined to
God, we can resist and endure and fight and conquer in His
strength. This is what the Psalmist means in the text, " Wait on
the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine
heart."

» J. Strahan, The Mardchale (1913), 114.

32 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

Had we the strength ! — Have we perhaps the strength,

Who have all else beside ? Are we not men ?

Is not the Universe our dwelling-place ?

And therefore perfectly in truth for us

Is not the utmost wholly possible ? . . .

O, with the baffled and the resolute

Vanguard of liberal humanity, —

O to so purge our lives of the mild hours,

Our hearts of humble longings and meek hopes,

Our minds of customs and credulities.

That we may find the days wholly fulfilled

And lightened of the Spirit — all the days

And all things and ourselves, rich and revealed

In the majestic meanings and the might

And passion and pure purpose of the soul ! ^

^ Torstensohn was one of the generals formed in the school of
Gustavus Adolphus. To him that great commander transmitted
the prosecution of the Thirty Years' War. Physically, he was
so shattered and dislocated by disease and deformity that he
could neither walk nor ride on horseback. He had to be carried
at the head of his forces in a litter. Yet no commander of his
age was so resistless and terrible in his onset and so invariably
victorious. Let us be loath to accept infirmity as an excuse for
uselessness. A naturalist asks : " How is it that the golden-
crested wren, apparently so weak and helpless, can fly right
across the North Sea from Norway ? " Because God knows how to
fix strange energy within delicate organisms. Our very infirmities
through resolution and grace may give us special efficacy.^

2. How does waiting on God sustain our courage ?

(1) Our heart is strengthened by waiting upon God, because
we receive a mysterious strength through the incoming of the
Eternal Spirit into our souls. No man can explain this, but
many of us know what it is. How wonderfully do the secret
springs of omnipotence break into the feeble soul and fill it with
might in the inner man. Through the sacred anointing of the
Holy Ghost we have been made to shout for joy. He that made
us has put His hand a second time to the work, and restored to us
the joy of His salvation, filled our emptiness, removed our weak-
ness, and triumphed in us gloriously.

^ G. C. Lodge, Poems and Dramas, ii. 137.
• W. L. Watkinson.

PSALM XXVII. 14 33

^ That these days at the Keswick Convention in 1889 were a
turning-point in Mr. Maegregor's life, there is not the smallest
doubt. That they made his later ministry what it was, is equally
certain. To say that he sometimes appeared to claim for this
experience and its effects more tlian the facts altogether warranted,
is only to say that, though remarkably enlightened and strengthened
by God's Spirit, he remained a fallible human being. But no one
who knew George Macgregor, either as a man or a minister, before
that crisis and after it, could question that he found then a new
secret of strength both for his own life and for his work.^

(2) Waiting upon God makes men grow small, and dwarfs the
world and all its affairs, till we see their real littleness. Set your
great troubles before the infinite God, and they will dwarf into
such little things that you will never notice them again, " He
taketh up the isles as a very little thing," and " the nations are as
a drop of a bucket " ; and this great God teaches us to look at
earthly things in the same light as He does, till, though the
whole world should be against us, we can smile at its rage. Our
worst ills are utterly despised when we learn to measure them by
the line of the Eternal.

^ Sometimes in the country on a night in early summer you
may shut the cottage door to step out into an immense darkness
which palls heaven and earth. Going forward into the embrace
of the great gloom, you are as a babe swaddled by the hands
of night into helpless acquiescence. Your feet tread an unseen
path, your hands grasp at a void, or shrink from the contact
they cannot realize ; your eyes are holden ; your voice would die
in your throat did you seek to rend the veil of that impenetrable
silence.

Shut in by the intangible dark, we are brought up against
those worlds within worlds blotted out by our concrete daily life.
The working of the great microcosm at which we peer dimly
through the little window of science; the wonderful, breathing
earth ; the pulsing, throbbing sap ; the growing fragrance shut in
the calyx of to-morrow's flower; the heart-beat of a sleeping
world that we dream that we know ; and around, above, and inter-
penetrating all, the world of dreams, of angels and of spirits.

It was this world which Jacob saw on the first night of his
exile, and again when he wrestled in Peniel until the break of
day. It was this world which Elisha saw with open eyes ; which
Job knew when darkness fell on him ; which Ezekiel gazed into

^ Duncan C. Macgregor, George If. C. Macgregor, 111.

PS. xxv.-cxix. — 3

34 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

from his place among the captives; which Daniel beheld as he
stood alone by the great river, the river Hiddckel.

For the moment we have left behind the realm of question
and explanation, of power over matter and the exercise of bodily
faculties ; and passed into darkness alight with visions we cannot
see, into silence alive with voices we cannot hear. Like helpless
men we set our all on the one thing left us, and lift up our
hearts, knowing that we are but a mere speck among a myriad
worlds, yet greater than the sum of them ; having our roots in
the dark places of the earth, but our branches in the sweet airs
of heaven.^

(3) Nothing can give us greater courage than a sincere
affection for our Lord and His work. Courage is sure to
abound where love is fervent. Look among the mild and gentle
creatures of the brute creation and see how bold they are when
once they become mothers and have to defend their offspring.
A hen will fight for her chicks, though at another time she is
one of the most timid of birds. Gilbert White, in his Natural
History of Selborne, tells of a raven that was hatching her
young in a tree. The woodman began to fell it, but there she
sat ; the blows of the axe shook the tree, but she never moved,
and when it fell she was still upon her nest. Love will make
the most timid creature strong ; and if you love Christ you will
defy all fear, and count all hazards undergone for Him to be your
joy. In this sense, too, perfect love casteth out fear ; it " hopeth
all things, endureth all things," and continues still to wait upon
the Lord.

^ In February 1894 she had two of the finest campaigns of
her life — at Havre and Eouen. The turbulent beginning at
Havre was graphically described by her friend the Princess
Malsoff, who accompanied the Mar^chale in order to have a
taste of the vie apostolique. " There was a great tumult in the
' Lyre Havraise.' The Mar^chale had come to publish the word
of love and salvation. An immense crowd forced itself into the
hall, and who would have dared believe that they had all come
simply to present the world with the most scandalous, the most
vulgar and odious spectacle that one can imagine ? When the
Mar^chale rose with great dignity and cahn . . . she could not
make lierself heard. Every word was interrupted ; one could
see that it was a prepared stroke. One might imagine oneself to

' Michael Fairless, The Roadmender, 86.

PSALM XXVII. 14 35

be in an asylum. But she did not let herself be discouraged ; she
persevered ; she walked straight into the midst of the infuriated
crowd. She did not tame these wild beasts, but she came out
victorious all the same. Tall, beautiful, calm, sustained by her
divine conviction and with the strength of a great heart, she
came back again and again — our admirable Mar^chale ! ... In
the midst of this infernal and ridiculous tumult a few dite souls
felt a noble enthusiasm for this young woman who battled alone
against a hostile and wicked crowd. They came to grasp her
hand, to express their admiration for her and their shame for
those who had broken the simplest laws of hospitality, politeness,
and civilization. Blessed be our Mart^chale ; in her the whole
ArrrUe du Salut was personified that night in its strength, its
faith, its persevering love." ^

The Master knows ; He can but see
How willingly, how joyfully
I would within His vineyard stay
To bear the burden of the day.
And yet He bids me stand apart
With folded hands and longing heart.
I see at morn the happy throng
Pass by my door with jest and song.
They seem so glad, they seem so gay.
So ready for the busy day.

And when at eve they homeward go
Sometimes with weary steps and slow,
But laden with the sweet new wine.
And purple clusters of the vine.
And precious sheaves of golden grain
To recompense their toil and pain ;
But that the Lord doth choose for me,
I fain within their ranks would be.

Yet though I can but hope and wait,

I am not sad or desolate.

For every day with bounty free

The Master bringeth gifts to me.

From out His life there seems to shine

A wondrous glory into mine.

My life ! how dark and how unclean,

How poor and fruitless has it been.

1 J. Stralian, The Marichale (1913), 62.

36 WAITING COURAGEOUSLY

But sure the seed He planted theiu
That should have grown so tall and fair
Must now, at last, begin to spring
Beneath such heavenly nourishing.

And if, perchance, I fail to see
The thought of God concerning me,
I leave in peace my fallow field
Till love divine shall make it yield.
And when at last the corn and wine
Of all His harvests shall be mine,
Then shall I know, or soon, or late,
They also serve who stand and wait.

The Transience of Sorrow.

Literature.

Crosthwail, E. Q. S., Heavenward Steps, 78.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, i. 17.

Hutton (R. E.), The Grown of Christ, i. 547.

Ingram (A. F. W.), The Secrets of Strength, 199.

Maclaren (A,), llie Wearied Christ, 241.

Raleigh (A,), T]ie Way to the City, 79.

Rawnsley (R. D. B.), Sermons Preached in Country Churches, i. 118;

iii. 120.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Morning by Morniwj, 134.
Wilkinson (J. B.), Mission Sermons, ii. 255.
Winterbotham (R.), Sermons, 214.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxiii. 233 (H. P. Liddon) ; xxxv. 314

(R. B. Brindley).
Homiletic Review, xlix. 222 (F. Smith).
Treasury (New York), xxi. 951 (G. B. F. Hallock).

The Transience of Sorrow.

His anger is but for a moment;

In his favour is life :

Weeping may tarry for the night,

But joy Cometh in the morning.— Ps. xxx. 5.

There is an obvious antithesis in the first part of the text,
between " his anger " and " his favour." Probably there is a
similar antithesis between " a moment " and " life." For although
the word rendered " life " does not usually mean a lifetime, it
may have that signification, and the evident intention of contrast
seems to require it here. So, then, the meaning of the first part
of the text is, " the anger lasts for a moment ; the favour lasts
for a lifetime." The perpetuity of the one and the brevity of the
other are the Psalmist's thought. Then, if we pass to the second
part of the text, we observe that there is a double antithesis there
also. " Weeping " is set over against " joy " ; the " night " against
the " morning." And the first of these two contrasts is the more
striking if we observe that the word "joy" means, literally, "a
joyful shout," so that the voice which was lifted in weeping is con-
ceived of as now being heard in exultant praise. Then, still further,
the expression "may endure" literally means "come to lodge."
So that Weeping and Joy are personified. Two guests come —
one, dark-robed and approaching at the fitting season for such —
" the night " ; the other bright, coming with all things fresh and
sunny, in the dewy morn. The guest of the night is Weeping ;
the guest that takes its place in the morning is Gladness.

Thus the two clauses of the text suggest substantially the
same thought, and that is the persistence of joy and the transitori-
ness of sorrow. The one speaks of the succession of emotions in
the man; the other, of the successive aspects of the Divine
dealings which occasion these. The whole is a leaf out of the
Psalmist's own experience. The psalm commemorates his

40 THE TRANSIENCE OF SORROW

deliverance from some affliction, probably a sickness. That is
long gone past ; and the tears that it caused have long since
dried up. But this shout of joy of his has lasted all these
centuries, and is like to be immortal.

^ It was Paget himself who had taught us, years before,
through his best-known volume. The Spirit of Discipline, to con-
sider carefully the meanings and contrasts of accidie, and of
tristitia, and of " the sorrow of the world." I asked him once — it
was on a walk over the Col de Checouri at Courmayeur — to
expand for me afresh his understanding of the phrase he used to
quote from Spinoza: Tristitia est hominis transitio a majore ad
minorem perfectionem. He answered gravely and almost in a
whisper, " I can never understand Spinoza, but I am quite certain
he was right there." ^

Seasons of Sorrow.

1. Sorrow comes in the night. It comes in the night of
worldly reverses. These may not be the worst misfortunes in life,
but only those who experience them know their poignancy. It is
no small thing to have the savings of a lifetime swept away.
Perhaps the storm came, the flood fell, the fire burned, a friend
proved false, the crash of plans arrived, a blunder in judgment
happened — and the accumulation of years has gone. It repre-
sented our toil and tears and thought and love. But it perished
in an hour. It promised us happiness and independence in old
age. But the promise failed. Tears do not turn dust to
diamonds. Riches on wings fly faster from us than to us. To
cry over fortune lost is no wiser than for the miller to weep over
water that has flowed past.

2. Sorrow becomes our guest in the night of broken health.
The powers once were vigorous. We ran to our tasR. Caution
was scorned. Life seemed made to combat. We had the strength
of Hercules. But something broke. We came against a stone
wall. We reached a limit. Our wings were clii)ped. Suddenly
we discovered that tlie race must be won by swifter feet than
ours. Possibly we complain as a recent prisoner of pain who

' Archbishop Davidson, in Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford, xviii.

PSALM XXX. 5 41

said, " I cannot see why people should be born into a world like
this to suffer. Could I have seen my life from the beginning, and
had I been consulted as to whether I should live to suffer, I
certainly would have chosen never to have been." Possibly we
have money ; but pain hurts the rich and poor alike. Possibly we
are religious ; but pain hurts both the infidel and the Christian.
Possibly we deny pain or endure it as heroically as Epictetus, the
Phrygian philosopher-slave, in the Eoman court, who said, when
his master with some instrument of torture cruelly twisted his
servant's leg, " If you go on you will break it " ; and who also said
calmly, without expressing any of the anguish he felt when his
brutal master did go on, " I told you that you would break it."
Possibly you despise the old suffering house in which you live as
did this same ancient thinker, and define yourself as " an ethereal
existence staggering under the burden of a corpse." But what-
ever attitude we sustain towards pain, it wrings the stifled cry
from our heart, and our face often feels the burning touch of
a tear.

^ Heine, suffering great physical agony, living in his mattress
grave, has given us verse upon verse of sweet sadness — sometimes
bitter in harsh complaining against God and man ; while James
Thomson, in his great poem on London, " The City of Dreadful
Night," even says that, could he not have made a less miserable
world, he would not be God for all His glory — a horrible utterance,
but yet the answer of a man who has been made heartsick by the
poverty and misery of East London, the sight of innumerable
children who never know childhood, so soon does life curse them.^

3. Sorrow comes to tarry with us in the night of hereavement.
It may be only for an infant whose beauty was never caught by
a camera, and whose innocent feet were too fair to walk other
than streets of the city of God. It may be for a friend or a lover
who, in the sweet old days, went out of our life and left us for an
imperishable treasure only the sacred memories of hours that can
never return. After these many years, were a cross-section made
of our soul, we feel that the image of that blessed being would be
found mirrored thereon. It may be for a mother, whose voice
will never again this side the stars call her child ; or for a father,
whose big, brave life will no more bid us follow the path of virtue.

* F. Lynch.

42 THE TRANSIENCE OF SORROW

We know that to-day in the little city of the dead, hard by the
city of the living, sleeps the dust of our sacred dead, or under
other skies they who are dead to us walk forgetful of old ties and
obligations. So onward we all go, each bearing his burden of
sorrow.

^ In some instances the Indian mothers literally cry their
eyes out ; and if you ask a blind woman how she lost her vision,
she may answer that it was by weeping too hard for her lost
relatives, and dimness of sight is attributed to the same cause.
The wailings of an Indian over his lost relative, and especially of
a mother over her lost children, are piercing and heart-rending ;
but it is pleasant to see the contrast in this respect between those
who are still ignorant of the Gospel and such as have received it.
The Christian converts have now learned to accept their bereave-
ments as from God's hand in silence and submission, and their
mute grief is more impressive than the loud lamentation of the
heathen.^

^ Scarlet fever in its most virulent form appeared in Carlisle
(where Dr. Tait was then Dean), and, of the six little daughters
whose presence had brought radiance to the Deanery, the heart-
broken parents were called, within the space of a few weeks, to
part with all except the infant who had just been born. One by
one, between the 10th of March and the 10th of April, they were
laid in the single grave in Stanwix Churchyard. The last entry
which has been quoted from the diary was dated March 2. The
entry which immediately succeeds it is as follows : —

" Thursday, 8th May 1856. — I have not had the heart to make
any entry in my journal now for above nine weeks. When last
I wrote I had six daughters on earth ; now I have one, an infant.
0 God, Thou hast dealt very mysteriously with us. We have
been passing through deep waters : our feet are well-nigh gone.
But though Thou slay us, yet will we trust in Thee. . . . They
are gone from us, all but my beloved Craufurd and the babe.
Thou hast re-claimed the lent jewels. Yet, 0 Lord, shall I not
thank Thee now ? I will thank Thee not only for the children
Thou hast left to us, but for those Thou hast re-claimed. I thank
Thee for the blessing of the last ten years, and for all the sweet
memories of their little lives — memories how fragrant with every
blissful, happy thought. I thank Thee for the full assurance that
each has gone to the arms of the Good Shepherd, whom each
loved according to the capacity of her years. I thank Thee for
the bright hopes of a happy re-union, when we shall meet to part

' Bishop W. C. Bonipas, Northern Lights on the Bible, 55.

PSALM XXX. 5 43

no more. 0 Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake, comfort our desolate
hearts. May we be a united family still in heart through the
communion of saints — through Jesus Christ our Lord." ^

4. Sorrow comes in the night of the consciousness of sin. In
the dim glimmer of the fire on the hearth the angel of penitence
brings to our notice stains on our garment which, she assures us,
would look a thousand times worse if we saw them in the proper
light — saw them as others see them, and, above all, as God sees
them. She tells us that such marks can never be removed; that
there are also upon our countenance ugly scars which will always
disfigure it ; that it is a hopeless thing when a man has lost his
good name ; that when that is lost there is nothing worth keep-
ing. She tells us, too, that even those stains which others may
not detect God sees ; that sin is sin, whether it be secret or open ;
and that, the wide world over and in every age, " the wages of sin
is death,"

Yearly I till the vale and sow the seed,

But in the furrow rots the golden grain;

My labour is accursed, and all in vain, —
The very earth revolteth at my deed.
God saith no man shall slay me, though I plead

Daily for death. He placed this scarlet stain

Here on my brow, and agonizing pain
Gnaws me beneath it — yet He gives no heed.
Enoch reproacheth me — the guileless lad —

With eyes too like that other's, long since dead;

Eemorse engulfs me in her sanguine flood ;
I build this City, else I should go mad;

But, as I work, the frowning walls turn red

And all the towers drip crimson with his blood.*

The Sojourn of Sorrow.

1. Sorrow always comes with a mission. It has a message
from God to human life. You may get two diametrically opposite
motions out of the same machine. The same power will send one

^ Life of Archbishop) Tail, i. 189.
» Lloyd Mifflin.

44 THE TRANSIENCE OF SORROW

wheel revolving from riglit to left, and another from left to right,
but they are co-operant to grind out at the far end the one pro-
duct. It is the same revolution of the earth that brings blessed
lengthening days and growing summer, and that cuts short the
sun's course and brings declining days and increasing cold. It is
the same motion that hurls a comet close to the burning sun and
sends it wandering away out into the fields of astronomical space,
beyond the ken of telescope, and almost beyond the reach of
thought. And so one uniform Divine purpose fills the life, and
there are no interruptions, however brief, to the steady, con-
tinuous flow of God's outpoured blessings. AH is love and favour.
Anger is masked love, and sorrow has the same source and mission
as joy. It takes all sorts of weather to make a year, and all
tend to the same issue of ripened harvests and full barns.

^ I grudged not our noble, lovely child, but rather do delight
that such a seed should blossom and bear in the kindly and
kindred paradise of my God. And why should not I speak of
thee, my Edward ! seeing it was in the season of thy sickness and
death the Lord did reveal in me the knowledge and hope and
desire of His Son from heaven ? Glorious exchange ! He took
my son to His own more fatherly bosom, and revealed in my
bosom the sure expectation and faith of His own eternal Son !
Dear season of my life, ever to be remembered, when I knew the
sweetness and fruitfulness of such joy and sorrow ! ^

^ " We will not complain of Dante's miseries," said Carlyle ;
" had all gone well with him as he wished it, Florence would have
had another prosperous Lord Mayor, but the world would have
lost the Divina Commedia."

^ There came to Glasgow, not so long ago, a pianist of an
excellent reputation, I read the Herald's criticism on him, and
there was one thing in it that I noted specially. The Herald said
that he had always been brilliant — always been wonderful as an
executant — but now there was a depth of feeling in him that had
never been present in his work before. A day or two afterwards,
preaching in a suburb, I met a relative of the pianist. And we
fell to talk of him, and of the Herald, and of the Herald's
criticism on him. And he said to me, " Did you notice that ?
And do you know what was the secret of the cliange ? It xoas tJie
death of his mother eighteen months ago." He was an only son,
unmarried, and he had been simply devoted to his mother. And

' Edward Irving, in Life by Mrs. Oliphant, L 247.

PSALM XXX. 5 45

then she died, and he was left alone, and all the deeps were
broken up in him. And now he played as only he can play who
knows what life and death are, and what sorrow is.^

The dark brown mould's upturned

By the sharp-pointed plow,
And I've a lesson learned.

My life is but a field

Stretched out beneath God's sky
Some harvest rich to yield.

Where grows the golden gi'ain,

Where faith, — where sympathy?
In a furrow cut by pain.^

2. Sorrow tarries only for the night. It takes its departure
whenever its mission is fulfilled. A thunder-storm is very short
when measured against the long summer day in which it crashes ;
and very few days have thunder-storms. It must be a bad climate
where half the days are rainy. If we were to take a chart and
prick out upon it the line of our voyage, we should find that the
spaces in which the weather was tempestuous were brief and few
indeed as compared with those in which it was sunny and calm.

^ Referring to the discipline which God's love makes Him use,
David says, " For his anger is but for a moment : his favour is for
a lifetime. Weeping may come in to lodge at even, but joy
Cometh in the morning." There may be weeping. There shall be
joy. Weeping won't stay long. There is a morning coming,
always a morning coming, with the sunshine and the chorus of
the birds. Love's discipling touch that seems at the moment like
anger is only for a moment. (The printer wanted to change that
word " discipling " to " disciplining " ; but God's tenderness comes
to us anew when we realize that disciplining with its sharp edge
means the same as discipling, with its softer, warmer touch.)
The loving favour is for always, a lifetime of eternal life.^

^ A tourist writes of stopping at Giesbach to look at the
wonders of its waterfalls. The party had to pass over one of
the falls on a slender bridge through the drenching water, with the
wild torrents dashing beneath. It was a trying experience. But

1 G. H. Morrison, The Afterglow of God, 92.

* M. D. Babcock, Thoughts/or Hvery-Day Living, 167.

' S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 210.

46 THE TRANSIENCE OF SORROW

once through, a glorious picture burst upon them. There were
rainbows above, beneath, and circling on all sides. So the spray
of sorrow falls now, and we may have to walk through floods and
pitiless tcnrents, and all may seem a strange, inexplicable mystery.
But there will come a time when we shall have passed through
these showers of grief, and when we shall stand amid the
splendour of rainbows on the shores of glory. Then we shall
understand, and see love in every pang and tear.^

From the sunshine of Thy dwelling
Thou hast sent me this new day,
Laden with Thy love excelling,
Tidings of Thy glory telling
To refresh my way.

Good and perfect gifts are lying

Wrapt within its folds of light,
Pledges of a faith undying,
That earth's sorrow and its sighing
Will but last a night.^

3. There is a balance of good in the world, using the word
"good" in the lowest sense, that is, looking merely on man's
animal life, and regarding him only as a denizen, for a little, of
this material world. Men are busy, men are happy ; far more
happy, at least, than miserable. Some few are miserable utterly ;
all are more or less unhappy at times, and for a little. Yes ! that
is just it, just what the text says — " for a little " ; the dark time is
"for a moment." The brighter times stretch on, and flow into
each other, and go far to fill up the life.

^ The proportion of solid matter needed to colour the Irwell
is very little in comparison with the whole of the stream. But
the current carries it, and a trace of dye-stuff will stain miles of
the turbid stream. Memory and anticipation beat the metal thin,
and make it cover an enormous space. And the misery is that,
somehow, we have better memories for sad hours than for joyful
ones, and it is easier to get accustomed to " blessings," as we call
them, and to lose the poignancy of their sweetness because they
become familiar, than it is to apply the same process to our
sorrows, and thus to take the edge off them. The rose's prickles
are felt in the flesh longer than its fragrance lives in the nostrils,

> J. R. Miller, Week-Day Religim, 81.
' G. MiitLeson, Sacred Sanga, 57.

PSALM XXX. 5 47

or its hue in the eye. Men have long memories for their pains as
compared with their remembrance of their sorrows.^

^ To her friend Miss Nicholson, whose sympathy brought her
much strength and peace, Florence Nightingale wrote in 1846 :
" My imagination is so filled with the misery of this world that
the only thing in which to labour brings any return, seems to me
helping and sympathizing there; and all that poets sing of the
glories of this world appears to me untrue : all the people I see
are eaten up with care or poverty or disease. I know that it was
God who created the good, and man the evil, which was not the
will of God, but the necessary consequence of His leaving free-
will to man. I know that misery is the alphabet of fire, in which
history, with its warning hand, writes in flaming letters the conse-
quences of Evil (the Kingdom of Man), and that, without its
glaring light, we should never see the path into the Kingdom of
God, or heed the directing guide-posts." ^

III.

The Supplanter of Sorrow.

1. "Joy Cometh in the morning." There are two figures
presented~"before us, the dark-robed and the bright-garmented.
The one is the guest of the night, the other is the guest of the
morning. The verb which occurs in the first clause of the second
half of the text is not repeated in the second, and so the words
may be taken in two ways. They may either express how Joy,
the morning guest, comes, and turns out the evening visitant, or
they may suggest how we took Sorrow in when the night fell, to
sit by the fireside, but when morning dawned — who is this sitting
in her place, smiling as we look at her ? It is Sorrow transfigured,
and her name is changed into Joy. Either the substitution or the
transformation may be supposed to be in the Psalmist's mind.
Both are true.

^ Does not the whole teaching of the Cross say that sorrow
and pain alone wake us up to reality, and that trial is a truer
refiner of character than pleasure ? Of course, this is not our first
impression ; it needs a revelation to tell it, or at all events to
interpret our own experience. You have a proof of that in a

' A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, 243.

* Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale, i. 58.

48 THE TRANSIENCE OF SORROW

child's wonder at the expression, " Blessed are they that mourn " ;
for how should a hapj)y, careless child diviue such a mystery ?
Life alone can apply the meaning of these words of Christ, or
explain how true they are ; for, indeed, they are only subjectively
true, deriving their truth not from sorrow and pain in themselves,
but from the tempers on which they fall ; so that they are not
true always — to some never true. Yet how deep they are, and
how such convictions alone can make this life intelligible or
tolerable ! That is a blessed faith which feels that there cannot
be clouds and gloom for ever — which, ever resting in conviction of
what God is, hopes and knows that "joy cometh in the morning." ^

Say not that darkness is the doom of light.
That every sun must sink in night's abyss,
While every golden day declines to this,

To die and pass at evening out of sight.

Say rather that the morning ends the night,

That death must die beneath the dayspring's kiss —
Whilst dawn the powers of darkness shall dismiss,

And put their dusky armaments to flight.

Man measures life in this wise ; first the morn,
And secondly the noontide's perfect prime.
And lastly night, when all things fade away :

But God, ere yet the sons of men were born,
Showed forth a better way of marking time —
"The evening and the morning were the day."'

2. We can anticipate the morning even in our night of sorrow.
Even in the midst of the snow and cold and darkness of Arctic
regions, the explorers build houses for themselves of the very
blocks of ice, and within are warmth and light and comfort and
vitality, while around is a dreary waste. There may be two
currents in the great ocean ; a cold one may set from the Pole
and threaten to chill and freeze all life out, but from the Equator
there will be a warm one which will more than counterbalance
the inrush of the cold. And so it is possible for us, even when
things about us are dark and gloomy, and flesh and natural
sensibilities all proclaim to us the necessity of sadness — it is
possible for us to be aware of a central blessedness, not boisterous,
but so grave and calm that the world cannot discriminate between
it and sadness, which yet its possessors know to be blessedness

» Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 281.

2 Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Verses, Wise or Otherwise, 200.

PSALM XXX. 5 49

unmingled. Left alone, we may have a companion ; in our
ignorance we may be enlightened ; and in the murkiest night of
our sorrow we may have, burning cheerily within our hearts, a
light unquenchable.

^ A traveller entered Milan Cathedral at the dawn of day.
The sunbeams fell on the eastern windows. Every pane of
glass revealed its beauty. The images of apostle, prophet, angel,
and Christ were seen in all their glory. The sun swept on to
his zenith and then drove his chariot behind the western Alps.
As he did so he flung his beams upon the western windows of the
great shrine. Then the glories they contained appeared. Not a
figure remained without its light. All the richness of colour and
symbolism appeared. So the passing of time and the shining of
the consolations of faith into a life transform sorrow into joy and
gloom into glory.^

Oh, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep ;

The Power who pities man, hath shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;

And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night:

And grief may hide an evening guest.
But joy shall come with early light.^

* F. Smitli, in Homiletic Review, xlix. 224.
2 W. C. Bryant, Poems, 39.

PS. XXV.-CXIX. — 4

Room to Live.

Literature.

Adams (J.), Sermons in Syntax, 51.

Ainsworth (P. C), The Pilgrim Church, 201.

Clow (W. M.), The Secret of the Lord, 333.

Ellis (J.), Through Christ to Life, 52.

Miller (J. R.), Week- Day Religion, 1.

Morrison (G. H.), The Afterglow of God, 143.

Christian World Vul-pit, Ixxix. 253 (B. J. Gibbon) ; Ixxx. 158 (C. F.

Perry).
Treasury (New York), xii. 175 (T. W. Anderson).

Room to Live.

Thou hast set my feet in a large place. — Ps. xxxi. 8.

The idea is common in the Psalms of distress as restraint, irksome
confinement. The man in trouble is shut up : he is in a strait
place. Consequently the idea of deliverance takes the form of
enlargement. The distressed man is led out of a narrow gorge
into a wide plain. He dwells now in a broad place. He enjoys
the sense of ample space. " Thou hast set my feet in a large
place." We have the same figure, although our use of it is
perhaps not so common, in our own language. We talk of
" straitened circumstances," and again of " room to breathe " and
" elbow room."

Straitened. Circumstances.

There are agencies and influences always operating, whose
nature it is to reduce life to a narrow area. The most potent are
sin, trouble, and grinding toil.

1. The narrowing effect of sin, more than of anything else, seems
to be suggested by these words. There is the inherited weakness
and the encircling contagion — within us, the evil tendency;
without us, the unhallowed opportunity. Sometimes a man ac-
cepts the pressing solicitation of evil, or yields to the hot-handed
grip of the world's desire; and then with a demeaned dignity
and lowered self-respect, he measures life and finds he has but a
few square feet in which to stand and call himself a fool. He
measures his shame and his weakness — his poor failure — and he
says, Life is a narrow place.

^ When William Blake the poet was an old man, there came
a lady one day to see him. She was beautiful and rich, and she

54 ROOM TO LIVE

had the world at her feet, as we express it. Blake looked at her,
as with a look of pity he put his hand upon her head and said,
" My child, may God make the world as beautiful to you as it has
been to me." Let a young man have a pure imagination and his
world will be a world of glory. He may be poor, and his days
may be monotonous, but life will be clad for him in royal
splendour. And that is where the curse of sin comes in, defiling
and polluting everything. Let it once creep into the imagination,
and everything bright and beautiful is gone.^

So dear to Heav'n is saintly chastity

That when a soul is found sincerely so,

A thousand liveried angels lackey her,

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.

And in clear dream, and solemn vision.

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,

Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants

Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.

The unpolluted temple of the mind.

And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence.

Till all be made immortal: but when lust

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,

Lets in defilement to the inward parts,

The soul grows clotted by contagion,

Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose

The divine property of her first being.

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp

Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres.

Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave,

As loth to leave the body that it lov'd,

And link't itself by carnal sensuality

To a degenerate and degraded state.^

2. Trouble and adversity make life a small room. It is true
that at times a stone pillow brings a man, like dreaming Jacob,
near heaven, but generally the heart is full of unsatisfied longings,
of unutterable thoughts. We are shut in by sordid circumstances,
like the lark by its cheap cage, or we drag behind us a chain of
anxiety and regret ; we are clogged by ill-health or mean cares ;
parts of our being lie waste, or yield crops that cause pain and
shame. At times the sky is grey, the heart full of bitterness.

1 G. II. Morrison, The Afterglow of God, 143.
' Milton, Comus.

PSALM XXXI. 8 55

All is so flat and depressing, and no outlook promises better
weather to come.

^ In every life are there not strange events, unlooked-for
catastrophes, heartbreaking bereavements, mysterious contradic-
tions, unfathomed problems shed all along our path, in which it
seems as though by some sudden combination the very heavens
are blotted out ? Do we not sometimes feel like the pelican in
the wilderness or the stranger left by the caravan to die alone in
a dry and thirsty land where no water is ? Life's heaviest blows
often come most unexpectedly. Death appears, and our astonish-
ment is even greater than our grief. Losses arise, and we are
petrified with surprise as our treasure disappears in the most
unlikely directions. Friends and comrades fail us, and amaze-
ment almost chokes us. Have we not times in which prayer fails
and hope dies down to a poor flicker, and we can do nothing and
think nothing, and when we feel as dead men that cumber the
ground ? Do we not know what it is to walk about with that
sickening of heart which makes our food like bitter herbs, and in
the morning makes us wish for evening and at night makes us
long for morning ? ^

^ From physical weakness, mental distress, or it may be from
the faults of others, some lives remain weak and feel it, and, with
lessening resources, find increasing pain. To such the following
incident will appeal : " I was strongly touched one day," says
Dr. Gregory, "by the bedside of an energetic and elastic man
of business, sanguine and successful and with a splendid flow
of spirits, who was suddenly struck down by illness. With
trembling finger and with moistened eyes he pointed to an
illuminated text hung in front of him at the foot of his bed,
' Have mercy upon me, 0 Lord ; for I am weak ' — a new and
strange experience for one in the flower of manhood, who had
hitherto known only high-toned health. He said, ' Do you see
that ? ' I answered, ' Yes, and God sees it and hears it too.' ' Ah,'
said he, ' I got them to put it there that I might look at it and
then from it to God.' " 2

3. The monotony of our tasks has a narrowing effect on life.
The young just entering life find it full of novelty and aglow
with romance. AH things are possible to them. The world is
open before them. They are conscious of latent powers. They
see great opportunities. They will go far. They will climb

1 W. Biaiuwell Booth. 2 J. Ellis.

56 ROOM TO LIVE

high, "Thou hast set my feet in a large room," they are well
able to say. But as they grow older, and find their place in the
world, and settle down to their work, the glamour vanishes.
They find that their sphere is small, their abilities limited, and
their opportunities few. The wide horizon of youth contracts.
Work loses its novelty. It becomes wearisome and monotonous,
and they are ready to cry, *' Thou hast set my feet in a small
room ! "

•[j The girl who goes to the marriage altar, her head full of
romance, wakes up from love's young dream to discover that her
life is a ceaseless round of cooking, sweeping, dusting, and tidying.
Her husband perhaps works in a factory, where he feeds a
machine, the same machine, or stokes a fire, the same fire, all day
long, and six days a week. I have seen a girl in a factory lining
a box with paper, and then lining another box with paper, and
continuing to line boxes with paper the livelong day. Oh, for an
outdoor life ! ^

The close and subtle clasping of a chain.
Formed not of gold, but of corroded brass.
Whose links are furnished from the common mine
Of everyday's event, and want, and wish;
From work-times, diet-times, and sleeping- times :
And thence constructed, mean and heavy links
Within the pandemouic walls of sense
Enchain our deathless part, constrain our strength,
And waste the goodly stature of our soul.

Howbeit, we love this bondage; we do cleave

Unto the sordid and unholy thing.

Fearing the sudden wrench required to break

Those claspM links. Behold ! all sights and sounds

In air, and sea, and earth, and under earth.

All flesh, all life, all ends, are mysteries;

And all that is mysterious dreadful seems,

And all we cannot understand we fear.

Ourselves do scare ourselves; we hide our sight

In artificial nature from the true,

And throw sensation's veil associative

On God's creation, mans intelligence;

Bowing our high imaginings to eat

Dust, like the serpent, once erect as they;

> B. J. Gibbon.

PSALM XXXI. 8 57

Binding conspicuous on our reason's brow
Phylacteries of shame ; learning to feel
By rote, and act by rule (man's rule, not God's !),
Until our words grow echoes, and our thoughts
A mechanism of spirit.^

II.

Large Eoom.

There are two ways in which the smallest room can be en-
larged indefinitely — one by lifting the roof, the other by pushing
back the walls. And in those two ways, by taking off the roof of
life until we see God, and knocking away the walls of time until
we see eternity, each of us may occupy — and should occupy,
as many do — the largest room on earth.

i. Add God to Life.

1. Let us add the thought of God to life, God alone can deal
effectively with our sin. He alone can give deliverance. And
what happens to the man who resolutely takes his place in the
battle against sin — his own sin, the world's sin ? Day by day the
soul within him, which has its birthplace and its goal beyond the
stars, asserts itself, as it discovers larger rights and possibilities,
and an ever surer hope of victory gives vision not bounded by
life's most pressing and persistent circumstance. Day by day it
becomes more apparent that the life of the soul is circled by
a horizon that its most daring dreams have never scanned, and
that for the pure-hearted the dusty, choking, hand-to-hand en-
counter with sin holds promise wider than the world. Let us
remember that, if in this day of much striving we are growing
sick and weary, we are not fighting for the little patch of trampled
earth beneath our feet, where the grass and the flowers have been
beaten into common dust. We are fighting for the right and
fitness to enter the land that is very far off, where, by the river
of nameless peace, men have life because they see God, Surely
the life that finds room for a fight like that is a wide life !

^ If our faith is to be true, we need the simple, direct sense

^ E, B, Browning, A Sea-side Meditaiion.

58 ROOM TO LIVE

of God the Father that we had as children — we need that ex-
panded into a sense of the great, living God. What was dear
to us in our childhood's religion is purified and preserved and
strengthened by the wider range which the expansion of our
life has opened up. In one of Shakespeare's sonnets he writes :

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.

Now what Shakespeare wrote about this friendship, we may
apply to the time in which we are living. It is the thought of
God which lifts us up above the melancholy of the past, and
delivers us from the weakness that morbid regret instilled into
our hearts. We believe in a God of our life who is able to
develop our growth. We learn from Jesus to recognize in God's
handling of us that any outward change, however unwelcome,
must be accompanied by an inward access of moral strength.
Whatever God takes from us in that way comes back to us in
another form, enriched, enlarged.^

"^ 2. The thought of God will reveal a purpose in trouble. We
shall realize that " in every sorrow of the heart, Eternal INIercy
bears a part." God's good purpose runs through our saddened
hours. It is then that pride dies and sympathy is born. But
if we forget God we reverse this order of things. We grow
narrower and colder and harder. We drift into cynicism and
pessimism. We are the worse instead of the better for our tears.
There is an old saying attributed to Christ that has a double
significance. It runs : " He that is near Me is near the fire."
To be near the fire is to be tested, perhaps scorched and made
hard. But it is also to be warmed and cheered, and the double
action is felt by each disciple. Attempts at serious, earnest living
will always involve pain, but it will be pain that is compensated
by stronger and sweeter strength. Life is neither all sunshine nor
all gloom. A restless devil and a changing world will account for
discomforts, and there are moments of intense dreariness, gloom,
bitterness, and woe. Then I am with you, says the Lord, as a
Comforter able to help, to bring Lazarus from the dead ; and this

» J. Moffatt

PSALM XXXI. 8 59

is more than we dare ask for or can realize. As the chaplain
said to the dying Highlander — "Geordie, 'tis just Jesus"; and
where the cloud appears Jesus is not far away.

^ Mr. A. C. Benson has described in The House of Quiet the '/
life of a man who had attained, after a youth of unstable health,
to an apparently sound constitution, and was now living out a full
and happy and useful life in London. Suddenly his old delicacy
of health reappeared. He consulted an eminent physician. He
came out of the consulting-room with a virtual sentence of death.
"To say farewell to the bustle and activity of life; to be laid
aside on a shelf like a cracked vase, turning as far as possible my
ornamental front to the world ; to live the shadowed life, a
creature of rules and hours — a degrading and humiliating role."
But he accepted the will of God. He took up his cross. He
passed into " The House of Quiet," expecting only the peace of
a difficult resignation. But in " The House of Quiet " a new life
began. An unexpected feeling of the possibilities of life dawned.
His perceptions became more delicate. The gush of morning air,
the liquid song of birds, the sprouting of the green buds, the
babble of the stream gave a new delight. His intellectual life
grew strong, eager, discerning. A quickened taste for pure and
noble reading, and a fresh joy in beauty, filled him with rapture.
Then there swelled within him a more deliberate intention of
enjoying simple things and of expecting beauty in homely life.
At last he awoke to his true service. He had hitherto looked on
at life around him with a dimmed eye and dulled ear. Now
all the cries of the sick and the pained, and all the eager and
appealing voices of the young and wistful, and all the soft, low
sobbing of the bereaved fell upon his ears. All the needs, daily
and clamant, of his neighbours rose up in appeal. This broken
man, walking on the edge of death's abyss, gave up his life and
used his feeble strength to help and to comfort others. He
found that he had entered a new world. He no longer lived
in the isolation of the strong, the successful, the selfish. New
felicities swelled within his iieart. New and unhoped-for strength
was given. His life became a life of faith and love ; and that
rest which is our deepest satisfaction is always their first-
born child.^

The cry of man's anguish went up unto God:

" Lord, take away pain —
The shadow that darkens the world Thou hast made,

The close-coiling chain

* W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, 333.

6o ROOM TO LIVE

That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs

Oil the wings that would soar;
Lord, take away pain from the world Thou hast made,

That it love Thee the more ! "

Then answered the Lord to the cry of His world:

" Shall I take away pain
And with it the power of the soul to endure,

Made strong by the strain ?
Shall I take away pity that knits heart to heart,

And sacrifice high ?
Will ye lose all your heroes that lift from the fire

White brows to the sky ?
Shall I take away love that redeems with a price,

And smiles at its loss ?
Can ye spare from your lives that would climb into ]\Iine

The Christ on His cross ? "

3. The thought of God will change grinding toil into a sweet
ministry.

(1) We shall realize that our sphere is God-appointed. The
place in which we find ourselves is the place in which the Master
desires us to live our life.

Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident;
It is the very place God meant for thee.

N There is no haphazard in this world. God leads every one of His
children by the right way. He knows where and under what
influences each particular life will ripen best. One tree grows
best in the sheltered valley, another by the water's edge, another
on the bleak mountain-top swept by storms. There is always
adaptation in nature. Every tree or plant is found in the locality
where the conditions of its growth exist, and does God give more
thought to trees and plants than to His own children ? He places
us amid the circumstances and experiences in which our life will
grow and ripen the best. The peculiar discipline to which we are
each subjected is the discipline we severally need to bring out in
us the beauties and graces of true spiritual character. We are
in the right school. We may think that we would ripen move
quickly in a more easy and luxurious life, but God knows what is
best ; He makes no mistakes.

PSALM XXXI. 8 6i

^ Too often the Christian thinks that he could " walk and
please God " if he might first readjust the pathway to his own
liking. But surely it is not so. Our work, our home, our
appointed circle of intercourse, our temperament, our past, He has
made them. It is ours not to re-arrange His plan, but to follow
Him along it. There is an instructive passage in the life of
Madame de la Mothe Guyon. At an early stage of her blessed
walk with God, peculiar trials beset her home life. She had learnt
to taste the deep sweetness of solitary communion with the Lord
in order to renew her strength for duty. But day by day this
was made impossible in ways exquisitely trying. For a time her
spirituai prosperity was greatly disturbed. But soon she saw that
even in this there lay hidden the will of God, and that while the
difficulty lasted she was accordingly to welcome it as from Him.
By His grace she did so, and with the surrender, with the trust,
there came to her a larger and fuller experience of peace than
she had ever known when time seemed at her own disposal.^

^ There is a work for all of us, and there is a work for each, v
work which I cannot do in a crowd, or as one of a mass, but as
one man, acting siugly, according to my own gifts, and under a
sense of my personal responsibility. There is no doubt associated
work for me to do. I must do my work as part of the world's
great whole, or as a member of some great body. But I have a
special work to do, as one individual, who by God's plan and
appointment has a separate position, separate responsibilities, and
a separate work ; if I do not do it, it must be left undone. No
one of my special fellows can do that special work for me which
I have come into the world to do ; he may do a higher work, a
greater work, but he cannot do my work. I cannot hand over
my work to him, any more than I can hand over my responsi-
bilities or my gifts.^

(2) "We shall regard all the tasks of life as golden opportunities
to further a great purpose. After having seen the sordidness and
meanness and littleness of things, David still held that life is a
grand, free, glorious gift, that it is liberty and opportunity and
hope. What was the secret of his wide and worthy view of life ?
How had he escaped these narrower and meaner thoughts that
crowd into men's minds and belittle their lives ? He had laid
hold upon God. He looked at life through the Divine purpose.
He found the high and noble meaning of the dusty parable that

^ H. C. G. Moule, All in Christ, 207.
* Rnskin.

62 ROOM TO LIVE

men call the day's work. When he talks of life as a large room,
it is really his way of saying, " Thy service is perfect freedom."
If life is lived to God, then it is wider than any man can measure.

\j/ ^ The Booth children were left in no mist of doubt as to their
future. There was an end, a point, a purpose, in their life. They
grew up in an atmosphere of decision. Many children are made
timid, diffident, ineffective by their training. They are constantly
told how naughty they are, till they begin to believe that they
are good for nothing. The Booth parents acted on a different
principle. They had faith in their children and for their children.
When Katie was still a little girl in socks, her mother would say
to her, " Now, Katie, you are not here in this world for yourself.
You have been sent for others. Tht world is waiting for you." ^

^ It was the strange fancy of a little child, writes George
MacDonald, as he stood on a summer's evening looking intently
and thoughtfully at the great banks of clouds piled like mountains
of glory about the setting sun: "Mother, I wish I could be a
painter." " Why, my child ? " " For then I would help God to
paint the clouds and the sunsets." It was a strange and beauti-
ful aspiration. But our commonest work in this world may be
made far nobler than that. We may live to touch hues of loveli-
ness in immortal spirits which shall endure for ever. Clouds dis-
solve and float away. The most gorgeous sunset splendours
vanish in a few moments. The artist's canvas crumbles and his
wondrous creations fade. But work done for Christ endures for
ever. A life of simple consecration leaves a trace of imperishable
beauty on everything it touches. Not great deeds alone, but the
smallest, the obscurest, the most prosaic, write their record in
fadeless lines.^

^ It is possible to bring near that far-distant world and to
hold it in our hearts. When the soul's revealing-glass is brought
to bear upon it — when eternity swims like a new world into our
ken — how differently does life look in the light of that revelation !
The light of eternity playing about the things of time, how it
changes everything ! How differently now shall our life be led,
once that vision has begun to be ours ! In this light we see our
life and work at a new angle, and we change our minds as to the
things that are big with importance and the things that are of
little value. We see that things are large or small, not so much
from the comparison they make with one another, but according
as they have in them the elements of eternal meaning and

» J. Strahan, The. Marichah (1913), 10.
« J. K. Miller, Week-Day Relig-ion, 90.

PSALM XXXI. 8 63

purpose. As to our life's work, it is not so much what we are
doing or where we are doing it, as it is how we are doing it and
with what purpose in view. The case is well put by Professor
Drummond in his own clear-cut way. " An office is not a place
for making money, it is a place for making character. A work-
shop is not a place for making machinery, it is a place for making
men. ... A school of learning is not so much a place for making
scholars, as a place for making souls. And he who would ripen
and perfect the eternal element in his being will do this by
attending to the religious uses of his daily task, recognizing the
unseen in the seen, and so turning three-fourths of each day's life
into an ever-acting means of grace." In his picturesque study of
Lazarus brought back to earth again from heaven, Browning
seeks to show the effect that the heavenly vision will have on a
man who must still walk the earth. It will mean for him a
reversal of the world's judgments as to the meaning of things
and the proportion of values. And it will mean for those who
watch him a feeling of his unfitness for playing his part as a
successful man of the world in the affairs of this life.
The man is witless of the size, the sum,
The value in proportion of all things,
Or whether it be little or be much.^

^ The type may be as crude and clumsy as were the first
wooden pieces of Faust and Gutenberg, but if the thought be deep
and great the imperfection of the medium through which it finds
its way to the mind is of small account ; the conditions in which
we pass this mortal life may be hard and uncongenial, but if they
convey spiritual truths to us, and make us aware of spiritual
realities, it were cowardly to complain and ignorant to rebel.
The wise traveller, to whom the great scenery or the great art of
the world is accessible, does not waste his time on the discomforts
of travel or allow his thoughts to dwell on the shortcomings of
his inn. The measure of a man's soul is his ability to disregard
the hindrances and concentrate his energy on the achievement;
to put aside the accidents of a relation, a work, an opportunity,
and grasp the reality. If there is, as a wise poet has told us, a
soul of goodness in things evil, there is much more certainly a
soul of beauty within the form of all relations and duties and
works ; and he who is able to carry all his relationships, duties,
and work to the mount where the patterns are, to the light of the
spiritual order where these mortal things instantly put on immor-
tality, has read the open secret and pierced the mystery of life.^

^ J. B. Maclean, The Secret of the Stream, 145.
2 H. W. Mabie, The Life of the SpirU, 282.

64 ROOM TO LIVE

God and Man are free.
Where Freedom is, no other cause is sure.

Is Purpose then Foreknowledge? — Human will

May yield and fail to win the victory :

And God Himself, it may be, turns and bends

His purposes to further human ends,

Stooping to serve His servant; so that still

We find no Purpose that is Prophecy.

But where both wills, the human and Divine

Are yoked together, where God ratifies

The struggling purposes of man, — there lies

The law unchangeable, the fixed decree

That nought in earth or heaven shall undermine.^

ii. Add Eternity to Life.

By bringing eternity into life we make it a large place.
Everything we do has an effect, an effect upon ourselves, that is
eternal. That is the recognition of eternity, and to bring this
conception into life is to make it a very wide room. We find life
small and tedious because the work we do seems so petty and
ineffective. What we do to-day we have to do again to-morrow,
still again the third day, and so continually. The baker bakes
his bread, but to-morrow it is all eaten and he has to bake another
batch, and day after day to go on baking. It seems hopeless to
try to feed his customers. " My work is never done," we con-
stantly hear. It is generally the housewife who says it. What
is the use of cooking, sweeping, dusting and tidying, when to-
morrow she has to cook, sweep, dust and tidy again, and all the
to-morrows of her life to repeat the programme ? Our work
seems so futile that the life spent in doing it appears petty, small,
unworthy. Yes ; but it is so in appearance only. It is not really
so. By our daily work we are manufacturing for eternity. We
are making, or we are marring, characters that will last for ever.
We are developing, or we are destroying, souls that will go on
with this handiwork upon them into eternity. We are fitting, or
we are unfitting, ourselves to dwell for ever in the holy light of
God.

^ If this life is all, then the horizon is near, and the whole
scope and outlook of man's highest life cramped and fettered. To

' Roger Heath, Beginnings, 66.

PSALM XXXI. 8 65

many a soul it would be a bondage almost as grim as the bondage
of Egypt. " Mas'r," pleads Tom, the slave of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
as he is threatened with death, " after ye've killed the body there
ain't no more ye can do. You may whip me, starve me, burn me,
it'll only send me sooner where I want to go." From the fire and
water, the cruel terror of his fellow, this pure and beautiful soul
was to pass to its vindication and eternal rest. We are always
reaching our limits ; there are things we cannot do, id' als we
cannot attain, powers we cannot conquer, service we cannot render,
but with the breaking of the morning when the spirit enters the
Homeland, then surely we must believe we shall see those limits
crossed. We shall be in a wealthy place, there will be a fuller,
richer life.^

'Tis a long road home ;
But sleep for aching eyes,

Best for weary feet.
For striving hearts a prize,
Silence still and sweet,
Wait at the end of the long road home.

'Tis a hard road home ;
Many faint and lag

Beneath the heavy pack,
With feet and hearts that drag,
But none looks back —
We know there's an end to the hard road home.

'Tis a dark road home.

With shadows long and deep,
Where timid travellers fall,
And scarce their path may keep;
But the Light that shines for all
Gleams at the end of the dark road home.

1 C. F. Perry.

PS. XXV.-CXIX.

The Beatitude of Forgiveness.

Literature.

Adams (J.), Sermons in Syntax, 45.

Dunbar (J. W.), The Beatitudes of the Old Testament; 129.

Kel)le (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year : Lent to Passiontide, 260.

Mackay (J. J.), Becent Letters of Christ, 124.

Meyer (F. B.), The Directory of the Devout Life, 15.

Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, i. 345.

Ritchie (A.), Sermons from St. Ignatius^ Pulpit, 42.

Sniellie (A,), In the Hour of Silence, 303.

Wilmot-Buxton (H. J.), In Many Keys, 102.

Children's Pulpit : Second Sunday after Christmas, ii. 204.

Church of England Pulpit, xxviii. 301.

Church Year Book, 1912, p. 49.

The Beatitude of Forgiveness.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no guile. — Ps. xxxii. i, 2.

These words form the preface to a psalm generally understood
to have been written in connexion with the great sin of David's
life. It sings of that happy time when he had repented of his
iniquity, when he had sought mercy and had found it, and then
poured out the joy of his heart. It is no marvel that his pent-up
feelings burst forth in such words as these, for the experience
through which he had passed had been peculiarly dark and bitter.
He tells here of the misery which he had undergone. He had
kept silence, he says, with the result that his very bones had
waxed old, and his moisture had been turned into the drought of
summer. He would not confess, he would not repent. To a man
with the open nature of David that would mean unspeakable
wretchedness, but he persevered in it month after month till the
mission of Nathan the prophet broke through his sulky reserve,
and let loose the springs of his being. And then how measureless
his peace and joy ! Probably no man has ever felt more deeply
than he the blessing of forgiveness. He entered into a new world,
and being a poet he could not refrain from giving expression to
his bliss in this beautiful poem, which begins with the outburst,
"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered."

^ This psalm has been selected by the Church for one of the
" seven penitential psalms." It forms a part of the service of the
synagogue on the great Day of Atonement. Yet it is almost as
much jubilant as penitent. The writer, while very sensible of his
sin, is still more sensible of the fact that his sin is pardoned.
While his first words breathe content and gratitude, his last are a
shout of rejoicing (ver. 10).^

' G. Rawlinson.

70 THE BEATITUDE OF FORGIVENESS

^ Ewald says : " The song is manifestly ancient, original
throughout, evidencing a strong spirit. Hardly could the inner
misery of a lacerated heart, together with the higher happiness of
one again reconciled and healed, be described with more inward-
ness, impressiveness, and power than here. The harder the
struggle in his heart, so much more glorious is the victory, so
much more limpid and joyous is the stream of the earnest word.
The colour also of the language is Davidic, and there is no reason
to doubt that it was sung after the transaction recorded in 2 Sam.
xii."

The Eeality of Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a reality on God's part, because sin is a reality
on our part. Forgiveness, or justification, is sometimes spoken of
as "treating the sinner as though he had not, sinned." This,
however, is but loose, figurative language. Forgiveness implies
sin, disobedience to God's law. Therefore God is bound, as the
RiRhteous One, to take account of sin. He must condemn or
pardon it. And our Lord Himself speaks of forgiveness as a
definite act. " Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee."

1. The Psalmist views sin under three aspects.

(1) First, he calls it transgression. In its literal sense this
means separation, or rending apart, or departure, and so comes
to express the notion of apostasy and rebellion. All sin is a
departure from God. It is treacherous rebellion. That is to say,
it has relation not only to a law, but to a Lawgiver. It is not
merely a departure from what is right, it is treason against God.
It not only breaks some impersonal ideal of duty, but it is an act
of rebellion against a loving Will which is in definite relations to
me. And so it assumes a far graver and more solemn aspect than
when we think of it as being merely a breach of law, a traversing
of duty, a crime against conscience, or society, or public opinion,
or expediency, or some abstract idea of morality. It is all these,
but it is something much worse than these. The inmost recesses
of the ugliness and wickedness of the wicked and ugly thing is
this, that it throws into disorder our relations to a living person,
that it is rebellion against the Living God.

PSALM xxxii. I, 2 71

^ There is in man an instinct of revolt, an enemy of all law,
a rebel which will stoop to no yoke, not even that of reason, duty,
and wisdom. This element in us is the root of all sin — das
radicale Bose of Kant. The independence which is the condition
of individuality is at the same time the eternal temptation of the
individual. That which makes us beings makes us also sinners.
Sin is, then, in our very marrow, it circulates in us like the blood
in our veins, it is mingled with all our substance. Or rather I am
wrong : temptation is our natm'al state, but sin is not necessary.
Sin consists in the voluntary confusion of the independence which
is good with the independence which is bad ; it is caused by the
half-indulgence granted to a first sophism. We shut our eyes to
the beginnings of evil because they are small, and in this weakness
is contained the germ of our defeat. Frincipiis ohsta — this maxim
dutifully followed would preserve us from almost all our catas-
trophes. We will have no other master but our caprice — that is
to say, our evil self will have no God, and the foundation of our
nature is seditious, impious, insolent, refractory, opposed to and
contemptuous of all that tries to rule it, and therefore contrary to
order, ungovernable and negative. It is this foundation which
Christianity calls the natural man. But the savage which is
within us, and constitutes the primitive stuff of us, must be
disciplined and civilized in order to produce a man. And the
man must be patiently cultivated to produce a wise man, and the
wise man must be tested and tried if he is to become righteous.
And the righteous man must have substituted the will of God for
his individual will, if he is to become a saint.^

(2) Then another aspect of sin rises before the Psalmist's mind.
This evil which he has done, which probably was the sin in the
matter of Bathsheba, was not only rebellion against God, but it
was, according to this text, in the second clause, " a sin," by which
is meant literally missing an aim. So this word, in its pregnant
meaning, corresponds with the signification of the ordinary New
Testament word for sin, which also implies error, or missing that
which ought to be the goal of our lives. That is to say, whilst
the former word regarded the evil deed mainly in its relation to
God, this word regards it mainly in its relation to ourselves, and
that which before Him is rebellion — the assertion of our own
individuality and our own will, and therefore in separation from
His will — is, considered in reference to ourselves, fatally missing
the mark to which our whole energy and effort ought to be
1 Amiel's Journal (trans, by Mrs. Humphry Ward), 164.

72 THE BEATITUDE OF FORGIVENESS

directed. All sin, big or little, is a blunder. It is a blunder even
if it hits what it aims at, for it aims at the wrong thing. So
doubly, all transgression is folly, and the true name for the doer
is " Thou fool ! " For every evil misses the mark which, regard
being had to the man's obvious destiny, he ought to aim at.
" Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever " ;
and whosoever in all his successes fails to realize that end is a
failure through and through, in whatever smaller matters he may
seem to himself and to others to succeed.

IF Full of far deeper love for what I remember of Turner
himself, as I become better capable of understanding it, I find
myself more and more helpless to explain his errors and his sins.
His errors, I might say, simply. Perhaps, some day, people will
again begin to remember the force of the old Greek word for sin ;
and to learn that all sin is in essence — "Missing the mark";
losing sight or consciousness of heaven ; and that this loss may be
various in its guilt ; it cannot be judged by us.^

(3) But the Psalmist sees in his own past behaviour not only
rebellion and failure, but iniquity — that is, something twisted or
distorted. His conduct is thus brought into contrast with the
right line of the plain, straight path in which we ought to walk.
We have the same metaphor in our own language. We talk
about things being right and wrong, by which we mean, in the
one case, parallel with the rigid law of duty, and in the other case,
" wrung," or wavering, crooked and divergent from it. There is
a standard as well as a Judge, and we have to think of evil not
only as being rebellion against God and separation from Him, and
as, for ourselves, issuing in fatal missing of the mark, but also as
being divergent from the one manifest law to which we ought to
be conformed. The path to God is a right line ; the shortest road
from earth to Heaven is absolutely straight.

^ Every person of a mature age, and in his right mind,
remembers turns or crises in his life, where he met the question of
wrong face to face, and by a hard inward struggle broke through
the sacred convictions of duty that rose up to fence him back. It
was some new sin to which he had not become familiar, so much
worse perhaps in degree as to be the entrance to him consciously
of a new stage of guilt. He remembers how it shook his soul and
even his body; how he shrunk in guilty anticipation from the

* Raskin, Modern Painters, v. pt. ix. chap. xii. ( Works, vii. 441).

PSALM XXXII. I, 2 ^i

new step of wrong ; the sublime misgiving that seized him, the
awkward and but half-possessed manner in which it was taken,
and then afterward, perhaps even after years have passed away,
how, in some quiet hour of the day or the wakeful hour of night,
as the recollection of that deed — not a public crime, but a wrong,
or an act of vice — returned upon him, the blood rushed back for
the moment on his fluttering heart, the pores of his skin opened,
and a kind of agony of shame and self-condemnation, in one word
of remorse, seized his whole person. This is the consciousness,
the guilty pang, of sin ; every man knows what it is.^

2. Corresponding to the three terms for sin, there are three
expressions to signify its removal. The first word means taken
away or lifted off, as a burden from aching shoulders. It implies
more than holding back penal consequences ; it is the removal of
sin itself, and that not merely in the multitudinousness of its
manifestations in act, but in the depth of its inward source. This
is the metaphor which Bunyan has made so familiar by his picture
of the pilgrim losing his load at the cross. The second (" covered ")
paints pardon as God's shrouding the foul thing from His pure
eyes, so that His action is no longer determined by its existence.
The third describes forgiveness as God's not reckoning a man's
sin to him, in which expression hovers some allusion to cancelling
a debt.

(1) Sin is here pictured as a burden, lying on the soul.
Every sin we commit is making that burden larger and heavier.
We do not say it is fdt to be heavier ; that would be the sen^e of
dn. The burden is there, whether it be felt or not, and it always
grows. If the burden of his sin remains on any sinner it will sink
him into ruin. Surely, then, he is a happy man whose burden of
sin is lifted off. " Oh, the blessedness of the man whose burden of
sin is lifted off ! " Why is he a blessed man ? Because when the
burden of sin goes, other things must go with it. When this
burden is lifted off, the sentence of death against the sinner is
cancelled for ever, the gates of hell are closed against him and
will never open to admit him, and heaven's gates are open in a
new sense, in that they never can be closed till he is inside.

^ The most persistent symbol of Conscience in this first stage
is the " burden " — a simple but picturesque emblem of a sense of
* T. T. Hunger, Horace Bushnell, 218.

74 THE BEATITUDE OF FORGIVENESS

guilt. It is on him, though behind him ; it is oppressive, though
it leaves his limbs all free for action or advance ; it is rather felt
than seen. Somewhat characteristic it is of Bunyan's Christian
that this burden of his is " great." ^

^ In 1881, when he was nearing his end, Dante Gabriel
Eossetti, though an agnostic, became very anxious for confession
and absolution. It was suggested to him that absolution was
contrary to his pronounced views. But he said, "I don't care
about that. I can make nothing of Christianity, but I only want
a confessor to give me absolution of my sins," adding, " I believe
in a future life — what I want now is absolution for my sins,
that's all," 2

(2) Again, sin is pictured as inward pollution and filthiness,
which must be covered before there can be true blessedness.
But not every kind of " covering " will suffice. Many ways of
covering sins bring no blessing, but a curse. Some people spend
much time and trouble, and exercise great ingenuity; in covering
up their sins. They dig deep graves in which they seek to bury
them, but every sin they bury is going to have a resurrection.
Such coverings never bring any blessedness. " He that covereth
his sins shall not prosper." The Psalmist tried for a year to bury
his sin. Did he succeed ? Was it a happy year ? Note what
he says about that time : " When I kept silence, my bones waxed
old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy
hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the
drought of summer." When he is brought to a right frame of
mind he no longer tries to cover up his sin, but says, " My sin is
ever before me." " I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine
iniquity have I not hid."

^ Bees in their hives, when there is anything corrupt and
too large for them to remove, fling a covering of wax over it,
and hermetically seal it, and no foul odour comes from it. And
so a man's sin is covered over and ceases to be in etidence, as it
were, before the Divine Eye tliat sees all things. He Himself
casts a merciful veil over it and hides it from Himself.^

(3) The third picture of sin is perhaps the most striking of
all. It means : " I am a debtor, over head and ears in debt, but

' J. A. Kerr Bain, The Peojtle of the Pilgrimage, i. 51.
* A. C. Benson, Life oj D. O. PusseUi, 71.
' A. Maclaren.

PSALM XXXII. I, 2 75

the debt is not charged or reckoned against me at all," Still
more, it means : " I am guilty, yet the righteous Judge justly
pronounces me not guilty." How can that be possible ? Let
the Apostle Paul explain. He says that "David describes the
blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works," and he quotes the text to prove this. David
did not say one word about " righteousness without works." "What
does St, Paul mean by saying he did ? The simple fact is that
St. Paul supplements David ; he gives the positive side, in addi-
tion to David's negative side of the double transaction. St. Paul
has his eye on Christ. If sin is not reckoned or charged against,
or put to the account of, the believing sinner, it is because it has
been imputed, reckoned, charged against, or put to the account
of Christ, And if "righteousness without works" is imputed,
reckoned to, or put to the account of, the believing sinner, it is
because of what Christ had done. "Him who knew no sin he
made to be sin on our behalf ; that we [who knew no righteous-
ness] might become the righteousness of God in him."

^ A very common idea of the object of the gospel is, that it
is to show how 7nen may obtain pardon ; whereas, in truth, its
object is to show how pardon for men has been obtained, or rather
to show how God has taken occasion, by the entrance of sin into
the world, to manifest the unsearchable riches of holy compassion.
I have observed that even the phrase free offer of pardon is so
interpreted that the very existence of the pardon is made to
depend on the acceptaiice of the oiler. The benefit of the pardon
does most assuredly depend on its being accepted, but the
pardon itself is laid up in Christ Jesus, and depends on nothing
but the unchangeable character of God.^

3. The condition of forgiveness. — The last clause of the text,
" In whose spirit there is no guile," seems to refer to the frank
sincerity of a confession. He is not like the self-righteous sinner
who tries to tell lies to God, and, attempting to deceive Him,
really deceives only himself. Whoever opens his heart to God,
makes a clean breast of it, and without equivocation or self-
deception or the palliations which self-love teaches, says, "I
have played the fool and erred exceedingly " — to that man, the
Psalmist thinks, pardon is sure to come.

^ Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlatlien, i. 879.

^e THE BEATITUDE OF FORGIVENESS

The great question before the mind of the Psahnist is how
the burden of sin may be removed not from the Divine side,
but from the human, and so he states one necessary condition
to that removal — confession : " I said, I will confess my trans-
gressions unto the Lord ; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my
sin " (ver. 5). Sin must be confessed before it is removed. Till
a man confesses his sins he hugs them to himself, and refuses to
part with them. When he truly confesses them he puts them
away by an act of will. Not till then are they removed. God
cannot forgive the man who is impenitent, for that man will
presently sin again. He cannot forgive, much as He longs so to
do, because there is an obstacle in the way. Repentance removes
that obstacle ; it opens the door to the exercise of God's forgiving
grace. The moment we repent we are pardoned.

^ Excellent as repentance may be in itself, and quite inde-
pendent of all results, yet the one ultimate test of it is amendment
— amendment, and nothing else. We have done wrong and are
sorry for it. What is the test of the value of our sorrow ? Our
doing the same thing no more. We desire to be forgiven. We
pray to God for that forgiveness. What is to us the certain seal
that He has heard our prayer, and by the power of His Son's
Cross has finally forgiven us? The seal is tliat we have been
enabled to sin so no more. Put it how you will, you must always
come back to that. I do not say that no repentance is wortli
anything which is followed by further falls. God forbid. I do
not say that God never forgives until He also makes the sin
impossible. God forbid. But I do say that to ns — to us there is
no other proof either of the genuineness of our repentance, or of
the certainty of God's forgiveness.^

II.

The Blessedness of Forgiveness.

In all the benedictions of the Bible the thing brought
prominently into notice is not the outward circumstances but the
inner state or life of the man who is blessed. Blessedness does not
depend on outward possessions, such as worldly goods, or lands,
or hif^h birth, or erudite culture. Indeed, there are words of
Christ which suggest that they who stand possessed of these
' Archbishop Temple.

PSALM XXXII. I, 2 ^^

things will find it harder to enter that Paradise which has not yet
faded from our world, and to pass through the gates of that city
which are before our eyes, if only they were opened to discern
them. When He repeated the Sermon of the Mountain-Heights
and of the Dawn to the multitudes that stood breathless beneath
its spell, He said, " Woe unto you that are rich. Woe unto you
that are full. Woe unto you, ye that laugh." He did not mean
that such would be necessarily excluded, but that entrance into
blessedness would be hard for them.

1. The forgiven soul enjoys the blessedness of deliverance. The
very essence of the benediction is the exquisite sense of trans-
gression forgiven, sin covered. This royal sinner knew the felicity
in its full range. Through all those weary months of sullen
silence which followed David's murder and adultery, he was a
most miserable man. He knew that his Divine Judge had not
pardoned him. He was conscious all the time of lying under the
withering condemnation of God. He felt that his iniquity lay
naked and open to the eye of Him with whom he had to do. He
might to some extent conceal his fault from his fellows, but in all
its hideous enormity it was exposed to the gaze of the Searcher of
hearts. Could the king have any jeace or comfort under that
continual sense of the silent sentence of Heaven on his conduct ?
0 what a joyful man he was when the grace of God enabled him
to confess, " I have sinned," and the sweet response came, " The
Lord also hath put away thy sin " ! When he contrasted the
sordid wretchedness of the preceding months with his condition,
now that the springs of his better nature had found vent, would
he not feel that he was in the seventh heaven ? It was not
enough for him to say that his transgression was forgiven : he
had to supplement that with this other word, that his sin was
covered, in order to utter fully his felicity. His Judge had
pardoned him, how much was that ! But was it not even more
that his Heavenly Father had blotted out his foul guilt, so that
it should be never seen or remembered more ?

^ Whatever I have studied of the Epistles of St. Paul, and
this has been for many years, and with as much yearning eager-
ness and breathless awe as I have felt in nothing except the
words of the Lord Jesus, has tended to the confirmation of the

7^ THE BEATITUDE OF FORGIVENESS

old evangelic interpretation of them, in which perhaps I should
not have seen my way so clearly but for their accordance with
my own "experience." All that unutterable sense of sin, that
terrible deadly fight with evil, those strivings of the Spirit I went
through, and more ; all that deliverance, that liberty of the
Gospel, that being justified by faith in Christ, that peace with
God, that shedding abroad by the Holy Ghost of the love of God
in the heart, that coming in of the " new creation " ; all the shades
and lights of experience since then. Twenty-three years of such
experience, which inwardly is as great and as simple a fact as the
facts of seeing and hearing, make me unable to receive, even to
perceive, any other interpretation. And I have met witli such
scores and hundreds who strike hands with me in life and death
on these great matters that it is settled " without controversy "
to me.^

^ When Saul Kane, the ill-living prodigal whose " rake's
progress" John Masefield has so vividly set forth in his poem
The Everlasting Mercy, suffered his instant conversion, an im-
mediate and wonderful glory filled his soul.

I did not think, I did not strive,

The deep peace burnt my me alive;

The bolted door had broken in,

I knew that I had done with sin.

I knew that Christ had given me birth

To brother all the souls on earth,

And every bird and every beast

Should share the crumbs broke at the feast.

0 glory of the lighted mind,

How dead I'd been, how dumb, how blind.
The station-brook to my new eyes,
Was babbling out of Paradise,
The waters rushing from the rain
Were singing, " Christ has risen again."

1 thought all earthly creatures knelt
From rapture of the joy I felt.

The narrow station-wall's brick ledge,
The wild hop withering in the hedge.
The lights in huntsman's upper storey
Were parts of an eternal glory,
Were God's eternal gaiden flowers.
I stood in bliss at this for hours.

* Letters of James Smetham, 234.

PSALM XXXII. I, 2 79

0 clover tops, half-white, half-red,
0 beauty from beyond the dead,
0 blossom, key to earth and heaven,
0 souls that Christ has new forgiven.

2. The forgiven soul is blessed, because the whole character
and life are lifted to a higher plane. No man can pass from
darkness to light, from alienation to reconciliation, without being
marvellously transformed by the experience. His whole nature
is changed. That is what we mean when we contrast the effect
on the human soul of the gospel of grace with that produced by
the preaching of mere morality and legality. Sinai thunders at
us in vain, and the most eloquent exposition of the beauty of
virtue is apt to leave a soul very much where it found it ; but let
a sinner come to believe that Christ died for him, that God so
loved Him that He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him
up for the transgressor, and that in the fountain thus opened for
sin and for uncleanness his sins have been washed away for ever,
then that forgiven soul will become a living mass of gratitude, of
love, of devotion to Him whose grace has saved him. Through
all his subsequent life he will be a changed man. He will hate
iniquity and love holiness. We cannot say that he will never sin
again, but never again can he feel toward sin as he did in the days
before he had drunk this wine of heaven. His character will be
radically altered, and the life will answer, more or less truly, to
the character.

^ You stand in some valley, and however brightly the sun
may shine, there are shadows ; you climb to the summit of some
lofty hill, and it is all sunshine, and no shadows there. Even so,
if you rest satisfied with forgiveness of sins merely, brightly as
that exhibits God's love, and wonderful as is the grace of it, your
peace, and joy, and rest will be all imperfect. Come up into the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus ; get upon the high tableland of
a really Christ-life^ ; go on to the realization of all the " happinesses "
which are linked on to forgiveness ; be a little child, and take
God at His word about them, without cavil or question ; and then
your whole life will be sunlit indeed. Difficulties and sorrows
and temptations you may have, and they may multiply as you go
on; but you will look down upon them, instead of being over-
shadoived by them : and you will see, what in the valley of a low

8o THE BEATITUDE OF FORGIVENESS

life you cannot see, how God's love lights them all up, and how in
very truth they all work together for your good.^

3. Happy is he whose sin is forgiven, because new relations
are established between God and the soul. To have passed
through this experience not only cFanges"a man's character, it
puts him permanently on a new footing with God. The pardon
comes to him as but one part of what we call the Divine scheme
of salvation. Henceforth he does not think of the Almighty as
his Judge, but rather as his Heavenly Father. He has been
adopted into the family of the Most High, and he knows that all
the privileges of adoption, in time and eternity, are secured to
him. Christ has become to him as an elder Brother, who is
preparing a place for him in that region of the blessed which is to
be hereafter their common home.

This is a side of Christian truth which has not always received
the attention it deserves — a neglect the more to be 'regretted that
the doctrine furnishes the reply to the objection sometimes made,
that "justification" presents our relations with God in salvation
in too exclusively "legal" a light. It would do so if it stood
alone ; but it does not stand alone. Adoption, by certain writers,
has been treated as part of justification — as the positive side of it,
in acceptance. But this is not warranted. If it is wrong to merge,
as many do, God's character as Judge in that of Father, it is as
wrong to merge His character as Father in that of Judge, and to
overlook the fact that God's relation to us is personal as well as
judicial. God does not merely pardon the sinner by way of legal
acquittal. There is the outflow of paternal tenderness, paternal
forgiveness, paternal grace (cf. the Prodigal, Luke xv. 20-24);
and the soul that comes to Him is received by Him into a re-
lation of sonship — not merely that forfeited sonship which was
its destination by creation, but a relation of honour, nearness, and
privilege, analogous to Christ's own. " If children, then heirs ;
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Eom. viii. 17).

Here are we dark and weak, yet are we not
Excluded from Thy glorious family;

Pain to Thy children is a transient lot;
We suifer, that from sin we may be free.

» A. C. Price,

PSALM XXXII. I, 2 81

Angels and men, the prophet and the child,
These all are what they are by gift of Thine ;

No break or gulf is there ; the undetiled
Are tenderly made one by birth divine.

If but a letter of the all-perfect name,

If but a mark of the celestial pen,
Distinguish us, we will, despising shame.

Abjuring self, live boldly among men.

Named after God ! a little like to Him,

In whom the entireness of the name divine

Brightly involved was once by woes made dim,
But now unfolded shines, yet more to shine.^
1 T. T. Ljuch, Hie Rivulet, 202.

PS. XXV.-CXIX.

The Guiding Eye.

Literature.

Botirdillon (F.), Handfuls, 24.

Brown (J. Baldwin), TTie Sunday Afternoon, 278.

Hackett (W. S.), The Land of Your Sojournings, 3T.

Knight (G. H.), Abiding Help for Changing Days, 27.

Matheson (G.), Words by the Wayside, 16.

Meyer (F. B.), Christian Living, 78.

Stone (C. E.), Children's Sunday Afternoons, 186.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xiii. (1876), No.

989.
Voysey (C), Sermons, ii. (1879), No. 1.
Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., xii. 96 (H. G. Youard).
Literary Churchman, xx. (1874) 95.
Sunday Magazine, 1880, p. 140 (R. H. Smith).

The Guiding Eye.

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go :
I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee. — Ps. xxxii. 8.

It was at the end of a long and bitter trial that this promise was
given to the Psalmist. It was by passing through doubt, per-
plexity, and despair that he was taught at last to find his way
by the light of God. He had tried long and desperately to be his
own guide, to trace out a path for himself through life, and it was
after many wanderings, and many shameful falls, and much
misery, that he was forced to confess that it is not in man that
walketh to direct his steps, and that his only way of safety is to
give himself up to One who will guide him better than he can
guide himself. Feeling his ignorance, and perplexed at times by
uncertainty as to his duty, he besought the Lord to teach and to
guide him ; and the Lord heard him and answered him, bringing
strength to his weakness, light into his darkness, and showing him
the way in which he should walk.

^ The beautiful suggestiveness of the Authorized Version, "I
will guide thee with mine eye," need not be wholly lost, though
the Revised Version shows that the Hebrew does not mean that
" a look is enough." It means that with a Divine word of counsel
in the ear, and the eye of Providence watching from above, the
traveller in the pathway of life will be safe.^

Our Need of Guidance.

1. We need guidance because we may deliberately reject God.
There are those who may be called the unbridled : the men who
care for no restraint ; whose whole life is a challenge, " Who is
the Lord, that we should serve him ? " The Psalms are full of

1 W. T. Davison.
8s

S6 THE GUIDING EYE

the description of them. They escape the eye and the hand of
God to all appearance. But do they indeed escape ? The mere
men of the world are the worst of slaves ; and of all men they
are the most limited, checked, compelled, by the hand of God.
A hard bar meets them at every turn, a check at every breath.
God rules them though it be with a rod of iron. Blind to the
glance of His eye, they must writhe under the pressm-e of His
hand.

^ The pupil spoke : " You said once that the tramcar comes
to a standstill if it loses connexion with the aerial wire. I know
that very well. Would that my friends who are atheists and
pagans knew what a relief it is to find the connexion again. It
is like diving in crystal-clear sea-water after perspiring in the
heat of the dog-days on a dusty high-road. The heart grows
light ; the systematic ill-luck ceases ; one has some success, one's
undertakings prosper, one can sleep at night, and neurasthenia
ceases. I remember how, after a night of debauchery, the most
beautiful landscape at sunrise looked ghastly; while after a night
of quiet sleep the same scene looked paradisal. When we gain the
certainty, and the belief founded on certainty, that life is con-
tinued on the other side, then we find it easier on this one, and do
not hunt after trifles till we are weary. Then we discover the
divine lightheartedness of which Goethe speaks, which finds ex-
pression in a certain contempt of honours and distinction, pro-
motion and money. We become more insensible to blows and
abuse. Everything goes more softly and smoothly. However
dark the surroundings may be, we become self-luminous, so to
speak, and carry the little pocket-lamp hope with us." ^

2. There are those whose hearts are divided between God and
the world, and who need constraint to keep them in the right
way. Some things are already settled • in their minds on the
subject of the duties and the issues of life. They know already
that there is no blessing that is really worth anything but
God's. They would weep bitterly, and feel that life was utterly
impoverished, if God's presence were gone from it, and they were
just left to make the best of a world that they love too well.
But they will not risk too much in seeking the Kingdom of God
and His righteousness. One eye is always on the world, if the
other is on God. They have their comforts, their luxuries, their

' A. Striiidberg, Zones of the, Spirit, 111.

PSALM XXXII. 8 87

pleasures, their possessions, which fill as large a space as the
higher things in the horizon round which they sweep their sight.
They are not ungodly, they are not indifferent to the benediction
of Heaven. But there is a great dead weight to be lifted, a great
back-longing to be overcome. They have to be driven in the way
which they say they love, and to the end which they profess to
desire more than worlds. How many Christians have to be
driven in the way of life, at a cost of pain to them, and patience
to Him, which God alone knows !

^ It looks to me now like a kind of humble russet-coated epic,
that seven years' settlement at Craigenputtock ; very poor in this
world's goods, but not without an intrinsic dignity greater and
more important than then appeared. It is certain that for living
in and thinking in, I have never since found in the world a place
so favourable. And we were driven and pushed into it, as if by
Necessity, and its beneficent though ugly little shocks and pushes,
shock after shock gradually compelling us thither ! " For a
Divinity doth shape our ends, rough-hew them how we will":
often in my life have I been brought to think of this, as prob-
ably every considering person is ; and, looking before and after,
have felt, though reluctant enough to believe in the importance
or significance of so infinitesimally small an atom as oneself, that
the Doctrine of a Special Providence is in some sort natural to
man. All piety points that way, all logic points the other ; — one
has, in one's darkness and hmitation, a trembling faith, and can
at least say with the Voices, " Wir heissen euch hojfen," — if it le
the will of the Highest.^

^ Do you at all recollect that interesting passage of Carlyle
in which he compares, in this country and at this day, the under-
stood and commercial value of man and horse ; and in which he
wonders that the horse, with its inferior brains and its awkward
hoofiness, instead of handiness, should be always worth so many
tens or scores of pounds in the market, while the man, so far from
always commanding his price in the market, would often be
thought to confer a service on the community by simply killing
himself out of their way ? Well, Carlyle does not answer his own
question, because he supposes we shall at once see the answer.
The value of the horse consists simply in the fact of your being
able to put a bridle on him. The value of the man consists pre-
cisely in the same thing. If you can bridle him, or, which is
better, if he can bridle himself, he will be a valuable creature
' Carlyle, Reminiscences, ii. 244.

88 THE GUIDING EYE

directly. Otlierwise, in a commercial point of view, his value is
either iiotliing, or accidental only. Only, of course, the proper
bridle of man is not a leathern one ; what kind of texture it is
rightly made of, we find from that command, " Be ye not as the
horse or as the mule which have no understancjing, whose mouths
must be held in with bit and bridle." You are not to be without
the reins, indeed ; but they are to be of another kind : " I will
guide thee with mine eye." So the bridle of man is to be the
Eye of God ; and if he rejects that guidance, then the next best
for him is the horse's and the mule's, which have no understand-
ing ; and if he rejects that, and takes the bit fairly in his teeth,
then there is nothing left for him than the blood that comes out
of the city, up to the horse-bridles.^

3. There are those who desire and who willingly accept God's
guidance. To such God says, " I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go : I will counsel thee with
mine eye upon thee." He will take a personal interest in them.
For the guide of men is no Epicurean God, loftily serene and
impassive, but one whose interest in the world, whose care for
the world, brought Him to live in it that He might share its
burden and pain. The gospel is the revelation of how much He
cares ; of how much the happiness of His creation, the order of
His government, and the satisfaction of His heart depend on the
way man takes. He has created a being of wonderful and complex
powers, capable, if guided aright, of doing godlike work in the
universe, or capable of making it an Aceldama, a Gehenna of
wailing and death. And the great work of Heaven is to guide
him ; to make him know, trust, and love his guide. Truly " thou
shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me
to glory." When Christ has won this trust from a human spirit,
His redemptive work is done.

^ To obey the will of the Lord is the secret first of all, of
safety — security. " All things work together for good to them
tha't love God." From the moment a planet wheels into its path
round the sun, there is nothing that can harm that planet, but
just as soon as a star wauders from its orbit, and goes plunging
headlong into the depths of space, it is liable to come into clash
and crash with the universe of God. I have seen a great piece
of machinery that would fill an immense building. Now, suppose
» Ruskin, A Joy for Ever, §18 {Works, xvi. 28).

PSALM XXXII. 8 89

that in ihat great piece of machinery, one little wheel, as small, it
may be, as a shilling, should drop out of its place and fall into the
midst of the machinery, that colossal mechanism moving round
and round and round would grind this little wheel among its
larger wheels into fragments, if not into powder. The Universe
is one great Machine, and God is the Motive Power of it, and
when a soul drops out of its place in this great machinery, and
falls among the great wheels of God's purpose, it is ground into
powder, unless the grace of God puts that wheel back into its
place in the vast system. The moment that you find out what the
will of God is, and drop into your place, all the universe moves
with you, and all the universe moves for you, the whole Godhead
is back of you, the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and the
love of God, and the grace of God ; and you are as absolutely sure
and safe as God is. And so Peter says : " Who is he that shall
harm you if you be followers of that which is good ? " ^

IT.

God's Method of Guiding us.

1. God guides His people by imparting to them understanding.
There is a threefold assurance in the text : I will make thee
wise ; I will point out to thee the way ; I will fix Mine eye upon
thee. God will do something in the man. He shall yet be
instructed more deeply than ever, and shall find himself never
too old to learn. God will do something round about the man.
He shall have the guidance of circumstances, of closed and opened
doors, which only the wise can understand. Finally, this man
being a backslider of proven weakness, God will watch him with
fixed attention to correct the least slip. Providential care is
shown to be a very complex thing, operating along many lines
which converge to the great result. But more particularly for
our purpose, it is largely an inward thing, dealing first and fore-
most with the mind rather than with the circumstances, accord-
ing to this initial promise, " I will make thee wise." Probably
circumstances are much more nearly right than people admit, and
where failure arises the man himself is generally at fault. Also,
men can never be saved from the outside or by the most favour-
able circumstances. Deliverance must be wrought supremely by

' A. T. Pierson.

90 THE GUIDING EYE

an inward grace illuminating the mind and making men circum-
spect and self-adaptive to win the mastery over life's conditions.
It is written that God did not stay the flood, but Noah, being
warned by Him, prepared an ark for the saving of his house. The
grand resource and secret of the Most High in the protecting of
His children is this gift of wisdom.

The name " Wisdom " pervades the Old Testament, bringing
the glimmer of jewels and visions of a good woman's face as
tokens of its power to adorn and enrich life. In the text a
smaller word is used, indicating circumspection or intelligence;
yet that is but wisdom applied practically. The assertion is that
we may be made wise to think God's thoughts after Him, in-
telligent to recognize the meaning of His way with us, and when
understanding fails — as fail sometimes it will — patient to endure
with a great trust. Mere acquiescence cannot be the end of our
faith. He has called us friends — not puppets. Trials and griefs
have no inevitable efficacy. In every dil'lerent destiny of joy
and sorrow, health and sickness, help and injury, there lie hidden
both a use and a misuse, both a blessing and a curse, and only
active wisdom can choose the better part.

^ Many still think of God in the way Omar Khayyam thought
of Him — as an infinite Chess-player, with the world for His
board. There stand bishops and knights and pawns, each on its
own square and perhaps untouched for long intervals. But every
piece is moved from time to time by the inexorablp Hand, and
sooner or later every piece is sacrificed for ends that it cannot
know. Our duty is simply to trust that God is winning the
game in His own way. Thus do the uninstructed ones most pitifully
talk, taking the name of the Lord their God mww— finding faith
a poor futility. They cast their burden upon the Lord in quite
the wrong sense, for they lay only the blame of it on Him. They
think themselves not so much led through the world as dragged
through it, like a child's toy across the parlour floor, meeting with
a bump here and a bump there; and having caught a gleam of
religious truth from the nursery or the pulpit, they feel it right
to say without conviction, " I suppose the bumps are all for my
good." They are puppets in the hand of the Inscrutable One :
they are not made wise.^

^ A lady put the universal difficulty to me in a simple but
complete statement. " My troubles," she said, " come from the

1 W. S. Hackett, The Land of Your Sojouminga, 79.

PSALM XXXII. 8 91

unkindness of other people, and they are very hard to bear
because I know they are not God's will. Unkmdness cannot be
His will." Her complaint well-nigh covers all the dreary cata-
logue of human suffering. Nearly always it is " somebody's fault."
The cotton corner which spreads want over an English county, the
opened lamp in the coal-mine which darkens a hundred homes,
the careless workmanship at the drain W'hich slays the darling of
the household, the heartbreak of a fruitless search for employ-
ment— these surely are not the will of your Heavenly Father.
Now it is quite true that Atlantic storms may be beyond control.
But nothing hinders men from building ships strong enough to
weather them. There may be limits which we know not to the
miraculous betterment of circumstances outside, but there is no
limit to God's power'^to build up His saints inwardly in strength.
He may be barred out of a thousand hearts, but He need not be
barred out of mine. And this gospel is ennobling because it is
educative. It may be doubted if " God tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb," but it is not at all doubtful that He expects men to
invent warmer clothing. The blessings of Providence are not for
idlers, but for those who are willing to learn wisdom.^

2. God guides His own not by force, but by love. The eye is
the indicator of the desire ; the lips command ; the hand compels.
The lips can plead, but there is an inner plea which the eye alone
urges. Those who know the language of the eye have mastered
the language of the soul. It implies tljat a sympathy is already
established. When the glance is understood and obeyed, there is
perfect concert of mind and heart. A heart tuned to sympathy
with the Divine purposes and hopes, leaps forth in glad obedience.
It sees no meanings anywhere so joyfully as those which it reads
in the eye of God.

^ What is it that makes thy life an intenser note than the
music of the stars ? Is it not just the fact that thou art free,
just the circumstance that there is no iron belt around thee ?
What is this marvellous thing thou callest thy will ? Wherein
does its glory differ from the glory which the heavens declare ?
Is it not just in this, that thou art not compelled to come in ?
There is a guidance for thee, but it is not a star's guidance ; it is
a guidance of the eye. It is the only guiding which a will can
get without dying. Wouldst thou be driven like a star ? then
must thou cease to be free. The heavens declare God's glory;

1 W. S. Hackett.

92 THE GUIDING EYE

l)ut it is the glory of His hands. Who shall declare the glory of
His Spirit? Not a star however bright, not a pulseless thing
liowever fair ; only something that can throb and strive and
choose. He will not guide thee by aught but His eye. He will
not compel thee to bear His cross. He will not sacrifice the joy of
being loved to the pride of being obeyed. He will draw thee,
but He will never drive thee ; He shall guide thee only with His
eye.i

^ Is God your leader ? — or does He only rein you in ? Are
you personally conscious of the vast difference between these two
experiences ? It is well to be held back from sin, no doubt, but the
joy of tlie God-directed, sanctified man is certainly beyond that
of the horse and mule which have no understanding, and whose
mouth must be held in with bit and bridle. There is no holiness
of a radical sort without Divine, positive, everyday guidance.
This differs not only in degree but in kind from negative restraint.
The latter may be no more than the rebuke or cry of our own
alarmed conscience. Conscience is born with us, born with every
man. We possess it witliout choice of our own. It is liable
to error like other human faculties, even though of inestimable
value. But God intends us to know Him of our own free choice,
and much more intimately than by laws written involuntarily
upon our heart. Those latter we have in connnon with the
heathen. They operate upon our fears. Guidance appeals to our
faith. " I will guide thee with mine eye," is a promise to God's
people which goes far ahead of conscience, and so universally is it
intended to be enjoyed that it was given even long before the
coming of our Lord. But there is no guidance of this highest
kind without the eager and abiding desire for it — a desire strong
enough in its faith and intensity to survive during the severest
trial and suffering.^

3. God guides us, not by showing us at tlie outset the whole
road that lies before us, and instructing us beforehand which turn
to take, and what to do in each difficult place ; but, step by step,
as we go along, He reveals the path to us, and shows us how to
walk. We should be appalled were we to see at a glance all that
He sees. He does not guide us so. He Himself sees all ; but He
shows it to us, bit by bit, as we can bear the sight, and as it is
needful for us to know. When we accept God's guidance, we

' G. JIatheson, Words by the Wayside, 17.
"J. Reudul Harris, Life of F. W. Crosslcy, 165.

PSALM XXXII. 8

experience more and more the warm, cherishing, quickening
sunlight, the light of God's countenance, shining on, gladdening,
and glorifying the life. We escape, too, all that is bitter in the
school of discipline, all harm, all loss, all death. Nothing malign,
nothing sorrowful, can lurk for a spirit in the path in which it is
guided by the eye of God ; while the life-path brightens as it
travels, opening into a sphere of boundless activity, of glorious
beauty, of perfect blessedness, as it nears the bounds of the eternal
world.

^ My parents founded every action, every attitude, upon their
interpretation of the Scriptures, and upon the guidance of the
Divine Will as revealed to them by direct answer to prayer.
Their ejaculation in the face of any dilemma was, " Let us cast it
before the Lord ! " So confident were they of the reality of their
intercourse with God, that they asked for no other guide. They
recognized no spiritual authority among men, they subjected
themselves to no priest or minister, they troubled their consciences
about no current manifestation of " religious opinion." They lived
in an intellectual cell, bounded at its sides by the walls of their
own house, but open above to the very heart of the uttermost
heavens.^

4. God's guidance meets all possible circumstances and con-
ditions. The eye has infinite capability of expression, and speaks
all languages. It thus meets and fits any character, in all its
feelings, and in all its circumstances, every moment. And yet it
is actually personal. Other " guidings," such as laws, or books, or
commands, are general, and the same to everybody. The look of
" the eye " is essentially individual ; it brings the Guider and the
guided into the closest association : " I will guide thee with mine
eye."

^ Of all bodily organs the most expressive is the eye. I can
read in the eye of a friend far more than he utters with the tongue.
It is the most accurate of all the heart's dial-plates. It can
express joy or grief, entreaty or reproof, approval or dislike.
Parents and children, or brothers and sisters, living in the same
home, can hold conversations with each other, even in the presence
of strangers, by the language of the eye. Small signs pass be-
tween them thus which a stranger neither sees nor understands.
And just so, those who live in close intercourse with God learn to
^ Edmund Gosse, Father and Son, 14.

94 THE GUIDING EYE

read what may be called the glances of His eye, small indications
of His will which strangers to heart-fellowship with Him cannot
read at all.^

5. God's guidance is unerring ; it never fails. We read in the
Old Testament that God guided His people in various ways — by
angels, by dreams, by visions, by prophets, by priests, by Urim
and Thummim, by signs and wonders. Although God no longer
guides man by these special or extraordinary agencies, yet we may
be as certain of God's guidance now as though we saw Him in the
heavens with His eye upon us and His finger pointing to the
course He desires us to take. By an instinct, by an impression,
by a sense of duty, by an exercise of judgment, by the advice of
others, by a book, by a sermon, by a passage of Scripture, by
helping us in one direction, by hindering us in another — these are
the ordinary methods or agencies by which God is -ever guiding
those who obey His guidance. We are as a vessel being steered
to port. There is One with us whose eye is always on the
compass, and whose hand, so to speak, is always on the wheel of
life. By His eye and by His hand every movement of a man's
life is guided. That hand and that eye are hidden, are unnoticed ;
but night and day they are in action, ever performing their
guiding work till we reach the haven of God's everlasting rest.
We may make false moves at times, at times appear to get out of
our providential track ; but somehow, so long as the Divine eye
is upon us and the Divine hand directs us, we go not far astray,
and in the end reach our God-appointed port.

^ Keble recalled to men the teaching of Bishop Butler on the
moral nature of the evidence by which spiritual convictions were
reached. To the mere reason, this evidence could not get beyond
suggestive probabilities ; but these probabilities were used, by the
living spirit of man, as an indication of the personal Will of God,
which could be read by the soul that was in tune with that Will.
So probabilities became certitudes. "I will guide thee willi mine
Eye," was Keble's favourite example of the mode in which Divine
truth touched the soul. By deep glimpses, by rare flashes, by a
momentary glance, the Eye of God could make us aware of Truths
far beyond the understanding of reason. Such Truths possessed
authority, which we could not dissect or critic<illy examine.

' G. H. Knight, Abiding Help/or Changing Days, 30.

PSALM XXXII. 8 95

They were revelations of the mind of Him with whom we had
to deal.i

^ There is a tender awe in knowing that there is some One at
your side guiding at every step, restraining here, leading on there.
He knows the way better than the oldest Swiss guide knows the
mountain trail. He has love's concern that all shall go well with
you. There is a great peace for us in that, and with it a tender
awe to think who He is, and that He is close up by your side.
When you come to the splitting of the road into two, with a third
path forking off from the others, there is peace in just holding
steady and very quiet while you put out your hand and say,
" Jesus, Master, guide here." And then to hear a Voice so soft
that only in great quiet is it heard, softer than faintest breath on
your cheek, or slightest touch on your arm, telling the way in
fewest words or syllables — that makes the peace unspeakable.^

Not like the angel with drawn sword,

Neither with rod threat'ningly ;
Leadst Thou, Lord, but fulfill'st Thy word,

" I will guide thee with Mine eye."

We see Thee not, but Thou seest us,
Be where we may, Thou art nigh;

Whisp'ring, timid or valorous,

"I will guide thee with Mine eye."

Dark days come and our path is dark,

We know not to go or fly;
From the sky falls, like trill of lark,

"I will guide thee with Mine eye."

Ah, Lord, we're wayward and we're weak,
Our gladness changing to sad sigh:

0 keep Thou us as Thou dost speak,
And guide us ever with Thine eye.'

* H. S. Holland, Personal Studies, 78.

' S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Personal Proilems, 154.

' A. B. Grosart, Songs of the Day and Night, 33.

The Goodness of God.

PS. XXV.-CXIX.

Literature.

Arnold (T.), Sermons, v. 163.

Ballard (F.), Does it Matter what a Man Believes .2 234.

Bosanquet (C), The Man after God's own Heart, 82.

Holland (H. S.), Vital Values, 36.

Simeon (C), Worls, v. 240.

Smith (Mrs. Pearsall), The God of all Comfort, 90.

Symonds (A, R.), Fifty Sermons, 280.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons to Children, 1. 57.

Voysey (C), Sermons, xv. (1892), No. 31.

Christian World Pidpit, Ixii. 145 (R. F. Horton).

Ex-^ository 2nd Ser., iv. 410 (S. Cox).

The Goodness of God.

O taste and see that the Lord is good :

Blessed is the man that trusteth in him.— Ps. xxxiv. 8.

1. No man who looks thoughtfully around him and within can
fail to feel at times, as Plato felt, that he needs some wiser and
more certain guidance than his own if he is ever to learn what
God really is; that God Himself must speak to him and show
Himself to him if he is to be sure that God is good, friendly,
accessible. Even if we believe that God has spoken to us and
shown Himself to us, that we have seen Him in Christ Jesus and
found Him altogether good, yet at times, when the burden of
all this unintelligible and self-contradictory world lies heavily
upon us, or when our own life is darkened by some misery to
which there seems neither relief nor end, we lose our assur-
ance; we falter where we firmly trod: God seems to shroud
Himself in some inaccessible heaven, to retire behind thick clouds
we cauuot penetrate, to become doubtful to us once more, so that
we can no longer see or say that He is good.

It is an unspeakable relief and comfort to hear any voice which
assures us, in clear and cordial tones, that God is good, despite our
doubts and fears, that the sun of His love is shining down on the,
world, though it be hidden from us by the dark clouds that hang
about our hearts. And if the voice be that of a man such as
we are, yet better and wiser than we are, and wiser and better
mainly because he has passed through many such experiences as
those by which we are troubled and has found out what they
mean — then surely he can give us not comfort only, but the
very succour that we most need.

2, Now the author of this psalm stands in the front rank of
those poets who have devoted themselves to the study of the
ethical aspects and problems of human life, and he is able to

TOO THE GOODNESS OF GOD

interpret the inner world of character and motive and passion
with a precision and a delicacy, a truth and a power never
surpassed. Confessedly also, despite the grievous transgression
he 80 bitterly rued, he was a man after God's own heart;
a man whose goodness was not of the narrow, ascetic, forbidding
type which repels men, but of that large, cordial, and manly type
which is most winning and attractive. Nor can we well doubt
that his experience was wider and more varied than ours,
embraced more radical vicissitudes, swept a larger circle, covered
more distant extremes. And not only did he run through the
whole gamut of human experience, but at the very time he sung
this psalm he was involved in those clouds of undeserved loss,
pain, reproach, under which we too often lose our faith in the
goodness of God. It would have been pardonable if, under stress
of so hard and unmerited a fate, he had brooded over it till the
goodness of God had become as doubtful to him as it often be-
comes to us under the lesser strain of trials not to be compared
with his. But it is from the thick darkness of his adversity
that he comes forth, with manly and cheerful courage, to assure
us that the Lord is good, and to dwell enjoyingly on the blessed-
ness of the man who trusts in Him. Such a testimony, given by
such a man at such a moment, may well touch and reassure our
hearts. What are our powers of insight as compared with his ?
or what our troubles as compared with his ? That, with his
powers, he saw no reason to doubt the goodness of the Lord ; that,
under his burden, he held fast his confidence in God — this should
at least bring some little hope to our hearts when they are heavy
and doubtful and sad. And if we believe that he was not only
a poet, but an inspired poet, we have in his words a Divine
revelation as well as the result of his own illuminated reason and
far-reaching experience. It is God who speaks to us and assures
us that He is good, and will do us good, however we doubt or
distrust Him.

^ The following letter was written by Canon Liddon to Dr.
King, Bishop of Lincoln, one of his oldest friends, in the second
week of his illness, which was destined to proved fatal : " God has
laid His hand very heavily upon me ; and I have been through
the fire — I greatly needed it. Nothing [is] more wonderful in
Him tlian His goodness to such as I am. Pray for me, tliat I may

PSALM XXXIV. 8 loi

learn how to be humble and patient, and that this visitation (in
the Day of Account) may not be seen to have been as nothing —
or worse than nothing — instead of a great means of grace." ^

Lifelong our stumbles, lifelong our regret,
Lifelong our efforts failing and renewed,
While lifelong is our witness, " God is good,"

Who bore with us till now, bears with us yet.

Who still remembers and will not forget,

Who gives us light and warmth and daily food ;
And gracious promises half understood,

And glories half unveiled, whereon to set

Our heart of hearts and eyes of our desire ;
Uplifting us to longing and to love,

Luring us upward from this world of mire,
tfrging us to press on and mount above
Ourselves and all we have had experience of,

Mounting to Him in love's perpetual fke.^

The Appkoacii to God.

1. The Psalmist invites us to put God to the most practical of
tests. " 0 taste and see." Of our five senses taste is the most
homely ; of our five senses taste is the most personal ; for what
we see, and hear, and smell, and touch, we share with others, but
in a peculiarly personal sense the taste is our own. As the
proverb says : " There is no disputing about taste." ]\Ioreover,
the sense of taste is a peculiarly gracious gift of the Creator to
us, for, so far as we can tell, we might easily be nourished with
food which we did not taste, and all those processes of digestion
might go on unconsciously, like the feeding of an engine. But
He has given us this faculty of taste, by which we discriminate
the different flavours of the food we eat, and get a relish from
variety. Now, it is this one of the senses — the most homely, the
most personal, and the most gratuitous — that is taken as the
image to be used for urging upon us the experience of God.
" Taste " is the command. It is as if God came to us with this
generous proposal, " I would not have you choose Me until you
have tasted Me, nor would I force Myself upon you unless your

^ Life ami Letters of H. P. Liddon, 384. * Christina G. Eossetti.

I02 THE GOODNESS OF GOD

taste decide." In a marvellous way He puts Himself at our dis-
posal for us to try, " Taste and see that the Lord is good."

^ There is an Indian story of a queen who " proved the truth
by tasting the food." The story tells how lier husband, who dearly
loved her, and whom she dearly loved, lost his kingdom, wandered
away with his queen into the forest, left her there as she slept,
hoping she would fare better without him, and followed her long
afterwards to her father's court, deformed, disguised, a servant
among servants, a cook. Then her maidens came to her, told her
of the wonderful cooking, magical in manner, marvellous in flavour
and fragrance. They are sure it is the long-lost king come back
to her, and they bid her believe and rejoice. But the queen fears
it may not be true. She must prove it; she must taste the food.
They bring her some. She tastes and knows. And the story ends
in joy. " 0 taste and see that the Lord is good," ^

2. The secret of goodness can be found only by personal ex-
perience. Men know what sin is, by experience. They do not
know what holiness is, and they cannot obtain the knowledge of
its secret pleasure, till they join themselves truly and heartily to
Christ, and devote themselves to His service — till they " taste,"
and thereby try. One may ask, Of what value, of what distinct
force and bearing, as an evidence of truth, is this appeal to ex-
perimental proof ? To this we may answer, first, that while the
mere fact of any religious or ethical system making such an
appeal would by no means prove its truth, for a false system might
profess to do the same, still no system could be true which shrank
from it. It would argue a consciousness of being untrue to the
realities of things, otherwise it would not fear the ordeal of ex-
perience. So far, therefore, it is a fair presumption in favour of
the Bible that throughout its language, expressed or implied, is
" Taste and see." And this presumption, it is next to be observed,
rises into positive inductive proof, in proportion to the duration,
extent, and diversity of the trial. As in experimental philosophy
we arrive at a general law by an induction of particular instances,
and the result is satisfactory in proportion to the multiplication
of concurring instances and the absence of antagonistic ones,
so is it with the argument for the Bible as derived from
experimental proof. In tliis case the induction is overwhelming,
' Amy Wilson Cariuichael, Tilings as they are vn India, 253.

PSALM XXXIV. 8 103

From the beginning it has been undergoing this ordeal. Millions
have tried it, and have set to their seal that God's Word is true.
From age to age the testimony has rolled on, swelling in its pro-
gress into one mighty and majestic volume. And thus, borne on
the echoes of successive generations, the voice of that testimony
has reached our ears, and the burden of its cry is still the same,
" 0 taste and see that the Lord is good : blessed is the man that
trusteth in him."

^ It is in his inner experience of the glorified Christ that we
are to look for the secret and source of Eaymund Lull's doctrine
and life — what he thought, what he was, what he suffered. And
this must be true of all true missionaries. They do not go out
to Asia and to Africa to say, " This is the doctrine of the Christian
Church " ; or, " Your science is bad. Look through this microscope
and see for yourselves and abandon such error " ; or, " Compare
your condition with that of America and see how much more
socially beneficial Christianity is than Hinduism or Confucianism
or Islam." Doubtless all this has its place — the argument from
the historic evidences of Christianity, the argument from the
coherence of Christianity with the facts of the universe, the
argument from fruits. But it is also all secondary. Tne primary
thing is personal testimony: "This I have felt. This He has
done for me. I preach whom I know."^

Experience bows a sweet contented face.
Still setting to her seal that God is true:
Beneath the sun, she knows, is nothing new

All things that go return with measured pace,

Winds, rivers, man's still recommencing race: —
While Hope beyond earth's circle strains her view.
Past sun and moon, and rain and rainbow too.

Enamoured of unseen eternal grace.

Experience saith, " My God doth all things v/ell " :
And for the morrow taketh little care.

Such peace and patience garrison her soul: —
While Hope, who never yet hath eyed the goal,
With arms iiung forth, and backward floating hair,

Touches, embraces, hugs the invisible.^

3. This is a mode of proof available to every man, without
distinction or exception. It requires neither learning nor logic to

^ R. E. Speer, Some Great Leaders in the World Movement, 46.
^ Christina G. Rossetti, Verses, 105.

I04 THE GOODNESS OF GOD

conduct it. The appeal is simply this, "Taste and see; trust in
the Lord and thou shalt be blessed." Whatever doubts there
might have been before the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, there
can be little doubt now that this experience of the great souls is
meant to be the experience of every soul. For ever since our
Lord and Master came to us in that homely speech of His, and
proposed that we should taste Him, eat His flesh, and drink His
blood, and ever since He reminded us that it is in that kind of
intimate personal communion that life comes, and not otherwise,
He has made it clear that there is with Him no selection. He
does not choose the people at His banquet ; He does not say, " Let
the rich or let the worthy come." The whole point of it is, " Go
out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come
in " ; " whosoever will, let him drink " ; *' come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price."

^ Madame Guyon possessed the feminine rather than the
masculine relation between the soul and God ; but that is the
beauty of this relation — that it does not depend upon sex or age ;
it is equally significant to the woman as to the man. There
is something essentially delicate and sweet in this woman-soul
opening to God. Follow the process. She comes in stillness and
quietness and solitude to wait upon Him. She utters His name,
and pauses ; she says a word to 11 im, and waits to listen ; she will
not speak much, lest she should not hear. Presently she hears ;
it is the response, He is coming. "Oh, my soul, be still; hush
thy words ; He is here ! " He speaks, and now she speaks again,
and presently from speech to silence she conies into the sanctuary
of His presence, and there it is all still — activity which does not
move. Oh, the joy, the rai)ture of what seems passionless passion !
He is si)eaking, she is hearing; the soul is throbbing on the
heart of God. What a marvellous experience it is, this tasting
Godli

^ Has the love of Christ worked any real change in our
feelings towards God ? Has there broken out yet in our hearts
the beautiful bright spring of thankfulness, or the deep fount of
holy sorrow ? Have we ever fdt the promptings of remorse, the
pangs of penitence, as we thoug[it of the goodness of God in giving
us Jesus Chiist? . . . Has the goodness of the Lord ever got a
hold of our hand and turned us right round, and begun to lead us
gently along the road that ends in a new mind about God, a mind

» R. F. Horton,

PSALM XXXIV. 8 105

at peace with Him ? That is what God's goodness leads to. If
you have not seen the sunshine streaming down that lane, the sun
has never shone for you. If you have never heard that in the
patter of the rain, it has yet to fall a new way for you. If the
sweetest voice you ever heard on earth never sounds in that strain,
there is a music in it yet for you. If your father's wisdom, your
teacher's help, your friend's love have not pointed out this track,
there is a meaning in them hitherto missed by you. Oh, never
say you have known the goodness of God as it can be known, as
He would have it known, if it does not sometimes make you bow
your head in your prayer and stop speechless, and nearly break
your heart. Speak not of God's goodness if it has not cast you at
the feet of Christ ; if it has not made you feel after and find the
hem of His garment, and hold on for dear life.^

4. The test must be applied under certain conditions, if the
result is to prove satisfactory. Look at verses 13 and 14 of this
psalm. Does a man want that taste of God ? Then " Keep thy
tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from
evil, and do good ; seek peace, and pursue it." The tongue that
is to taste God must be true, the lips into which that food is to
pass must be pure, and the life must be a life that is compatible
with so high a companionship and so intimate a communion.
"Oh, then," you say, "it is impossible to me; for my lips are
unclean, and my tongue is untrue ; what you say is possible for
the good is not possible for me, the bad." But read on to verse
18 — " The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and
saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." So it appears that there
are two conditions for this tasting of God. The one is that you
shall be perfectly pure in heart and speech, and then you can
taste Him ; but if you are not pure, if you are defiled with sin,
then you shall be contrite and broken-hearted, and your God will
come that you may taste Him. It is not His intention that any
should go unfed at the banquet which He has laid for the children
of men.

"[j A very popular picture of Watts which usually holds the
spectator spellbound is taken from the Arthurian Epic. Riding
through the forest, with its tangled vegetation graphically painted,
Sir Galahad has suddenly caught a glimpse of the mystic Sangreal,
which was concealed from all ordinary vision.

1 R. W, Barbour, Thoughts, 30.

io6 THE GOODNESS OF GOD

The times

Grew to such evil that the holy cup

Was cauglit away to Heaven, and disappear'd.

The knights of King Arthur had gone in search of this hidden
treasure. At the same time and in the same place, one could see
it and another could not. The knights had the vision of the Grail
in proportion to their purity. To some of them who saw it, it
appeared veiled with a luminous cloud. But Sir Galahad, the
knight of pure heart and unselfish living, who lost liiniself to save
himself, beheld the glorious thing itself, clear and distinct. It is
at this supreme moment when the heavenly vision appears to him
that he is painted by the artist. He dismounts from his white
horse, and stands bareheaded with fascinated eyes gazing upon the
glorious vision revealed to him in the luminous sky through a
break in the trees, and lighting up his face and armour. . . . The
inner meaning of the subject will come to us as the view of the
Grail came to Sir Galahad, when our eye is single and our heart
is pure, suddenly and unexpectedly ; and we shall find that the
idea which underlies the whole picture, and makes it lovely with
a loveliness far surpassing that of hue and form so vividly de-
lineated, is an intensely modern one, and as applicable to our
day as to the far-off times of King Arthur.^

II.

The Discoveey of the Goodness of God.

1. The soul that tastes makes a great discovery ; it finds that
God is good. It is a stupendous act of courage by which the soul
of man pushes through the tangled jungle of natural powers
that stop his progress and embarrass him; and thrusts himself
through; and emerges into the open spaces under a clear sky;
and finds himself face to face with God. Those powers have had
him as their own. He has been their creature, their captive
prey. He has been carried to and fro by feeling, instincts,
desires, appetites, interests, ambitions. So he has grown. So
it has always been. Passions, fears, hates, joys, loves — these
welled up from unknown sources ; these made him their puppet.
Whither they impelled he went. They were strong in their grip.
They were terribly, horribly real.

1 Hugh Macmillau, The Life- Work of 0. F. Waits, 175.

PSALM XXXIV. 8 107

Yet through all this wild riot the spirit thrust its way, like a
tender blade through the grass and stony soil. Up it came. It
showed itself a new and strange force amid the mob of tyrannous
impulses that tugged and strained to beat it down. Still it
persevered ; still it insisted ; still it drew itself upward, beyond
all that clung and encumbered, seeking still the intangible, the
unseen. It threw all competing experiences aside, it pressed on
towards a secret goal of its own ; it strove, it wrestled, it sought
in all strange places, and on lonely mountain-peaks, and in
hidden silences. It sought something that haunted and fled,
and escaped and returned; and was very near, yet very far;
something that for ever evoked and yet for ever evaded. It
sought it through blundering incantations and bloody rites, and
down by foul ways and by weird devices. It sought and failed,
and cried aloud in its failure and cut its flesh with knives ; it
tore itself, it foamed, it went mad. It lost itself in obscure magic.
Yet still it sought that which its heart desired.

At last out of a wilderness of effort, strewn with the wreckage
of a thousand false hopes, it arrived ; it found ; it felt ; it
touched ; it knew. Lo ! this, this is God. This is what explains
all. This is it. This is the experience that it craved ; this is the
consummation ; this is religion. " 0 taste and see " (so man cried)
" how gracious the Lord is ! " Spirit and spirit meet. Soul and
God are one. How deep the peace ! How keen the joy !
lilessed ! blessed is the man that putteth his trust in
Him.i

^ In the Divinity Hall at Aberdeen John Duncan was
impressed with Dr. Mearns's prayers to the "Great King," and
his cogent reasonings convinced him intellectually of the existei ice
of the living God. The gain was to him invaluable. " It was
Dr. Mearns," he frequently said to me, " who satisfied me of the
existence of God " ; and through life he remembered the debt with
lively gratitude. But the conviction had been reached by a
logical process, without any more direct mental perception ; rather
his reason accepting, than his mind seeing it. The next stage
of light seems almost to belong to the operation of the Spirit
of God, and to involve on his part a special resistance in not
following it up to spiritual fruit. It was the breaking in of a
light which he looked back upon to the last as an era in his life,
1 H. Scott Holland, VUal Values, 40.

io8 THE GOODNESS OF GOD

and spoke of as a season of indescribable joy. His own words to
me were nearly if not exactly these : " I first saw clearly the
existence of God in walking along the bridge at Aberdeen; it
was a great discovery to me ; I stopped and stood in an ecstasy
of joy at seeing tlie existence of God." I think he also added,
"I stood and thanked God for His existence." To another
friend he said, " When I was convinced that there was a God, I
danced on the Brig o' Dee with delight." *

Expecting Him my door was open wide :

Then I looked round

If any lack of service might be found,
And saw Him at my side : —

How entered, by what secret stair,

I know not, knowing only He was there.'

^ I shall never forget the hour when I first discovered that
God was really good. I had of course always known that the Bible
said He was good; but I had thought it only meant He was
religiously good; and it had never dawned on ma that it meant
He was actually and practically good, with the same kind of
goodness as He has commanded us to have. The expression,
"the goodness of God," had seemed to me nothing more than
a sort of heavenly statement, which I could not be expected to
understand. And then one day I came, in my reading of the
Bible, across the words, " 0 taste and see that the Lord is good,"
and suddenly they meant something. " The Lord is good," I
repeated to myself. What does it mean to be good ? What
but this, the living up to the best and highest that one knows.
To be good is exactly tlie opposite of being bad. To be bad is to
know the right and not to do it, but to be good is to do the best
we know. And I saw that, since God is omniscient, He must
know what is the best and highest good of all, and that therefore
His goodness must necessarily be beyond question. I can never
express what this meant to me. I had such a view of the real
actual goodness of God that I saw nothing could possibly go
wrong under His care, and it seemed to me that no one could ever
be anxious again. And over and over since, when appearances
have been against Him, and when I have been tempted to question
whether He had not been unkind, or neglectful, or indifferent,
I have been brought up short by the words, " The Lord is
good " ; and I have seen that it was sim])ly unthinkable that

' A. Moody Stuart, Rrcollections of John Duncan, 17.
" T. E. I}ro\vn, Old John and Othtr Poems, 181.

PSALM XXXIV. 8 109

a God who was good could have done the bad things I had
imagined.^

^ The Lord's goodness surrounds ns at every moment. I walk
through it almost with difficulty, as through thick grass and
flowers.^

^ He took his pain and all the trials of his days, and said,
" They say there is a better land, but it is hard to believe." Thus
he was a true pilgrim, for it is only stupid people who think
that the vision of the loveliest city in the loveliest land dims the
pilgrim's eyes to the fair beauties of this world. He did not make
the most of two worlds ; but as he lived to be worthy of that city
with foundations, God counted him worthy to find along the dusty
road of traffic and toil and pain the well of deep joys which only
the true pilgrim can discover. These wells were at many stages
of the day's road : he found one deep spring of pure, sparkling
water in the morning reading of the Bible and hymn-book ; an-
other when his hands were clasped in prayer.^

2. The true standard of goodness we find in Jesus Christ.
Ordinary human nature measures its purity and nobility by itself,
by the customs of society, by the decrees of law courts, by the
maxims of current philosophy. The blessed life takes its estimate
from the doctrine and spirit of Jesus. This means a higher-toned
goodness which we call holiness, and applies only to those who,
besides being virtuous in their actions, are possessed with an un-
affected enthusiasm of goodness, and besides abstaining from vice,
regard even a vicious thought with horror. Here is an ideal
which ordinary ethics not only do not reach, but do not even
attempt. When Jesus says, " If ye know these things, blessed are
ye if ye do them," the test is as spiritual as it is practical. " These
things " include what He referred to as a pure heart ; an inner
life, that is, which is utterly true to both the great commands, as
He interpreted and emphasized them. How much more this
means than the honesty which keeps men out of prison, and the
kindness which makes daily life tolerable, no words are needed
to show. The blessed life receives Christ Jesus as Lord ; that is
the open secret of its ethical and spiritual superiority to every
other life.

(1) The hope of the world lies in its vision of goodness, in its

1 Mrs. Pearsall Smith. 2 ^ ^^ Barbour, Thoughts, 107.

* Love and Life : The Story of J. Denholm Brash, 198.

no THE GOODNESS OF GOD

realization of character. The only radical and final remedy for
human misery is in the remoulding of human character. It is a
potent truth, alike for good and ill, that character is influenced by
environment. But it is even more true and potent that environ-
ment is influenced by character. The elevation of individual
character is an old highway to social happiness, but it is confessedly
difficult, and many eager philanthropists have sought for shorter
cuts. Sooner or later, however, the return has to be made to the
only road. What it all comes to is that the blessed life is ulti-
mately the only hope of humanity. Christendom may sadly fail to
teach or to exemplify this hope. But that is not the failure of
Christianity. For the needs of the whole world, Christianity has
never yet been tried. The modern Christian, like the ancient
Israelite, is continually forsaking the true God to worship idols.
Hence the Church's impotence to bless the world. But if only the
profession of Christianity did mean on all hands the embodiment
of the blessed life, full churches would be but a small fraction of
the result. Much more may be affirmed with no lees truth — even
this, that the curses of civilization (which may well alarm un-
belief) would come to an end as surely as noxious bacteria in
sunlight ; society would be leavened with even more certainty than
yeast leavens dough ; human sorrows would be brought to their
natural and tolerable minimum; and the nations would be in
such assurance of permanent peace that the millions expended
on murderous battleships could be utilized for the abolition of
poverty and the enrichment of humanity.

^ There is one signal service which the appeal of the Christian
character is peculiarly apt to render in the cause of faith. It is
often the only power which can confront the steady, surreptitious,
miserable pressure with which the sins of Christians tight against
the work of Christ. It may be that the contest between these
two forces covers by far the greater part of the whole battlefield ;
and that; while critics and apologists, with their latest weapons
(or with the latest improvement of their old ones), are charging
and clashing amid clouds of dust — with the world still thinking
that here at last is the real crisis — the practical question between
belief and disbelief is actually being settled for the vast majority
of men by the silent and protracted conflict between the con-
sistent and the inconsistent lives of those who alike profess them-
selves Christians; the conflict between the contrasted experience

PSALM XXXIV. 8 III

of Christ's Presence manifesfc in goodness, and Christ's Name dis-
honoured in hypocrisy, or blindness, or indifference.^

(2) Goodness is attainable through faith in Christ. For men
and for nations alike, life is largely if not wholly made up of
habits. The blessed life, whether on the large or the small scale,
is certainly a question of blessed habit. But this is not the whole
case. Destiny, we know, turns on character, just as character is
decided by habits. But habits are neither more nor less than the
repetition of acts. Let the first act be worthy, then let repetition
confirm it, and habit becomes not only easy but the sure prophecy
of destiny. The true beginning of the blessed life is plain, viz., to
receive Christ Jesus as Lord. The repetition of that supreme act
of the soul, as each day dawns and throughout all the duties it
brings, is the pledge of the habit which makes character. That
character not only ensures destiny but contributes in the interim
to other characters and destinies on every hand. Social reform
yields no hope of any golden age without purified and ennobled
individual character. For that, there is no such ideal or
guarantee on earth as the blessed life which is " rooted and built
up " in Jesus Christ.

^ In June, G. F. Watts wrote asking Shields to lunch any day
at Little Holland House. He knew nothing of the work Shields
was commencing, but said : " I should like to have an occasional
chat about serious art. I wish you would kindly send me a line
and tell me the correct colours for the draperies of Faith. I
know you are an authority." To which Shields replied : " For
answer to your question and compliment, I am no ' authority.' I
know none on the subject but the Authority of the Word revealed.
Paul declared Faith is God's gift. She is heaven-born. She is
the assurance of heavenly things to mortals shut in by sensuous
things, therefore the skies' hue is hers, her mantle and her wings :
and for her robe, white — unspotted. And this because they who
seek righteousness by works fail of that which only Faith'gives.
The 'fine linen of the Saints' symbolizes their righteousness in
the Apocalypse, and it is said that their robes were made ' white
in the blood of the Lamb.' If I seek where alone I look to find,
this is what is given me, and it is the best I can offer in response
to your question. I bow to tradition only where it agrees with
the written Word." ^

^ Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford, 178.

' E. Mills, Life and Letters of Frederic Shields, 309.

112 THE GOODNESS OF GOD

3, Having once tasted, we must continue tasting. Those who
have once tasted of God, have contracted a passion that grows in
being fed. Because they have tasted they must come again and
again to stay an appetite which, though always being met, is
always on the increase. The tasting of this meat is not to be the
tasting of an occasional delicacy, it is to be the eating of daily
bread.

^ There was a man who once lived in a place where, close to
his house, he had a spring of water. At a little distance from
him, there was another spring. We shall call the spring close to
his house, " the nether spring," and the other, a little way off,
" the upper spring." So he had the nether and the upper spring.
The nether spring looked very pleasant when the sun was
shining ; the water sparkled in its rays ; yet, when looked at more
closely, the water was black and dark, and very often grew
muddy, and the flowers on the side of it never lasted long ; and
people who drank a great deal of the water from the nether
spring seemed to grow sick. The other spring, a little way off,
came out of the rock ; it required a great deal of patience to get
it ; but if the cup was held long enough, it would always get
filled, and you were never sick from it.

Now this man who lived in the cottage near the nether
spring always went to it ; he did not like the trouble of going to
the upper spring. He had not sufficient patience. So it went
on for many years. At last he came to the nether spring and
it was dry, not a drop of water in it. So he was obliged to go
to the upper spring; he had to wait some time, but at last
he had a cup of nice, pure water. It was so sweet, and he
enjoyed it much. He had never before tasted such water. The
nether spring flowed on again, but ever after he went to the
upper ; and when asked why he went so far, he said, " I cannot
leave the upper spring ; having once tasted it, I cannot go back
to the nether spring." ^

III.

Satisfaction in the Goodness of God.

1. Those who discover the goodness of God are content to
trust Him. To be religious is to trust God, and to do that is to
be free from the fear of evil. He who trusts shall not be afraid

' James Vaughan.

PSALM XXXIV. 8 113

of evil tidings, his heart' is fixed, trusting in the Lord. To be
religious is to keep God's commandments, and the path of
rectitude cannot but be the path of happiness. Of course we
must not disguise the fact that to be truly religious is to deny
one's self and to take up the cross. But even that carries with it
its own blessedness. Suffering and sacrifice for the good of
another bring to one's soul a peculiar sweetness and satisfaction.
How much more must this be the case when it is done for God !
" Take my yoke upon you," said Christ, not concealing that His
religion is a yoke, " and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

^ Miss Trotter was penurious in small things, but her
generosity could rise to circumstances. Her dower was an
annuity from the estate of Mortonhall. She had a contempt for
securities, and would trust no bank with her money, but kept all
her bills and banknotes in a green silk bag that hung on her
toilet-glass. On each side of the table stood a large white bowl,
one of which contained her silver, the other her copper money.
One day, in the course of conversation, she said to her niece, " Do

ye ken, Margaret, that Mrs. Thomas E is dead ? I was gaun

by the door this morning, and thought I would just look in and
speer for her. She was very near her end, but quite sensible, and
expressed her gratitude to God for what He had done for her and
her fatherless bairns. She said she was leaving a large, young
family with very small means, but she had that trust in Him that
they would not be forsaken, and that He would provide for them.
Now, Margaret, ye'll tell Peggy to bring down the green silk bag
that hangs on the corner of my looking-glass, and ye'll tak' twa
thousand pounds out 0' it, and gi'e it to Walter Ferrier for behoof
of thae orphan bairns ; it will fit out the laddies, and be something
to the lassies. I want to make good the words, that ' God wad
provide for them,' for what else was I sent that way this morning,
but as a humble instrument in His hands ? " ^

2. He who has tasted the goodness of God and has learned
the secret of happiness will seek to share his experience with
others. Fire will cease to have either heat or light as it burns,
before the blessed life will be hidden away in heart-secrecies,
buried like the one talent in useless seclusion. Every man or
woman who rises above carnality and custom and selfishness into
the pure brightness and calm strength of communion with Christ
^ J. A. Doyle, Susan Ferrier, 18.
PS XXV.-CXIX. — 8

114 THE GOODNESS OF GOD

must go on to exemplify His word, " Ye are the salt of the earth ;
ye are the light of the world." Egoism is as intolerable without
altruism as altruism is impossible without egoism. In the blessed
life there is no conflict between these two. Rather do they
supplement and stimulate each other. The human self, by very
reason of its enrichment beyond utterance through receiving
Christ Jesus as Lord, will never cease to feel, and act upon the
feeling —

0 that the world miglit taste and see
The riches of His grace !

The arms of love that compass me
Would all mankind embrace.

^ When persons only wish for the happiness of another, and
when they never pass a day without doing a kindness, how can
they be otherwise than happy ? And when difhculties are very
great they have only to ascend to the level of doing the will of
God ; they will be happy still. If they are determined to act
rightly, to live as the best men and women have lived, there is
no more difficulty of unbelief. They see, not having seen, they go
out trusting in God, but not knowing whither they go. There is
no delight in life equal to that of setting the world right, of
reconciling things and persons to one another, by understanding
them, not by embittering them. True sympathy with every one
is the path of perfect peace.^

^ A poor man came home one day and brought five peaches :
nice beautiful peaches. He had ibur sons ; he gave one to each
and one to his wife. He did not say anything, but just gave them.
At night he came home again, and then he said, " How were the
peaches — all nice ? " I will tell you what each of the four boys
said.

The eldest boy said, " Oh yes, father, delicious. I ate my peach,
and then I took the stone very carefully, and went and planted it
in the garden, that we may have another peach-tree some day."
" Well," said the father, " very prudent ; look out for the future."

Then the little boy said, " Oh, father, 'twas exceedingly nice.
I ate all mine, and mother gave me half hers, and I threw
away the stone." " Well," said the father, " I am glad you liked
it, but perhaps if you had been a little older, you would have
acted differently."

The second boy said, " Yes, father, I will tell you what I did
with mine ; I picked up the stone my little brother threw away,

^ B. Jowett, in Life and Letters, ii. 402.

PSALM XXXIV. 8 1 15

broke it, and ate the kernel ; I enjoyed that exceedingly ; but T
did not eat my peach, I sold it. I could buy a dozen peaches
with what I got for it." The father said, " That may be right, but
I think it was a little covetous."

Then he said to the third boy, " Well, Edward, what did you do
with your peach ? " Edward came forward reluctantly ; but in
answer to his father, he replied, " I took it to poor little George,
who is sick down the lane. He would not take it, so I left the
peach on his bed and ran away."

Which of the four peaches was sweetest ? " Taste and see "
the way to enjoy anything.^

* James Vaughan, Sermons to Children, i. 67.

God of Nature and God of Grace.

Literature.

Davies (J. A.), Seven Words of Love, 165.

Dearden (H. W.), Parochial Serynons, 68.

Gray (W. A.), The Shadow of the Hand, 198.

Hanks (W. P.), The Eternal Witness, 142.

Maclaren (A.), A Year's Ministry, ii. 211.

Christian World Pulpit, xxxiv. 188 (W. G. Horder) ; xl. 169 (L. Abbott) ;

Ixxv. 60 (E. E. Newell).
Church Times, July 28, 1911 (J. W. Horsley).
Preacher's Magazine, vii. 439 (R. Brewiii).
Twentieth Century Pastor, xxviii. (1911) 201 (J. E. Flower).

»«

God of Nature and God of Grace.

Thy loving-kindness, O Lord, is in the heavens;
Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies.
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God ;
Thy judgements are a great deep.— Ps. xxxvi. 5, 6.

The landscape from which the Psalmist has borrowed his lessons
in all probability lay beside him while he mused. We imagine
him at the time a fugitive from Saul. He is hid in some desert-
retreat, with the everlasting hills round about him, and the gleams
and the shadows of a summer noon overhead. He had been cast
out from the comforts of an earthly home, but God was his
dwelling-place and his refuge. Hunt him as men might, they
could not drive him where Jehovah's righteousness did not environ
him, and the wings of His lovingkindness stretch to shadow and
protect. Out there, amidst the silence and restfulness of nature,
God's breath was about him to cool and to strengthen, and His
voice spoke comfort and peace. So the Psalmist speaks little of
himself. He mentions his trials and perils only for the sake of
dismissing them. From the wickedness and the craft of men he
is fain to turn to the goodness and the faithfulness of God, of
which all things around were eloquent.

^ I was struck with the fact that Scripture is adapted to every
laud, on Sunday week, as I sat in the little English Church at
Zermatt, right under the shadow of the gigantic Matterhorn, and
read such passages as these on its walls: "Ye frost and cold,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever." " " Ye
mountains and hills, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify
Him for ever." And as day after day I moved about in a land
where in every direction the eye rested on gigantic peaks,
whose crests were often lost in the clouds, these words were ever
rising in my mind : " Thy righteousness is like the moim tains of
God"i

* W. Garrett Horder,

I20 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

The Lovingkindness of God.

"Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, is in the heavens."

The " mercy " or " lovingkindness " of which the Psahnist
speaks is very nearly equivalent to the New Testament " grace."
Both mean substantially this — active love communicating itself
to creatures who are inferior, and who might have expected some-
thing else to befall them. Mercy is a modification of love, in-
asmuch as it is love to an inferior. The hand is laid gently upon
the man, because if it were laid with all its weight it would crush
him. It is the stooping goodness of a king to a beggar. And
mercy is likewise love in its exercise to persons that might expect
something else, being guilty. As a general coming to a body of
mutineers with pardon and favour upon his lips, instead of with
condemnation and death, so God comes to us forgiving and bless-
ing. All His goodness is forbearance, and His love is mercy,
because of the weakness, the lowliness, and the ill desert of us on
whom the love falls.

1. As the heavens are high above the earth, so God's loving-
kindness evermore transcends man. Far above the towers that
men's hands have reared, the waves that the tempests uplift, the
peaks that the earth has heaved, the heaven stretches its distant
curtain, embracing but surmounting them all. And so with the
mercy of our God. It is the one all-enfolding, all-trausceudiug
fact in God's moral universe, lifting itself far above the region of
human experience and analogy. It is high ; we cannot attain to
it. It is far above man's mercies, for our " goodness extendeth
not to God's," and while " greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends," God " commendeth his
love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.''
It is far above man's deserts, for we are " not worthy of the least
of all the mercies, and of all the truth " which He showeth to His
servants. It is far above man's sins, for high as he has heaved
the mountains of his provocations, God's mercy can transcend
t he loftiest. It is far above man's prayers and conceptions, for

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 121

as the heavens are higher thau the earth, so are His ways higher
than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts, and He " is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think."

Great God ! I stood beneath the skies one night,
"When all Thy stars were out, serene and clear,
And tried to think of Thee, and feel Thee near,
When, suddenly, a sense of all Thy might,
Thy times to come, Thy wonders out of sight,
Struck chill on me — my spirit reeled for fear ;
Scarce certain of the ground I stand on here,
I shrank abased beneath Thy awful height ;
When soft as dew, a word of Holy Writ
Fell on my troubled mind ; " Thy mercy, Lord,
Is greater than the heavens" — then all above,
■ Around, beneath, took comfort from the word ;
For 'twas as if the heavens were newly lit
With their best, brightest star — the Star of Love.

2. Like the face of the summer sky, the lovingkindness of
God is unalterable. The earth which the sky overshadows has
seen many mutations. " Surely the mountain falling cometh to
nought, and the rock is removed out of its place. The waters
wear the stones ; thou washest away the things that grow out of
the dust of the earth." Eivers have altered their courses. The
sea has shifted its ancient bounds. Forests have sunk in swamps.
Empires have risen and fallen. The grass rustles and the lizards
bask by the broken columns of cities that pulsed with the
interests and sounded with the traffic of busy men. Generation
after generation has come and gone, and the place that knew
them once knows them no more for ever. Beneath there is
nothing but flux, restlessness, change. But the sky has looked
down on it all, serene and unvarying, amidst all the overturning
and mutations of the countless years. Time writes no wrinkles
on its steadfast blue. Orion hangs his glittering sword, and the
Pleiades weave their mystic braids, just as they did for Isaac
when he went forth to the field to meditate at the eventide ; for
Abraham when God took him out from his tent, and bade him
look up to heaven with the promise of a seed that should be as
the stars of heaven for multitude ; for Adam when the first day
faded over him, and the glories of the night revealed themselves?

122 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

amidst the balm and the silences of an unstained Eden. So with
the mercy of God. All down the ages His covenant has stood,
ordered in all things and sure amidst all changes, free from
variableness or any shadow of turning. As the heavens that
were formed of old " continue unto this day according to God's
ordinance," so does the word that is settled there.

^ Miss R. having told Dr. Duncan that a young man had said
at a meeting that " there was not mercy in God from everlasting
— there could not be mercy till there was misery," he said,
" God is unchangeable ; mercy is an attribute of God. The man
is confounding mercy with the exercise of mercy. There could
not be the exercise of mercy till there was misery ; but God was
always a merciful God. You might as well say that there could
not be justice in God till there were creatures towards whom to
exercise punitive justice." ^

3. Like the canopy of heaven, the lovingkindness of God is
all-embracing. " The noblest scenes of earth," it has been said,
" can be seen and known but by few ; it is not intended that man
should live always in the midst of them ; he injures them by his
presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them. But
the sky is for all. Bright as it is, it is not ' too bright or good
for human nature's daily food.' It is fitted in all its functions
for the perpetual comfort and exaltation of the heart." No rough
hand can sully the clear blue vault above, as it unfolds its
splendour and dispenses its blessings for a worldful at once, and
that without money or price. Be your dwelling-place on the
bleakest and dreariest swamp, without a tree or a hill to diversify
its surface, you have still overhead a picture of loveliness and of
mystery as often as you choose to look up. Thread the narrowest
thoroughfare of a crowded town, and far above the filth and
squalor, between the eaves of the tall and tottering tenements
that enclose you, there are strips of clear blue sky, reminding
you that, whatever be the restlessness, the sorrow, and the vice
below, there is nothing above but beauty, purity, and peace. So
again with the mercy of our God ; it is exceeding broad. It is
the attribute of all attributes that is ever engirdling and over-
shadowing us, making its existence known through a thousand
channels, in a thousand ways. Mercy is the very sphere in which
' David Brown, Memoir of John Duncan, 422.

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 123

we live and move ; it is .swift as the light of heaven, near to us
as its circling breaths. And it is just as free. Eich and poor,
high and low, all have alike a share in it. And as it is the gift
of God to all, so is it the gift of God to all in all circumstances,
throughout every change of their changing lives.

^ The Doctor must keep his temper : this is often worse to
manage than even his time, there is so much unreason, and
ingratitude, and peevishness, and impertinence, and impatience,
that it is very hard to keep one's tongue and eye from being
angry; and sometimes the Doctor does not only well, but the
best when he is downrightly angry, and astonishes some fool, or
some insolent, or some untruth doing or saying patient ; but the
Doctor should be patient with his patients, he should bear with
them, knowing how much they are at the moment suffering. Let
us remember Him who is full of compassion, whose compassion
never fails ; whose tender mercies are new to us every morning,
as His faithfulness is every night; who healed all manner of
diseases, and was kind to the unthankful and the evil ; what
would become of us, if He were as impatient with us as we often
are with each other ? If you want to be impressed with the
Almighty's infinite loving-kindness and tender mercy, His
forbearance, His long-suffering patience, His slowness to anger,
His Divine ingeniousness in trying to find it possible to spare
and save, think of the Israelites in the desert, and read the
chapter where Abraham intercedes with God for Sodom, and
these wonderful " peradventures." ^

^ My fear is not of expanding, but of contradicting, the
Gospel which we are sent to preach ; not of seeing too strong a
testimony in the Bible to the will of Him in whom is light and no
darkness at all, but of limiting its testimonies to meet my narrow
conceptions ; not of exaggerating the duty of the Church to be a
witness against all hard and cruel conceptions of our Father in
Heaven, which lead to a confusion between Him and the Spirit of
Evil, but of not perceiving how manifold are the ways in which
that duty should be fulfilled. I am sure that if the Gospel is not
regarded as a message to all mankind of the redemption which
God has effected in His Son; if the Bible is thought to be
speaking only of a world to come, and not of a Kingdom of
Eighteousness and Peace and Truth with which we may be in
conformity or in enmity now ; if the Church is not felt to be the
hallower of all professions and occupations, the bond of all classes,
the instrument of reforming abuses, the admonisher of the rich
^ Dr. John Brown, Hora Suhsedvce, ii. 35 (appendix).

124 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

the friend of the poor, the asserter of the glory of that humanity
which Christ bears — we are to blame, and God will call us to
account as unfaithful stewards of His treasures.^

11.

The Faithfulness of God.

"Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies."

God's faithfulness is in its narrowest sense His adherence to
His promises. It implies, in that sense, a verbal revelation, and
definite words from Him, pledging Him to a certain line of
action. He hath said, and shall He not do it? He will not
alter the thing that is gone out of His lips. It is only a God who
has actually spoken to men that can be a " faithful God." He
will not palter with a double sense, keeping His word of promise
to the ear, and breaking it to the hope. And not only His
articulate promises, but also His own past actions, bind Him.
He is always true to these ; and not only continues to do as He
has done, but discharges every obligation which His past imposes
on Him. The ostrich was said to leave its eggs to be hatched in
the sand. Men bring men into positions of dependence, and then
lightly shake responsibility from careless shoulders. But God
accepts the cares laid upon Him by His own acts, and discharges
them to the last jot. He is a " faithful Creator." Creation brings
obhgations with it — obligations on the creature, obligations on the
Creator. If God makes a being, God is bound to take care of the
being that He has made. If He makes a being in a given fashion,
He is bound to provide for the necessities that He has created.
According to the old proverb, if He makes mouths it is His
business to feed them. And He recognizes the obligation. His
past binds Him to certain conduct in His future. We can lay
hold on the former manifestation, and we can plead it with Him.
"Thou hast been, and therefore Thou must be." "Thou hast
taught me to trust in Thee ; vindicate and warrant my trust by
Thy unchangeableness." So His word, His acts, and His own
nature, bind God to bless and help. His faithfulness is the

' Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, ii. 227.

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 125

expression of His unchangeableness. " Because he could swear
by no greater, he sware by himself."

^ I believe that love and righteousness and justice in God mean
exactly the same thing, namely, a desire to bring His whole moral
creation into a participation of His own character and His own
blessedness. He has made us capable of this, and He will not
cease from using the best means for accomplishing it in us all.
When I think of God making a creature of such capacities, it
seems to me almost blasphemous to suppose that He will throw
it from Him into everlasting darkness, because it has resisted His
gracious purposes towards it for the natural period of human life.
No, He who waited so long for the formation of a piece of old red
sandstone will surely wait with much long-suffering for the
perfecting of a human spirit.^

1. The faithfulness of God reaches to the clouds of sin and
remorse. — Think of David after his terrible fall. The clouds
gathered round him then as they never gathered before. As he
had sowed, so he was reaping ; and no sufferings are so terrible or
so testing as the sufferings that are the obvious outcome and
natural retribution of a man's own follies and crimes. What of
the darkness that envelops him then — when the sword that he
had lifted against Uriah was turned against himself, and he ex-
perienced in the sins of his family the reproduction of his own, to
the overshadowing and embitterment of his later years ? Youth
gone from him, his spirit crushed — does the man lose his hope and
let go his hold on the promise of a truth-keeping God ? Behind
clouds such as these, does he fail to grasp and to cling to the faith-
fulness he spoke of in the years long gone by ? Listen : " Although
my house be not so with God ; yet he hath made with me an ever-
lasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure : for this is all
my salvation, and all my desire, though he make it not to grow."
Yes, whom God loves He loves throughout, and He loves to the
end.

^ A friend once showed an artist a costly handkerchief on which
a blot of ink had been made. " Nothing can be done with it now,
it is absolutely worthless." The artist made no reply, but carried it
away with him. After a time he sent it back, to the great surprise
of his friend, who could scarcely recognize it. In a most skilful
and artistic way he had made a fine design in India ink, using the
^ Letters of Thomac Erskine of Lmlathen, ii. 242.

126 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

blot as a basis, making the handkerchief more valuable than ever.
A blotted life is not necessarily a useless life. Jesus can make a
life beautiful though it has been marred by sin.^

2. The faithfulness of God reaches to the clouds of trouble. —
God has hid His Church ere this in the mountain mists and in
the deep places of the earth, till they were dead or vanished that
sought its life.

^ You remember the story of tlie godly family whose home lay
across the track a returning army was expected to follow, when
flushed with victory and athirst for rapine and blood. " Be a wall
of fire unto us, 0 God," was the prayer which the father put up
as he knelt at the household altar ere retiring for the night, and
having thus committed himself and his circle to the hands of a
preserving God, he and they together laid them down in peace,
and took their quiet rest, knowing who it was that made them
dwell in safety. The night-watches hastened on, morning came,
and the family awoke. AH was uuwontedly dark and still when
they rose. Tliere was no light from chink or from window, nor
sound of stirring life around. Noiselessly, and all unseen, the
hand whose protection they craved stole forth from the wintry
heavens, not, indeed, in the shape of a wall of fire, but in some-
thing as sufficient and safe — in wreath upon wreath of driven
snow. Meanwhile the foe had passed by, and had gone on his
way, and those whom he threatened breathed freely, for they knew
that their tabernacle was at peace.^

III.

The Righteousness of God.

"Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God."

1. The idea in the mind of the Psalmist was that the righteous-
ness of Jehovah is fixed and unchangeable. Men's ideas of
righteousness may change. Those of one age may differ from those
of another ; one land may have a different standard from that of
another. But in spite of this there is an everlasting, an unchanging
righteousness in God. Nothing in this world so impresses the
mind with the idea of unchangeableness as the great mountains.

* Twentieth Century Pastor, xxviii. (1911) 252.

• W. A. Gray, The Shadow of the Hand, 15.

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 127

The dwellings of men in the valleys are ever undergoing change ;
at every visit something new strikes one — the fields which men
cultivate produce their different crops, the forests on the mountain
sides grow denser and taller, the rivers alter their course, even the
sea is restless, now receding from and now encroaching on the land ;
but the great mountains seem to be lifted to a realm beyond
change. The snow upon them, it is true, is ever melting; the
glaciers between them are ever moving, but the granite rock
beneath seems ever the same. The generations of men who dwell
beneath them live their little life and pass away ; year after year
new and wondering eyes look up to these mountains, but there they
stand, the most impressive symbol of permanence in a world of
change.

(1) The mountains are stable and permanent. — The mountains
were thought to be the most ancient parts of the earth, the frame-
work on which the Great Architect of the Universe had builded ;
next the earth generally ; and then the world, or, in the Hebrew
sense, the fruitful, habitable part of the earth. So in the
Athanasian Creed, " The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the
Holy Ghost eternal." Eternal and changelessly the same through-
out eternity, and therefore we do not read, " Thou wast God from
everlasting," or, " Thou wilt be God world without end " ; but,
"Thou art God, the same past, present, and to come." As we
look up to-day, so have the successive generations of men lifted
up their eyes to the mountains that speak to each of an unimagin-
able and almost limitless past.

^ Stand at the mountain's foot and look up at its high head,
and remember how it has braved many a storm which hissed itself
out of breath over it, and it still remains to-day scarred like a
veteran, it is true, but yet proud and firm on the victorious field.

His proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds ; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curling brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows ;
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat, —
The common fate of all that's high and great.

It was not yesterday that it was reared ; it will not fall to-morrow ;
but it has seen generation after generation come and go, with all
their faith and fear, their love and lust, their weal and woe ; and

128 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

to-day it looks down upon another race which trusts and trembles,
sins and sorrows, loves and laughs, as though they were the first
that mountain ever looked upon. Oh ! if it could only speak, it
would tell us how the actors constantly change on the stage of
Time ; that the play, now tragic, now comic, oftenest common-
place, is always the same, and that it has seen it acted over and
over again ; and yet it looks on with no tired look. Whenever
you see the mountain, you see that which is very old, and that
which is very young. The signs of its age are also the symbols
of its youth. It transmutes the furrows of its old age into the
dimples of childhood's laughter. Perpetual youth is the preroga-
tive of the old mountain. It lasts, lives on —

Eternal pyramids, built not with hands,

From linked foundations that deep-hidden lie.
Ye rise apart, and each a wonder stands !

Your marble peaks, which pierce the clouds so high,
Seem holding up the curtain of tlie sky ;

And there, sublime and solemn, have ye stood,
While crumbling Time, o'er-awed, passed reverent- by,

Since Nature's resurrection from the flood,
Since earth, new born, again received God's plaudit, " Good ! "

How many races have ye seen descend

Into Time's grave, the lowly with the great ;
How many kingdoms seen asunder rend.

How many empires fall, how many centuries end ? ^

(2) The righteousness of God is more permanent than the
mountains. — Though the mountains seem as if they did not change,
yet they do change. The atmospheric influences which play upon
them do alter them, though the alteration may be imperceptible
to men who can observe them only for a few brief years. But
absolutely without change is the righteousness of God. How is
God's righteousness shown ? Most of all in His kindness. And
so Isaiah says, " For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be
removed ; but my righteousness shall not depart from thee,
neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the
Lord that hath mercy on thee." There is one thing in this
universe of change which is absolutely without change, and that
is the eternal righteousness: "I the Lord change not; therefore
ye, 0 sons of Jacob, are not consumed." Here is a resting-place
' J. A. Davies, Seven f Fords of Love, 168.

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 129

for our souls. In this world nothing abides in one stage. We
move from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from
manhood to old age, from old age to the unseen world, but God
changes not. We pass into new relationships, from being
children to being parents, from having to serve to having to
govern, from the active government of manhood to the quiescent
stage of old age ; friends drop from our side, old bonds are broken,
new bonds are formed ; but in the midst of this sea of change,
where the waters are ever in movement, now receding, now ad-
vancing, there is a rock which abides — the righteousness of God.
There is one point on which the eye can rest. There is one spot
on which the foot can be planted. There is one place of anchor-
age for the soul — the rightousness of God.

U Geologists tell us that these giants of Bernese mountains
are but a third now of their original height, and we know how, to
quote Euskin, " The hills, which, as compared with human beings,
seem everlasting, are in truth as perishing as they, their veins of
flowing fountain weary the mountain heart, as the common pulse
does ours; the natural force of the iron crag is abated in its
appointed time, like the strength of the sinews in a human old
age ; and it is but the lapse of the larger years of decay which,
in the sight of the Creator, distinguishes the mountain range
from the moth and the worm." Yet God and His attributes, and
even His relations to man, remain unchanged, and from this
treasury Isaiah picks out the two jewels of kindness and peace
for our thankful contemplation.^

^ Arthur Clough, whose early death prevented him from
becoming the foremost poet of the age, and who passed through
many spiritual vicissitudes, felt and expressed this in his noble
lines:

It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoe'er I stray and range,
Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.*

2. The righteousness of God is like the great mountains in
its power to inspire awe, wonder, and reverence. The great

1 J. W. Horsley, in The Church Times, July 28, 1911.
' W. Garrett Horder.

PS. xxv.-cxix. — 9

I30 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

height of mountains, the vastness of their bulk, and their far-
reaching extent overawe the spectator, and dwarf him into
insignificance in their presence. Their dark and frowning crags,
their awful chasms, and their mysterious yet gigantic forms shut
his lips in silent awe, and chasten his thoughtless spirit into
seriousness and reflection. If they should fall upon him he is
crushed like an insect by the foot. A thunder-storm among the
mountains is an awful thing. Once experienced, it will never be
forgotten. The Law of Moses was fitly given amid thunderings
and lightnings and a great earthquake among the mountains of
Sinai. Like the great mountains the righteousness of God is an
awful thing. When we are first convinced of sin and stand in
i!ie presence of God we tremble and cry out for fear.

^ " So Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr. Legality's
House for help : but behold, when he was got now hard by the
Hill, it seemed so high, and also that side of it that was next the
wayside, did hang so much over, that Christian was afraid to
venture further, lest the Hill should fall on his Hiead ; wherefore
there he stood still ; and wotted not what to do. Also his burden
now seemed heavier to him than while he was in his way. There
came also flashes of fire out of the Hill that made Christian
afraid that he should be burned: here therefore he sweat, and did
quake for fear." ^

(1) The real greatness of the mountains appears only as we
approach them. We look up at them from the valleys and fancy
that an hour's climb will bring us to their summit. It seems
as if we could shoot an arrow to the top ; but we begin to climb,
and as we climb they seem to lift their heads higher and higher.
And so it is with the righteousness of God. Until we begin to
strive after it, it seems within easy reach ; it is only when we
begin the long ascent that its height is really felt, and the
higher we go the loftier does it appear. The man who has
climbed highest in the way of righteousness knows best how
great is the distance he has yet to climb. Indeed, to the man
who has not begun to strive after righteousness, it seems most
easy of attainment. It seems to him far easier to be righteous
than to be learned, or muscular, or inventive. He stands more
amazed at some great work of art, or literature, or mechanical
contrivance than at the sight of righteousness in man. And

* Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (Cambridge edition), 152.

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 131

why ? The one can be apprehended by the eye and the other
can be apprehended only by the heart, and his heart has not
been trained by the pursuit of righteousness to appreciate its
glory. Eighteousness is only spiritually discerned. It cannot be
seen by the eye, or heard by the ear, or felt by the hand. It
needs a deeper faculty. The delicate, subtle fancy of poetry, or
the grace of art, or the exquisite suggestiveness of the noblest
music is not discerned by the uncultured. Preparation is
needed before auy of these can be discerned. And the beauty of
holiness, which is only another name for righteousness, is not
revealed save to those who, by striving after it, have realized the
difficulty and glory of its attainment. Only those who have
begun to walk in the way of righteousness know how lofty, how
far off, how difficult to reach, is the position to which the great
Master, Christ, calls us when He says, " Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

^ About ten days ago we started from the valley of Zermatt,
which is itself some thousands of feet above the level of the sea,
and for nearly five hours were climbing up to the well-known
Goruer Gratz, and when we reached it, the Matterhorn, instead
of seeming nearer, positively seemed farther off, the distance to
the summit appeared greater. When we were in the valley the
lower mountains around its base seemed to lessen the distance,
and only when these were scaled could we realize its awful
height.^

(2) The summits of the mountains are clearly revealed only as
the sun lifts the clouds. And so it is with the righteousness of
God. Clouds and darkness are round about Him, until Christ,
the Sun of Eighteousness, arises, and brings Him into view.
Before, all was mystery and gloom to men. Their eyes could not
pierce the cloud. They feared as they entered therein. But on the
mystery Christ threw His revealing light, so that the clouds were
lifted and all stood out in startling clearness. And then men began
to realize that the righteousness which seemed so repellent was
but the vesture of love ; nay, that there could not be any real
righteousness unless, at its very heart, there was the fire of love ;
just as there could not be any verdure or beauty on the earth but
for the central core of fire within.

^ W. Garrett Border.

132 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

I stand upon the mount of God,

With sunlight in my soul ;
I hear the storms in vales beneath,

I hear the thunders roll.

But I am calm with Thee, my God,

Beneath these glorious skies ;
And to the height on which I stand

Nor storms nor clouds can rise.

Oh, this is life ! Oh, this is joy !

My God, to find Thee so!
Thy face to see, Thy voice to hear,

And all Thy love to know.

3. Mountain chains have been a refuge for the oppressed in
all ages. Liberty, bruised and broken on the level plain, has fled
into the mountain ranges and there has found a refuge. Out of
the level plains of Egypt Israel escapes and find's its life in the
rocky ranges of Mount Horeb. In the mountains of Palestine the
Israelites escape from Moabitish hosts on the east of them and the
Philistine hosts on the south of them. In the mountain caves of
En-gedi David hides from the persecuting hosts of Saul. In the
mountains Greece finds its escape from the overwhelming Persian
hosts. In the mountains of Switzerland liberty is cradled, while
all over Europe despotism is triumphant. In the mountains of
Northern Italy the Waldenses keep alive the Protestant religion
before Protestantism has been born.

We are not accustomed to think that God is a refuge because
of His righteousness. We rather, perhaps, think His righteous-
ness closes His heart to us in our sinfulness. Perhaps we will say
that a good man, a benevolent man, a merciful man, will serve as
a refuge to us in our hour of need, but not a man strong in his
righteousness. And yet, if we will consider a little, it is not the
righteousness, it is the unrighteousness, of men that makes them
unmerciful and therefore repellent. One man repels another, not
because the first man is too righteous to have mercy, but because
he is not righteous enough. The men that are fighting scepti-
cism are half sceptics. The man who only half believes is at
enmity with the man who does not believe at all, because he is in

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 133

perpetual fear lest his half-belief shall be taken away from him ;
but he who is anchored, by a chain that cannot be broken, to the
eternal verities has no fear, and therefore has a heart open to all
argument and all reasons, and considers them with patience and
gentleness. So it is a dormant sense of unrighteousness in us that
makes us afraid of the unrighteous.

^ In that marvellous story, Hawthorne's Marble Faun, when
Miriam has fallen into a great sin and comes to Hilda, and Hilda
will not receive her because of that sin, bidding her not come
nearer, and Miriam cries, " Because I have sinned I need your
friendship the more," Hilda replies, " If I were one of God's angels,
incapable of stain, I would keep ever at your side and try to lead
you upward. But I am a poor, lonely girl, and God has given me
my purity, and told me to take it back to Him unstained, and I
dare not associate with the criminal lest I carry back to Him a
stained and spotted garment." It is the consciousness of a
dormant impurity in the pure Hilda that makes her dread to
receive to her heart the impure as her companion. It is not
Hilda's perfection of righteousness, it is her imperfection, that
makes her fail as a refuge to poor, sinful, despairing Miriam.
Now, God's righteousness is of the kind that never can be
harmed.^

IV.

The Judgments of God.

" Thy judgements are a great deep."

By "judgments" are not meant merely the acts of God's
punitive righteousness, the retributions that destroy evil-doers, but
all God's decisions and acts in regard to man. Or, to put it into
other and briefer words, God's judgments are the whole of the
" ways," the methods of the Divine government. So St. Paul, allud-
ing to this very passage, when he says, " How unsearchable are his
judgments," adds, as a parallel clause, meaning the same thing,
" and thy ways past finding out." That includes all that men call,
in a narrower sense, judgments ; but it includes, too, all acts of
kindness and loving gifts. God's judgments are the expressions
of His thoughts, and these thoughts are thoughts of good and not
of evil.

^ Lyman Abbott.

134 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

Perhaps it was the great and wide sea that the Psahnist
thought of while he spoke — the secret of whose depths only Omni-
science could see, the noise of whose billows only Omnipotence
could still. Or perhaps it w^as some land-locked lake, on whose
shining surface he looked down, as it crisped with the breezes or
slept in the calms of a long summer day. But in either case, the
picture yields a ready lesson : " Thy judgments," he says, " are a
great deep." It is the one touch that is needed to enhance the
description ; for what were mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness,
without infinite wisdom to plan and direct the whole ? But this
wisdom is evermore a great deep, unsearchable and unfathomable,
whether it lies in the heart of God as His purpose, or in the word
of God as His statutes, or in the ways of God as His Providence.
" Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find out the
Almighty unto perfection ? It is high as heaven ; what canst
thou do ? deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? The measure
thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." " 0
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God !
How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding
out!"

1. The deep means mystery. We cannot escape the mystery
in life, it is true, just as we cannot explore all ocean's secrets.
But it is not wisdom to think we have touched bottom because the
plummet ceases to descend. The plumb line slackens in our hands.
But that may mean only that life is too deep for our pessimists'
soundings, which have never gone deeper than the shifting surface
tides. What is the obscurity of the sea ? Not that which comes
from mud, or anything added, but that which comes from depth.
As far as a man can see down into its blue-green depths they are
clear and translucent ; but when the light fails and the eye fails,
there comes what we call obscurity. The sea is clear, but our
sight is liinited.

^ Here towers Vesuvius ; there at its feet lie the waters of
the bay. So the Righteousness springs up like some great cliff,
rising sheer from the water's edge, while its feet are laved by the
sea of the Divine judgments, unfathomable and shoreless. The
mountains and the sea are the two grandest things in nature, and
in their combination sublime; the one the home of calm and

PSALM XXXVI. 5, 6 135

silence, the other perpetual motion. But the mountain's roots
are deeper than the depths of the sea, and though the judgments
are a mighty deep, the righteousness is deeper, and is the bed of
the ocean.i

2. The righteousness of God is seen in His judgments. In
God's nature the mountain height answers back to the sea deep ;
the great deep of judgment reflects the mountain summits of
righteousness in its clear calm. We need to remember this great
truth of the unity of God's purpose in the world; for the age
which disputes most passionately the justice of God's judgments
is the age which most completely ignores or opposes His com-
mands. A man on the cliff can look much deeper into the ocean
than a man on the level beach. The farther we climb the farther
we shall see down into the " sea of glass mingled with fire " that
lies placid before God's throne. Let us remember that it is a
hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished, of a
building before the scaffolding is pulled down ; and it is a hazardous
thing for us to say about any deed or any revealed truth that it
is inconsistent with the Divine character. Let us wait a bit !
" Thy judgments are a great deep." The deep will be drained off
one day, and we shall see the bottom of it. Let us judge nothing
before the time.

^ If we believe in the Father and His good purpose towards
us, what we require of atfliction and of suffering, what we have a
right to require, is this, that it should be felt to be helping us and
purifying us. God gives us a natural sense of justice, implanting
it deep in our hearts ; and it is through this sense of justice that
all the best victories of humanity have been won. . . . The Father
cannot have it in His heart that we should merely be crushed and
silenced by our punishment ; that we should submit, simply be-
cause there is no way out, as a little bird submits to be torn by a
hawk. If our submission is like that, it is worth nothing ; it only
plunges our spirit in deeper darkness.^

^ One night when I was recently crossing the Atlantic, an
officer of our boat told me that we had just passed over the spot
where the Titanic went down. And I thought of all that life and
wreckage beyond the power of man to recover and redeem. And
I thought of the great bed of the deep sea, with all its held

^ A. Maclaren.

'AC. Benson, Thy Rml and Thy ^'faff, 106.

6 GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE

treasure, too far down for man to reach and restore. " Too far
down!" And then I thought of all the human wreckage en-
gulfed and sunk in oceanic depths of nameless sin. Too far gone !
For what? Too far down! For what? Not too far down for
the love of God ! Listen to this : " He descended into hell," and
He will descend again if you are there. " If I make my bed in
hell, thou art there." "Where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound." " He hort our sin " ; then He got beneath it ;
down to it and beneath it ; and there is no human wreckage
lying in the ooze of the deepest sea of iniquity that His deep love
cannot reach and redeem. What a Gospel ! However far down,
God's love can get beneath it ! ^

1 J. H. Jowett, Things That Matter ifoa^ (1913), 17.

Life and Light.

Literature.

Benson (E. W.), Boy-Life, 32,

Brooks (P.), Sermons Preached in English Churches, 89.

Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 3.

Creighton (M.), The Heritage of the Spirit, 185.

Matheson (G.), Leaves for Quiet Hours, 192.

Morrison (G. H.), The Unlighfed Lustre, 30.

Stone (D.), The Discipline of Faith, 31.

Thackeray (F, St. John), Sermons Preached in Eton College Chapel, 105.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), viii. (1871), No. 742 ; xxii.

(1883), No. 1232 ; xxiii. (1883), No. 1259.
Cambridge Review, ix. Supplement No. 232 (R. Machray).
Christian Commonwealth, xxxii. (1912) 437 (R. J. Campbell).
Christian World Pulp%t, xxi. 106 (J. B. Heard) ; xx. 392 (J. B. Tinling).
Church of England Pulpit, Ixiii. 76 (M. P. Maturin).
Churchman's Pulpit : The Epipjhany, iii. 286 (G. F. Terry).
Preacher's Magazine, v. (1894) 97 (C. New).
Sunday Magazine, 1881, p. 702 (J. Robertson).

i3b

Life and Light.

For with thee is the fountain of life:

In thy light shall we see light.— Ps. xxxvi. 9.

St. Augustine asks, " What is the fountain of life, unless Christ ? "
and he adds, " He who is the Fountain is the Light." Our Lord
said, " Whensoever I am in the world, I am the light of the
world"; and again, "I am the light of the world; he that
followeth me shall have the light of life." This is further
explained by St. John, with reference to our Lord as the Word :
" That which hath been made in him is life, and the life was the
light of men." Thus we have continually associated together as
in the text the two ideas of life and light, both finding their
fullest meaning in our Lord Jesus Christ. As gifts or possessions
from Him and through Him, we cannot separate them. The
presence of the one bespeaks the presence of the other, and each
the recreating presence of the Spirit of God. Light necessarily
comes to us if there is life, and life necessarily issues when light
enters.

^ On some of the Alpine passes there are rude shelters for dis-
tressed travellers, but they are only shelters ; they hold no food, no
water, no light, no warmth ; the man they have saved may perish
within their walls. The Eedeemer is sometimes thought of as a
mere refuge to flee to from condemnation. How imperfect that
is ; for though we are saved from condemnation we have as many
wants as heart-beats ; but when the eyes of the refugee are opened
he sees a home there, and everything he needs for all time, for
all events, for all perfection. We flee to Him for safety, but He
puts this song into our mouth :

Thou, 0 Christ, art all I want,

More than all in Thee I find.^

^ Charles New.

«39

I40 LIFE AND LIGHT

The Source of Life.

"With thee is the fountain of life."

1. God is the fouutain of life in the merely physical sense.
He has life in Himself, and He communicates His life in multi-
tudinous forms. He does not derive His life: it rises eternally
in Himself. The life we need is ever flowing from God. All the
life in the universe, visible and invisible, is from Him. Vegetable
life with its myriad forms, in hedgerow, garden, forest, and field ;
animal life from the tiniest animalculaj to the mammoths of
Eastern lands ; human lives — which die, we are told, at the rate
of nearly 4000 every hour, their places being taken by as many
more ; lives in the unseen world, the innumerable inhabitants of
the unseen state. Space throbs and palpitates with life. What
a conception it gives of the almightiness of our He'avenly Father !
Of all this life He is the source.

2. But life is more than physical existence; it is fellowship
with the Unseen. When God passed from the formation of
His other creatures to the creation of man. He added something
over and above what they had, something direct from Himself
to make life ; He " breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ;
and man became a living soul." Sin changed the base of life;
it made another base necessary. God put all life into His Son.
And that life which is in Christ is the real spring and essence of
all that constitutes true human life. There must be generation
from Him ; there must be contact with Him ; there must be union
with Him to make life — life properly so called — the life which
is the being of a man — the life that fulfils the end of life — the
life that is for ever and for ever. The beginning of life, then,
man's real life, is oneness with the Lord Jesus.

^ Life in the Old Testament is primarily the physical, earthly
life, the sum of energies which make up man's actual existence.
The soul separated from the body does not cease to be, but it
forfeits its portion in the true life. Two factors, however, were
latent in the Old Testament conception from the beginning, and
became more and more prominent in the course of the later

PSALM XXXVI. 9 141

development. In the first place, the radical element in life is
activity. Mere physical existence is distinguished from that
essential life which consists in the unrestricted play of all the
energies, especially of the lii,;!ier and more characteristic. In
the loftier passages of the Psahns, more particularly, the idea of
" life " has nearly always a pregnant sense. It is associated with
joy, prosperity, peace, wisdom, righteousness; man "lives"
according as he has free scope for the activities which are most
distinctive of his spiritual nature. God Himself is emphatically
the "living one." He is the creative, ever-active God —
sufficient to Himself, the source of all reality and power. Life
is His supreme attribute, distinguishing Him from men with their
thousand weaknesses and limitations. The other factor in the
Old Testament conception is even more important in its bearing
on later thought. Since God alone possesses life in the highest
sense, fellowship with Him is the one condition on which men
can obtain it. "With thee is the fountain of life." In the
higher regions of Old Testament thought, life and communion
with God are interchangeable ideas. The belief in immortality
is never expressly stated, but, as Jesus Himself indicates, it was
implicit in this knowledge of a God " who was not the God of the
dead, but of the living." ^

3. And this life is conveyed to man through Christ. He
secures it for us by the surrender of His own life, His sacrifice
on Calvary, thus making it possible for the Father to bestow
it righteously on us who are unworthy of it. And He, Christ
crucified and alive again, is the medium of its communication.
Again and again He claims, and it is claimed for Him, that He is
the Author of life. " I am come," He says, " that they might have
life, and that they might have it more abundantly " ; " He that
hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God
hath not life " ; " The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord " ; " God hath given to us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son." The Father is the fountain, but, said Christ,
" If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."

^ Like the great aqueducts that stretch from the hills across
the Eoman Campagna, His Incarnation brings the waters of the
fountain from the mountains of God into the lower levels of our
nature, and the fetid alleys of our sins. The cool, sparkling
treasure is carried near to every lip. If we drink, we live. If
* £. F. Scott, Tht Fourth Gospel, 235.

142 LIFE AND LIGHT

we will not, we die in our sins, and are dead whilst we live. Stop
the fountain, and what becomes of the stream ? It fades between
its banks, and is no more. You cannot live the life of the animal
except that life be joined to Him. If it could be broken away
from God it would disappear as the clouds melt in the sky, and
there would be nobody, and you would be nowhere. You cannot
break yourself away from God physically so completely as to
annihilate yourself. You can do so spiritually ; some do it, and
the consequence is that they are dead ! You can be made alive
from the dead, if you will lay hold on Jesus Christ, and get His
life-giving spirit into your heart.^

(1) The fountain is mysterious in its origin. This is perhaps
the thought that first occurs to any one who stands by the rushing
fountain pouring forth its stream of life ; and the mystery has
led the uninstructed nations to curious conjectures as to the
origin of these fountains.

^ Some years ago the engineers engaged in constructing the
water-works of the city of Beyrout set themselvea to the task of
exploring the caverns from which issues the permanent supply of
the Dog Eiver. After great labour and repeated expeditions they
succeeded in penetrating to a distance of three-quarters of a mile
into the heart of the mountain ; but as they passed onward from
lake to torrent, now under lofty dome, and again through narrow
and tortuous channels, the water was undiminished in its volume,
and finally a roaring cataract barred their progress and forbade
them to search farther into the secret of the living stream.

So is it that life, after all our inquiries into its nature and
origin, remains hidden from us. We are conscious of its existence,
we can see its effects, but in itself it is a mystery, even as the
great Giver of it, tlie Fountain of Life, dwells in thick darkness.
We can only say, " In his hand is the breath of all living." In
Him we " live, and move, and have our being." ^

(2) The fountain is free and full in its flow. The people of
the East call water the " gift of God " ; and so throughout
Scripture the invitation is repeated in various forms : " Ho,
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." " If any man
thirst, let him come unto me and drink." For " the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." This stream of
spiritual life, though in its origin far above the level of human

' A. Maclarcn.

■■' J. Robt'rt-son, iu Sunday Mayazhu, 1881, p. 703.

PSALM XXXVI. 9 143

nature, bursts forth in our nature, and at a level within reach of
the poorest and the vilest. At the lowest point of the humiliation
of the Son of God it was manifested. Though springing from the
bosom of the eternal hills it runs in the valleys, and he that
would have life must first know the power of death. The Eock
of Ages cleft for us is the point at which we receive the gift of
Lrod, and we receive it without money and without price.

^ The water of the fountain will flow of its own necessity.
It is in its very nature that it must flow if only we do not wilfully
hinder it. It is always flowing into an open heart.^

(3) The fountain of life brings life wherever it flows.

^ One of the most striking of all the fountains of Syria is the
fountain of Fijeh, in Anti- Lebanon, which furnishes at one spring
from the solid rock three-fourths of the waters of the river Barada,
the ancient Abana of Damascus. The traveller pitches his tent
under the walnut-trees that overhang the fountain ; lulled to
sleep by it at night, he hears it at every waking hour ; and when
the rising sun pierces through the thick foliage its rays fall upon
the sparkling river, rushing on with undiminished strength. By
night and by day, when swollen by the rains of winter, and after all
the snow on the highest heights has disappeared, for six long months
of drought, the fountain pours forth its stream of life. And the
nodding oleanders dip their flowered heads in its stream, and the
poplars and walnut-trees draw their deep life from its waters, and
orchards and gardens flourish along its banks, and it scatters life
and beauty wherever it goes. But let us leave for a little the
narrow valley in which it holds its course, and as we bend oft' to
the left and its sound fades away on the ear, let us observe how-
vegetation gets scantier and poorer, till, within sight and almost
within hearing of the river, we stand in a dry, parched wilderness.
Proceeding still across the arid waste we reach the summit of a
hill that is burnt up by the summer sun, and we have before us a
view that is unparalleled in the East, perhaps unequalled in the
world. A plain of vast extent is bounded on all sides by barren
deserts, but in its centre, embedded in a belt of living green, is a
city of a hundred and fifty thousand souls, for the river is there,
and whithersoever the river comes there is life.^

(4) The water of the fountain is always seeking to rise to the
level from which it came. This makes the very life and beauty
of the fountain. So will it be with " the fountain of life." It will

^ James Vaughan.

* J. Robertson, in Sunday Magazine, 1881, p. 704.

144 LIFE AND LIGHT

always be mounting to the height, the heavenly height from
which it sprang, bearing us up and up to that world from which
it came; and though it never reaches it, it will aspire to it ; it will
always be nearing it, continually approaching the heaven of its
birth, the God of its creation.

^ It is difficult to be always true to ourselves, to be always
what we wish to be, what we feel we ought to be. As long as we
feel that, as long as we do not surrender the ideal of our life, all is
right. Our aspirations represent the true nature of our soul much
more than our everyday life.^

Alas ! long-suffering and most patient God,
Thou needst be surelier God to bear with us
Than even to have made us ! Thou aspire, aspire
From henceforth for me ! Thou who hast Thyself
Endured this fleshhood, knowing how as a soaked
And sucking vesture it can drag us down
And choke us in the melancholy Deep,
Sustain me, that with Thee I walk these .waves,
Eesisting! — breathe me upward, Thou in me
Aspiring, who art the way, the truth, the life, —
That no truth henceforth seem indifferent.
No way to truth laborious, and no life,
Not even this life I live, intolerable ! *

11.

The Source of Light,

" In thy light shall we see light."

God is " the Father of lights." The sun and all the stars are
only lights kindled by Him. It is the very crown of revelation
that " God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Light seems
to the unscientific eye, which knows nothing about undulations
of a luminiferous ether, to be the least material of material things.
All joyous things come with it. It brings warmtli and fruit,
joyfulness and life. Purity, and gladness, and knowledge have
been symbolized by it in all tongues. The Scripture uses light,
and the sun, which is its source, as an emblem for God in His
holiness and blessedness and omniscience.

' Max Milller. ' E. B. Browuing.

PSALM XXXVI. 9 145

The Psalmist saw the World all full of seekers after light ; he
was a seeker after light himself. What he had discovered, and
what he wanted to tell men, was that the first step in a hopeful
search after light must be for a man to put himself into the
element of light, which is God. The first thing for any man to
do who wanted knowledge was to put himself under God, to make
himself God's man ; because both he who wanted to know and
that which he wanted to know had God for their true element
and were their best and did their best only as they lived in Him.

^ When I try to describe to myself this thought of David
about man's seeing all light in the light of God, no picture like
the picture of a true and docile childhood seems to me to express
it. A child in his father's house learns everything within the
intelligence and character of his father, who has provided all things
there, and is perpetually throwing light upon their proper use.
Everything has its own qualities, but those qualities are made
distinct and vivid to the child by their relation to the master of
the house. Not purely in themselves, but in his father's use of
them and in their relationship to him does the child come to know
the tools of the workshop, the furniture of the parlour, and all the
apparatus of domestic life. So, I believe, it is with the child's
knowledge of the larger house, the world-house, of which God is
the Father.i

1. Nothing is seen in its own light — not even a visible thing.
A landscape is not seen in its own light ; it is perceived very much
in the light of yesterday. How little of what you see is mere
perception ! Every sight of nature is tinged with the light of
memory. The poet looks from the bridge at midnight upon the
rushing waters ; but what he sees is not the flowing tide ; it is a
tide of memory that fills his eyes with tears. You listen to the
babbling of the brook ; but what you hear is not the babbling, it
is the utterance of a dear name. You visit Eome, you visit
Jerusalem, you visit Greece ; do you see any of these by its own
light ? No ; they are all beheld by the light of yesterday ; there
is their glory, there lies their gold ! " Even so," cries the Psalmist,
" it is with this world ; if you want to see it, you must look at it
by the light of another world — God's coming world." He does
not mean that when we quit the scenes of earth we shall have
bright light in heaven. It is more than that. It is for the scenes
^ P. Brooks, Sermons Preached in English Churches, 104.
PS. XXV.-CXIX. 10

146 LIFE AND LIGHT

of earth he wants the heavenly light. He says you cannot
interpret your own skies without it. "We often say that in the
light of eternity earthly objects will fade from our sight. But the
Psalmist says that, until we get the light of eternity, earthly
objects will never be in our sight. It is by the light of the
Celestial City — the City which has no need of the sun — that
alone we can tell what here is large and what here is small.

^ Jesus knew the streets of Jerusalem and the lanes of
Galilee and the history of His mysterious Hebrew people, and the
hearts of the lilies and the souls of men ; but He knew them all
differently from the way in which the Hebrew scribes and
scholars knew them. To Him they were all full of light. There
is no other description of His knowledge that can tell its special
and peculiar character like that. It was all full of light. And
the other peculiarity of it was just as clear. It was full also of
God. He knew everything as God's child in God's house. The
history of the prophets and the heart of the lily both meant
something about His Father. These two peculiarities belonged
together. The world was full of light to Him because it was full
of God. It was God's light in which He saw the deeper light in
everything.^

2. If we need God's light to appreciate natural beauty and to
grasp intellectual truth, much more do we need it to apprehend
spiritual realities. It is in communion with Him who is the
Light as well as the Life of men that we see a whole universe of
glories, realities, and brightnesses. Where other eyes see only
darkness, we behold " the King in his beauty, and the land that is
very far off." Where other men see only cloudland and mists,
our vision will pierce into the unseen, and there behold "the
things which are," the only real things, of which all that the eye
of sense sees are the fleeting shadows, seen as in a dream, while
these are the true, and the sight of them is sight indeed. They
who see by the light of God, and see light therein, have a vision
which is more than imagination, more than opinion, more than
belief. It is certitude. Communication with God does not bring
with it superior intellectual perspicuity, but it does bring a per-
ception and an experience of spiritual realities and relations, which,
in respect of clearness and certainty, may be called sight. Many
of us walk in darkness, who, if we were but in communion with

' P. Brooks, Sermons Preached in Emjlish Churclus, 105.

PSALM XXXVI. 9 147

God, would see the lone hillside blazing with chariots and horses
of fire. Many of us grope in perplexity, who, if we were but
hiding under the shadow of God's wings, would see the truth and
walk at liberty in the light which is knowledge and purity and
joy.

(1) It needs a God to make God knoivn. — Light has this pro-
perty, that it is at once the vehicle and that which is borne by
the vehicle ; it is the revelation and its channel, and this twofold
property of light remains the same whether we regard it as the
old school of physicists did — as an actual emanation of particles ;
or as the new school do — as only an undulation or vibration of
some invisible ether itself at rest. The oft-quoted line of the
poet, that we may rise from nature up to nature's God, then, is
either a truism or a sophism ; a truism if we mean only that
nature reveals something of God's character while it conceals the
rest ; a sophism, if we mean that man, by the unassisted light of
his natural faculties, is able to discover the invisible things of
God. We can know God only by Himself. The light must be
Divine by which we see that there is anything whatever Divine
to see and behold.

^ When Dante has reached the Ninth of the Heavenly
Spheres he catches his first glimpse of the Godhead, the Central
Point on which " Heaven and all Nature hangs," surrounded by
nine circles of fire, which he is told are the nine choirs of angelic
beings. But though he can see them in their operation, his
virion is too imperfect to see them as they are. He must drinl<
of the Eiver of Light. Then he beholds the Eose of the Blessed,
with its myriads of saints. But still he is unable to see God.
The Virgin Mary procures this grace for him, and gazing on the
Central Point he sees three circles, like rainbows, and, being
illuminated by a flash of Divine Light, he comprehends the
mystery of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation.

(2) Only in God's light can we tridy see ourselves. — We wish
really to know ourselves, our own real being and position. What
are we ? Where do we stand in the scale of God's creation, as
God sees us? We are so many things wrapped up in one; we
are, alas ! a mass of contradictions — so very different at different
times. What am I ? What am I, as an angel sees me ? As
truth sees me ? As God sees me ? What am I ? I grow so
perplexed when I go down into the dark depths of my own soul.

148 LIFE AND LIGHT

No natural light can clear up this. There must be a li^ht from
outside, a liglit from above. " In thy light," the soul will have to
say at last out of all its searchings — " in thy light shall I see
light." Down in those hidden crevices of my own innermost,
blackest being, Lord, give me light to see clearly what I am.

^ "John Leech," says Dean Hole, "had an oricrinal and effec-
tive method of reprimanding his children. If their faces were
distorted by anger, by a rebellious temper, or a sullen mood, he
took out his sketch book, transferred their lineaments with a
slight exaggeration to paper, and showed them, to their shameful
confusion, how ugly naughtiness was." ^

3. The full effulgence of the Divine Light was manifested in
Christ, wlio is both God and the Revealer of God. He is tlie
light which alone is uncreated light, " bright effluence of bright
essence increate " — language which Milton strangely enough has
applied to material light, but which is inappropriate unless
applied to Him who is the true Sun of Eighteousness. As for
material light, however subtle and ethereal, it is not Divine ; the
creature is not to be confounded with the Creator in this way.
The language of the Psalmist is more careful and guarded : Thou
" coverest thyself with light as with a garment." Light, in fact,
is like a garment, or veil, or fleecy cloud, across the moon's disc,
which part reveals and part conceals. So it is of all the material
works of God, and hence the allegory of the ancients was not in-
exact which represented nature by the symbol of the veiled Isis.
There is something seen through the veil, but more remains be-
hind which we cannot see through. The same symbol was seen
in the sanctuary, where a thick curtain hung between the Holy
Place and the Most Holy of All ; that curtain, woven within
and without with cherubim, signifying this, that what was seen
was the multiform appearance of creation, of which the cherubim
were the symbol, while behind was that which no man hath seen
or can see — God in Himself.

(1) Christ lights up the unlighted lustre in our nature. — Con-
version is the lighting up of our nature with the spark of God's
Holy Spirit out of heaven. When a man is converted he does
not get new brains ; he does not get new senses or capacities ; he
is still surrounded by the old relationships, and he still moves in
1 R. E. Welsh, Ood'a Oentlemen, 41.

PSALM XXXVI. 9 149

the selfsame world. But men have been heard to tell the story of
their conversion, and they have said, " The stars seemed new to
me, and even the sun shone differently." And we have known
men who had made every one round them miserable develop into
true gentlemen when God met with them. Nor can any one
move among our peasantry, and see the wisdom and weight and
power of certain characters, without perceiving how much it
has meant for them that they have known the living and true
God. What has happened to them ? Have they received new
faculties ? No, it is not that — the lustre was always there. But
the light of all light has entered their circuit now, and the spark
that is God's has kindled the spiritual candle : it is not a differ-
ence of added lustre ; it is just that the lustre has been lighted up,

^ The doctrine of conversion played so large a part in Bishop
Wilkinson's life that it demands a few words, because it is so
often misunderstood. Conversion, in its perverted sense, is often
used to describe a sort of mental crisis in which, under the
influence of hysterical excitement and rhetorical intoxication, the
spirit is hypnotized into an experience so abnormal that it
often has a permanent effect on character, and has in retrospect
the appearance of a Divine interposition. That was not what
Wilkinson meant by conversion. He believed, indeed, that it
often came suddenly upon the soul, but that it was only a natural
step in a chain of circumstance, lilvc the parting of the avalanche
from the snowfield. What he meant by it was a realization of
truth, of the personal relation with God, so vivid and indubitable
that the soul could never be in any doubt as to its redemption
and its ultimate destiny. But he believed that this might be a
tranquil and reasoned process, though in the case of sin-stained
lives he was inclined to feel that the break with the past must
often be of the nature of an instantaneous revulsion, a sudden per-
ception of the hideousness of sin, and a dawning of the light of
God.i

(2) Christ sheds light for us on the manifold paths of duty. — It
is wonderful how, when a man lives near God, he comes to know
what he ought to do. That great Light, which is Christ, is like
the star that hung over the Magi, blazing in the heavens, and yet
stooping to the lowly task of guiding three wayfaring men along
a muddy road upon earth. So the highest Light of God comes
down to be a Lantern for our paths and a Light for our feet.
* A. C. Benson, The Leaves of the Tree, 116.

150 LIFE AND LIGHT

Now the light comes just as we are ready to obey the will of the
Most High. Abraham had to leave his home and go out, not
knowing whither he went. Moses had to return from the home
he had in Midian to the country where they had sought his life.
The people of Israel had to journey into the great and terrible
wilderness. The prophets had to pass through stern ordeals.
The apostles must leave all and follow Christ. St. Paul must
bow his neck under the yoke of Him whom a moment before he
was persecuting, and say, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? "
And do we not know that the light of God is most fully in our
souls when by Divine grace we are uprooting self-indulgence and
self-will ?

^ To St. Francis of Assisi, as he set out to join the champion
of the CI lurch, Walter de Brienne, intoxicated with the idea that
he himself was destined to become a great leader, came a vision at
Spoleto. " Francis," called the voice of God, " who can make thee
the better knight, the Master or the servant, the rich man or the
poor ? " " The Master," said Francis, " not the servant, the rich
man, not the poor." Then said the voice : " But thou lea vest the"
Master for the servant and the rich man for the poor." And
Francis said : " What dost Thou will that I should do, 0 my
Lord ? " And the Lord said : " Turn thee bade to thy own land,
for the vision that thou didst see meant heavenly and not earthly
equipment, and it shall be given thee by God and not by man."
Obedient to the vision, Francis gave up all thought of rejoining
the band of Assisan soldiers, and rode slowly home that day,
revolving in his mind this grace vouchsafed of direction in the
path of the Spirit. It must have been from this time that he
felt it was to no mundane glory he was being guided, but rather
to the glory which vanquishes the world. One wonders how the
struggle shaped itself, how keen were the pangs which moved
him, as one fair temporal hope after another took on the like-
ness of a phantasm and trembled into nothingness at the potent
presence of these unwonted and unseen realities. One wonders
how his spirit stirred and shook as their amazing intervention
became indubitable ; how the unequal contest agonized and
astounded him; how, step by step, the spiritual gained upon
the temporal, whilst his shrinking flesh cried aloud in the
suffering of death. Only this we know : he obeyed, and, in
obedience to the Will, he found the Way, the way of the Cross,
Christ Jesus, from wliich he never swerved.^

' A. M. Stoddart, Fnmcis of Assisi, 71.

PSALM XXXVI. 9 151

Then fiercely we dig the fountain :

Oh ! whence do the waters rise ?
Then panting we climb the mountain :

Oh ! are there indeed blue skies ?
We dig till the soul is weary,

Nor find the water-nest out;
We climb to the stone-crest dreary,

And still the sky is a doubt !

Let alone the roots of the fountain;

Drink of the water bright ;
Leave the sky at rest on the mountain,

Walk in its torrent of light ;
Although thou seest no beauty,

Though widowed thy heart yet cries,
With thy hands go and do thy duty,

And thy work will clear thine eyes.^
* George MacDonald, A Book of Dreams {Poetical Works, i. 394).

Delighting in the Lord.

Literature.

Conn (J.), The Fulness of Time, 117.

Cox (S.), The Bird's Nest, 238.

Houchin (J. W.), The Vision of God, 31.

Mackey (H. 0.), Miniature Sermons, 1.

Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, ii. 245.

Reynolds (H. R.), Notes of the Christian Life, 111.

Voysey (C), Sermons, viii. (1885), No. 32.

Christian World Pulpit, xxvii. 93 (H. "W. Beecher).

Church of England Magazine, xxxi. 139 (J. Ayre).

Delighting in the Lord.

Delight thyself also in the Lord ;

And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. — Ps. xxzvii. 4.

1. The anthem, " 0 rest in the Lord," taken from Mendelssohn's
oratorio " Elijah," is composed of words which many persons
imagine to be a text accurately quoted from the Bible. This is,
however, nowhere to be found as Mendelssohn quotes it, but is a
compilation of two separate verses. Scarcely any music could be
sweeter to an anxious and weary heart than this pathetic song, " 0
rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and He will give thee
thy heart's desire." It seems cruel to say a word to detract from
the gracious comfort and hope conveyed by the words. Yet we
shall be gainers and not losers by greater accuracy and truth, and
shall find the promise "He will give thee thy heart's desire"
none the less fulfilled. Mendelssohn's made-up text is amply true,
was true for him in fact as it has been true to so many of us in
our varied lives and in the fulfilment of our heart's desires. Yet
there is a higher truth still, and to that the Psalmist gives
expression here. " Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and he shall
give thee the desires of thine heart."

2. The text might be correctly paraphrased, " Delight in the
Lord, and then thou mayest trust thy desires ; they will be the
forerunners of blessings, the beginning of their own realization."
" Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
they shall be filled." Delight thyself in the Lord, and thou wilt
desire strongly only what is in harmony with His will, and best
for thyself. All thy wishes will be brought into subjection to His
will, and thou wilt crave only those things which He is ready and
anxious to bestow upon thee.

^ There are many beautiful psalms in the Psalter, but I am
disposed to think that this psalm is the most beautiful of them all.
There is a strain of old experience in it, of ripe and mellow

156 DELIGHTING IN THE LORD

wisdom, of thoughtful and tranquil affection, which at once stirs
and calms our hearts, I can never read it but it calls up before
me the figure of a venerable and kindly old man, who has seen
much and endured much, but has at last won for himself a sacred
tranquillity and peace which no change and no alarm can disturb ;
who, now that he is old, does not forget either that he has been
young or what his hot, eager youth was like ; and who, in the calm
evening of his days, draws upon the accumulated stores of his
knowledge and experience for the benefit of those in whom the
fires of youth still burn hotly, and tries to save them from many
a conflict, and many a defeat, by teaching them the secret of
peace.^

^ There is a passage in Wordsworth's Prelude which expresses
both the craving and its satisfaction, with all the poet's high serious-
ness and moving simplicity. He had risen, in his unrest of mind,
before the dawn. In the grey light of the morning, he brooded
over his life and its meaning. As the sun rose and flooded meadow
and stream and the far-off shining sea with light, and as the birds
awoke to song and the labourer came forth with quiet and honest
content to his work in the field, all the stillness and charm of the
scene fell upon him with refreshing and renewing power.

Ah ! need I say, dear Friend ! that to the brim
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me ; bond unknown to nie
Was 'riven, that I should be, else sinning greatly
A dedicated Spirit. On I walked
In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.*

Practising the Presence of God.

1. Delighting in God means, to begin with, realizing the
presence of God. If men will not sometimes think of God, He
will become merely a name to them. If they glance toward
Him only now and again, and with an unobservant and undesiring
eye. He will become strange and shadowy, and will remain un-
known. We do not become sure of God by mustering up the
arguments for His being and His purpose in the world. No

» S. Cox, The Bird's Nest, 238.

' W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, 219.

PSALM XXXVII. 4 157

heart ever stood up in a passionate conviction of God's presence
because it had been told that His footprints were marked upon
the rocks. No mind was ever driven by the logic of history to
assent with a deep persuasion to the personal providence of the
Almighty. These things have their place and their power. They
are byways of evidence in which a believing heart will sometimes
walk. But the only certainty which can satisfy the mind and
stir the heart is an ethical and a religious, a moral and a spiritua'
consciousness of God. Faith is an opening of the eyes that we
may see. It is in prayer that we rise most swiftly and most
convincingly into tliis faith which sees. It is in prayer that we
have the sure consciousness of God. Even although a man may
kneel with a haze over his mind and a chill upon his spirit, he
will not kneel in vain.

^ In the beginning of Brother Lawrence's noviciate, he tspeuL
the hours appointed for private prayer in thinking of God, so as
to convince his mind of, and to impress deeply upon his heart,
the Divine existence, rather by devout sentiments than by
studied reasonings and elaborate meditations. By this short and
sure method, he exercised himself in the knowledge and love
of God, resolving to use his utmost endeavour to live in a con-
tinual sense of His Presence, and, if possible, never to forget
Him more. When he had thus in prayer filled his mind full
with great sentiments of that Infinite Being, he went to his work
appointed in the kitchen (for he was cook to the Society). When
he began his business, he said to God, with a filial trust in Him :
" 0 my God, since Thou art with me, and I must now, in obedience
to Thy commands, apply my mind to these outward things, I
beseech Thee to grant me grace to continue in Thy presence ; and
to this end, do Thou prosper me with Thy assistance, receive all
my works, and possess all my affections." . . . When he had
finished, he examined himself how he had discharged his duty :
if he found well, he returned thanks to God ; if otherwise, he
asked pardon; and, without being discouraged, he set his mind
right again and continued his exercise of the Presence of God, as
if he had never deviated from it. " Thus," said he, " by rising
after my falls, and by frequently renewed acts of faith, and love,
I am come to a state, wherein it would be as difficult for me not
to think of God as it was at first to accustom myself to it."

As Brother Lawrence had found such comfort and blessing in
walking in the Presence of God, it was natural for him to recom-
mend it earnestly to others ; but his example was a stronger

158 DELIGHTING IN THE LORD

inducement than any arguments he could propose. His very
countenance was edifying; such a sweet and calm devotion
appearing in it as could not but affect all beholders. And it was
observed that in the greatest hurry of business in the kitchen, he
still preserved his recollection and his heavenly-mindedness. He
was never hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its season,
with an even, uninterrupted composure and tranquillity of spirit.
" The time of business," said he, " does not with me differ from
the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen,
while several persons are at the same time calling for different
things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if 1 were upon
my knees at the Blessed Sacrament." ^

2. Delighting in the Lord implies sympathy with His mind
and character. It means that His pure and holy character is the
absorbing object of thought, that in the contemplation of it the
mind is free from all suspicions, all hard thoughts and rebellious
feelings ; that, while it dwells on this high theme with reverence
and with awe, it also finds in it a source of deepest joy.

^ Five years before he left us, one who has since his death
been much in men's minds had an illness which was of a very
critical character. For some days he said nothing, and he was
supposed to be quite unconscious. After his recovery he referred,
one day, to this, the presumably unconscious, part of his illness.
" People thought," he said, " that I was unconscious, but the fact
was that although I could not speak I heard all that went on in
the room, and I was well occupied." To the question, " What
were you doing ? " he answered, " By God's mercy, I could re-
member the Epistle for the fourth Sunday in Advent, out of the
Philippians, which begins, ' Rejoice in the Lord alway.' This I
made a framework for prayer ; saying the Lord's Prayer two or
three times between each clause, and so dwelling on the several
relations of each clause to each petition in the Lord's Prayer."
How he did this he explained at some length, and then added,
" It lasted me, I should think, four or five hours." To the question,
" What did you do after that ? " he answered, " I began it over
^gain. I was very happy : and, had it been God's will, did not
wish to get better." *

3. Delighting in God means holding close communion with
Him. Communion is that quiet, intimate, tender intercourse with

^ Brother Lawrence, Tlic Practice of the Prtsenee of Ood.
' H. P. Liddoii, Passiontide Sermons, 271.

PSALM XXXVII. 4 159

God in which we may ask nothing, confess nothing, and cease
even from thanksgiving. We simply speak face to face with God
as a man speaks to his friend. Communion may pass beyond
speech into a calm and absorbing and yet strangely wakeful
silence. God is not content always with silence only. He loves,
we may truly believe, to hear the human voice rising and falling
in the accents of prayer. Samuel's childish treble when he cried,
" Speak, Lord ; for thy servant heareth," was sweeter to Him
than the perfect music of a boy's clear young voice in a choir to
its leader. God misses " His little human praise," with its doubt
and fear trembling in every tone, when we pray only with the
inner whisper of our thought and meditation. But there are
times when the spirit of prayer may be too swift and too tender
for words. Every man is a possible mystic in the best sense of
that word, for every man may enter into that intercourse with
God in which the hours pass by in the silence of a perfect con-
fidence.

^ Wesley, in his Journal tells us again and again that when
worn and ill he cast himself without words on the bosom of God.
Chalmers declares that, when greatly wearied and distressed in
mind, he gave himself up to quietism, and was much refreshed.
These were both men of strong practical wisdom, and not moody
and dreamy recluses. We must not think that when Christ con-
tinued " all night in prayer to God " He stretched out the arms of
His petitions and thanksgiving in words which fell upon His own
ear. We can be sure that His time was passed in still meditation.
He rose into a rapture in which there was no speech, a silence
that was felt and loved of God. To Him the Father was

A presence felt the livelong day,
A welcome fear at night.^

^ I see that every good and wise man who is held up to my
admiration and imitation in the Bible desired nothing less, and
could be satisfied by nothing less, than communion with God.
Every word in the Book of Psalms, in the Gospels, in the Epistles,
and in the Prophecies tells me this. They wished to know God,
not in a vague, loose sense, but actually to know Him as a
friend. Starting with no preparatory notions of God, but ready
to receive everything He told them, they welcomed each new
dispensation only because it told them something more of God,;

1 W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, ISl.

i6o DELIGHTING IN THE LORD

because it enabled them more intelligently, more practically, more
literally to converse with Him. I observe that all their sorrow
arose from the loss of God's presence, all their joy from the
possession of it, all their pleasure in expecting heaven from
anticipation of it. I observe that Lhey shrunk from the contempla-
tion of no side or phase of God's character, that His holiness and
His mercy were equally dear to them, and that, so far from
viewing them as separate, they could not admire one without the
other. They could not delight in His love unless they believed
that He would admit no sin into His presence, for sin and love
are essentially liostile ; they could not adore His holiness unless
they believed that He had some way of removing their sinfulness
and imparting His own character to them. The plain, obvious
study of the Bible tells me this.^

4. Lastly, delighting in God means entire surrender to God's
will. The highest attitude in prayer is not desire, or aspiration,
or praise. It is surrender. In surrender we open our whole
being to God as a flower opens itself to the sun, and we are filled,
up to our measure, with His Divine energy. It is because man
can be filled with the fulness of God that he has been chosen of
God as His instrument in the world. In one true sense God set
bounds to His power when He created man. He placed a further
limit on Himself when He committed dominion to him. God
now works through man, and if man will not work the works of
God, the works of God remain undone.

*|[ Esther. — But that must be the best life, father. That must
be the best life.

Rufus. — What life, my dear child ?

Usther.-^Whj, that where one bears and does everything
because of some great and strong feeling — so that this and that
in one's circumstances don't signify.

Eufus. — Yea, verily: but the feeling that should be thus
supreme is devotedness to the Divine Will.^

^ It is best to limit oneself to what is strictly necessary, to live
austerely and by rule, to content oneself with a little, and to
attach no value to anything but peace of conscience and a sense
of duty done. It is true that this itself is no small ambition, and
that it only lands us in another impossibility. No, — the simplest
course is to submit oneself wholly and altogether to God. Every-

* Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, i. 132.
' George Eliot, Felix Bolt.

PSALM XXXVII. 4 i6i

thing else, as saith the Preacher, is but vanity and vexation of
spirit. It is a long while now since this has been plain to me,
and since this religious renunciation has been sweet and familiar
to me. It is the outward distractions of life, the examples of the
world, and the irresistible influence exerted upon us by the current
of things which make us forget the wisdom we have acquired and
the principles we have adopted. That is why life is such
weariness ! This eternal beginning over again is tedious, even to
repulsion. It would be so good to go to sleep when we have
gathered the fruit of experience, when we are no longer in
opposition to the supreme will, when we have broken loose from
self, when we are at peace with all men.^

Blindfolded and alone I stand,
With unknown thresholds on each hand;
The darkness deepens as I grope.
Afraid to fear, afraid to hope,
Yet this one thing I learn to know
Each day more surely as I go,
That doors are opened, ways are made,
Burdens are lifted or are laid.
By some great law unseen and still,
Unfathomed purpose to fulfil,
"Not as I will."

Blindfolded and alone I wait ;
Loss seems too bitter, gain too late;
Too heavy burdens in the load
And too few helpers on the road ;
And joy is weak and grief is strong,
And years and days so long, so long:
Yet this one thing I learn to know
Each day more surely as I go,
That I am glad the good and ill
By changeless law are ordered still,
"Not as I will."

" Not as I will " : the sound grows sweet

Each time my lips the words repeat.

" Not as I will " : the darkness feels

More safe than light when this thought steals

Like whispered voice to calm and bless

All unrest and all loneliness.

^ AmieVs Journal (trans, by Mrs. Humphry Ward), 115.
PS. XXV.-CXIX. — II

i62 DELIGHTING IN THE LORD

"Not as I will," because the One
Who loved us first and best has gone
Before us on the road, and still
For us must all His love fulfil,
"Not as we will."i

II.

The Satisfaction of Desire,

1. Nothing more disastrous could happen than that God
should gratify the desires of all men. If God were to permit for
one short hour that all human desires should be satisfied, it is
impossible to calculate the dire confusion and pitiless despair that
would prevail. Ignorance would unsettle every natural law;
selfishness would break down every barrier ; oppression, lust, and
rapine would leap forth with fury. It is true that prisons,
hospitals, and workhouses might disgorge their occupants, poverty
might leap into affluence, and diseases and devils be cast out of
Buflering humanity. The slave might snap his fetters, and many an
oppressed sufferer might rush forth to freedom and to life ; but amid
the widespread despair excited by the greatest curse that had ever
fallen on humanity, the prayer would ascend, " 0 God, take back
our liberty ; bind us once more by Thy laws ; Thou, and Thou alone,
knowest what is best for us. Fence us round with Thine ordin-
ances; restore to us Thy government; let us know once more that
Thou alone canst speak, and it shall be done ; Thou alone com-
mand so that it shall stand fast ! "

^ The fables, the philosophy, and the experience of all nations,
are crowded with lessons that men are blind,and ignorant,and selfish,
and know not what is best for them ; that they cannot enumerate
their mercies ; that the overruling of an infinite Mind and Will
is the only refuge for their ignorance, the only hope of the race.
He must be a bold man, or a fool, who would dare to take his lot
into his own government, and be the master of his own destiny.
The same principle will apply equally well, if we suppose our
merely human desires to be made the measure of God's benedic-
tions to us — of the spiritual blessings which are of the greatest
necessity for us. Some are longing for more power to work, when
probably God sees that they want more patience to endure, more

' Helen H. Jackson, Verses.

PSALM XXXVII. 4 163

power to feel. Some are ever yearning after new truth, when
God sees that their need is to understand more fully the truth
already within their reach.^

2. When we delight in God, we are freed from the distraction
of various desires by the one master attraction. Such a soul is
still as the great river above the falls, when all the side currents
and dimpling eddies and backwaters are effaced by the attraction
that draws every drop in the one direction; or like the same
stream as it nears its end, and, forgetting how it brawled among
rocks and flowers in the mountain glens, flows " with a calm and
equable motion " to its rest in the central sea. When we possess
God, all other desires are put in their right place. The presence
of the king awes the crowd into silence. When the full moon is
in the nightly sky, it makes the heavens bare of flying cloud-rack,
and all the twinkling stars are lost in the peaceful, solitary
splendour. So let delight in God rise in our souls, and lesser
lights pale before it — do not cease to be, but add their feebleness,
unnoticed, to its radiance. The more we have our afiection-s set
on God, the more shall we enjoy, because we subordinate. His
gifts. The less, too, shall we dread their loss, the less be at the
mercy of their fluctuations. The capitalist does not think so
much of the year's gains as the needy adventurer, to whom they
make the difference between bankruptcy and competence. If we
have God for our " enduring substance," we can face all varieties
of condition, and be calm, saying :

Give what Thou wilt, without Thee I am poor,
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.

^ Some men make themselves God, without knowing what
they are doing. The deity they appeal to is really their deeper,
higher self. When they feel God's approval, it is really their own
self-praise. When God reproaches them, it is their own self-
rebuke. When they go apart from the world to hold communion
with Him, it really is an entrance into their own self -conscious-
ness. To other men some good fellow-man, more or less con-
scioiisly and completely enlarged into an ideal of humanity,
answers the same purpose, and is in reality their God. To still
others, a vague presence of a high purpose and tendency felt in
everything — Tennyson's "one increasing purpose," and Arnold's
^ H. R. Reynolds, Notes of the Christian Life, 115.

i64 DELIGHTING IN THE LORD

" something not ourselves which makes for righteousness." Tliis
fulfils the end and makes the substitute for God. But none of
these supply the place of a true Personality outside ourselves,
yet infinitely near to us.^

3. To delight in God is to have a desire for spiritual good ;
and the desire for spiritual good never goes unsatisfied. No man
ever prayed but in the moment he was a better and a wiser man.
To go into the sanctuary of God is to understand. To let our
requests be made known unto God is to gain the peace that
passeth all understanding. As we pray, our sins are set in the
light of God's countenance. We see the beauty of holiness. We
behold the beauty of the Lord. We open the sluice-gates of the
soul, and the swelling tides of God's love and grace flood within.
New penitence, new resolves, new endeavours are born in the
depth of the will. That truth is written large in the history of
every saint. Prayer is a mode of power within to learn the mind
of Christ. His words and deeds become memorable and signifi-
cant to us. We sometimes receive a more vivid insight into what
He was, and did, as we serve Him in the toilsome duties of life.
But when we pray, then those spiritual changes which are vital,
determining, eternal, take place within. F. W. H. Myers, in his
poem on St. Paul, so full of the seer's insight into the history of
the soul, has set this truth in impassioned verse. He is speaking
of Paul's shame at his failure, and he conceives him in the pain
of his penitence, seeking the presence and the peace of Christ.

Straight to Thy presence get me and reveal it,
Nothing ashamed of tears upon Thy feet.

Show the sore wound and beg Thine hand to heal it,
Pour Thee the bitter, pray Thee for the sweet.

Then with a ripple and a radiance thro' me,

Kise and be manifest, 0 Morning Star !
Flow on my soul, Thou Spirit, and renew me.

Fill with Thyself, and let the rest be far.

4. When we delight in the Lord, our desire is not so much
to have as to be and do. We cease to crave exclusively for
temporal good, for personal and physical gratification, for the

' FhUlips Brooks: Memories of his Life, 467.

PSALM XXXVII. 4 165

supply of what we call our wants, and we crave, instead, to be
what our Creator and Father wishes us to be, and to do what
He wishes us to do. Delighting in the Lord does not mean
ceasing to be human, ceasing to have wants and natural lawful
desires for success and happiness ; it means that all these
native and lawful wishes become subordinate to a higher desire
still, so that, for its sake, we are willing to forgo all the rest.
We may be hungry and thirsty, yet our meat and drink will be
to do the will of Him who sent us here and to finish His work.
We may be poor and needy, but we shall esteem the words of
God and obedience to His law " better than thousands of gold and
silver," or, in other words of the Psalmist, "more than our
necessary food." We may be hungering for a love which is out of
our reach, or sorrowing for the loss of a love that can never return,
and yet find in God a love passing the love of woman. We may
be toiling all day, and our very sleep may be broken by festering
care, by even a holy anxiety to bring our work to completion, and
yet we shall find something better and higher than success in the
knowledge that we are working for God and doing our best and
so earning His approval. If the greatest and supreme of all our
delights is in being and in doing what God wills, nothing can
frustrate His purpose to give us our heart's desire.

^ Christianity seeks not to cramp man's nature, saying to him
constantly, " Thou shalt not " ; but it leads on, up to freer air and
wider space, wherein the soul may disport itself. It is God we
follow. Obeying God is freedom. Our souls are like closed
rooms, and God is the sunlight. Every new way we find in which
to obey Him we throw open a shutter. Our souls are as enclosed
bays, and God is the ocean. The only barrier that can hinder
free communication is disobedience. Each duty performed is the
breaking down of a reef of hindrance between our souls and God,
permitting the fulness of His being to flow in upon our souls.
It is when we remember the greatness of the nature which God
has given us that we come into a full understanding of our
relations to God. At some time every man comes to realize the
meaning of the life he is living; the secret sins hidden in his
heart rise against him. Then we would hide ourselves from God
if we could. But the only way to run from God is to run to
Him. The Infinite Knowledge is also the Infinite Pity.^
^ Phillips Brooks : Memories of his Life, 630.

The Crowning of the Year,

ibf

Literature.

Little (H. W.), Arrows for the King's Archers, 50.

Mursell (W. A.), Sermons on Special Occasions, 95.

Rylance (J. H.), in The Complete Preacher, ii. 180.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxv. (1879), No. 14Y5.

Wilmot-Buxton (H. J.), In Mamj Keys, 265.

Wilson (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Clifton College Chapel, ii. 35.

Churchman's Pulpit : Harvest Thanksgiving, Pt. 97, p. 68 (T. B.

Johnstone) ; Pt. 98, p. 81 (J. S. James).
Treasury (New York), xiv. 585 (J. D. M'Caughtry).

i68

The Crowning of the Year.

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness ;
And thy paths drop fatness. — Ps. Ixv. ii.

In the midst of great political convulsions, of a shaking of nations
and kingdoms, Jehovah had manifested His goodness to His
people by sending down a blessing upon their flocks and their
fields. The folds were full of sheep, the valleys stood so thick
with corn that they laughed and sang ; the garners were filled
with all manner of store. Peace had been given to Zion as well
as plenty. A year of blessing, temporal and spiritual, had been
" crowned " by a secure provision against the drought and famine
which had at one time threatened the chosen people.

"Thou hast set a crown upon the year of thy goodness."

Such is the literal rendering of the text. God is represented as

setting the crown of completeness and perfection upon a long

process. In the previous verses we have a graphic picture of how

the grain is prepared. We see the plough at work, scooping out

furrows and turning up ridges by one and the same process : and

the Divine Co-operator dealing with both according to need and

capacity. The furrows are naturally receptive of the streams

which flow in abundance from those upper and invisible channels

of God which are full of water ; and what they thus receive, they

hold and convey to the roots of the young plants. The turned-up

ridges need to be settled down and closed well in upon the

precious seed which they have received. The same rain that does

the one does the other : fills the furrows and settles the ridges.

Divine agriculture is economic of means, various in adaptations.

But soon the surface becomes encrusted, and might imprison the

tender blade, did not the gentler after-showers with their myriad

drops come to soften the soil and make it easily permeable. And

169

I70 THE CROWNING OF THE YEAR

so, as eyes of wonder look on, and discreet judgment calculates
how many dangers have been passed as the green crop carpets the
earth, devotion exclaims, " The sprouting thereof thou dost bless."
God crowns the world of men as well as the world of nature.
Human life and character and experience have their supreme
culminating moments. Love comes to crown the solitary life.
Success comes to crown legitimate ambition — not forgetting that
there may be a true success in honourable failure. Influence
comes to crown character. Friendship comes to crown the long-
ings of the heart. Trust and confidence and admiration come to
crown the life lived in honest toil, and with a single eye to the
common welfare. But the culmination is a process : the crown is
sometimes long deferred. It is deferred in nature, yet experience
has taught us to expect it. It looks as if nothing were being done
during the dreary, sterile months of winter. The earth seems to
be dead, and God appears to have withdrawn. Yet if our hearing
were acute enough, we might lay our ear to the ground in
December and hear the pulse still beating in that mighty bosom,
and by and by we shall behold again the riotous life of spring.
We must not despond when there is a winter season in our mental
growth, in our spiritual experience, in our church life. In these
higher regions, the crown is often long withheld. But if a man
is all the time reading, observing, studying, thinking, thoiigh there
be no immediate visible result, there will come a moment of
rapturous emancipation when he realizes that cold fetters, as it
were, have fallen from his brain, and left him free to enter upon
a richer and riper life of understanding. God has crowned the
intellectual year.

^ Tennyson was in his 81st year when he wrote " Crossing the
Bar." He showed the poem to his sou, who exclaimed, " That is
the crown of your life's work." " It came in a moment," was the
aged poet's reply. Yes, but however instantaneous was the
inspiration, the hymn had behind it a lifetime of careful, pains-
taking, even fastidious work.

^ Marcus Dods was a probationer for six years before
being called to Eeufield Church, Glasgow. During these years
of waiting he was sometimes so discouraged as to think of giving
up the ministry altogether. In a letter to his sister he wrote :
"Do these two years and more waiting not sliow that I am si.'ek-
ing my work in the wrong direction, or why do they not sliow this,

PSALM Lxv. II 171

or how long would show this ? Possibly you may say, ' Wait till
some evident call to some other work arises ' ; but then, of course,
evident calls enough would soon arise were I to put myself in the
way of them, e.g., were I to go along to Clark the publisher and
ask him for some work, or go out to Harvey of Merchiston and
ask him for some ; whereas, so long as I keep myself back from
such openings they are not a tenth part so likely to arise. But
apart from growlery, let me give you a problem. I will give it you
in the concrete, as being easier stated and easier apprehended. Is
it right of me to wait and see whether I get a call or no, and let
this decide whether I ought or ought not to take a charge ? To me
it seems not (though it's just what I'm doing), and on this ground,
because in fact we find that God has often suffered men to enter
the Church who were not worthy — because, that is, the call of the
people does not ahvays represent the call of God." He was after-
wards Professor of Exegesis and Principal of the New College,
Edinburgh.^

II.

The harvest crown comes as the reward of human labour.
Man is called to be a co-worker with God. The sun and the rain
may do their best, and the earth yield all its quickening powers,
but the harvest would be but a heap of wild and tangled weeds
without the constant work and toil of man. The earth will show
its wondrous fecundity. Every seed that drops into its bosom
must grow or die, and it is man's part to curb the wild extrava-
gance of nature, to destroy that which is mere weed or worthless,
in order that there may be room for the good to grow and ripen.
God gives little even in nature without our toil ; He never gives
a rich and bounteous harvest unless we give our work, and care,
and watchful supervision over its growth.

The world is but a great harvest-field, in which, each in his own
place, we are called forth to take our part, and to do our share of
labour. Neither by the structure of our nature, nor by the con-
stitution of society, is there any room for the idler, or any possibility
of true enjoyment and happiness without work. If we want to
be truly happy, to attain in any measure to the real use and en-
joyment of life, work of some kind we must have. There ought
to be no play without work. No man is entitled to enjoyment
who does not purchase it by labour. The sweetest holiday is that

i Early Letters of Marcus Dods, 198.

172 THE CROWNING OF THE YEAR

which we have earned by strenuous application. God has so made
us that we must find our pleasure either in working, or as the
reward of working.

^ There are certain countries of such tropical luxuriance and
fertility that you have only to tickle the earth with a hoe, and she
laughs with a harvest. But you do not find the highest type of
men where Nature is so kind. There is an enervating kindness..-
In these Northern lands men have a tussle with the earth to make
her yield up her fruits, and they become the stronger for their
battle with the elements. But they invariably find that God
answers the prayer of their labour. There is a flourishing kitchen
garden behind the hotel at Gairloch, reclaimed from the barest
and barrenest bit of moorland I ever saw. All that countryside
is just wild mountain, bare rock, shaggy heath, and desolate moor ;
to get a kitchen garden out of such a spot is a triumph. It must
have needed some considerable faith to make the attempt, and it
was justified. God is always ready to supply if man only has
conscience enough to demand. " He is faithful that promised." ^

^ " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." -And I work !
Say that too. If you destroy the sequence, life loses heart, and
joy, and meaning, and value. Swing into line with the eternal
energy, be a force among forces, a toiler, a producer, a factor, and
life never loses its tone and flavour, its bead or glamour. There
is no real taste to bread nor bliss in sleep for the idler. He is the
doubter, the sceptic, the unhappy man. His idleness proclaims
him diseased and decaying.^

Get leave to work
In this world — 'tis the best you get at all;
For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts
Than men in benediction. God says, " Sweat
For foreheads," men say "crowns," and so we are crowned,
Aye, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel
Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work;
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get.^

III.

And yet the harvest is the gift of God, and should link man
to God. Man can only do a little ; he ploughs and sows, and

» W. A. MurseU.

' M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 15.

• E. B. Browning.

PSALM Lxv. II 173

makes what preparation he can, and then he has to sit down and
wait. He can hasten nothing. If he goes out and waves his
hands magically over the brown furrows, nothing happens ; if he
stamps and rages, he does but reveal his impatience, and emphasize
his own impotence. He must work, and then he must wait ; and
there is something profoundly religious and infinitely suggestive
in that waiting. What is he waiting for ? God. For aught we
know, God could do the work instantly ; the harvest might follow
immediately upon the seed-sowing, like the genii in the fairy
tale. God could bring the gift at once on man's asking. But our
world is not the world of the Arabian Nights. God chooses to
wait on man's co-operation. He allows him to do so much that
man is tempted to suppose that he is himself the author of the
whole process of production. But man has not cleared up the
mystery of growth by calling it Evolution. Whatever scientific
explanation the human mind can ofifer of a harvest-field, the
element of mystery remains precisely where it was before, and it is
that element of mystery that makes us fall down and worship ; it is
that element of mystery that fills us with a wonder akin to prayer ;
it is that element of mystery that turns every flower into an
altar, and makes a sanctuary of every cornfield. God thus keeps
His hold of us by the persistence of the mysterious element in
things. If we could explain the harvest, we could explain God,
and our fairest vision would fade into the light of common
day.

^ In harvest time the Greek saw the good goddess Ceres
bearing her golden sheaves; the modern farmer too frequently
sees only the result of his own knowledge, or of the latest patent
manure. We pity the poor heathen Greek ; ought we not rather
to pity ourselves ? ^

The seed was spread in the furrowed earth,

And nurtured long in the gloom it lay.

Till the beckoning hours led on its birth

And drew it up to the laughing day.

The young spring soothed and cherished the blade,

And summer 'stablished the stately stem.

And the Lord was glad of the thing He'd made,

The fair green ears and the fruit of them.

1 H. J. Wilmot-Buxton.

174 THE CROWNING OF THE YEAR

Summer had worked her will, and past

With her world of green, and autumn arose

And over the prospering tillage cast

A glory of change; the marshalled rows

Of bearded barley and four-square wheat

And pale oats, bearing a hundredfold,

Ripened under her shapely feet,

And out of the green ear grew the gold.

God, how wonderful this the thing,

The new-old miracle Thou hast done,

This proud triumphant fashioning,

Through rains and wind and shine of the sun,

Of ripe and rich abundance, borne

To-day to the sheltering homes of men;

For us Thy Spirit among the corn

Has moved, and one has grown as ten.^

IV.

The crown of harvest is woven in the loom of winter. Out
of December comes June. Out of the Cross is fashioned the
Crown. Perpetual summer would be loss unutterable. Perpetual
summer would be perpetual mockery. There is no greenness of
the grass in June unless there be the chillness of November.
God needs the one if He would make the other ; fashions the glory
out of the decay ; lays the field under the grip of ice that it may
be golden with the waving grain.

^ If any one should ask me where I have seen, in the course
of my journeyings, the freshest verdure and the greenest grass, I
think I might surprise you with my answer. I have seen the
tenderest foliage where the fire has recently swept through the
forest. Whether it was because of the contrast provided by the
blackened timbers or not, I cannot say, but the truth is I never
saw such tender green as springs amongst the blackened embers
of the forest fire. Certain it is I have never seen such graces
as those that spring when the tribulation has passed by. Oh !
what a scorching flame it was ; but the grass grows green there,
and the flowers spring tender there by reason of the fire. There
was a soil prepared which has suited the tender growth. Thank
God for the tribulation that makes us greener and tenderer in
consequence.^

* J. Drinkwater, Poems of Men and Hours, 24. • Thomas Spurgeon.

PSALM Lxv. II 175

^ I suppose there are many of us who are lovers of the Tweed.
It is so beautiful, that river Tweed, and is so haunted by a
hundred memories. And yet that river, in whose gentle murmur-
ing we catch the echo of unforgotten voices, rises where everything
is bleak and bare. There is no beauty that we should desire it
there. There is only the desolate and lonely moor. There is no
song, no shadowing of tree, no gathering of the great dead beside
its waters. Out of that winter God has made its summer, and to
that summer come a thousand pilgrims, who know not, for they
have never seen, the bleak and barren region of its rise.^

^ Christ was content to have His crown of glory fashioned in
agony. He took to Himself a crown of thorns. He came to wear
it, and He would have no other. After the miracle of the loaves
the people would have crowned Him with an earthly crown, and
He fled from them. He was afraid of them. He hid Himself in
a quiet place. They wanted to give Him an honour He could
not accept. They wanted to put around His brow the golden
circlet of a brief popularity and a civic leadership. But He
would not have it. There was a crown of thorns waiting for Him,
and He would not be defrauded of it. There was a coronation
day coming, and it must not be anticipated. He was going by a
path that few would be willing to follow — unto an honour that
few would be wishful to win. Oh, who is strong enough and brave
enough to go on as Christ went treading underfoot the golden
crown of gain and reaching out after the thorny crown of
sacrifice ? He chose between the crown that glitters and the
crown that wounds. He refused the one that He might wear the
other.*

It was a thorn,

And it stood forlorn
In the burning sunrise land :

A blighted thorn

And at eve and morn
Thus it sighed to the desert sand:

Every flower.

By its beauty's power.
With a crown of glory is crowned;

No crown have I ;

For a crown I sigh,
For a crown that I have not found.

' G. H, Morrison, The Afterglow of God, 94.
" P. C. Ainsworth, A Thornless World, 194.

76 THE CROWNING OF THE YEAR

Sad thorn, why grieve?

Thou a crown shalt weave,
But not for a maiden to wear ;

That crown shall shine

When all crowns save thine
With the glory they gave are gone.

For thorn, my thorn,
Thy crown shall be worn
By the King of Sorrows alone,^

The crown of harvest is not for ornament and beauty only,
but for utility and beneficence. The ripe grain becomes the
seed of future harvests. The husbandman takes of his best corn,
safe in his granary, and casts it into the earth. He sacrifices
what is precious to him for the sake of the harvest in the future.
So it is with those who work for worldly success. 'They sacrifice
time, rest, ease, comfort ; they deny themselves pleasure now that
they may reap a rich harvest in the end. So must it be with
those who sow for eternity. They must deny themselves, they
must sow in tears, they must go forth weeping and bearing this
good seed. Jesus, our Master, sowed in tears, sowed in the agony
and bloody sweat. He sacrificed Himself that He might gather
the glorious harvest of a world redeemed, of a Church bought
with His Precious Blood. He gave up His Sacred Body, like a
seed to be bruised and crushed by cruel hands, and to be sown
in the furrow of the grave. But the harvest came. That Body
sown in the weakness of death was raised in the power of the
resurrection, and so Jesus reaped the harvest for Himself and
for us His people.

^ The story of a night of seemingly fruitless toil, which resulted
in great blessing, is retold in the Illustrated Missionary News.
Miss Harris, of Medak, in India, utterly tired out, was one even-
ing about to return home, when the son of the head-man of an
important village, who had been poisoned, was hurriedly brought
into the compound. She saw it was impossible to save him, and
yet she kept the night vigil, rendering him the most menial
service — service hardly fit for the village scavenger. The father

^ Owen Meredith.

PSALM Lxv. II 177

and brothers watched all the time, and although the missionary
returned home utterly spent next morning, feeling as if nothing
had been accomplished, the chief and his family, as they watched,
had judged between Hinduism and the Gospel of Christ, and
within six months the whole of the large family of the village
chief was baptized ; soon a church and school were founded in the
village, and from the chief's family there are now (so runs the
encouraging report) no fewer than ten evangelists and Bible-
women.

A Sower went forth to sow;

His eyes were dark with woe;

He crushed the flowers beneath his feet,

Nor smelt their perfume, warm and sweet,

That prayed for pity everywhere.

He came to a field that was harried

By iron, and to heaven laid bare;

He shook the seed that he carried

O'er that brown and bladeless place.

He shook it, as God shakes the hail

O'er a doomed land,

When lightnings interlace

The sky and the earth, and his wand

Of love is a thunder-flail.

Thus did that Sower sow;
His seed was human blood,
And tears of women and men.
And I, who near him stood,
Said : " When the crop comes, then
There will be sobbing and sighing,
Weeping and wailing and crying,
Flame, and ashes, and woe."

It was an autumn day
When next I went that way.
And what, think you, did I see ?
What was it that I heard.
What music was in the air ?
The song of a sweet- voiced bird?
Nay — but the songs of many,
Thrilled through with praise and prayer.
Of all those voices not any
Were sad of memory;
PS. xxv.-cxix. — 12

178 THE CROWNING OF THE YEAR

But a sea of sunlight flowed,

A golden harvest glowed,

And I said : " Thou only art wise,

God of the earth and skies !

And I praise Thee, again and again,

For the Sower whose name is Pain."*

1 R. W. Gilder, The Sower,

The Burden-Bearing God.

«»

Literature.

Ainsworth (P. C), A Thornless World, 154.

Barrett (G. S.), Musings for Quiet Hours, 27.

Clifford (J.), The Secret of Jesus, 57,

Cuyler (T. L.), Stirring the Eagle's Nest, 39.

Dix (M.), Christ at the Door of the Heart, 195.

Forbes (J. L.), God's Measure, 176.

Hamilton (J.), Works, vi. 430.

Jowett (J. H.), Thirsting for the Springs, 41.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Psalms li.-cxlv., 93.

Matheson (G.), Messages of Hope, 145.

Morrison (G. H.), The Afterglow of God, 320.

Neville (W. G.), Sermons, 312.

Raleigh (A.), Quiet Besting-Places, 331.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xlii. (1903), No. 2830.

Talmage (T. de W.), Sermons, vi. 145.

Vaughan (J.), Sermoiis (Brighton Pulpit), ix. (1872), No. 793.

Christian World Pulpit, lii. 74 (T. Jones).

Church of England Pulpit, xxxviii. 195.

Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., ii. (1891) 247 (H. G. Youard).

Literary Churchman, xxxii. (1886) (M. Fuller), 355.

iSo

The Burden-Bearing God.

Blessed be the Lord, who daily beareth our burden. — Ps. Ixviii. 19.

The occasion of this psalm was the removal of the ark to Zion
after it had been returned by the Philistines. Under the figures
of a military invasion and occupation and settlement of the land,
David represents Jehovah as Leader conquering His enemies,
possessing Himself of their land, choosing a city for the seat of
His Empire, and advancing in triumphal procession to enter upon
His chosen residence. In the passage of the ark, the sign of
God's presence, through the land to the site on Mount Zion,
chosen aa the religious Metropolis of the world, David sees a
repetition in the religious realm of the earlier march into and
occupation of the country in the birth-time of the nation. His
mind runs back to that first victorious advance of God through
the desert at the head of His chosen race ; to the entrance of the
victorious people into the land of Canaan ; to the establishment of
Zion as the place of His settled worship; and he sees in this
second and more illustrious establishment of Zion as the place of
God's rest not only the security for the blessedness of his own
land, but the promise of a universal dominion, of whicli the fitful
gleams of peace and happiness that they had as a nation under the
new monarchy formed but a faint and imperfect foreshadowing.

And then, as he thinks of the splendid issue of this Divine
occupation of Mount Zion, and the establishment there of the true
worship, he breaks forth into a direct ascription of praise to God.
He looks back on the long years of the Divine patience and
forbearance ; on not only the special times of deliverance, but the
day-by-day guardianship and sustenance of God, and as he does so
he says :

" Blessed be the Lord, who daily beareth our burden,

Even the God who is our salvation."

181

i82 THE BURDEN-BEARING GOD

^ In the Authorized Version this verse reads tlms : " Blessed be
the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits," the last two words
being in italics, to show that they are not in the original. In
point of fact, the Hebrew is equally capable of both interpreta-
tions, and may be rendered either, " Blessed be the Lord, who
daily burdens us," that is, " with benefits " ; or, " Blessed be the
Lord, who daily beareth our burden." The great objection to the
rendering which has become familiar to us all, " who daily loadeth
us ^oith benefits," is that these essential words are not in the
original, and need to be supplied in order to make out the sense.
Whereas, on the other hand, if we adopt the suggested emenda-
tion, " who daily beareth our burden," we get a still more beauti-
ful meaning, which requires no forced addition in order to bring it
out. There is a still more attractive rendering found in several of
the ancient versions : " Blessed be the Lord who daily beareth us."

The Inevitable Burden.

Perhaps the most perplexing element in life is the wide sway
of the Inevitable. The area of our freedom of choice is so pain-
fully limited that, though we are turned into a capacious garden,
stored with an incalculable wealth of flower and fruit, yet we oan
do so little ourselves, and are of so little account, that we are fain
to despise our inheritance and neglect the oare of our flower-beds
and the watch of the fruit-trees. The life we contrive for our-
selves is unexpectedly broken up or overpressed, till it has none
of the shape and little of the beauty we intended ; indeed, it some-
times seems little more than a central tjhoroughfare for the irre-
sistible steeds of fate. The youth descriee his far-off goal, and
with measureless pluck and brightest hope sets out resolved to
reach it, but is tripped up before he has travelled many yards ;
and though he rises, gains his feet and attempts the herculean
task a hundred times, it is to find himself nearer indeed, but only
to what is now a receding mark. The man of business builds his
barns larger in time for them to be burnt by the desolating fire,
or sends his boat to sea to be destroyed by the despotism of the
storm. Pettiness and weariness eat the heart out of the life of
artist and artisan, patriot and poet, and make existence and toil

PSALM Lxviii. 19 183

poor and bitter as the apples of Sodom. Thus life not only has
its burdens but, in a true and not ignoble sense, it is itself a
burden.

1. There is the awful burden of personal existence. It is a
solemn thing to be able to say " I." And that carries with it
this, that, after all sympathy, after all nestling closeness of affec-
tion, after the tenderest exhibition of identity of feeling, and of
swift godlike readiness to help, each of us lives alone. Like the
inhabitants of the islands of the Greek Archipelago, we are able
to wave signals to the next island, and sometimes to send a boat
with provisions and succour, but we are parted, " with echoing
straits between us thrown." Every man, after all, lives alone,
and society is like the material things round about us, which are
all compressible, because the atoms that compose them are not in
actual contact, but separated by slenderer or more substantial
films of isolating air. Thus there is even in the sorrows which
we can share with our brethren, and in all the burdens which we
can help to bear, an element which cannot be imparted. " The
heart knoweth its own bitterness " ; and neither " stranger " nor
other " intermeddleth " with the deepest fountains of " its joy."

^ Er. M'^Laren began to feel more keenly the inevitable
solitariness of old age, as one by one his contemporaries left him.
Eeviewing old days in Lancashire, he said on one occasion,
" There were three — Stowell Brown went home ; there were
two — Charles Williams gone — and I am left alone, it is very
solitary." Two of his sisters reached ninety years of age and
beyond it, but between 1903 and 1906 they, and two brothers-in-
law and a sister-in-law, died. Eeferring to these family losses,
he writes : " I feel as if we were like shipwrecked sailors
clinging to the keel of an upturned boat, and seeing one after
another lose their hold and sink. But thank God, we shall rise,
and not sink when our hands can no longer grasp the seen.
Each departure brings us sensibly more face to face with our
soon-coming turn. May the gate open a little as we draw nearer
it, and give us some beam of the light within. Let us keep nearer
to the Lord of life and we shall be ready for our passing into life." ^

2. Then again there is the burden of responsibility, which each
has to bear for himself. A dozen soldiers may be turned out to

1 E. T. M'Laren, Dr. M<=Laren of Manchester, 242.

i84 THE BURDEN-BEARING GOD

make a firing party to shoot the mutineer ; and no man knows
who fired the shot, but one man did fire it. And although there
may have been companions, it was his rifle that carried the
bullet, and his finger that pulled the trigger. We say, " The
woman Thou gavest me tempted me, and I did cat." Or we say,
" My natural appetites, for which I am not responsible, but Thou
who madest me art, drew me aside, and I fell " ; or we may say,
" It was not I ; it was the other." And then there rises up in
our hearts a veiled form, and from its majestic lips comes, " Thou
art the man " ; and our whole being echoes assent — Mea culjoa ;
mea maxima culpa — " My fault, my exceeding great fault." No
man can bear that burden for me.

^ Mr. Gladstone sometimes so far yielded to his colleagues as
to sanction steps which he thought not the best, and may in
this have sometimes erred ; yet compromises are unavoidable, for
no Cabinet could be kept together if its members did not now and
then, in matters not essential, yield to one another. When all the
facts of his life come to be known, instances may be disclosed
in which he was the victim of his own casuistry or of his defer-
ence to Peel's maxim that a minister should not avow a change of
view until the time has come to give effect to it. But it will also
be made clear that he strove to obey his conscience, that he acted
with an ever-present sense of his responsibility to the Abnighty,
and that he was animated by an unselfish enthusiasm for humanity,
enlightenment, and freedom.^

3. Closely connected with the burden of responsibility there is
another — the burden of the inevitable consequences of transgression,
not only in the future, when all human bonds of companion-
ship shall be broken, and each man shall " give account of himself
to God," but here and now. The effects of our evil deeds come
back to roost ; and they never make a mistake as to where they
should alight. If I have sown, I, and no one else, will gather.
No sympathy will prevent to-morrow's headache after to-night's
debauch, and notliiug that anybody can do will turn the sleuth
hounds off the scent. Though they may be slow-footed, they
have sure noses and deep-mouthed fangs. " If thou be wise, thou
shalt be wise for thyself ; but if thou scomest, tliou alone shalt
bear it."

* J. Bryce, Stiuliea in Contemporary Biography, 462.

PSALM Lxviii. 19 185

^ While Farrar dared not set limits to the infinite mercy of
an all-merciful God and Father, none ever pointed with sterner
finger to the ineluctable Nemesis that attends on sin. " The man
who is sold under sin is dead, morally dead, spiritually dead ; and
such a man is a ghost, far more awful than the soul which was
once in a dead body, for he is a body bearing about with him a
dead soul. Better, far, far better for him to have cut off the right
hand, or plucked out the right eye, than to have been cast as he
has been, now in his lifetime — and as he will be cast until he
repents, even beyond the grave, into that Gehenna of aeonian
fire ! It shall purify him, God grant, in due time ; but oh ! it
shall agonize, because he has made himself, as yet, incapable of
any other redemption. So that if any youth have wickedly
thought in his heart that God is even such an one as himself — that
he may break with impunity God's awful commandments, that he
may indulge with impunity his own evil lusts, let him recall the
sad experience of Solomon, ' Walk in the ways of thine heart, and
in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment.' Let him remember
the stern warning of Isaiah, * Woe unto them that call evil good,
and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ;
that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! Therefore as the
fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so
shall their root be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as
dust : because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts,
and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.' " ^

4. The burdens grow with the growing life of man, so that the
more the man has the more he has to carry ; the severer the test
of what he is in himself, of his conscience and heart, his sympathy
and will, his faith and love. The boy strong, agile, without work
and without want, is as free from care as a frisky kitten. The
man solitary, without friend or home or responsibility, carries all
his cares under his hat, and the thinner his life, the less there is
of anxiety. But the father of a family is the bond of the house,
the support of wife and children, and must bear himself erect
under the cares of the home, of business, of parish, and of State.
Add life, and you add care. Enlarge your world, and you increase
your burdens. All strong emotions, all really great ideas, outleap
our individual life, and carry us to the larger, deeper, fuller life
of the world. Therefore the greatest life is the most burdened.
^ R. Farrar, Life of Dean Farrar, 26a.

i86 THE BURDEN-BEARING GOD

and the saintliest soul feels the mystery and greatness of human
life most of all. To the Greek, life is sunshine and joy ; beauty
swims in upon tlie soul ; his spirit is glad and he carries no care;
but the Hebrew, with his stern, inexorable rigliteousness, his
awful sense of stewardship, his solemn knowledge of a " covenant
with the Eternal," cries out for deliverance from the taint of guilt
and the burden of perplexity ; and of all the Hebrews it is the
man of widest culture, maturest thought, and loftiest aspiration
who exclaims, " 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me
from this body of death ? "

^ Who can tell us of the power which events possess —
whether they issue from us, or whether we owe our being to
them ? Do we attract them, or are we attracted by them ? Do
we mould them, or do they mould us ? Are they always unerr-
ing in their course ? Why do they come to us like the bee to the
hive, like the dove to the cote ; and where do they find a resting-
place when we are not there to meet them ? Whence is it that
they come to us ; and why are they shaped in our image, as
though they were our brothers ? Are their workings in the past
'or in the future ; and are the more powerful of them those that
are no longer, or those that are not yet? Is it to-day or to-
morrow that moulds us ? Do we not all spend the greater part
of our lives under the shadow of an event that has not yet come
to pass ? I have noticed the same grave gestures, the footsteps
that seemed to tend towards a goal that was all too near, the pre-
sentiments that chilled the blood, the fixed, immovable look — I
have noticed all these in the men, even, whose end was to come
about by accident, the men on whom death would suddenly seize
from without. And yet were they as eager as their brethren,
who bore the seeds of death within them. Their faces were the
same. To them, too, life was fraught with more seriousness than
to those who were to live their full span. The same careful,
silent watchfulness marked their actions. They had no time to
lose ; they had to be in readiness at the same hour ; so completely
had tliis event, which no prophet could have foretold, become the
very life of their life.^

Here in our little island-home we bide

Our few brief years — the years that we possess.

Beyond, the Infinite on every side

Holds what no man may know, though all may guess.

1 M. Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the Humble, 61.

PSALM Lxviii. 19 187

Earth, that is next to nothing in the sum
Of things created — a brief mote in space,

With all her aeons past and yet to come.
How we miscalculate our size — our place !

Yet are we men — details of the design,

Set to our course, like circling sun and star;

Mortal, infinitesimal, yet divine

Of that divine which made us what we are.

And yet this world, this microscopic ball,
This cast-up grain of sand upon the shore,

This trivial shred and atom of the ALL,
Is still our Trust, that we must answer for.

A lighthouse in the Infinite, with lamps
That we must trim and feed until we die;

A lonely outpost of the unseen camps

That we must keep, although we know not why.

Maker of all ! Enough that Thou hast given
This tempered mind, this brain without a flaw,

Enough for me to strive, as 1 have striven,

To make them serve their purpose and Thy law.^

The Burden-Bearkk.

The Psalmist employs here that name of God which most
strongly expresses the idea of supremacy and dominion. Rule
and dignity are the predominant ideas in the word "Lord," as,
indeed, the English reader feels in hearing it ; and then, side by
side with that, there lies the thought that the Highest, the
Euler of all, whose absolute authority stretches over all mankind,
stoops to this low and servile office, and becomes the burden-
bearer for all the pilgrims who put their trust in Him. This
blending together of the two ideas of dignity and condescension to
lowly offices of help and furtherance is made even more emphatic
if we glance back at the context of the psalm. For there is no

* Ada Cambridge, The Hand in the Dark, 12.

i88 THE BURDEN-BEARING GOD

place in Scripture in which there is flashed before the mind of
the singer a grander picture of the magnificence and the glory of
God than that which glitters and flames in the previous verses.
The majestic greatness of God described in its earlier part seems
purposely intended to heighten our sense of the wonder and
blessedness of this God stooping from heaven to take on Himself
the burdens which rest on His children on the earth.

And if we look deeper, this is not a case of contrast. It is
not that there are sharply opposed to each other these two
things, the gentleness and the greatness, the condescension and
the magnificence, but that the former is the direct result of the
latter ; and it is just because He is Lord, and has dominion over
all, that, therefore. He bears the burdens of all. For the responsi-
bilities of the Creator are in proportion to His greatness, and
He wlio has made man has thereby made it necessary that He
should, if we will let Him, be Burden-bearer and our Servant.
The highest must be the lowest, and just because' God is high
over all, therefore is He the Supporter and Sustainer of all. So
we may learn the true meaning of elevation of all sorts, and from
the example of the loftiest may draw the lesson for our more
insignificant varieties of height, that the higher we are, the more
we are bound to stoop, and that men are then likest God, when
their elevation suggests to them responsibility, and when he that
is chiefest becomes the servant

1. God takes our burdens upon Himself. — There are burdens
that men can help us with, but the heaviest burdens are those
they cannot touch. " The heart knoweth its own bitterness."
The burden of a hidden grief, of a besetting sin, of a lifelong
trial of disease or of sorrow through the wrong-doing of others —
men may not help much here. But God can and does help. He
enters into the very life of those whom He teaches to trust Him.
It is not they themselves who do the good things and speak the
kind words and think the holy thoughts that go to the upbuilding
of their spiritual house. It is God. He " worketh in you both to
will and to do of his good pleasure." And so of the care that is
cast upon Him. He bears it as Tie bears the sin. He is in the
burdened soul, and so, though the outward and visible trial be
unremoved, yet God bears it, for the Divine strength is in the

PSALM Lxviii. 19 189

heart. God infuses His' own power into the soul, until the down-
ward pressure is no longer felt, and the burden is known to be
effectually " cast upon the Lord."

^ The word redemption, all the past which it implies, all the
future which it points to, has for me a wonderful charm. I
cannot separate the idea of deliverance from the idea of God, or
ever think of man as blessed except as he enters into God's re-
deeming purpose, and labours to make others free. The bondage
of circumstances, of the world, but chiefly of self, has at times
seemed to me quite intolerable, the more because it takes away all
one's energy to throw it off, and then the difficulty of escaping to
God ! of asking to have the weight taken away ! Oh there is
infinite comfort in the thought that He hears all our cries for
rescue, and is Himself the Author and Finisher of it.^

2. God's help is continual. — He daily beareth our burden. He
will not suffer us, if we are guided by His teaching and Spirit, to
think of Him as simply transcending our life, living above it, and
out of it, and looking on it as from a distance ; He assures us that
He shares it, is in it, and through and over and under all ; in it
always ; Himself bearing the burdens of it, not now and again, at
far-separated intervals and in the special crises of our experience ;
but " daily " — " Blessed be the Lord, who daily beareth our
burden." It is the monotonous daily pressure of the same weight,
in the same wearying way, that slays the hope in us and makes
us sigh for the wings of a dove to bear us away to some place of
freedom and rest ; and it is exactly that " daily " hour-by-hour
burden God Himself carries for us, and with us, and so sustains
us and trains us. Like some river that runs by the wayside and
ever cheers the traveller on the dusty path with its music, and
offers its waters to cool his thirsty lips, so, day by day, in the slow
iteration of our lingering sorrows, and in the monotonous recur-
rence of our habitual duties, there is with us the ever-present help
of the Ancient of Days, who measures out daily strength for the
daily load, and never sends the one without proffering the other.

^ In feudal times the peasantry used to build their little
cottages beneath the shadow of their lord's castle-walls so that in
time of need they could easily take refuge within the stronghold,
and so that by their very proximity to their master's dwelling he
might be reminded that they cast upon him the burden of their

* Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, i. 520.

I90 THE BURDEN-BEARING GOD

safe-keeping. So may we build the frail house of life beneath the
shadow of the Almighty, that in the day of sore need we may
surely find the way into the secret of His presence.

Never a battle with wrong for tlie right,
Never a contest that He doth not fight,
Lifting above us His banner so white ;
Moment by moment we're kept in His sight.

Never a trial and He is not there,

Never a burden that He doth not bear.

Never a sorrow that He doth not share,

Moment by moment we're under His care.*

3. God hears our hurden by sharing it. — A physical burden is
one thing, a spiritual another, and there is no such literal trans-
ference in the moral realm as to make tlie spirit oblivious of the
existence of such a thing as a burden at all. But in this they are
alike, that those who help can help only on condition of them-
selves undergoing the pressure from which they release others
If you want to relieve any one of trouble, you must bear it your-
self. Only so can spiritual release bo secured. You give blessing
at the price of feeling pain. As has been well said, " There is no
bearing of a moral burden without feeling it to be a burden."
Aad if God bears our burdens, then the pressure and the pain of
them become His. Our trouble becomes His trouble, and our
sorrow His sorrow. " In all their afflictions he was afflicted."

^ If any one still insist that it seems irreverence, if not
blasphemy, to speak of a suffering God, or to ascribe in any way
pain or unhappiness to the Ever-Blessed, then, let me add, it may
in some measure meet his difficulty to reflect that all moral
suffering contains or carries with it what may be called an element
of compensation, in virtue of which it is transmuted into a deeper
joy. . . . And if this be so, then surely what we must find in
Christ as the God-man is, not a being who stript or emptied
Himself of His essential divinity in order to share in the weakness
and suffering of humanity, but a manifestation of God in all the
plenitude of the Divine Nature ; and the whole life of the Man
of Sorrows — His earthly lowliness. His mortal weakness, grief, and
sorrow, His loneliness and forsakenness, His drinking of the cup
of suffering to the very dregs, yea, in His very crucifixion and
1 P. 0. Ainsworth, A Thornless World, 159.

PSALM Lxviii. 19 191

death — must be to us the disclosure of an ineffable joy triumphing
over sorrow, of a Divine bliss in sacrifice which is the last, highest
revelation of the nature of God.^

4. It is not the hurden, hut the hurden-hearer, that God sustains.
— It is not the heavy sorrow, but the bleeding heart that He
takes into His strong keeping. And here we may notice the
significant rendering of this text found in some of the most
ancient versions : " Blessed be the Lord, who daily beareth us."
So we can give God our burden only by giving Him our life. At
this point the figure of a burden fails to represent accurately the
toil and trouble of life, unless we remember it is a burden that
cannot be laid down. It is bound to our shoulders by the cords
of many necessities. Divine and human, and the answer to our
prayer for help does not come in a loosening of these cords, but in
inward refreshment of spirit. So the exhortation to us to cast
our burden on the Lord and this promise of His sustaining grace
do not speak to us of an occasional expedient to which the more
trying experiences of life may drive us, but of the true relation of
our life to God day by day.

^ A father sitting in his study, sent his little boy upstairs to
fetch a book that had been forgotten. The boy was long gone,
and after a time the father thought he heard the sound of sobbing
on the stairs. He went out, and at the top of the staircase he
saw his son crying bitterly, with the great book he had tried to
lift and carried so far, lying at his feet. " Oh, father ! " the lad
cried, " I cannot carry it, it is too heavy for me ! " In a moment
the father ran up the stairs, and stooping down, took up both the
little lad and the book in his strong arms, and carried them down
to the room below. Before he reached it, the child's tears were
all dried up, and he was leaning on his father's arm, the burden
and the trouble gone.^

5. When God thus bears our hurden the burden itself becomes a
blessing. — It carries him that carries it. It is like the wings of a
bird; it is like the sails of a ship. In many lands the habit
prevails, especially amongst the women, of carrying heavy loads
on their heads ; and all travellers tell us that the practice gives a
dignity and a grace to the carriage, and a freedom and a swing to
the gait, which nothing else will do. Depend upon it, that so

^ John Caird. * G. S. Barrett, Mxmngsfor Quiet Hours, 29.

192 THE BURDEN-BEARING GOD

much of our burdens of work and weariness as is left to us, after
we have cast them upon Him, is intended to strengthen and
ennoble us.

^ The bearing of God has been likened to a father carrying his
child, to an eagle taking her young upon her wings, to the shepherd
with the lamb in his bosom. But no shepherd, nor mother-bird,
nor human father ever bore as the Lord bears. For He bears from
within, as the soul lifts and bears the body. The Lord and His
own are one. " To me," says he who knew it best, " to me to live
is Christ." ... It is not the sight of a visible leader, though the
Gospels have made the sight imperishable, it is not the sound of
Another's Voice, though that Voice shall peal to the end of time,
that Christians only feel. It is something within themselves;
another self — purer, happier, victorious. Not as a voice or example,
futile enough to the dying, but as a new soul, is Christ in men.^

^ The hindrances that baffle or overwhelm us, the small
annoyances that rob our days of zest and sweetness, the body's
perpetual chafing tyranny, in all these we are facing universal
conditions, and bidden to realize a universal being: An infinit-
esimal fraction of the burden that God bears is on our shoulders
— but we are not bearing it alone. This spiritual toil is no
degrading punishment laid on us merely for our sins, but the
measure of our sonship. Infinite patience seems often to be all
that is asked of us. But patience is Godlike — patience is love
submitting, and enduring, transmuting poison to sweetness in the
life, as surely as enthusiasm is love conquering and striving, and
flowing out towards God and man. Nor can we draw distinctions
concerning their relative value to God.*

The bonds that press and fetter,
That chafe the soul and fret her,
What man can know them better,
0 brother men, than I ?

And yet, my burden bearing,
The five wounds ever wearing, —
I too in my despairing

Have seen Him as I say; —
Gross darkness all around Him
Enwrapt Him and enwound Him, —
O late at night I found Him

And lost Him in the day !
• George Adam Smith. ' May Kendall.

PSALM Lxviii. 19 193

Yet bolder grown and braver
At sight of one to save her
My soul no more shall waver,

With wings no longer furled, —
But cut with one decision
From doubt and men's derision
That sweet and vanished vision

Shall follow thro' the world.i

^ F. W. H. Myers, A Vision.

PS. XXV. CXIX. — 13

A Sun and a Shield.

Literature.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 145.

Foxell (W. J.), God's Garden, 142.

Kirkpatrick (A. F.), The Booh of Psalms (Cambridge Bible), 509.

Maclaren (A.), The Book of Psalms (Expositor's Bible), ii. 449.

Morrison (G. H.), Tlie Unlighted Lustre, 65.

Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 127.

Pearce (J.), The Alabaster Box, 96.

Pearse (M, G.), The God of Our Pleasures, 49.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tahernacle Pulpit, xxviii. (1882),

No. 1659.
Voysey (C), Sermons, xi. (1888), No. 20.
Wiseman (N.), Children's Sermons, 36.
Christian World Pulpit, xxiv. 332 (H. W. Beecher).

196

A Sun and a Shield.

The Lord God is a sun and a shield. — Ps. Ixxxiv. ii.

An ancient legend tells that Abraham, in his untaught devoutness
and yearning reverence, took the sun for his God until he observed
the setting of its beams in the west. In the absence of authentic
revelation, it is no more strange that reflective and reverential
minds should exclaim, in the presence of a world of light, " The
sun is our God," than that the Heaven-instructed Hebrew singer,
dwelling in the light of God's countenance, should declare, " The
Lord God is a sun " ; for a more fitting material symbol of God than
the sun it would be diflficult to find, whether we consider the
vastness of it, the glory of it, or the beneficence of it. Hidden by
its very glory ! So far off, yet finding out our distant world and
bathing it in its genial warmth, breathing about it a new hope !
So mighty, yet so gentle ! Stooping not only to the lowest and
least forms of life, but ministering to its hidden and shapeless
beginnings.

Could there be a more felicitous and apposite representation of
Him of whom an Apostle wrote : " God is light, and in him is no
darkness at all " ? As the sun opens the gates of day, floods the
world with light, gives it without stint to palace or cottage, to
peasant and prince, and enables us to discern a thousand pleasing
objects, so God shines into our lives and gives us power to see
a thousand mcral glories. The secret of seeing is not in us. God
is the great revealer. We are the organs favoured with the holy
visions. We can see only what He is pleased to shovi^ us. But
He is not slow to reveal Himself to our understanding, nor is
the light inadequate. No nook or corner of our being need go
unirradiated. If we open the life to God as we open the eye to
the sun, we shall no longer be children of the darkness. " For God,
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ."

X97

198 A SUN AND A SHIELD

^ Nowhere else in the Old Testament is Jehovah directly
called a sun, though the ideas conveyed by the metaplior are
frequent. Cp. Ps. xxvii. i; Isa. x. 17, Ix. 19, 20; Mai. iv. 2.
Perhaps the prevalence of sun-worship in the East led to the
avoidance of so natural and significant a metaphor. Even here
the oldest Versions either had a different reading or shrank from
a literal rendering. The LXX and Theodotion have : " For the
Lord God loveth mercy and truth." The Targ, paraphrases : " For
the Lord God is like a high wall and a strong shield," reading
shemesh ( = sun), but taking it in the sense of "battlement"
(RV. "pinnacles"), which it has in Isa. liv. 12. The Syr. gives:
" Our sustainer and our helper." Only the later Greek Versions
render the Massoretic text literally.^

^ In his Hibbert Lectures on the Eeligion of the Babylonians
Professor Sayce quotes a hymn to Samas the Sun-god, beginning :

0 Sun-god, king of heaven and earth, director of things above

and below,
0 Sun-god, thou that clothest the dead with life, delivered by

thy hands,
Judge unbribed, director of mankind.

Supreme is the mercy of him who is the lord over difficulty.
Bidding the child and offspring come fortJi, light of the world,
Creator of all thy universe, the Sun-god art thou.

^ Another time Napoleon breaks out [in conversation with
Gourgaudj : " Were I obliged to have a religion, I would worship
the sun — the source of all life — the real God of the earth." ^

I heard a Saint cry to the Sun — " Be dim.
Why shouldst thou rule on high with boastful ray,
Till fools adore thee as the God of Day,
Bobbing thy Master's honour due to Him ? "
But the sun-spirit, thro' each raaiant limb
Translucent as a living ember coal.
Glowed. At the anger of the seraph soul
His golden orb trembled from boss to rim.

Tlien made he answer as a dove that sings,
" God's glory is my glory, and my praise
Only His praising. They, who kneel to me,
See thro' the waving of my orient wings
A choir of stars with voices like the sea,
Singing hosauna in the heavenly ways."^

1 A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms, 509.

» Lord Rosebery, Napoleon : The Last Phase, 171. * Lord De Tabley.

PSALM Lxxxiv. II 199

God is a Sun.

1. The sun is the centre of power in the system where it
stands. There is nothing that can hold out against it. All
planets are obliged to own their allegiance to it. They march
to its music. They cannot wander or get out of the path which
its power prescribes for them. The sun is the governor of the
planetary kingdom — central, uncontradicted, un wasting, unex-
hausted and inexhaustible, steadfast, going forth for ever and for
ever. So there is a sublime centre in that higher creation, in
conscious human life. In the realm of intelligence, in the realm
of righteousness or morality, in the great superior realm of mind,
there is a central power. Amidst all the apparent detonations
and explosions and miscarriages of minor human life upon this
sphere there is, nevertheless, a great central influence that is
holding mankind to their career, to their general orbit. The
government of God in its extensiveness, in its patient persever-
ance, in its power universal, could not be more fitly represented
than by this symbolization of the sun itself. The universality of
God — "omnipresence," as it is called — is a thing somewhat
difficult to be understood, as all things that reach toward or are
born of the infinite are to finite intelligence ; nevertheless, the
outreachiug of the sun is everywhere. Both of the poles recognize
its presence. The equator never abandons the light and warmth
of the sun. Wherever the earth and all its luminaries may travel,
and wherever the satellites of the sun may go, there is its power.
There is no thunder, no utterance in it. It is silent, but it is
there.

^ Fenelon had many friends affectionately attached to him, in
Versailles, Paris, and other parts of France ; but in his banishment
he saw them but very seldom. Many of them were persons of
eminent piety. " Let us all dwell," he says in one of his letters,
" in our only Centre, where we continually meet, and are all one
and the same thing. We are very near, though we see not one
another; whereas others, who even live in the same house, yet
live at a great distance. God reunites all, and brings together the
remotest points of distance in the hearts that are united to Him.

200 A SUN AND A SHIELD

I am for nothing but unity; that unity which binds all the parts
Id the ceiure. Thai which is not in unity is in sepuratiun; and
separation implies a plurality of interests, self in each too much
fomlled. Wlien self is destroyed, the soul reunites in God; those
who are united in Gnd are not far from each other. This is the
( onsolutiiin winch I have in your absence, and which enables me
to bear this attliction patiently, however long it may continue."^

2. Another idea is sugLiested by the sun. Many of us have
been oppressed by the thonglit of a distant God ; we sometimes
bave thought of Him as far away, as having His throne in the
remote heaven of heavens. But if the sun can have its being
ninety million miles away, and yet can fall with such power as to
heat a continent, and with such exquisite nicety as to make the
rosebud redden, why should it seem a thing incredible to us that
the Creator who fashioned that glorious lamp should dwell apart
immeasurably far, yet touch and turn and bless and save
humanity ? He takes up tbe isles as a very little thing — the
nations before Him are as nothing. Yet He knows the way that
1 take ; He understands my thought ; He will not quench the
smoking flax nor break the bruised reed. Powerful, yet very far
away ; thoughtful and tender, though hidden in the distance.

*[j God is the God of all, and yet He is my God. At the same
moment He pervades heaven and earth, takes charge of the
sustenance, progress, and growing happiness of the unbounded
creation, and He is present with me, as intent upon my character,
actions, wants, trials, joys, and hopes, as if I were the sole object
of His love.2

3. God is a sun : that is infinity of blessing. No man
among us can conceive the measure of the light and heat of the
sun. They are beyond conception great. Light and heat have
been continually streaming forth throughout many ages, yet all
that has come forth of it is far less than that which still remains.
For all practical purposes the light and heat of the sun are
infinite ; and certainly in God all blessedness is absolutely infinite.
There is no measuring it. We are lost. We can only say, " Oh,
the depths of the love and goodness of God ! " In being heirs of
God we possess all in all. There is no bound to our blessedness
in God. Further, if God be called a sun, it is to let us know

1 T. C. U])liani, Life of Madame Guyon, 455. ^ W. E. Channing.

PSALM Lxxxiv. 1 1 20I

that we have obtained an immutability of blessedness, for He is
"the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning." God is not love to-day and hate to-morrow ;
He saith, " I am God, I change not." There are said to be spots
in the sun which diminish the light and heat which we receive ;
but there are no such spots in God; He shines on with the
boundless fulness of His infinite love toward His people in Christ
Jesus. " This God is our God for ever and ever." If we were to
live as long as Methuselah, we should find His love pnd power
and wisdom to be the same, and we might confidently count upon
being blessed thereby. What treasures of mercy do we possess in
being able to say, " 0 God, thou art my God " ! "We have the
source of mercy, the infinity of mercy, and the immutability of
mercy to be our own.

^ What is the glory of the sun ? Is it its power, its energy,
or is it not the way in which it finds out things one by one and
gives itself away to them ? I have watched the sun rising amidst
the mountains, crowning them with gold and robing them with
purple, until they stood like lords-in-waiting arrayed for the
coming of their king, and it has seemed in keeping with the sun's
greatness. But little by little it rose higher, and now it covered
the fir trees with glory, and now it lit up the moss of the rock.
Still higher rose the sun, and then it reached the meadows, and
every tiny grass blade caught its warmth and energy, and every
flower had its golden cup fiilled to the brim. And lower still it
went down, to the seeds that were buried in darkness, and
whispered to them of hope, and put new strength into them.
Think if I could tell the tiny flower how far off the sun is, how
many myriads of miles away, how great it is, how splendid in its
majesty. " Surely," the flower would say, " it can never stoop to
me, or find me out, or care for me, or minister to my want ! "
Ah, but it does ; it gives itself to the flower with such tenderness
and thoroughness as if there were not another in the round world.
Surely this is the glory of our God. We think of Him in the
greatness of His power. We sing of Him, " Who is like unto
thee . . . glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders ? "
But is not this His glory, that He comes to us away by ourselves,
one by one, and gives Himself to us separately, stooping to the
lowest, reaching to the farthest off, finding out the most hidden ?
The sun is not going to put to shame the ingenuity of our
Father's love.^

^ M. G. Pearse, The God of our Pleasures, 56.

202 A SUN AND A SHIELD

Behold the sun, that seemed but now

Enthroned overhead,
Beginning to decline below

The globe whereon we tread ;
And he, whom yet we look upon

With comfort and delight,
Will quite depart from hence anon,

And leave us to the night.

Thus time, unheeded, steals away

The life which nature gave ;
Thus are our bodies every day

Declining to the grave ;
Thus from us all our pleasures fly

Whereon we set our heart;
And when the night of death draws nigh

Thus will they all depart.

Lord! though the sun forsake our sight,

And mortal hopes are vain,
Let still Thine everlasting light

Within our souls remain ;
And in the nights of our distress

Vouchsafe those rays divine,
Which from the Sun of Righteousness

For ever brightly shine ! ^

4. Without a favourable medium and a suitable object, the
sunlight can do little. All the sunlight of all time cannot
illumine a man who is blind. The suns of all the seasons can
avail nothing for the dead. There must be the faculty to receive
the light and to respond to it. The sun cannot give life, it can
only develop it. It cannot transform the nature. But He who
is the Light of the World is also the Lord and Giver of life. See
Him by whom grace and truth come to us. See Him as He
bends over the couch of the dead maiden, and, taking her by the
hand, says, " Maiden, arise." See Him as He lays those fingers
on the blind man's eyes and says, " Be opened." In Him the
blessed grace of forgiveness is ours. His coming is in relation to
our sins — His very name is Jesus, for He shall save His people
from their sins. "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of (Jod

' Ueonrc Wither.

PSALM Lxxxiv. II 203

is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." He gives to us a
new nature whose instinct it is to know God and to serve Him.
He will give grace. And we have to receive that grace, and avail
ourselves of it. The golden sun shall in vain pour its beauty
where the plough has not turned the furrow and the seed-corn
has not been flung. Man's work is to avail himself of the sun
and to adapt himself to its times and seasons. And even so it is
with God's grace. It cannot avail him anything who does not
receive it and respond to it. " As many as received him, to them
gave he power to become the sons of God."

^ Eichard Jefferies is closely akin to Wordsworth in his over-
powering consciousness of the life in nature. This consciousness
is the strongest force in him, so that at times he is almost sub-
merged by it, and he loses the sense of outward things. In this
condition of trance the sense of time vanishes ; there is, he asserts,
no such thing, no past, or future, only now, which is eternity. In
The Story of my Heart, a rhapsody of mystic experience and
aspiration, he describes in detail several such moments of exalta-
tion or trance. He seems to be peculiarly sensitive to sunshine.
As the moon typifies to Keats the eternal essence in all things, so
to Jefferies the sun seems to be the physical expression or symbol
of the central Force of the world, and it is through gazing on sun-
light that he most often enters into the trance state.^

^ Francis Thompson in his " Orient Ode " seems to worship
the Sun, but it is because he finds Christ in that symbol :

Lo, of thy Magians I the least

Haste with my gold, my incenses and myrrhs,

To thy desired epiphany, from the spiced

Eegions and odorous of Song's traded East.

Thou, for the life of all tliat live

The victim daily born and sacrificed;

To whom the pinion of this longing verse

Beats but with fire which first thyself did give,

To thee, O Sun — or is't, perchance, to Christ ? ^

5. The heat and light of the sun come to this world through
the surrounding atmosphere. Without the envelope of closely
clinging air that engirdles this globe like some diaphanous gar-
ment, the heat of the sun and all the light of it would fall in-

* C. F. E. Spurgeon, Mysticism in English Lileralure, 68.

* E. Meyneil, The Life of Francis Thompson (1913), 210.

204 A SUN AND A SHIELD

effectually on the earth. When we climb a mountain we get
nearer the sun ; would one not naturally think that it ought to
get hotter there ? As a matter of fact it gets colder as we rise
till we reach the peaks that are robed with perpetual snow. The
reason is that we are piercing through that air which wraps and
enwraps this little earth of ours. It is the atmosphere that
mediates the sun, that catches and stores and distributes the heat.
Were there no air, but only empty space, then the greenest
valley would be like Mont Blanc, and the tropics would be ice-
bound in a perpetual winter, though the sun in itself were as
fiery-hot as ever.

May we not make use of this mystery of nature to illumin-
ate a kindred mystery of grace? It is one of the ways of
God to grant His blessings through an intermediary. You say
that the sun is the source of heat and light ; why then should
anything be intruded between earth and sun ? One can only
answer, So the Creator works — without that mediating element
all is lost. You say that God is the source of love and blessing ;
why should anything intervene betwixt God and man ? One can
only answer that it is the way of heaven to grant its richest
blessing through a mediator. How often men and women have
said, " I do not feel any need of Christ or Calvary. I believe in
God, I reverence and worship God; but the sacrifice and the
atonement just confuse me. They appear to be outside of me
altogether ; I cannot make them real to my heart." But through
every sphere of God's activity runs the great principle of media-
tion. The presence of Christ is like the air, making available for
our need the love of God. Eemove the atmosphere, and the sun
will still shine in heaven. Take away Jesus, and God will still be
love. Banish the air, and the sun will not lose its heat. Banish
the Christ, and God will not lose His power. But with the air
gone, the glory of the sun will never so fall as to bless our little
world, and with Jesus banished, the mercy and love of God may
stream on other realms but not on ours. Christ is the mediator
of the better covenant. He stands — the vital breath — 'twixt
God and us. Through Him the sunshine of heaven's love can
reach us, and in the rays of that sunshine we are blessed.

^ What was said with truth of Bishop Fraser of Manchester
was, in a less direct and practical way, true of Stanley : " He was

PSiVLM Lxxxiv. II 205

daily bringing down light from Heaven into the life of other
people." No one could long come in contact with Stanley
without feeling that he was walking in the light, and without
being affected by its radiation. It was this background that gave
dignity to his simplicity of character, that preserved the spiritual
elements of his nature from materialism, that gilded his social
intercourse with a tenderness, an unobtrusiveness, a sincerity, an
evenness of temper, and a consideration for others, that permeated,
purified, and strengthened the society in which he moved.^

II.

God is a Shield.

To the Psalmist God was not only a Sun radiating forth good
but also a Shield protecting from evil — the source not only of life
and joy but also of security. As the Sun, God may be considered
as dwelling in inaccessible light ; whilst as a Shield He may be
regarded as so protecting His people that they cannot be
approached. Life may be looked upon as a battle-field, on which
we have protection from God, if we are on His side ; for the battle is
His. By the figure of a shield, this verse is connected with ver. 9 :
" Behold, 0 God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed."

^ The ancient warrior bore strapped on his arm a shield
of brass or of wood covered with leather, armed with which he
rushed into battle and turned death aside. In modern warfare
the shield is quite unserviceable ; it hangs with bows and, arrows
in the museum of ancient armour. But, as Parker says, " No word
ever becomes obsolete which has once deeply touched the heart
of humanity. The shield will always be a weapon of spiritual
warfare ; God will never cease to be a shield to all them that trust
in Him." The believer's defence is complete ; before and behind,
on the right hand and on the left, he is beset by the protective
power of God. This was a favourite thought of Luther's, whose
famous spiritual battle-song opens with the words :

A safe stronghold our God is still,
A trusty shield and weapon.

"What will you do," Luther was asked, "if the Duke, your

protector, should no longer harbour you?" "I will take my

shelter," he answered, " under the broad shield of Almighty God."

^ R. E. Prothero, Lifi of Bean Stanley, ii. 23.

2o6 A SUN AND A SHIELD

Modern nations, with their immense armies and fleets, are apt
to forget how insecure they are without that Divine protection.
Toolish are they if they " put their trust in reeking tube and iron
shard." He who spread His shield over Abraham and his little
Hebrew army must equally be the " Lord of the far-flung battle
line." He is the ultimate safeguard of all national greatness, and
no weapon formed against Him shall prosper.^

1. The Lord is to us first a sun and then a shield. Eemember
how David puts it elsewhere: "The Lord is my light and my
salvation." Light first, salvation next. He does not save us in
the dark, neither does he shield us in the dark. He gives enough
sunlight to let us see the danger so that we may appreciate the
defence. We are not to shut our eyes and so find safety, but we
are to see the evil and hide ourselves. Ought we not to be very
grateful to God that He so orders our affairs ? Ours is not a
blind faith, receiving an unknown salvation from evils which are
unperceived ; this would be a poor form of life at best. No, the
favour received is valued because its necessity is perceived. The
heavenly Sun lights up our souls, and makes us see our ruin and
lie down in the dust of self-despair; and then it is that grace
brings forth the shield which covers us, so that we are no more
afraid, but rejoice in the glorious Lord as the God of our salvation.

^ Most people in their religious experience think of God as
a shield. He stands between them and the storm. They hide
beneath the shadow of His wings. It is the religion of special
Providence and of Divine interposition. God shields His people
from the burning heat. Religion is a protective system — a very
present help in time of trouble. Some people, on the other hand,
think of God as a sun. When all is bright and cloudless, then they
can believe, but when it storms, then the universe seems God-
less. When God is in heaven, all's right with the world. I
remember a comfortable and church -going citizen who was over-
taken by a great domestic sorrow, and said of it, " It never
occurred to me that such a thing could happen." He had grown
so in the habit of living in the sunshine that he was as helpless
as a child in the dark.^

2. Look at the text in another way. When the sun shines
upon a man he is made the more conspicuous by it. Suppose a
hostile army to be down in the plain, and a soldier in our ranks is

» J. Strachan, Eehrew Ideals, i. 74. ' F. G. Peabody.

PSALM Lxxxiv. II 207

sent upon some errand by his captain. He must pass along the
hillside. The sun shines upon him as he tries to make his way
among the rocks and trees. Had it been night he could have
moved safely, but now we fear that the enemy will surely pick
him off; for the sunshine has made him conspicuous. He will
have need to be shielded from the many cruel eyes. Christian
men are made conspicuous by the very fact of their possessing
God's grace. " Ye are the light of the world," and a light must be
seen. *' A city set on a hill cannot be hid." If God gives light,
He means that light to be seen ; and the more light He gives us
the more conspicuous we shall be. He is our sun, and He shines
upon us ; we reflect His light, and so become ourselves a light ;
and in doing so we run necessary risks. The more brightly we
shine the more will Satan and the world try to quench our light.
This, then, is our comfort. The Lord God, who is a sun to us, will
also be a shield to us. Did He not say to Abraham, " Fear not,
Abram : I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward " ?

*[f By the term shield is meant that our salvation, which would
otherwise be perilled by countless dangers, is in perfect safety
under God's protection. The favour of God in communicating life
to us would be far from adequate to the exigencies of our condi-
tion, unless at the same time, in the midst of so many dangers, He
interposed His power as a buckler to defend us.^

^ Grove mentioned that at some period when Havana was
under martial law, a man had been killed in a row in the street.
Everybody ran away except an Englishman, who, having nothing
to do with the murder, thought there was no occasion to do so,
and was, of course, immediately arrested. Some one naturally
was found to swear that he was the culprit, and he was sentenced
to be shot next morning. The English Consul (Mr. Crawford),
hearing what was going on, went in full uniform to the place of
execution and claimed the man as a British subject. The officer
in charge of the firing party showed his orders, and said he could
not give him up. " Very well," said Mr. Crawford, " at least you
will not object to my shaking hands with him before he is shot ? "
" By no means," was the answer. He then walked up, whipped
the Union Jack out of his pocket and threw it round the man.
" Now," he said to the officer, " shoot if you dare." The officer
applied for instructions to the Governor, and the prisoner's
innocence was soon made clear.^

1 Calvin. » M. E. Grant DufiF, Notes from a Diary, 1S92-5, i. 126.

The Home of the Soul.

PS. xxv.-cxix. — 14

Literature.

Clifford (J.), Social Worship an Everlasting Necessity, 26.
Glover (R.), The Forgotten Resting-place, 3.
Liddon (H. P.), Christmastide in St. Paul's, 240.
Marten (C. H.), Plain Bible Addresses, 173.
Myres (W. M.), Fragments that Remain, 122.
Kendall (G. H.), Charterhouse Sermons, 276.
Richards (W. R.), For IVliom Christ Died, 141.
Shannon (F, F.), The SouVs Atlas, 68.

Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, i, (1855), No. 46.
Stephen (R.), Divine and Human Influence, ii. 255.
Christian Commonwealth, xxxi. (1911) 557 (R. J. Campbell).
Christian World Pulpit, xlvii. 396 (W. Sinclair) ; Ixiv. 419 (E. H.
Eland) ; Ixv. 102 (R. Rainy).

The Home of the Soul.

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling- place
In all generations. — Ps. xc. i.

The 90th Psalm, says Isaac Taylor, might be cited as perhaps the
most sublime of human compositions, the deepest in feeling, the
loftiest in theologic conception, the most magnificent in its imagery.
True is it in its report of human life as troubled, transitory, and
sinful; true in its conception of the Eternal — the Sovereign
and the Judge, and yet the refuge and the hope of men who,
notwithstanding the most severe trials of their faith, lose not their
confidence in Him, but who, in the firmness of faith, pray for,
as if they were predicting, a near-at-hand season of refreshment.
Wrapped, one might say, in mystery, until the distant day of
revelation should come, there is here conveyed the doctrine of
Immortality ; for in this very plaint of the brevity of the life of
man, and of the sadness of these his few years of trouble, and
their brevity, and their gloom, there is brought into contrast the
Divine immutability : and yet it is in terms of a submissive piety :
the thought of a life eternal is here in embryo. No taint is there
in this psalm of the pride and petulance, the half-uttered blasphemy,
the malign disputing or arraignment of the justice or goodness of
God, which have so often shed a venomous colour upon the language
of those who have writhed in anguish, personal or relative. There
are few, probably, among those who have passed through times of
bitter and distracting woe, or who have stood, the helpless spec-
tators of the miseries of others, that have not fallen into moods of
mind violently in contrast with the devout and hopeful melancholy
which breathes throughout this Ode. Eightly attributed to the
Hebrew lawgiver or not, it bespeaks its remote antiquity, not
-merely by the majestic simplicity of its style, but negatively, by
the entire avoidance of those sophisticated turns of thought which
belong to a late — a lost — age, in a people's intellectual and moral

212 THE HOME OF THE SOUL

history. This psalm, undoubtedly, is centuries older than the
moralizing of that time, when the Jewish mind had listened to
what it could never bring into a true assimilation with its own
mind — the abstractions of the Greek Philosophy.^

1. There was a tradition among the Jews, although these tradi-
tions are not altogether trustworthy, that Moses, the man of God,
wrote this psalm or prayer. And it has always been felt that the
psalm seemed to have some special connexion with, or reference
to, the experience and the impressions of the children of Israel
in the days that they were doomed to wander up and down in the
wilderness without being allowed to enter into the Promised Land.
And there is much in the psalm that corroborates that view. It
is the psalm of a generation of men who felt themselves to be
wasting away under God's wrath, consumed by His anger. They
are spending their years as a tale that is told. The vanity and
emptiness of life are pressed home upon them with 'great severity.
At the same time, it is not a psalm of mere wailing and lamenta-
tion. Very far from it. There is the exercise of faith in it, not
only in the first verse, but in the appeal to God to come and dwell
with them as their case requires, and make them experience His
mercy. The cloud is dark that hangs over the congregation, but
faith is still, as it were, seeing the bow in the cloud.

2. By whomsoever written, the psalm makes it plain that the
writer was thinking and speaking not only for himself, but for all
his own people of Israel, if not for the whole race of mankind.
These opening words are the Eternal Gospel of the Fatherly Love
of God, in which the sons of men can ever find their "home."
How precious is that last word, and what a pity that our trans-
lators did not adopt it instead of " dwelling place." Alas ! how
many there are whose dwelling-place is not a "home." The

' Prayer-Book Version is a little better in giving us the word
" refuge " ; for to most of us home is the best refuge we can find,
if not the only one. It is our retreat after the toils and turmoils
of the busy world, our refuge from the strife of tongues, our
covert from the scornful rebuke of the proud. Our home, if it be
as God intended it should be, is the place where all that is best

' Isaac Taylor, S^nrit of the Hebrew Poelry, 161.

PSALM xc. I 213

and sweetest in life is cherished and enjoyed, the one sacred shrine
where even the outcast can find love, and the stern, hard heart
can also find an opportunity for giving a little love in return.
Home is the scene of our keenest anxieties and our bitterest
griefs, no less than of our most restful peace and of our highest
joys. But in the process of evolving and growing mankind, all
things are yet unfinished and imperfect ; even our very homes
are not full enough of purity and peace and love to satisfy the
immortal heart of man. Defect, disturbance, and decay, with all
the varied chances of this mortal life, make even the best of
homes partial and transient. Our immortal souls want ever-
lasting security, unbroken peace, unalloyed happiness. Nothing
less than the Eternal God can be a perfect refuge, a perfect home,
for the souls of His children. And in Him is all that the most
craving and grasping can possibly desire. God has made us so
that nothing shall, nothing can, ever satisfy us but Himself. And
when we have found Him, and made Him our real refuge and
home, we have gained the Eternal Peace, which the whole world
can neither give nor take away.

^ " Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations."
Beside that venerable and ancient abode, that has stood fresh,
strong, incorruptible, and unaffected by the lapse of millenniums,
there stands the little transitory canvas tent in which our earthly
lives are spent. ... If I make God my Eefuge, I shall get some-
thing a great deal better than escape from outward sorrow —
namely, an amulet which will turn the outward sorrow into joy.
The bitter water will still be given me to drink, but it will be
filtered water, out of which God will strain all the poison, though
He leaves plenty of the bitterness in it ; for bitterness is a tonic.
The evil that is in the evil will be taken out of it in the measure
in which we make God our Eefuge, and all will be " right that
seems most wrong," when we recognize it to be " His sweet will." ^

Home.

1. Men everywhere have either burrowed under the ground or
built above it, and sought to provide some kind of place in which
^ A. Maclaren, The God of the Amen, 166.

214 THE HOME OF THE SOUL

they might dwell, and which they call home. Eude and im-
perfect it often is, made of such materials as they could
find to hand, or in such ways as their faculties could devise.
Or where civilization and intelligence have advanced or wealth
abounded, men have built houses larger, more splendid, and
furnished with ample conveniences. But in all, the aim and
desire have been to have a place where they couid obtain
shelter and rest.

The wilderness episode in Israel's life meant that they had no
home. They were always moving, moving — all the year, and then
another year, for forty years. Never settling down at home,
always moving — you might well call such an experience a wilder-
ness. Old Egypt, the land of bondage, had been bad enough ; but
at least there were homes in Egypt, and it was no wonder if at
times the people longed to turn back into Egypt. Homes had
been promised in Canaan, but that promise was for the benefit of
their children. These adult Israelites through one -long forlorn
generation must be always moving. And the long-continued
homelessness taught them something. For all time to come the
memory of that homeless wilderness would make them value the
homes that God should give them in Canaan.

^ Archbishop Leighton died in an inn in 1684 during a visit
to London. He had often expressed a wish to die in an inn
" because it looks so like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this
world is all a pilgrimage." ^

^ How passionately the longing could possess Stevenson is
familiar to all those who have read the thoughts of home from
abroad in Songs of Travel and Vailhna Letters. In a deeper
sense, as it concerned the inward life, the same thing is true.
Apparently an unresting traveller in the spiritual country, he yet
had come to rest upon certain great convictions, in which his
spirit had its home. These he expresses often with an evident
sense of relief and the comfortable peace of assurance. In the
longest journey of all, the lifelong journey, the same shadowy but
hospitable and firelit sweetness awaits its close. The Covenanters
pass the dark river amid a " storm of harsh and fiercely jubilant
noises " which add a tenfold peacefulness to the shores which
they had reached. For himself, who does not know the Requiem
which, written seven years before his death, was inscribed upon
his tombstone at the last :

* A. Alexander, in The Expository Times, xii. 563.

PSALM xc. I 215

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me ;
" Here he lies where he longed to be ;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill."

Such words imply more than they express ; perhaps they mean
more than the speaker knows. In them we hear echoes of a great
voice that calls home the thinker to faith, the struggler to
achievement, and the dead from dying to a new life. And so
there is arrival as well as travel, after all. Indeed the two are
combined in regard to faith, and achievement, and that dimly
seen but beautiful country beyond the grave. In all these, the
true life is at once making for a land that is very far off, and
yet at the same time it is ever coming home.^

Now more the bliss of love is felt,

Though felt to be the same ;
'Tis still our lives in one to melt,

Within love's sacred flame :

Each other's joy each to impart,

Each other's grief to share;
To look into each other's heart,

And find all solace there :

To lay the head upon one breast,

To press one answering hand,
To feel through all the soul's unrest,

One soul to understand:

To go into the teeming world.

The striving and the heat.
With knowledge of one tent unfurl'd

To welcome weary feet:

A shadow in a weary land.

Where men as wanderers roam:

A shadow where a rock doth stand —
The shadow of a Home.^

* John Kelman, The Faith of Eohert Louis Stevenson, 183.

* George J. Romanes.

2i6 THE HOME OF THE SOUL

2. There are places in which men live, calling them homes,
but in which there is no comfort, and not even the appearance of
it. Poor, wretched dwellings and abodes of poverty, squalor, and
sufi'ering, where there is scarce a glow on the hearth to warm, or
a morsel on the table to soothe the pangs of hunger. Or there
are dwellings of misery and wretchedness from vice and its effects,
scenes of brawling, strife, and auger. Or there are abodes where,
though there may be earthly abundance and luxuries, there is a
moral coldness, a want of sympathy and affection between those
who dwell under the same roof ; and so with all its comforts, it is
a home of misery. But it is not such that we associate with the
true idea of home, for the right and good and true home is a place
of happiness and comfort.

^ How can those who do not know Christ and our Father's
home in heaven form any idea of them save from what they see
in us and our homes ? That is the way the heathen learn of
Christ and heaven. In Hangchow, China, Mrs. Mattpx had been
accustomed to invite the little children to her home and make
them happy there. Once a Chinese teacher was talking to some
of them, and asked, " Where do you want to go when you die —
to heaven ? " " No," they answered. " To hell ? " " No." " Where,
then, do you want to go ? " " To Mrs. Mattox's house," they re-
plied. They could not imagine anything more heavenly than that.^

3. There is no place on earth which is so dear to the heart as
home, if the home is such as we usually associate with the name.
It is connected with our earliest and happiest resolutions. It is
the place round which are twined the most tender and hallowed
memories. It is the spot in which are centred our fondest
affections, and it contains in it the hopes of all the purity and
goodness which are to come hereafter. However humble or lowly,
still it is home, a dearer and a sweeter spot than all the world
beside. And it is one of the most endearing aspects in which God
can be regarded, when He is revealed as the home of His people,
as the habitation, " the dwelling and abiding place," of the soul in
all time and under every circumstance.

^ Arriving in New York, after their tour in Canada, the party
proceeded by the night train to Washington, where they spent a
day driving round and seeing all the chief buildings, and then, two

^ R. E. Speer, Men Who vxre Found. Faithful, 141.

PSALM xc. I 217

days afterwards, they went on board the " Lucania." My father
writes : " Never shall I forget the joy of this morning and the
excitement of seeing, as we drove up, the funnels of the grand
' Lucania ' : I passed through the crowded wharf as on enchanted
ground, and stepped on board with a feeling of delight and gratitude
reaching almost to ecstasy. Thank God for this trip, for all His
mercies, for all the kindness of friends and for the pleasure and
instruction of the experience ; but oh, the joy of returning to the
old country, and to home ! That swallows up all other gratification
in one great rejoicing. When at length I reach the gates of death,
may I have the same joy in prospect of the heavenly home ! " ^

^ As one contemplates Mr. Gladstone's triumphs, one finds
oneself recurring in memory to the beautiful background of
domestic quiet and stately dignity in which he was as much or
more at home than in the public gaze. 1 can see him now in an
old wideawake and cloak — trudging off in the drizzle of an October
morning to an early service. I remember how, at Hawarden in
1896, on one of the sad evenings after my father's death, I dined
alone with him and one other guest, and with what beautiful
consideration he talked quietly on about things in which he
thought we should be interested — things that needed neither
comment nor response, and all so naturally and easily, that one
hardly realized the tender though tfulness of it all. And last of
all, I remember how I came one evening at a later date to dine at
Hawarden, and was shown into a little half-lit ante-room next the
dining-room. He was just at the beginning of his last illness, and
he was suffering from discomfort and weakness. There on a sofa he
sat, side by side with Mrs. Gladstone; they were sitting in silence,
hand in hand, like two children, the old warrior and his devoted
wife. It seemed almost too sacred a thing to have seen ; but it is
not too sacred to record, for it seemed the one last perfect trans-
figuring touch of love and home.^

11.

God our Home.

Moses was a homeless man. Early in life he had fled from
Pharaoh's court, where he had been brought up. When he lived
in Midian as the son-in-law of Jethro, he took part in the
wandering life of the desert tribes. When he was called upon
to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt, and to be their

1 The Life of ffenry J. Pope, by his Son, 174.
^ A. C. Beusoii, Along tlie Road, 53.

2i8 THE HOME OF THE SOUL

leader and lawgiver, he shared their wanderings for forty years
in the great and terrible wilderness, where they had no fixed
abode. In all their journeys they had before them the prospect
of Canaan, the good land which God was to give them tor a
possession. But Moses was not permitted to enter upon that
goodly inheritance. He was to see it from afar from Mount
Pisgah, but he was to die in the wilderness, where " no man
kno-weth of his sepulchre unto this day." And so the old man,
who knew no home or lasting abode on earth, finds his home and
refuge in Him. He contrasts the eternity and unchangeableness
of God with the transitory and fleeting circumstances of man.
Thinking of the past generations, he remembered what God was
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when they had no fixed abode,
but confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth.
And looking to future generations he discerned beyond the earthly
Canaan the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker
is God. And so, for the homeless man and the homeless people,
faith beheld the promise of a dwelling-place, a home, in the Lord.

Nay, by no cumulative changeful years,

For all our bitter harv^esting of tears,

Shalt thou tame man, nor in his breast destroy

The longing for his home which deadens joy.

Not blindly in such moments, not in vain,

The open secret flashes on the brain,

As if one almost guessed it, almost knew

Whence we have sailed and voyage whereunto;

Not vainly, for albeit that hour goes by,

And the strange letters perish from the sky,

Yet learn we that a life to us is given

One with the cosmic spectacles of heaven, —

Feel the still soul, for all her questionings,

Parcel and part of sempiternal things ;

For us, for all, one overarching dome.

One law the order, and one God the home.*

1. God is the natural home of the soul. In that home it was

born, from that great Father our spirits came, " trailing clouds of

glory from God, who is our home." To live and dwell in Him,

nurtured by His care, fed by His bounty, watched by His grace,

1 F. W. H. Myers, Tlue Renewal of Youth.

PSALM xc. I 219

guarded by His mercy ; to be brought up and kept in His love,
and to love Him with our heart and soul, and there and then to
find all peace, rest, and blessedness — that is our purpose and our
destiny, that the design and blessedness of our existence. And
only in Him do we find what we require — protection against
temptation, shelter from trials, and refuge from calamity, light in
the midst of darkness, warmth to cheer our dulled and deadened
hearts, release from the burden of sin, deliverance from the power
of passion, food for our hunger, safety from every evil, and rest,
quiet, peaceful rest, to our agitated and worn hearts.

^ When we have been long in a foreign land, associating with
strangers or casual acquaintances who have little interest in us,
and no love for us ; if we have been ill, far away from home and
friends, and have had no friendly faces to smile on us, and no
sweet, tender sympathy to soothe us, how gladsome it is, after such
an experience, to leave that land of exile and strangeness and to
sail for home, where we know —

There is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come.

And how cheering and comforting it is for us to know that,
though now we are wanderers from home, our home in God still
awaits us, the door is ever open to receive us, and the kind,
compassionate Father watching for us, eager for our return, and
ready to receive us and enfold us in His love, and set us in royal
state at His own right hand to partake of His fulness, to be with
Him and His dear and loved ones, whose faces will beam on us
with tenderness and whose hearts will overflow to us with
sympathy and aflection; and that out of that home we shall
never again go, but be there in infinite joy and glory for evermore.
Your soul leaves its house of clay within which it has dwelt here
below. Where shall that soul, when it goes, find rest and home ?

Here is the house,

Empty and lone;
Where is the home of that which is gone,
Out in the regions of boundless black space,
Floating and floating, no space, no place?
Or did it gather its wealth and remove
To the home up above?
All's still in the house here below,
God grant that the soul that has wandered away,
Be not homeless to-day.

220 THE HOME OF THE SOUL

Into Thy house,

Lord, take us straight,
Lest we be left in the darkness to wait;
Lest we be lost in reahns without sun,
And wander for ever where mansion is none,
Crying witliout, "Let us in! Let us inl"
When the feast shall begin,
And the door shall be shut.^

2. Home suggests a place where care is thrown aside, while the
affections expand themselves freely and fully, and loving looks
and kindly words and gentle deeds are the order of the day.
When God is said to be the refuge or home of man, it is meant
that God offers man His best and tenderest welcome; that in
God, and God alone, man finds that which yields perfect repose
and satisfaction to all the pure and tender sympathies of his
nature. For man's higher or spiritual self the One Eternal Being
is what the fireside represents to the heart's affection — a sphere
in which man may abandon himself to perfect enjoyment, to that
unrestrained delight which accompanies a sense of being among
friends, with whom reserve is neither necessary nor possible.

There is a presence moving in that home, anticipating all
our wants, cheering us when we are sad, hushing us when we
are fretful and impatient, smoothing us when we are rullled,
ministering to us when we are in suffering ; and the soul, enfolded
in God's great, tender love, finds rest and blessedness. And as it
is a home of love, it is one in which there is no coldness or
reserve. In the world there is always a certain reserve. There
are joys which delight us, but which others cannot care for.
There are sorrows, cares, anxieties which trouble us, but in which
others have no interest. There are things that we do not tell
and cannot tell. Even with our most familiar acquaintances,
there are some chambers in our heart kept locked from them.
But at home, in a home of love, everything is open, frank,
free, natural; we throw off all restraint, unbosom all our heart's
cares and troubles ; we know we shall get sympathy ; we speak
to interested ears and loving hearts, whose joys and sorrows are
ours. We are not afraid to whisper our secrets. It is to no rude
and heartless gaze we expose them. We do not fear ridicule or

^ E. Stoplien, Divine cDid Human Injliunce, ii. 271.

PSALM xc. I 221

cold indifference. We confide in hearts which love us as they
love themselves. And we get relief by others sharing and
bearing with us. So the soul finds sympathy in God.

^ Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which Thou hast set
me; I have tried how this and that thing will fit my spirit, and
the design of my creation, and can find nothing on which to rest,
for nothing here doth itself rest, but such things as please me for
a while, in some degree, vanish and flee as shadows from befoi-e
me. Lo ! I come to Thee — the Eternal Being — the Spring of
life — tlie Centre of rest — the Stay of the Creation — the Fulness
of all things. I join myself to Thee ; with Thee I will lead mj-
life, and spend my days, with whom I aim to dwell for ever,
expecting, when my little time is over, to be taken up ere long
into Thy eternity.^

3. The Old Testament is rich in promises that God will supply
the earthly needs of those whose trust is in Him. He fed His
people with manna in the wilderness ; He satisfieth our mouth
with good things (Ps. ciii. 5). He prepareth a table before us in
the presence of our enemies (Ps. xxiii. 5). The promise to those
who trust in the Lord is that verily they shall be fed (Ps. xxxvii.
3). And the Psalmist records his lifelong experience that he
had never "seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging
bread" (Ps. xxxvii. 25). And He who gives us our daily bread
also satisfies the higher needs of our souls. This blessed fact is
fully developed in the New Testament ; but even the Old Testa-
ment saints record that they panted for God "as the hart
panteth after the water brooks " (Ps. xlii. 1) ; that by Him their
" soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness " (Ps. Ixiii. 5).
" He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with
goodness " (Ps. cvii. 9). If we make the Lord our habitation, all
our wants, spiritual and temporal, will be supplied.

^ As is a mother to her babe, so is God to us. She makes
the children's home — not the two-roomed cottage of the peasant,
with the bare walls and scant furniture, nor the many-roomed
ducal palace, with its teeming wealth and oppressive luxury ; but
the love and light, the warm kisses and tender care, the sweet
smile and the strong soul of the mother — she, and all that she is,
makes "Home, sweet, sweet Home." She is the dwelling-place
of the child's heart, the satisfaction of desire, the unfailing
^ John Howe, The Vaniiy of Man as Jlodal.

222 THE HOME OF THE SOUL

nourishment of the child's life. What God has made that mother
to her child, He Himself is to us men — ovt asylum of peace, our
refuge from passing foes, our dwelling-place and home from age
to age.^

4. The inviolability of home is the spirit of our English
proverb, that a man's house is his castle. And in this sense God
is the Home of the soul ; the soul finds in the presence of God
a protection against the enemies which threaten it with ruin in
the rougli life of the world. In this sense David cries, " I will
love thee, 0 Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my
fortress and my deliverer ; my God, my strength, in whom I will
trust; my buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high
tower." Or again, "Be thou my strong rock for an house of
defence to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress."
Or, again, " Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may
continually resort ; thou hast given commandment to save me ;
for thou art my rock and my fortress," Once more, " He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under
the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my
refuge and my fortress ; my God, in whom I will trust. For he
shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the
noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his pinions, and
under hia wings shalt thou take refuge: his truth is a shield
and a buckler." ^

^ One mcident of the voyage to America served as a sharp
test to Wesley of his own spiritual condition. Amongst the
passengers he found a little group of Moravian exiles, who, by the
simplicity and seriousness of their piety, strangely interested him.
A storm broke over the ship one evening just as these simple-
minded Germans had begun a religious service ; Wesley describes
v.'hat follows : " In the midst of the Psalm wherewith their
se^fvice began, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces,
covered the ship, and poured in between the decks as if the great
deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began
amongst the English. The Germans calmly sang on. I asked
one of them afterwards, ' Were you not afraid ? ' He answered,
* I thank God, no.' I asked, ' But were not your women and
children afraid ? ' He replied mildly, ' No ; our women and

' J. Clifford, Social Worship, 26.

' H. P. Liddon, CJtrislmastide Sermons, 243.

PSALM xc. I 223

children are not afraid to die.' From them I went to their cry-
ing, trembling neighbours, and pointed out to them the difference
in the hour of trial between him that feareth God and him that
feareth Him not." ^

5. The soul that talks to God rises out of a narrow and selfish
individualism into fellowship, not only with the Eternal Creator,
but also with the vast and various family of God in the past,
present, and future. We are dwelling in the same home as our
fathers and brothers and sons. Israel is there in its completeness.
God is the eternal home of the race. " The elders who, through
faith, obtained a good report," in the grey dawn of the world,
dwelt therein. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the founders of Israel,
had long since passed away, but their home was not broken up,
for they still lived in and to God. Indeed, all our dead live in
Him, for He is not the God of dead men, but of living men, for
all live unto Him. Thus we are already all together with the
Lord.

^ Bunyan's Mr. Fearing was " kept very low, and made his
life burdensome to himself " by fear of death. But as he came
near to his end his fear disappeared, and " he went over at last
not much above wetshod," sending, as his last message to his
friends, the brave words, " Tell them all, it's all right." ^

' "\V. H. Fitcliett, Wesley and His Century, 98.
* J. Clifford, Social IVorship, 31.

The Right Use of Time.

PS xxv.-cxix. — 15

Literature.

Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 346.

Gregg (D,), Our Best Moods, 339.

Hobhouse (W.), The Spiritual Standard, 210.

Hodge (C), Princeton Sermons, 346.

Lee (R,), Sermons, 268.

Lefroy (E. C), The Christian Ideal, 102.

Morgan (G. E.), Dreams and Realities, 49,

Murray (W. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 157.

Prothero (G.), The Armour of Light, 33.

Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 396.

Trimmer (R.), Thirsting for the Living Waters, 132.

Tyng (S. H.), Tlie People's Pulpit, iv. 205.

Christian World Pulpit, Iviii. 65 (M. G. Pearse).

Guardian, Ixvii. (1912) 418 (J. W. Willink).

Homiletic Review, 1. 379 (M. G. Pearse).

Literary Churchman, xxiii. (1877) 540.

National Preacher, xxxiv. 33 (A. Barnes).

Preacher's Magazine, viii. 557 (T. Puddicombe) ; xxii. 67 (J. Edwarda).

The Right Use of Time.

So teach us to number our days,

That we may get us an heart of wisdom. — Ps. xc. 12.

1. This psalm of man's pilgrimage through all generations has in it,
says Ewald, " something unusually arresting, solemn, sinking deep
into depths of the Divinity. Moses might well have been seized
by these awful thoughts at the close of his wanderings ; and the
author, whoever he be, is clearly a man grown grey with vast
experience, who here takes his stand at the close of his earthly
course." The verses of the psalm have become the funeral hymn
of Christendom, which every Church recites at the burial of its
dead.

The slow, sad experience of life wrought out in the Psalmist
a twofold result — he has learned the secret both of detachment
and of attachment. This aged pilgrim grows more and more
weaned from the world and detached from things trivial and
temporal; he stands aloof and absolved from the accidents of
existence. But he clings closer and closer still to things unseen
and eternal, and is made partaker of their everlastingness. Such
should be the effect of a right numbering of the days and years as
they escape us — to teach at last that, though the world passeth
away, and the lust thereof, yet he who doeth the will of God
abideth for ever.

2. But he has learned more than that. He has learned that
God is from everlasting to everlasting. It would help to cheer us
if we could lay this thought to heart, numbering our days, not
merely to realize their brevity, but to realize by contrast the
length of God's years. We have but a short time to work, and it
is well to remember that, in order that we may be diligent. But
God has a whole eternity wherein to work, and it is well to
remember that also, so that we may cease from fretfulness and

228 THE RIGHT USE OF TIME

impatience at the slow progress of the Divine Kingdom. It is by
so numbering both our years and God's that we attain to a wise
heart.

^ Time was Napoleon's most precious commodity, and for
every stage and state of life he had a routine from which he
deviated most unwillingly. In these years his days were spent
in the careful husbanding of every hour.^

A Prayer for Instruction.

"Teach us."

1. At first thought it would seem as though we needed not to
be instructed on such a subject. It would seem as though man's
mortality were so evident that it would be impossible for him to
hide it from himself. Nevertheless, he does hide it from himself,
and on this account no prayer is more important than the prayer
of the text. The demonstration of human mortality is in a
hundred generations of the dead. It is in the ground beneath
our feet, which is billowy with graves full of the dust which once
lived in human forms and spoke and was loved. It is in the long
line of the one hundred thousand human lives which every day
pass the boundary-line from time into eternity and melt into
nothingness before our eyes. It is in every tick of the clock which
marks the passage of some immortal soul and declares the death-
rate of the world. Yet, humanity at large does not realize the
mortality of humanity. So thoroughly unrealized is the mortality
of man that the first condition of right living, the fundamental
thought of a wise life, is ignored and undreamed of by thousands
and thousands.

^ We can number other men's days and years, and think they
, will die ere it be long, if we see them sick or sore or cold : but we
cannot number our own. When two ships meet on the sea, they
which are in one ship think that the other ship doth sail exceed-
ingly fast, but that their ship goeth fair and softly, or ratlier
standeth still, although in truth one ship saileth as fast as the
other ; so every man thinks that the other post and run and tiy
' W. M. Sloane, Napoleon Bonaparte, ii. 253.

PSALM xc. 12 229

to the grave, but that himself standeth stock still, although, in-
deed, a year with him is no longer than it is with the other.^

^ I remember, in the seminary, a fellow student who had
upon the crown of his head a tumour that was constantly grow-
ing. The physicians told him that it was impossible, by any
efifort of human skill, to relieve him. He was waiting the
moment when, in its growth, it should at last pierce the hard
bone of the skull ; and he knew that the moment that should be
accomplished, he would fall dead. God has spared him these
many years to preach the gospel. But, when others were full of
frolic and fun, I noted the serious mirth of that man. He lived
in a division of his days. He counted nothing in the future. He
finished each day's work when the night came.^

2. The uncertainty of human life and the vanity of human
wishes have always been the theme of the satirist as well as of
the preacher. But satire by itself is no remedy ; it can, at best,
only point out the disease. In the very fact that nothing is
certain about life except its uncertainty, we have a safeguard.
We know roughly the limits by which we are circumscribed ; we
know enough to warn, but not enough to paralyse. Could we
look forward with absolute certainty to half a century of health
and vigour, we might be carried away even more than we are by
I the pride of life. Did we know that death awaited us in the near
I future, our spirits would be dulled, our ardour damped in carry-
j ing out legitimate schemes of useful work. As it is, we may con-
; struct our averages of life, we may frame our insurance tables for
] the mass with some approach to accuracy; but we cannot predict
■ the length of an individual life, save when medical skill can
' anticipate by a little the decree which has already gone forth. It
is a merciful dispensation that has so ordered things. God would,
indeed, have us to ponder over the mysteries which surround our
existence, but not in such a way as to sap the power of action in us.
^ Herein is the secret, the true alleviation of the burden of
to-morrow ; not the false and feeble attempt to oppose care by
carelessness, to turn from the anxieties and troubles of life to a
wild recklessness, assuming only a painful jauntiness which con-
ceals the pain. The true remedy is not forgetfulness, but faith.
This is the peace of God which passeth all understanding, which
guards the heart and calms the fevered life. To the soul which

1 Henry Smith. 2 s_ u '£yng.

230 THE RIGHT USE OF TIME

has this noble courage born of faith no turn of affairs can come
amiss. He is not open to the blows of chance. It is not mere
resignation : it is glad confidence that all things work together
for good to them that love the Lord. "If I should intend
Liverpool and land in heaven," said John Howe about a passage
from Ireland. If, what then ? To John Howe, who knew that the
eternal God was his refuge, and underneath were the everlasting
arms, what shadow could the future have ? Why should he be
bowed down by the burden of to-morrow ? As his days, right on
till the last sand had run, right on till the last gasp of breath, so
would be his strength.^

II.

A Wise Enumeration.
"Teach us to number our days."

1. What does it mean to " number our days " ? Not just to
calculate the chances of our own survival in this world — which
we may easily gather from the actuarial tables of an insurance
company. It means to take the measure of our days as compared
with the work to be performed, with the provision to be laid up
for eternity, with the preparation to be made for death, with the
precaution to be taken against judgment to come. It is to
estimate human life by the purposes to which it should be
applied, by the eternity to which it must conduct. It means to
gauge and test our own career in the light of its moral and
spiritual issues. And as God teaches us this, we understand the
secret of true wisdom. For wisdom lies in a just estimate of the •
real value of things. " What shall it profit a man ? " remains the
final question. As Plato said, in one of his mystical sentences,
it is the art of measurement which would save the soul.

2. The Psalmist's petition in effect asks that we shall so mind
the things of this world as not to forget their issues ; and that we
shall so mind the things of eternity as not to forget that they are
to be gained through godliness, righteousness, and sobriety in using
the things of time. The sublime motive in the distance must not
overpower us, so that we shall be rendered unfit for discharging
our present duty, small and insignificant though it may be ; nor

> Hugh Black, Con\fort, 169.

PSALM xc. 12 231

must we be so engrossed with the present duty as to lose sight of
the grand motive, which redeems from littleness every duty, how-
ever small, which is a means to so great an end.

3. The true way to number our days is not so to number them
that they seem to include the result of om- lives, but so to number
them that they seem to include simply the beginning of our lives.
They and all they bring are only stepping-stones which lead us
up to the threshold of a nobler life, nobler in its opportunities,
occasions, and the character of its joy. Life is not mere existence,
the coming and the going of breath, and its coming again ; life
means all that it includes of feeling and thinking and doing and
growth. And the heavenly life is only the continuing of our
activities and the multiplication of serviceable occasions along
those high levels and stretches of being to the altitude of which
we are lifted by the movement of prior activities, as birds are
lifted by the movement of their wings. The man who numbers
his days rightly, numbers them not as if they ended anything, but
as if they began something. He thinks of them in their termina-
tion as bringing him not to an end but to a beginning — a
beginning for which, if rightly used, they prepare and fit him.

^ " What would you wish to be doing," was the question once
1 put to a wise man, " if you knew that you were to die the next
minute ? " " Just what I am doing now," was his reply, though
he was neither repeating the creed nor telling his religious ex-
perience, but, for aught I know, posting his accounts, or talking
merry nonsense with his children round the fire. Nothing that is
worthy of a living man can be unworthy of a dying one ; and
] whatever is shocking in the last moment, would be disgraceful in
every other.^

^ The family motto of Dr. Doddridge was JDum vivimus,
vivamus, which in its primary significance is, to be sure, not very
suitable to a Christian divine ; but he paraphrased it thus : —

Live, while you live, the epicure would say.
And seize the pleasures of the present day.
Live, while you live, the sacred preacher cries.
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views let both united be,
I live in pleasure, when I live to Thee.^

* James Martiueau. - GerUlemau's Magazine, 1786, ]>. 35.

232 THE RIGHT USE OF TIME

Life is unutterably dear,
God makes to-day so fair;

Though heaven is better, — being here
I long not to be there.

The weights of life are pressing still,
Not one of them may fall;

Yet such strong joys my spirit fill,
That I can bear them all.

Though Care and Grief are at my side,
There would I let them stay,

And still be ever satisfied
With beautiful To-day !i

III.

The Units of Life.

" Our days."

1. Notice the writer's unit of computation in measuring life.
He speaks not of years, not even of months or weeks, but of days.
There is something very impressive in such a mode of reckoning.
A year is a long period ; and while we may hope for years of life,
be they many or few, the passage of time is not continuously felt
by us. But days — how they rush past and fly away with a
rapidity which on reflection is almost appalling ! Even the
heedless man must feel the ebb of life when it comes to be
calculated by days. Yet as we see the winged hours go by, we are
apt to think as lightly of them as if the series would never cease.
We sleep and play and busy ourselves with what we call the
serious business of life without much reference to the rising and
setting of the sun. A day lost, a day half wasted, a day misused,
causes us no poignant regret. We are so confident that many
others are still in store for us. As they have come and gone in
the past, so will they come and go in the future. We must admit,
if we are pressed, that the supply is not absolutely unlimited. An
end will be reached at some indefinite epoch, but not yet — not
yet; and if meanwliile we are careless or prodigal, we anticipate

' Charlotte F. B. Rog6.

PSALM xc. 12 233

many opportunities of " making up for lost time " — as if it were
ever possible to make up for lost time !

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,

A mite of my twelve hours' treasure,

The least of thy gazes or glances,

(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure)

One of thy choices or one of thy chances,

(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy pleasure)

— My Day, if I squander such labour or leisure,

Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me ! ^

2. On our maps we have lines to mark the parallels of latitude
— but these lines are only on the map. Crossing the equator or
the tropics you see no score in the water, no line in the sky, to
mark it ; the vessel gives no lurch, no call is emitted from the
deep ; it is only the man of skill, the pilot or the captain, with his
eye on the signs of heaven, who can tell that an event has
happened, and that a definite portion of the voyage is completed.
And, so far, our life is like a voyage on the open sea, every day
repeating its predecessor — the same watery plain around and the
same blue dome above — each so like the other that you might
fancy the charmed ship was standing still. But it is not so. The
watery plain of to-day is far in advance of the plain of yesterday,
and the blue dome of to-day may be very like its predecessors, but
it is fashioned from quite another sky.

Their advent is as silent as their going,
They have no voice nor utter any speech,
No whispered murmur passes each to each.
As on the bosom of the years' stream flowing,
They pass beyond recall, beyond our knowing,
Farther than sight can pierce or thought can reach,
Nor shall we ever hear them on Time's beach.
No matter how the winds of life are blowing.

They bide their time, they wait the awful warning
Of that dread day, when hearts and graves unsealing.
The trumpet's note shall call the sea and sod.
To yield their secrets to the sun's revealing:
What voices then shall thrill the Judgment morning.
As our lost hours shall cry aloud to God ? ^

* Browning, Pii^pa Passes. ^ R. T. W. Dtike.

234 THE RIGHT USE OF TIME

3. Is it because God gives us time so imperceptibly that none
of us estimates the full value of time ? The individual moment is
not looked upon as a precious grain of gold. One couM prove this
in many ways ; but let us be satisfied with one way. Take, as an
example, the names of our various methods of getting rid of time.
Tliese indicate our undervaluation of time. Notice some of these
names : " pastime," i.e., what consumes and uses up the hours
easUy; "amusement," i.e., what prevents musing or meditation;
" diversion," i.e., what turns aside ; " entertainment," i.e., what
holds in suspense or equilibrium. These words, which are in
common use, indicate and reveal a wrong condition of thought
and feeling about time. They characterize it as a drug in the
market to be got rid of at any price and in any quantity, whereas
it is the most precious trust we have.

^ The illusion haunts us, that a long duration, as a year, a
decade, a century, is valuable. But an old French sentence
says, " God works in moments," — " En peu d'heure Dieu labeure."
We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or grand moments that signify.
Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical. Life is un-
necessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a
smile, a glance — what ample borrowers of eternity they are '^

Forenoon and afternoon and night, — forenoon
And afternoon and night, — forenoon and — what ?
The empty song repeats itself. No more ?
Yea, that is life : make this forenoon sublime,
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer.
And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won.'

IV.

Eeckoninq with a Purpose.

" So teach us to number our days, that we may get us an heart of wisdom."

The reckoning must be made with a purpose. Objectless
meditations, and laments without a practical outcome, will avail
nothing. The result of our counsels must be the attainment of
" wisdom," and wisdom does not consist in the mere recognition
of a truth, however momentous. It is a small thing to face the

* Emerson. ' Edward Rowlaud Sill.

PSALM xc. 12 235

fact of the shortness of human life, and call it an evil not to be
avoided by any. The shallowest of heathen philosophies could
tell us that. " So teach us to number our days, that we may get
us an heart of wisdom."

1. Wisdom is a great word, because the idea it symbolizes is
great. It is greater than knowledge, for knowledge symbolizes
only what one has received. Knowledge signifies the ac-
cumulation of facts, the gathering and retention of information,
the reception on the part of our memories of whatever has
been discovered. But wisdom represents that finer power, that
higher characteristic of mind, which suggests the proper applica-
tion of facts, the right use of knowledge, the correct direction of
our faculties. Knowledge is full of error. The stubble and the
chaff lie together in its chambers, and both represent it. But
wisdom never errs. It separates the wheat from the chaff. It
discards what is worthless, and retains only the valuable. Know-
ledge represents the results of human industry. Wisdom re-
presents the characteristic of Divinity. He whose heart is applied
to wisdom has put himself in such a position that he can think
divinely — think as God would think in his place.

^ Wisdom signifies an acquisition, by means of the soul's
faculty of perception, of true knowledge; and the lack of such
knowledge is ignorance. The idea, held by many people, that
wisdom is a gift bestowed on a few privileged souls is erroneous.
Wisdom is open to all, without price or favour. Wisdom, beauti-
ful and divine, represents the highest development of the human
soul. There is a path leading from the lowest to the highest, and
it is open equally to all. As soon as a man begins to seek for
knowledge and truth, he begins to advance out of ignorance and
to acquire wisdom. The desire for knowledge and truth is itself
an evidence of wisdom. ^

2. Now wisdom for time and for eternity does not lie in the
pursuit of pleasure, not even in the pursuit of happiness, but in
the cultivation of a rising life. This is not to say that happiness
may never be hoped for or enjoyed when it comes. If we did not
desire to be happy, we should be more than human, — or less.
But the only way of obtaining happiness is to renounce altogether
the pursuit of it. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his

' E. H. Hodgson, Glad Tidings, 42.

236 THE RIGHT USE OF TIME

righteousness, and all these things" — things which go to make
life happy — " shall be added unto you." Self-consecration is the
root of all true happiness. It is the one thing that ensures con-
tentment here and hereafter; the one thing that will bring a
man peace at the last. Only by losing our life in God can we
hope to find it immortalized. Only by a dedication of all that we
have, and are, and desire, shall we attain to the perfect existence.
This is wisdom and this is happiness.

^ The third chapter of Dr. Hanna's Memoir describes Dr.
Chalmers' ordination to his Fifeshire parish of Kilmany, in the
May time of 1803 ; but we have to journey on to the eighth chapter
and the winter of 1811, before the preacher has any Gospel to pro-
claim. Through the intervening years Chalmers was more
interested in mathematics than in the New Testament, and in his
lectures to the students of St. Andrews on chemistry and geology
than in the spiritual welfare of his people. " The author of this
pamphlet," he wrote in self-defence, " can assert, on the authority
of his own experience, that, after the satisfactory discharge of his
parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in the week of un-
interrupted leisure for the prosecution of any science in which
his taste may dispose him to engage." Years afterwards, in a
debate in the Assembly of 1825, he recanted the words and con-
fessed his error amid the deathlike stillness of the House. " I
have no reserve in saying that the sentiment was wrong, and that,
in the utterance of it, I penned what was most outrageously
wrong. Strangely blinded that I was ! What, sir, is the object
of mathematical science ? Magnitude, and the proportions of
magnitude. But then, sir, I had forgotten two magnitudes. I
thought not of the littleness of time ; I recklessly thought not of
the greatness of eternity." ^

3. The end of life is not to live the maximum number of hours
in pleasure, but to form a character for all eternity ; and if we
want to take stock of loss and gain aright, we must look into
our own hearts. We must see what treasure it is to which they
are drawn, whether above or below. Let us not scruple to put
this to familiar and matter-of-fact tests ; there should be no false
dic^nity about religion. Let us ask ourselves plain questions like
these: Has our time been frittered away, in society, in amuse-
ment, in the thousand distractions of life — harmless, perhaps, each
one taken by itself, but in the aggregate fatal to the usefulness

' A. Smellie, Robert Murray ifCheyne, 13.

PSALM xc. 12 237

and true greatness of life ? Has God been crowded out of
our thoughts ? Has our hold on the unseen diminished ? Have
we become more encrusted with earthly things, till we find it im-
possible to look up, prayer being more difficult and the thought of
religion more unwelcome ? Is our moral courage less ? Are we
more afraid to confess God before men, or to protest against
insults which we hear oJSered to His name ? Are we more haunted
by evil thoughts, and less able to resist them ? Have we grown
in patience, cheerfulness, humility? Are we more ready to do
the " little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness," which have
none of the charm of heroism, and remain unknown beyond the
narrowest circie ? Has our will grown in strength, so that we
are less at the mercy of " chance desires " and sudden temptations,
more at unity with ourselves, more settled in the drift and direc-
tion of our lives ? And an answer we can give to these if we take
the trouble — not necessarily the same answer to all, not perhaps
an unqualified answer to many, but still something that will
show us whether we are being carried along by the stream or
making way against it.

^ The universe is full of miracle and mystery ; the darkness
and silence are set for a sign we dare not despise. The pall of
night lifts, leaving us engulphed in the light of immensity under
a tossing heaven of stars. The dawn breaks, but it does not
surprise us, for we have watched from the valley and seen the pale
twilight. Through the wondrous Sabbath of faithful souls, the
long day of rosemary and rue, the light brightens in the East ; and
we pass on towards it with quiet feet and opening eyes, bearing
with us all of the redeemed earth that we have made our own,
until we are fulfilled in the sunrise of the great Easter Day, and
the peoples come from north and south and east and west to the
city which lieth foursquare — the Beatific Vision of God.^

Time speeds on his relentless track.

And — though we beg on bended knees —

No prophet's hand for us puts back
The shadow ten degrees :

Yet dream we each returning spring.

When woods are decked in gold and green,

The dawning year to us will bring
The best that yet has been.

' Michael Fairless, The Boadmender, 90.

238 THE RIGHT USE OF TIME

Which is an earnest of the truth

That when the years have passed away,

We shall receive eternal youth
And never-ending day.

An angel to each land and clime
Shall locust-eaten years restore,

And swear by Him who conquered Time
That Time shall be no more.^
' Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Love's Argument 115,

God's Inner Circle.

Literature.

Bcoughton (L. G.), The Soul- Winning Church, 50.

Butler (H. M.), University and Other Sermons, 264.

Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 38.

Edmunds (L.), Sunday by Sunday, 193,

Hutton (J. A.), The Fear of Things, 45.

Landels (W.), Until the Day Break, 24.

Maclaren (A.), Last Sheaves, 160.

Norton (J. N.), Every Sunday, 257.

Pearson (A.), The Claims of the Faith, 64.

Pierson (A. T.), The Heights of the Gospel, 63.

Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, iv. 297 ; viii. 73.

Raleigh (A.), Rest from Care and Sorrow, 1.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Till He Come, 23,

Watkinson (W. L.), The Ashes of Roses, 114.

Christian World, Nov. 10, 1910 (J. H. Jowett),

Christian World Pulpit, Ix. 378 (W, Glover) ; kx, 285 (A, S, Renton) ;

Ixxi. 219 (G. H. Morgan).
Weekly Pulpit, i. 3 (P. T. Forsyth),

GoD'S Inner Circle.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. — Ps. xci. i.

The beauty of the language of this poem fitly corresponds to the
grandeur of the thoughts which it conveys. The Psalmist here
sings " to one clear harp in divers tones"; and the central thouglit
which he exhibits in its different aspects is that of God's response
to man. For every advance on man's part there is an immediate
and corresponding advance on God's £art. When man goes out to
seek God, God meets him more than half-way. When he calls
upon God, God will answer him. Loving faith on man's part will
be met by faithful love on the part of God. This is in the first
verse, of which the whole psalm is an expansion. If man dwells
" in the secret place of the Most High," he shall abide " under the
shadow of the Almighty." We have here the condition and
promise.

^ In his later years, Calvin's colleague at Geneva was
Theodore de Beza (1519-1605), the wiicer of the metrical version
of Psalm Ixviii., which was the battle-song of the Huguenots.
Taste for the culture of the Eenaissance, passion for poetry,
worldly success and fame, had weakened the impression of the
religious training of his youth. A dangerous illness revived bis
former feelings. Escaping from the bondage of Egypt, as he
called his previous life, he took refuge with Calvin at Geneva.
In 1548, when he for the first time attended the service of the
Eeformed Assembly, the congregation was singing Psalm xci.,
" Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty." He never forgot the effect
of jthe words. They supported him in all the difiiculties of his
subsequent life ; they conquered his fears, and gave him courage
to meet every danger.^

^ " The 9l8t Psalm is a mountain of strength to all believers " ;
BO General Gordon wrote from Gravesend in 1869, one of the six

' E. E. Prothcro, ITu Psalms in Human Li/e, 185.
PS. XXV.-CXIX. — 1 6

242 GOD'S INNER CIRCLE

quiet years which he used to speak of as the happiest of his life.
Again, thirteen years later, in January 1882, he wrote thus from
Mauritius : " I dwell more or less (I wish it were more) under the
shadow of the Almighty."

In the Secret Place.

1. "He that dwelleth in the secret place^of the Most High."
We get the clearest idea of the meaning of this phrase by an
examination of the different passages in the Psalms where the
word here translated " secret place " occurs. Thus in Psalm
xxxi. 20, we read : " Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy
presence"; also in Psalm Ixxxiii. 3, where another form of the
same word occurs, we read of God's " hidden ones." From these
and similar passages we find that the word is usually connected
with the idea of a fugitive hiding from his pursuers. It calls up
before us the picture of a man running away from his enemies.
Weary and panting, he knows not where to hide himself, and in
his despair he flees to some friend of his and seeks protection, and
the friend hides him in a secret place. The fugitive gives his
all into the keeping of his friend. He places his life in his friend's
hands, and he has now power of life and death over him. So,
then, the man who dwells in " the secret place of the Most High "
is he who ventures his all upon God. With a sure and steadfast
trust, with a simple but unwavering faith, he gives himself, his
all, into the keeping of God. He surrenders himself to God, and
by that very act he is taken near to God ; he is put in the secret
place of the Most High and becomes one of " God's hidden ones."
By his act of absolute self-surrender he has attained to that state
which the Apostle Paul describes in language very similar to that
of the Psalmist — only going a little furtlier than the latter with
his imperfect light could go — when he says, " Ye died, and your
new life is hid with Christ in God."

^ We are like vessels which are near a lee shore in the night.
The darkness of the open sea is safer for the skilled seaman than
the line of the shore. Our safety is to stand out in the bosom of
the dark ; it is to press into the mysteries of God. Why is it

PSALM xci. 1 243

that our moral nature, even the reh'gious, is too often shallow and
poverty-stricken ? It is because we do not pursue the growing
knowledge of God on our own account. We are religious, or at
least we are always in danger of being religious, without spiritual
growth, and spiritual growth surely means spiritual insight. We
cease to become sensible of spiritual enrichment. We come to a
time of life when we are content to say, " I get no secrets from
God now." Eevelations do not arrive ; doors are not opened in
Heaven ; new vistas of faith do not spread away before the soul.
Faith runs on upon the level, and it does not mount, and it does
not soar, God becomes by habit a uniform Presence to us. He
is not denied. We do not venture to deny Him. I was almost
going to say we had not the courage to deny Him. But, at any
rate, we do not deny Him. We only disregard Him, like the air
and the sky. We do not give our minds seriously and deliberately
to realizing Him. We do not pore upon Him until fold after
fold removes, and depth after depth opens, and we look into His
hearc. The secret, the secret of the Most High is not with us.^

2. While this is the general idea, it is possible that the immedi-
ate figure of " the secret place " may have been borrowed from the
arrangements and appointments of the Temple. There was the vast
outside world stretching on every side beyond the Temple walls ;
then the outer courts of the Temple; then the inner chambers
and precincts ; then the Holy Place with its golden candlestick
and table of shewbread; and last of all, the Holy of Holies, the
secret place, the mystic abiding-place of the eternal God. And
every Jew thought reverently and almost awfully of that secret,
silent place where God dwelt between the cherubim. He turned
towards it, he worshipped towards it, his desire moved towards
it; it was the mysterious centre of his adoration and service.
And that arrangement and apportionment of the Temple became
to the Psalmist the type and the symbol of human life. Life
could be all outside, or it could spend itself in outer courts, on the
mere fringe of being, or it could have a secret place where every-
thing found significance and interpretation and value in the
mysterious fellowship of God. That seems to be the primary
meaning of life " in the secret place " ; it is life abandoning the
mere outside of things, refusing to dwell in the outer halls and
passages of the stately temple of being, and centralizing itself in

1 P. T. Forsyth.

244 GOD'S INNER CIRCLE

that mysterious interior of things where " cherubim and seraphim
continually do cry, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty."

^ The necessity of an inward stillness hath appeared clear to
my mind. In true silence strength is renewed, and the mind is
weaned from all things, save as they may be enjoyed in the Divine
will; and a lowliness in outward living, opposite to worldly
honour, becomes truly acceptable to us. In the desire after
outward gain the mind is prevented from a perfect attention to
the voice of Christ ; yet being weaned from all things, except
as they may be enjoyed in the Divine will, the pure light shines
into the soul. Where the fruits of the spirit which is of this
world are brought forth by many who profess to be led by the
Spirit of truth, and cloudiness is felt to be gathering over the
visible church, the sincere in heart, who abide in true stillness,
and are exercised therein before the Lord for His name's sake,
have knowledge of Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings ;
and inward thankfulness is felt at times, tliat through Divine
love our own wisdom is cast out, and that forward, active part in
us is subjected, which would rise and do something without the
pure leadings of the spirit of Christ.^

^ Don't be too much taken up with excitements social and
intellectual. The depths of life are still and ought not to be
ruffled by every wanton breei;e, else they lose the capacity which
they ought to possess of being that centre of rest, and peace, and
content, to which we can withdraw when wearied of the world
which is too much with us. Life to be worth anything at all
must have a moral basis. After all, it is the root of the matter,
unless the universe was made in jest.*

3. The Church is, in God's idea, a home where we recover from
the fatigue of effort, when we take a new hold of high purposes
from which our hand had slackened ; a place of compensations ;
a place from which we see our life more truly, for we see
more than itself. Here, in this house, we may feel something,
some one, even God, in the form and manner of Jesus Christ,
coming between us and the things which would dishearten us and
work despair. Here we may sit under a shadow, under the shadow
of thought and faith. Here we may come under the rebuke and
deliverance of high and unworldly considerations ; here we niay
receive the emancipation which comes the moment we adopt the

' 27t« Journal of John Woolmamy 29.
• Memoir of Robert Herbert Story, 401.

PSALM xci. I 245

spiritual view and seek not our own will but the will of God. To
seek the face of God in worship is the instinct of the soul which has
become aware of itself and its surroundings. Life and death are
the great preachers. It is they who ring the church bells. That
instinct for God^ that instinct for the shadow, will never pass
away. It may only become perverted and debased. The
foundation — which is man's need for God, for guidance, for
cleansing, for support, and that again is but God's search for man,
God's overtures to man — the foundation standeth sure.

^ Whatever temple science may build there will always need
to be hard by a Gothic chapel for wounded souls.^

"A little chamber" built "upon the wall,"
With stool and table, candlestick and bed.
Where he might sit, or kneel, or lay his head

At night or sultry noontide: this was all

A prophet's need: but in that chamber small

What mighty prayers arose, what grace was shed,
What gifts were given — potent to wake the dead,

And from its viewless flight a soul recall !

And still what miracles of grace are wrought
In many a lonely chamber with shut door,

Where God our Father is in secret sought,
And shows Himself in mercy more and more !

Dim upper rooms with God's own glory shine,

And souls are lifted to the life Divine.*

4. Th? secret place is not to be limited to a particular locality,
but means nearness to God, the close fellowship into which tlic
soul enters, the inner circle of communion in which the soul
realizes vividly the Divine presence. Some may associate such
communion with one locality, and some with another, according
to their individual experience. But this matters not. The
essential thing is the nearness of the soul to God, its entering
into His presence with the full consciousness that He graciously
regards it, and will hear its prayer and accept its homage,
breathing its feelings and desires into His ear, and spreading all
its case before Him. His is not that distant and formal inter-
course whi^li one man may hold with another when, in the open
^ F. Paulsen, Ethics. * E. "Wilton.

h6 GOD'S INNER CIRCLE

and crowded places of the city, they have to restrain themselves
because of being exposed to the observation of others ; it is that
intimate and unrestrained intercourse which friend holds with friend
when they meet in privacy, where no otlier eye sees or ear hears,
and each communicates to the other not the things which are
open to public observation, but the secret and hidden feelings of
the heart. Reverently, although freely and confidently, does the
worshipper in the secret place speak to God as a child to its
father, giving expression to all his feelings, whatsoever they may
be.

^ " Fellowship with the living God," says Andrew Bonar in
his graphic little sketch of Samuel Paitherford, " is a little dis-
tinguishing feature in the holiness given by the Holy Ghost. . . .
Eutherford could sometimes say, ' I have been so near Him, that
I have said I take instruments (documents by way of attestation)
that this is the Lord,' and he could from experience declare, * I
dare avouch, the saints know not the length and largeness of
the sweet earnest, and of the__ sweety green sheaves before the
harvest, that might be had on this side of the water, if we only
took more pains.' . . . All this," adds Bonar suggestively, " is
from the pen of a man who was a metaphysician, a controversialist,
a leader in the Church, and learned in ancient scholastic lore."

Where is that secret place of the Most High ?
And who is He ? Where shall we look for Him
That dwelleth there? Between tlie cherubim.
That o'er the seat of grace, with constant eye.
And outspread wing, brood everlastingly ?
Or shall we seek that deeper meaning dim,
And as we may, walk, flutter, soar, and swim.
From deep to deep of the void, fathomless sky ?
Oh ! seek not there the secret of the Lord
In what hath been, or what may never be;
But seek the shadow of the mystic word —
The shadow of a truth thou canst not see:
There build thy nest, and, like a nestling bird.
Find all thy safety in thy secrecy.^

5. How are we to maintain our life of fellowship with God ?
How jire we to dwell in the Secret Place ? The Psalmist doubt-
less would find guidance in the ways and ministries of the Temple.

^ Hartley Coleridge.

PSALM xci. I 247

(1) The spirit of reverence must be cherished. There was Lo
be no tramping in the sacred courts. He was to move quietly, as
in the presence of something august and unspeakable. And that
is the very first requisite if we would dwell in the secret place —
the reverent spirit and the reverent step. The man who strides
through life with flippant tramp will never get beyond the outer
courts. He may "get on," he will never "get in"; he may find
here and there an empty shell, he will never find " the pearl of
great price." Irreverence can never open the gate into the secret
place.

(2) The second thing requisite in the Temple ministry to
any one who sought the fellowship of the secret place was the
spirit of sacrifice. No man was permitted to come empty-handed
in his movements towards the secret place. " Bring an offering,
and come into his courts." And in that Temple-ministry the
Psalmist would recognize another of the essential requisites if he
would dwell in the secret place. That offering meant that a man
must surrender all that he possesses, of gifts and goods, to his
quest of the central things of life. For there is this strange
thing about the strait gate which opens into the secret place : it
is too strait for the man who brings nothing; it is abundantly
wide for the man who brings his all. No man deserves the
hallowed intimacies of life, the holy tabernacle of the Most High,
who does not bring upon the errand all that he is, and all that he
has. Life's crown demands life's all.

(3) And other Temple-ministries in which the Psalmist would
find principles of guidance would be the requirement of pray&r
and praise. " Sing unto the Lord a new song." Such was to be
one of the exercises of those who sought the grace and favour of
the holy place. They were to come wearing the garment of
praise. And therefore the Psalmist knew that praise was to be
one of the means by which he was to possess the intimacies
of the secret place. And praise is still one of the ministries by
which we reach the central heart of things, the hallowed abode
where we come to share " the secret of the Lord." And praise is
not fawning upon God, flattering Him, piling up words of empty
eulogy; it is the hallowed contemplation of the greatness of God,
and the grateful appreciation of the goodness of God. And with
praise there goes prayer — the recognition of our dependence upon

'248 GOD'S INNER CIRCLE

the Highest, the fellowship of desire, the humble speech which co-
operates in the reception and distribution of grace.

^ " I passed my time in great peace, content to spend the
remainder of my life there, if such should be the will of God. I
employed part of my time in writing religious songs. I, and my
maid La Gauti^re, who was with me in prison, committed them
to heart as fast as I made them. Together we sang praises to
Thee, 0 our God ! It sometimes seemed to me as if I were a little
bird whom the Lord had placed in a cage, and that I had nothing
to do now but to sing. The joy of my heart gave a brightness to
the objects around me. Tlie stones of my prison looked in my
eyes like rubies. I esteemed them more than all the gaudy
brilliancies of a vain world. My heart was full of that joy which
Thou gives t to them who love Thee in the midst of their greatest
cro?-ses." ^

Let praise devote thy work and skill employ
Thy whole mind, and thy heart be lost in joy.
Well-doing bringeth pride, this constant thought
Humility, that thy best done is naught.
Man doetli nothing well, be it great or small,
Save to praise God ; but that hath saved all :
For God requires no more than thou hast done,
And takes thy work to bless it for His owu.^

*[| The wise man will act like the bee, and he will fly out in
order to settle with care, intelligence, and prudence on all the
gifts and on all the sweetness which he has experienced, and on
all the good which God has done to him ; and through the rays
of the sun and his own inward observation he will experience a
multitude of consolations and blessings. And he will not rest on
any flower of all these gifts, but, laden with gratitude and praise,
he will fly back again toward the home in which he longs to
dwell and rest for evermore with God.^

II.

Under His Shadow.

The man who commits himself to God, and dwells in Him,
has this promise, that ho will abide under the shadow of the
Almighty. There are two names of God used in the text, " The

1 Madame Guyon, in Life, by T. C. Upliam. * R. Bridges.

' M. Maeteiliuck, Jiuysbrocck and llu Mystics, 130.

PSALM xci. I 249

Most His^h " and " The^ Almighty " ; and when we remember the
deep religious significance which the different names of God had
for the Hebrew, and the careful way in which they are used
throughout the whole of the Old Testament, so that in general
it is true that that name of God is used which alone serves to
indicate tlie particular aspect of God's character or government
uponjy.hich thejwriter wished to lay stJ^es_s; when we remember
this, we are justified in looking for a meaning in the distinction
between the two names of God used here. The man to whom the
promise is made seeks to dwell in the secret place of " the Most
High." He seeks to be near^God as the " Most High " God, the
God of surpassing excellence. He desires the company of Him
who is " Most High " because He is most holy. The character
which he contemplates in God is not so much His power as His
holiness. He desires to be near God, not because of what God
can do for him, but because of what God is; it is in the thought
of God's goodness that he rests secure. It is the holiness of
Jehovah that attracts him ; it is the beauty of the Lord his God
that he would behold continually. To the man who thus disin-
terestedly seeks after Him God will reveal Himself in the character
of the Almighty. The power of the Almighty shall be round about
him. " Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I de-
liver him ; I will set him on high, because he hath known my name."
This man is to " abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

^ This wonderful Psalm has always been a favourite with the
Mystic and the Quietist. For it expresses what we may call the
Beatitude of the Inner Circle. Most religions have distinguished
carefully between the rank and file of the faithful, and that select
company of initiates who taste the hidden wisdom and have access
to the secret shrine. From the nature of the case some such
distinction exists even in the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ Him-
self allowed a difference between " His own friends " and those
many disciples who are servants still. Only we must never forget
on what this difference depends. The Father, who is Lord of
heaven and earth, has seen good to hide His secrets from the wise
and prudent, and to reveal them unto babes. While from the
inmost sanctuary of Christian experience a Voice cries continually,
" Whosoever will let him come freely — if he be content to come
as a little child." ^

J T. H. Darlow, The Upward Culling, 38.

250 GOD'S INNER CIRCLE

1. What does the Psalmist mean by "abiding under the
shadow " ? Does he mean to say that the shadow of the Almighty
rests on the secret place? At first sight it would seem so, but
such a conclusion would not be in harmony with the trend of
thought throughout the Psalm. What he appears really to teach
is that, when a niaii regularly communes with God in secret, then,
wherever he goes, the shadow of the Almighty shall rest upon
him, and in times of trial and danger shall shelter and protect
him. As the pillar ^f cloiuLby day and the pillar of fire by night
went before the children of Israel, and was both a guide and a
shelter to them, so the shadow of the Almighty shall ever rest upon
those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High. A shadow
is produced when some object intercepts the light. Here it re-
presents God placing Himself in front of the sun, to screen His
people from heat. The sun shall not smite them by day, nor the
moon by night.

^ The last poems of Miss Havergal are published with the
title, Under His Shadow, and the preface gives the reason for the
name. She said, " I should like the title to be. Under His Shadow.
I seem to see four pictures by that : under the shadow of a rock
in a weary plain ; under the shadow of a tree ; closer still, under
the shadow of His wing ; nearest and closest, in the shadow of
His hand. Surely that hand must be the pierced hand, that may
oftentimes press us sorely, and yet evermore encircling, upholding,
and shadowing." ^

2. Now it is one thing to be touched by the shadow of the
Almighty, another to abide within that shadow. One has not
lived long, or has lived only on the surface, who has never for a
moment been touched by the shadow of God. It may have fallen
upon us in one or other of several experiences. It may have come
to us in some reverse of fortune, in some change in our prospects.
Or it may have come to us in some bodily illness or the threaten-
ing of some illness. Or it may have come to us, as so much with
regard to the unseen world comes to us all, in the great silence
of a bereavement. But there is probably not one of adult years
who has not had at least one experience which has touched him
to the quick and has brought him for the time being face to face
with God. And yet, if we are strict with ourselves, we shall have

» C. H. Spur^eou, Till lie Come, 23.

PSALM xci. I 251

to confess that as the trouble eased the high seriousness which it
brought began to pass away, so that probably not one of us lias
worked out into our life and character the holy intentions which
we proposed to ourselves on a certain day when our heart was
sore. We have lost from ourselves a certain dignity, a certain
superiority to the world which was ours in days that we can still
recall, when some suspense was keeping our heart open, when in
some precious concern of our life we were depending utterly upon
God for something. To be touched — that is the work of God, the
work of life upon us ; whereas to abide requires the consent of our
will. In order to abide it needs that the whole man, who knows
that in the personal crisis God was singling him out, shall live
henceforth by the wisdom and calling, of that hour. It needs
that he shall depart from all the iniquity which the light of that
holy hour revealed to him.

^ The original meaning of the word here translated " abide "
is " to wrap up in a garment for warmth and rest during the cool
of the night." The reflexive form of the verb is here used : " He
that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall wrap
himself round in the shadow of the God of Might." Nearness to
God is to be to him as the garment which the traveller wraps
around him as he goes to sleep in the desert, when the chills of
night descend. God's immediate presence is to be wrapped round
about him for his protection.^

3. God's protection does not mean exemption from outward
calamities^ But there is an evil in the calamity that will never
come near the man who is sheltered under God's wing. The
physical external event may be entirely the same to him as to
another who is not covered with His feathers. Here are two
partners in a business ; the one is a Christian man, and the other is
not. A common disaster overwhelms them. They become bank-
rupts. Is insolvency the same to the one as it is to the other ?
Here are two men on board a ship, the one putting his trust in
God, the other thinking it all nonsense to trust anything but him-
self. They are both drowned. Is drowning the same to the two ?
As their corpses lie side by side, you may say of the one, but only
of the one, "There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any

1 A. S. Renton.

252 GOD'S INNER CIRCLE

plague come nigh thy dwelling." For the protection that is
granted to faith is to be understood only by faith.

^ " If you believe in God," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson,
" where is there any more room for terror ? If you are sure that
God, in the long-run, means kindness by you, you should be
happy." Fighting a losing battle with death, he wrote: "The
tragedy of things works itself out blacker and blacker. Does it
shake my cast-iron faith ? I cannot say that it does. 1 believe in
an ultimate decency of things ; aye, and if I woke in hell, should
still believe it." Let us thank God for the faith of that high and
brave soldier of sutTering, going up and down the earth in quest
of health, and singing as he went :

If to feel in the ink of the slough,

And sink of the mire,

Veins of glory and fire

Run through and transpierce and transpire,

And a secret purpose of glory in every part,

And the answering glory of battle fill my heart;

To thrill with the joy of girded men,

To go on forever and fail and go on again,

And be mauled to the earth and arise,

And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not

seen with the eyes:
With the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night;
That somehow the right is the right
And tlie smooth shall bloom from the rough :
Lord, if that were enough?

4. But the promise is absolutely true in a far higher region
— the region of spiritual defence. For no man who lies under
the shadow of God, and has his heart filled witli the continual
consciousness of that Presence, is likely to fall before the assaults
of evil that tempt him away from God ; and the defence which
He gives in that region is yet more magnificently impregnable
than the defence which He gives against external evils. For, as
the New Testament teaches us, we are kept from sin, not by any
outward breastplate or armour, not even by the Divine wing lying
above us to cover us, but by the indwelling Christ in our hearts.
His Spirit within us makes us " free from the law of sin and death,"
and conquerors over all temptations. Every step taken into a
higher, holier life secures a completer immunity from the power

PSALM xci. t 253

of evil. Virtually therejsjio temptation^ to those_jYho climb high
enoughj they still suffer the trial of their faith and principle,
but they have no evil thought, no affinity with evil ; it exercises
over them no fascination ; it is to them as though it were not.
Never deal with temptation on low utilitarian grounds of health,
reputation, or interest. If you have a vice, convict it at Sinai ;
arraign it at the bar of the Judgment Day ; make it ashamed of
itself at the feet of Christ; blind it with heaven; scorch it with
hell ; take it into the upper air where it cannot get its breath, and
choke it.

And chok'st thou not him in the upper air
His strength he will still on the earth repair.

^ Migratory birds invisible to the eye have been detected by
the telescope crossing the disc of the sun six miles above the earth.
They have found one of the secret places of the Most High ; far
above the earth, invisible to the human eye, hidden in the light,
they were delightfully safe from the fear of evil. Thus it is with
the soul that soars into the heavenly places ; no arrow can reach
it, no fowler betray it, no creature of prey make it afraid: it
abides in the shadow of the Almighty.^

How good it is, when weaned from all beside,
With God alone the soul is satisfied,

Deep hidden in His heart !
How good it is, redeemed, and washed, and shriven.
To dwell, a cloistered soul, with Christ in heaven,

Joined, never more to part !
How good the heart's still chamber thus to close

On all but God alone —
There in the sweetness of His love repose,

His love unknown !
All else for ever lost — forgotten all

That else can be ;
In rapture undisturbed, 0 Lord, to fall

And worship Thee.^

» W. L. Watkinson, The Ashes of Roses, 117.
' Frances Bevan, Eymns of Ter Sicegen, 36.

Strength and Beauty.

«B9

Literature.

Goodwin (H.), Parish Sermons, iv. 95.

Holden (J. S.), Lif^s Flood-Tide, 172.

Kirkpatrick (A. F.), The Boole of Psalms (Cambridge Bible), 577.

Machiren (A.), The Book of Psalms (Expositor's Bible), iii. 55,

Purves (Q. T.), Faith and Life, 177.

Simpson (A. L.), The Near and the Far View, 219.

Wilson (F. R.), The Supreme Service, 15.

Wirgnian (A. T.), The Spirit of Liberty, 104.

Christian Wwld Pulpit, xlviii. 180 (F. L. Goodspeed) ; liii. 157 (C. S.

Home) ; Ixii. 238 (W. J. K. Little) ; Ixx. 23 (J. Waddell) ; Ixxiv.

147 (F. Tite).
Churchman's Pulpit : Harvest Thanksgiving and Choir Festivals, Ft.

99, p. 399 (G. A. Foole).

•sa

Strength and Beauty.

Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.— Ps. xcvi. 6.

The Psalmist, in that lyrical outburst of adoration from which the
text is taken, professes to have discovered two qualities which
are revealed in combination in the character of God, and which,
such is the suggestion. He will Himself communicate to devout,
worshipful, and aspiring souls. These two qualities are strength
and beauty. Neither quality is of itself uncommon ; it is their
combination that is so rare. Somehow in this world the strong
is not usually the beautiful, and the beautiful is not the strong.
We think of the beautiful in nature as the fragile, the delicate,
the evanescent. We think of the strong, and with its massive
solidity it is difficult to associate any thought of grace and loveli-
ness. But this psalm was a hymn for the Temple ; and if it be
true, as we suppose, that there yet remained many of the glorious
pillars which adorned that magnificent structure, it is conceivable
that they suggested to the Psalmist's mind this rare combination
of qualities. For these pillars of the Temple were of radiant
marble, stately and splendid in themselves, and with the added
decoration of capitals nobly carved in all manners of exquisite
device. And not the pillars alone, but the whole majestic pile
itself, was it not the standing witness to the truth that the God
whom it represented to men was at once strong and beautiful ?
For its durability and solidity was equalled only by its magnifi-
cence ; the strength of its stone by the beauty of its colouring and
the glory of its decoration. The architects of that ancient cathedral
seem to have derived their ideas from nature ; and to have seen
that He who laid the enduring foundations of the earth decorated
the world which He made with the gold of the crocus, the crimson
of the field-lily, or the blue of the gentian and the harebell ; and
they built for Him a fane which, like the world He built for fehem,
PS. xxv.-cxix. — 17

258 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY

was strong and beautiful, massive, but full of delicate colour. As
was this temple of their God, so was the God of the Temple —
in His Divine Being they felt there must be this glorious com-
bination of strength and beauty.

^ If it was Solomon's temple of which the Hebrew writer of
this psalm spoke, we can imagine some of the features which he
must have had in mind. The immense blocks of stone, of which
the foundation was composed, and the great Lebanon cedars which
were brought by Hiram, king of Tyre, explain the reference to the
strength of the building. Though not large, it was a solid, massive
structure, built to last through ages, while the foundations them-
selves rested on imperishable rock. And then the resources of
art were exhausted to make it beautiful as well as strong. The
interior was overlaid with pure gold, on which were carved figures
of cherubim and palm trees and flowers. All the utensils of
worship were of the same costly metal and elaborately orna-
mented ; while precious stones gleamed amid the gold and Tyrian
tapestries hung on every side. The wealthiest of kings lavished
his riches; the most skilled artificers taxed their art; the ad-
venturous mariners laid tribute upon distant lands to make
beautiful the Temple of Jehovah, It thus seemed to combine the
two elements of architectural perfection — strength and beauty.^

Strength.

1. It is better that a building should be strong than that it
should be ornamental. And the same is true of characteV also.
Ornament, moreover, ought to accompany strength. It is not
good art to put into a building a useless feature merely because
it is beautiful. The true artist will beautify the useful. The
practical purpose will be first. So a character which aims only
to be beautiful is not to be admired. It merely becomes bric-a-
brac. It has the taint of cosmetics. The man who is absorbed in
the mere adornment of his character is not much beyond the man
who is absorbed in the adornment of his body. No, beauty must
be superimposed upon strength. The practical usefulness and
moral power of life are to be the first things sought. Then you

1 G. T. Purvcs, Fnifh and TAfe, 177.

PSALM xcvi. 6 259

have something worth adorning. It is the hard stone that takes
the best polish. It is the strong, earnest character that may be
made the most beautiful.

*[[ In the life of Archbishop Temple we read : " He stands out
from amongst the men of his day, a notable figure, unlike others,
cast in a larger mould, nobler than most, more self-reliant,
more absolutely incapable of doing anything mean or of acting
from self-interested motives; he worked harder and longer; he
was more unworldly; he grasped more firmly the substance
of life ; he was a greater man ; but a man nevertheless, working
with and for his fellows, compelling the admiration of all, but
winning most love from those who knew best the man's heart
within him. To the elders who are left he is a great memory,
and as they look back and realize to what extent they lived in
him they fancy that life now lies behind them. But it was a real
life which they shared, and it still remains ; for it belonged to the
eternal world, and is of those things ' which cannot be moved.'
Even its methods will last long; they had always about them
something of the enduring spirit of the man. And thus the life
points onward and has a meaning for those who are young. The
air of perpetual spring blows round the old man's grave: the
memory speaks reality and hope, and these are the memories
which live." ^ Yet to those who knew him best his strength was
not more notable than the depth and tenderness of his affections.

2. Some foolish people associate religion with weakness.
Perhaps some weak Christians are responsible for this. But
there is nothing weak about true religion. The man who lays
hold upon God is strong. " Strong in the Lord, and in the power
of his might." There is nothing weak about faith. It can
remove mountains ; it can carry men through fire and water, and
has inspired the noblest heroism that the world has ever seen.
There is nothing weak about truth or righteousness. Falseness is
weak ; unrighteousness is weak. But to be really good is to be
strong. In the Bible weakness is not pitied but condemned, and
the watchword to believers over and over again is " Be strong ! "
The great essential of Christian character is strength — strength
to overcome evil and to labour for the good of others.

^ In February, 1865, Dr. Punshon delivered in Exeter Hall
his famous lecture on William Wilberforce, the thoroughness
of whose religious decision was thus referred to: "With the
* Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, ii. 711.

26o STRENGTH AND BEAUTY

accidents of birth and station in his favour, with youth upon
his side, fortune at his feet, and fame and power within the
grasp of his outstretched hand — when life was in its summer,
and he was compassed, so to speak, with its gladness, and music,
and flowers — with everything at hand which it is deemed the
most costly to surrender — he stepped forth in the sight of the
world, for which his name had already a charm, took the crown of
his manhood, and laid it humbly at the feet of Christ. I can see
in the act a courage of that sort which is the truest and rarest,
but which is, notwithstanding, within the reach of you all. The
true idea of power is not embodied in Hercules or Samson, brute
forces with brute appetites, takers of strong cities, but slaves to
their own passion. Nor is it in the brave soldier who can storm
a fortress at the point of the bayonet, but who yields his man-
hood to the enticements of sinners, and hides the faith which the
scoffer's sneer has made him frightened to avow. The real power
is there when a man has mastered himself, when he has trampled
upon the craven and the shameful in all their disguises, and when,
ready on all fit occasions to bear himself worthily among his
fellows and ' give the world assurance of a man,' he dares to say
to that world, the while it scorns and slanders him, ' I will not
serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set
up.'"i

3. A man who loves and trusts God cannot but be a strong
character. He will not be easily moved by any temptation. He
will not be unduly anxious about the future. He will be in no
hurry. He will have the calm assurance that, be the present
mysteries what they may, all is going well. And he will feel that
his life is inseparably linked with the Highest One Himself.
" Love is strong as death," says the old writer ; and if we see
instances of the love of man to man in which this is true, much
more is it true that in proportion as a human soul loves God will
it be firm against evil and strong for all good. The mighty
granite masses out of which we quarry the material for our great
buildings were once in a fluid, molten state, but they have
crystallized into the hardest of rocks. So will belief in God and
Christ, and love to God in Christ, crystallize a soul into the
strongest of characters.

^ Unwearied in their efforts to prevent Luther's appearance,
the papal ambassadors had at last succeeded in procuring an

» F. W. Macdonald, Lift of W. Morley Pimslum, 229.

PSALM xcvi. 6 261

Imperial edict for the delivery and burning of Luther's books.
This was practically a condemnation in advance, and seemed to
render Luther's presence unnecessary; but the Emperor tried
to steer between the two parties by saying that Luther was
summoned only for the purpose of having him recant. At
Weimar this edict reached him, and its intention was immediately
seen. The Imperial herald, who was favourably disposed to
Luther, asked whether he would proceed. Only for a brief
moment did he tremble ; but quickly regaining his self-possession,
he answered : " Yes. I will proceed, and entrust myself to the
Emperor's protection," thus foiling the plan of his adversaries to
have him condemned for contumacy in disobeying the summons.
Worn out and sick, he wrote to Spalatin from Frankfort : " Christ
lives ; and we shall enter Worms, though all the gates of Hell and
powers of the air be unwilling." ^

Beauty. ■

1. The next thing is beauty. Some Christians are content
with the strength, and care little for the beauty, of the Christian
life. They are stern in their adhesion to principle, careless of the
lesser charities of life, apt to be harsh in their condemnation of
error and sin. Every one knows their worth, believes in their
honesty, would trust implicitly to their integrity. But they do
not win love by their gracious bearing, their kind words, their
charitable construction of men and things. In a word, they have
the strength, but they lack something of the beauty of the Christian
character. We have always the practical, hard-headed people with
us (like Dickens' " Mr. Gradgrind "), who say, " Never mind about
the beautiful, give us the useful, the durable," and who would re-
gard all ornamentation as useless and extravagant. But God has
a ministry both for strength and for beauty. He made not only
things great but things beautiful. " 0, worship the Lord in the
beauty of holiness," says the Psalmist, and we must remember
there is also a holiness of beauty. In the fabric and services of
the sanctuary nothing is too beautiful or too good for God.
" Jerry-building " and cheap fittings are out of place hera God
' H. E. Jacobs, Martin Luther, 184.

262 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY

should have the best of workmanship, the loveliest of music, and
the perfection of reverence and order.

^ If you beliold the sky with its peerless blue, the meadow
with its emerald green, the grain-field with its yellow gold, the
lake' with its silver white, you will see that beauty has been
wrought into all the patterns of nature. What skilled artist can
put another touch upon the rainbow, or mix colours that will
heighten the beauty of the transfigured cloud-land ? The spring
in its fresh green, the winter in its robes of pearl, the cataract,
the crystal spray, the pearly dew, the ocean all aglow with
phosphorescence, every wavelet flashing and sparkling as it caps
and breaks, the towering mountains, with their ceaseless lights
and shadows, the jewelled sphere of night, the glorious trans-
parency of day, the sunset glories God has hidden beneath the
surface of the roughest shell — all these declare with a thousand
voices that God loves beauty as well as strength.*

2. We must have the strength first, and beauty afterward.
It is disaster to reverse this order — to try to get beauty and then
have strength. The magnificent Brooklyn Bridge, when viewed
at a distance, is a beautiful poem. But the beauty is dependent
on the strength of mighty abutments which reach down far below
the river bed and take hold of the foundations of the earth. In
everything, both artistic and moral, strength is the stalk ; beauty
is the flower that blooms on it.

^ The great porch of Solomon's temple was upheld by two
famous pillars of bronze, cast and adorned by the most skilful
workmen of the day. Those massive pillars, called Jachin and
Boaz, have been described and discussed in a thousand books, and
have been the cause of endless speculation. The Biblical descrip-
tion closes with this suggestive sentence, "on the top of the
pillars was lily work." The columns that supported ended in
tracery that adorned. The strength that upheld blossomed out
into grace and beauty at the top. In our day there is a great
desire for the lily work without the pillars, a vain longing for the
graces of life and the beauties of character without the supporting
power of truth and duty. There are thousands of men who would
like the virtues of the fathers, but who do not want the faith
which made them virtuous. They would like to have reproduced
in their life the qualities of soul which marked the early
Christians, the Reformers, and the Puritans ; but not their sturdy

' F. L. Goodspeed.

PSALM xcvi. 6 263

faith, not their tenacity of conviction, not their majestic con-
science or their tremendous hold on things unseen. They want
the simplicity and affection of the Waldenses, but not their faith
in God ; the audacity and fearlessness of John Knox and Oliver
Cromwell, without their vivid sense of the Divine Presence ; the
morality of John Eobinson and Miles Standish, without their
heroic creed ; the integrity of Washington and Lincoln, without
their trust in a sustaining and overruling God. Mothers are
anxious that their daughters should shine in every social
accomplishment; that their sons should be men of talent and
of skill; that their homes should be beautiful with music and
art and all kindly grace. But they are not so soKcitous about
the solid foundations of character.

III.

Strength and Beauty.

" Know ye not," says the Apostle, " that ye are the temple
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " The
sanctuary of God is a human soul that is governed and moulded
by God. Such a soul is His temple. Of this it is true that
strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. In other words, a
true Christian character is the realization of the highest ideal of
what a man should be.

1. A noble character must contain in high degree, and in
right proportions, just those two elements of which the text
speaks — strength and beauty. There must be strength of
character. You cannot make a house out of sand, because the
particles do not cohere to one another. Neither can you make
a worthy character out of irresolution, vacillation, doubt, fear,
instability. A true man must have ruling convictions, con-
centration and constancy of purpose, firmness in the right as he
sees it, power to endure reverses, positive purposes and ideas.
These make a strong character. A true man must also have
these elements of strength adorned by gentler virtues. Manli-
ness is not mere strength. There must be refinement of feeling,
humanity, and benevolence, gentleness and patience. These
make character beautiful. And the two elements must combine

264 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY

in right proportion. A merely strong character is as one-sided
and imperfect as «, pugilist is an abnormal specimen of physical
manhood. A merely gentle, loving character is often pitiably
weak and unpractical. A true man is strong in his convictions,
but gentle in his judgments ; constant of purpose, but gentle to
the weak and mindful of others' rights; positive but humble;
energetic but meek. This is the ideal which Christianity has
taught the world.

^ God has room in His Church for both strength and beauty.
Is there not a parable in the fact that Jubal, the inventor of
music, and Tubal-cain, the first blacksmith, were brothers ?
When Tubal-cain set up the first smithy he was starting an
industry which has been of great use in the world ; but when
Jubal struck chords of music from his first primitive harp, he laid
succeeding generations of men under no less obligation.^

^ The finest and most impressive effects are often produced
by the combination of things that are unlike each other. The
painter recognizes this principle when he brings his darkest
shadows to heighten the effect of his clearest lights, or contrasts
the peaceful life of some humble cottage home with the stately
magnificence of the stern mountains that surround it. The
architect appeals to the same principle when he crowns his
columns with beautiful capitals, and relieves the massive masonry
of his walls with delicate tracery. The massive wall and the
marble column suggest the thought of strength ; while the delicate
carvings and the sculptured friezes appeal to the sense of beauty.
The thought which lies deep in the artist's mind, and to which he
strives to give expression in his work, is that there is a natural
alliance between strength and beauty. He is not satisfied with
the stern severity of mere strength, nor does he allow the idea of
beauty to exclude all other thoughts. But he endeavours to
clothe and crown strong things with beauty, and to support
beautiful things by strength.

2. Strong characters are not rare, and beautiful characters are
not rare ; but characters that are both strong and beautiful are
rare. It is so difficult to be firm and not to be hard, to be
inflexibly just and not to be cold, to have the solid virtues that
make for strength, and with them the soft and gracious qualities
that command our love. Some men and women have the decor-
ative virtues — they are full of generosity, noble impulse, charity
* F. R, Wilson, Tlie Suj>reme Service, 17.

PSALM xcvi. 6 265

and magnanimity, and enthusiasm ; but they have not with these
the strength of mind and will that can resist the " taking " and
popular tendency if it be forbidden by sound principles of justice
and of practical common sense. Some people, on the other hand,
have only the fundamental qualities — they are just, but they
cannot be generous ; honest, but never hberal ; truthful, but never
merciful. They have principle, but they have never yielded to
a wise enthusiasm, or been moved out of their slow, plodding habit
by some sacred zeal for a great and good cause. The world yields
to the strong men ; it admires them, it honours them ; but it does
not love them. They command its respect, but they do not
engage its affection. On the other hand, the world's heart is
drawn out to the beautiful lives, but it discovers to its pain that
it must not lean upon them. They cannot be trusted in our hours
of real trial and perplexity. What they gain in heart they seem
to lose in head ; and we grow conscious that they are tender and
generous and kind, but they are not wise. Of how few is it true
that they are not only strong but beautiful, not only beautiful
but strong !

^ All the strong things in nature are beautiful ; all the
beautiful things are exhibitions of strength. David speaks of the
" strength of the hills " which is " his also." We feel the power
and appropriateness of the words as we look up to the mountains.
But do we not speak with equal truth of the beauty of the hills,
clad in exquisite verdure, or flushed with the light that is " new
every morning " ; delicate flowers and tender ferns nestling in the
shelter of their crags, and purple rocks reflecting the sunsets of a
thousand years ? Take the strongest thing that nature yields, and
we shall find that its strength is the cradle of an exquisite and
unfathomable beauty. Take the most beautiful thing, and we
shall find that its beauty is in closest alliance with immeasurable
strength. The dewdrop that glitters on the roseleaf — we all know
the perfection of its beauty ; but how little do we understand the
mystery of the strength by which its beauty is secured ! That
little drop of water is composed of elements which are held
together by electric forces sufficient to form a flash of lightning
that would rend the rocks of the mountain or blast the stoutest
oak of the forest. All that mighty thunder of power lies sleeping
in the crystal sphere of a tiny dewdrop.

^ Florence Nightingale had that " excellent thing in woman " —
a gentle voice. Lady Lovelace in her poem spoke of her friend's

266 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY

" soft, silvery voice " ; but it could command, as well as charm,
unless indeed it were the charm that commanded. " She scolds
sergeants and orderlies all day long," wrote Mr. Bracebridge to
her parents (Nov. 20) ; " you would be astonished to see how
fierce she is grown." That was written, of course, in fun; but
there was always a note of calm authority in her voice. A
Crimean veteran recalled her passing his bed with some doctors,
who were saying, " It can't be done," and her replying quietly,
" It must be done." " I seem to hear her saying it," writes one
who knew her well ; " there seemed to be no appeal from her
quiet, conclusive manner." ^

3. In Jesus Christ strength and beauty appear as nowhere
else among men. He is the ideal man. His character contains
every element of strength — profound knowledge, constant faith,
ability to suffer for the truth, composure in the face of an
assailing world. Yet His character contains also every element
of beauty. He is tender as a woman, devoted in His love of man,
humble and meek, gentle and patient too. Each quality exists
in accurate proportion in Him; so that we may say, without
hesitation and after the closest examination, that the architecture
of Christ's character is absolutely perfect.

■ff Tlie mediseval conception of our Saviour, as meek, and
suffering, and patient, and gentle above all others, is true though
incomplete. He was "strong Son of God" also. It was the
boldness of Peter and John that reminded men of their courageous
Master. How constantly in His life do we see strength and
beauty, in perfect balance and poise, shining forth from His
acts and words ! In the garden of agony, faced by cruel and
murderous men, He stands erect, calmly repeating to His enemies,
" I have told you that I am he " — there is strength ; but mark
the tender beauty of what follows : " If ye seek me, let these go
their way " — solicitude for His faint-hearted followers mingling
with His fortitude. As one has truly said : " The eyes that wept
beside the grave of Lazarus were eyes that were like a flame
of fire." By His stroigth and beauty, combined with perfect
symmetry in one holy character, Jesus endlessly attracts. His
charm is not like that of any other. " Thou hast conquered, 0
Galilean," for Thou art strong and Thou art fair, Thou art
chiefest among ten thousand. Captain of the Lord's hosts, and
Thou art altogether lovely, beautiful beyond compare.^

* Sir Edward Cook, The Lift of Florence Nightingale, i. 186.
» J. WaddoU.

PSALM xcvi. 6 26;

A rose, a lily, and the Face of Christ

Have all our hearts sufiBced :
For He is Kose of Sharon nobly born,

Our Kose without a thorn ;
And He is Lily of the Valley, He

Most sweet in purity.
But when we come to name Him as He is,

Godhead, Perfection, Bliss,
All tongues fall silent, while pure hearts alone

Complete their orison.^

* Christina G. Rossetti, Christ our All in All,

Light and Gladness.

C69

Literature.

Carroll (B. H.), Sermons, 340.

Christopterson (H.), SermonSy 30.

Halsey (J.), in Jesus in the Cornfield, 143.

Jerdan (C), Gospel Milk and Honey, 311.

Landels (W.), Until the Day Break, 125.

Learmount (J.), Fifty-two Sundays with the Children, 92.

Miller (J. R.), A Help for Common Days, 91.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xiv. (1868), No. 836.

Stubbs (W.), in Oxford University Sermons, 318.

Voysey (C), Sermons, x. (1887), No. 20 ; xii. (1889), No. 22.

Wilson (S. L.), Helpful Words for Daily Life, 384.

Christian World Pulpit, lixviii. 33 (R. J. Campbell).

Light and Gladness.

Light is sown for the righteous,

And gladness for the upright in heart.— Ps. xcvii. ix.

The peculiar metaphor employed in this passage is somewhat
arrestive because of the form in which it is expressed. This way
of putting things is quite different from ordinary language ; we
do not commonly speak of sowing light and gladness in the same
fashion as we sow grain in the spring-time with the expectation
of an autumn harvest. The figure is so striking that we are at
once compelled to pause and ask what this writer has in mind.
To say the least of it, the suggestion is very beautiful. Imagine
a husbandman sowing rays of light in the ploughed fields instead
of the ordinary corn and flower seed ! Why, the very idea is
full of spiritual suggestion, and sets us on the track of high and
holy things. Perhaps it is for this reason that the Eevisers have
allowed it to stand, although, as has frequently been pointed out,
the translation is not literally correct. If we have a mind to be
pedantically accurate we might render the text thus : " Light has
arisen — or, is scattered — for the righteous, and gladness for the
upright in heart." It is almost identical in form with Ps. cxii. 4,
"Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." This
reduces the sentiment to a much more commonplace category,
for, of course, it means no more than an allusion to the
phenomenon of sunrise, a figure in which there is nothing so
very remarkable or out of the common. But somehow one
thinks the Authorized translators have got nearer the original
meaning of this utterance than a mere prosaic literalism could
have done. It is true poetry to say that light is sown for the
righteous, and there is nothing fantastic about it.

^ Milton, in Paradise Lost, wrote these words about the sun-
beams and the dew: "Morn advancing sowed the earth with
orient pearl." And when, with this thought in our minds, we

272 LIGHT AND GLADNESS

look up on a winter night to the starry sky, does that not seem
like an immense concave field sown all over with light ? ^

Sown Light.

1. It is no merely fanciful use of the words, " light is sown,"
to suggest that, in a literal sense, light has been sown for our
harvesting in those vast buried forests which constitute our coal-
fields, and are the source of nearly all our artificial light and heat.
The sunbeams that streamed through long millenniums upon our
planet were absorbed by those giant ferns and conifers that
flourished in what geologists call the Carboniferous period, and
were afterwards submerged and overlaid with other deposits ; and
after having been imprisoned in the depths and the darkness for
long ages, like seed in the soil, the light of those beams is now
breaking forth once more for the illumination and service of man.

^ George Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine,
was once standing with Dean Buckland, the famous geologist,
and others upon the terrace of Sir Robert Peel's mansion at
Drayton Manor, when a railway train flashed along in the
distance, throwing behind it a long trail of white steam. " Now,
Dr. Buckland," said Stephenson, "can you tell me what is the
power that is driving that train ? " " Well," said the Dean, " I
suppose it is one of your big engines." " But what drives the
engine ? " " Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver." " What
do you say to the light of the sun ? " " How can that be ? "
asked the Dean. " It is nothing else," replied the engineer ; " it
is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years and
now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in the fields of
coal, the latent light is again brought forth and liberated ; made
to work, as in that engine, for great motive purposes." That
answer was itself a flash of illumination to the mind of the man
of science, and there is more meaning in it than even Buckland
or Stephenson himself ever dreamed. For, since that day, not
only has light produced by the combustion of coal gas become the
chief means of artificial illumination to all civilized nations, but
mineral oils derived from the same source are also largely used,
and it is the pent-up force of the sunbeam locked up in the coal

' C. Jerdan.

PSALM xcvii. II 273

that drives our motor-cars, and, transformed into heat, generates
the power which we transmute again into light in the form of the
electric beam. Hundreds of thousands of years ago the light was
sown, and now the harvest is being reaped.^

2, A seed is a germ. When, therefore, we say that God has
sown the light for us, we mean that He gives us our blessings in
germ, not in full form — that they come to us, not developed into
completeness of beauty, but as seeds which we must plant, wait-
ing, sometimes waiting long, for them to grow into loveliness. A
seed does not disclose all the beauty of the life that is folded up
within it. We see only a little brown and unsightly hull which
gives no prophecy of anything so beautiful as springs from it
when it has been planted. These facts in nature have their
analogies in the seeds of spiritual blessing which God sows for us.
The blessing does not appear : what does appear is often unlovely
in its form, giving in itself no promise of good. Yet it is a seed
carrying in it the potency of life and the possibilities of great
blessing. Every duty that comes to our hand in the common
days is a seed of light which God has sown for us. Some seeds
are dark and rough as we look upon them ; so there are duties
that have in them no promise of joy or pleasure as they first
present themselves to us. They look hard and repulsive, and we
shrink from doing them, but every one knows that there is in the
faithful doing of every duty a strange secret of joy; and the
harder the duty, the fuller and the richer is the sense of gladness
that follows its performance.

God's angels drop like grains of gold

Our duties 'midst life's shining sands.
And from them, one by one, we mould

Our own bright crown with patient hands.
From dust and dross we gather them ;
We toil and stoop for love's sweet sake
To find each worthy act a gem
In glory's kingly diadem
Which we may daily richer make.

*[j It has been said that faith in God and belief in immortality
were Browning's sources of inspiration. It is not possible to say
that of all our poets — perhaps not of any in the same degree as of

1 J. Halsey.
PS. XXV.-CXIX. — 18

274 LIGHT AND GLADNESS

him. One other great poet of the Victorian age, Tennyson, may
be very properly described as a religious poet. He, too, treats of
the eternal mysteries of God and the universe, and the awful
problems of life and death ; but where Tennyson whispers, or
speaks with bated breath. Browning sends forth a clear, distinct,
ringing voice — where the former " faintly trusts," the latter avows
a confidence which nought can disturb, and which int:.pires faith
in the more timid and halting of his fellows around him. What
Browning makes the Pope say in " The Eing and the Book," he
might have said of himself with perfect truthfulness :

Never I miss footing in the maze,

No, — I have light nor fear the dark at all.^

3. This figure of light sown implies something hidden and
long waited for, yet certain at last ; even as the seed is buried in
the soil, and " the husbandman hath long patience until he receive
the early and the latter rain," and finally, the assured fruition of
his labour. The sower does not doubt the harvest because he
has to waijb weary months for it. He knows that in due season
he shall reap if he faint not. And so the Psalmist would
have us believe that the certainty of the coming light is as great
as that of the present darkness, and that if our calamities are
inevitable, our consolations are assured. " Weeping may endure
for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

The seed which is cast into the soil does not immediately
yield the harvest. The waiting is the price we have to pay for
the hundredfold increase. It cannot be reaped yet. But it is
sown, and will yet grow and ripen. God's hand has prepared
the soil and cast the seed, and His care and culture secure an
abundant harvest. It is sown, and is growing under His eye.
Those dark clouds that overshadow sometimes drop down fatness
on it. Those storms that are so trying strengthen it. And God's
love, like genial sunshine, is promoting its continual growth. It
is sown, and will be reaped before long. Fear not ; rather look
beyond.

Lift up thine eyes beyond the night

Of life's dark setting; blossoms of to-day

Shall break in flower to-morrow.

This year's light sucked into every spray

Is food for summer blossoms yet to be.
* J. Flew, Studies in Browning, 7.

PSALM xcvii. II 275

^ The rays of the sun are streaming across ninety-six million
miles of space every day in the year, and every hour in the day.
Some of them are turned into planetary energy at once ; others
pass down into darkness and silence in the earth and there
remain ; or they may spring up immediately in the form of vegeta-
tion, which by and by becomes a coal mine or a petroleum well.
After the lapse of ages, it may be, that stored-up light, scattered
so lavishly upon the earth's surface so long ago, is discovered and
brought into use once more. We drive our looms and illuminate
our houses with it. We call it by a variety of names, accord-
ing to the service we manage to draw from it. In the form
of electricity we make it flash our thoughts from continent to
continent across intervening oceans. In another form, it will
carry a floating city, like a modern mammoth Atlantic liner,
from the old world to the new. In others, it shines forth as
beauty and splendour in the complex and manifold achieve-
ments of art and science. What untold wonders are being
wrought every day by tl^e bringing forth of the stored-up light
of the sun ! They constitute the harvest of that which was
sown long before we who profit by the blessing were born to
inherit it.^

4. God has sown His holy light in the field of His Word.
The sacred writings are full of hidden light — the light of truth,
holiness, and joy ; and this light the Holy Spirit shows to the
devout and diligent student. Every gospel promise is a star,
shining in the dark night of time ; and the Bible is a " book of
stars." Light is sown also in the field of Divine Providence.
Everything that God allows to happen to His people is right : this
is so, even when darkness wraps them round for a season. " We
know that all things work together for good to them that love
God." And light is sown especially in the field of human hearts.
The Spirit of God scatters in this soil seeds of living light —
knowledge and purity and gladness. " The fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek-
ness, temperance."

^ I have been deep in my study of the ways of God in heathen
religions. The past of mankind does not now seem a black ocean
covered with fog and storm, and wrecks drifting everywhere, but
a long wake of light crosses it coming from the light that lighteth
every uian in the world, the Pharos of humanity — the Spirit of

1 E. J. CampbeU.

276 LIGHT AND GLADNESS

God. In that gleam, the nations have steered their barks and
made towards haven. He hath not left Himself without a

witness.^

^ I have been thinking especially of those prayers which are
most legitimate and most surely answered — prayers for help to
resist temptation, for strength in the performance of duty, for the
lifting of despondency, and for all the way in which men are
raised above themselves and out of weakness are made strong. In
such cases as these it does not often liappen that the supplicant is
conscious of any direct intervention of God. He will indeed rise
from his knees in a calmer frame of mind ; the habit of prayer,
and the trustfulness which goes with such a habit, cannot fail of
their effect in quieting for the time the troubled spirit. The
humble Christian does not look for more than this ; but he waits
awhile, and the crisis passes. He does not know what has hap-
pened ; but in some strange way the difficulties that seemed to
beset him have vanished ; the problem that seemed so unmanage-
able is solved ; the thing that seemed so impossible is done.^

II.

Sown Gladness.

" Light and gladness " ! What a wonderful conception of the
future portion of llie righteous does the Psalmist here give us!
The two words, as is customary in the parallelism of Hebrew
poetry, mean almost the same thing. The one is figurative, the
other literal. The word " gladness " itself teaches us most
emphatically that joy is the portion of the righteous — exuberant,
exultant joy — ^joy which beams in tne eye, and lights up the
countenance, and gives buoyancy to the frame, and is heard in the
jubilant tones of the voice, and which yet has its seat deep among
the springs of feeling — in the very heart's core. Gladness ! It
is joy, full, deep, and placid, like a lake which knows no ebb, and
is sheltered from every agitating storm, and yet like a lake whose
calm waters ripple under the gentle breeze, and flash with bright
scuitillations in the rays of the summer's sun, with singing birds
around pouring out their melody, and flowers shedding fragrance

' Lift of Charles Loring Brace, 458,

* W. Sauday, in The Exiwsitory Times, xxiv. (1913) 440.

PSALM xcvii. II 277

on the air, and beautifying all the scene. Gladness ! It is the
laughter of the heart, when, full of enjoyment to overflowing, it
ripples over in spontaneous expression, more cheerful than the
laughter of childhood at play, serene as a summer evening sky.
Gladness ! Surprising revelations — expectation more than
realized ; fears dispelled and dangers escaped ; sorrows changed
into joys; all perils passed, all apprehensions hushed; satisfy-
ing bliss already possessed, higher bliss anticipated ! All this is
included in this portion of the righteous.

1. This gladness will be accompanied by, and no doubt partially
spring from, the revelation of things that are wrapped in darkness
now. It will be no small element in the joy of the righteous that
many of the mysteries which perplex them will be unravelled.
God's ways, which now seem to us mysterious, and which try the
faith and patience of His people, will not always be so unfathom-
able as they are now; they will present themselves in a very
different aspect when His chosen have reached the end of their
course, and begin to see as they are seen, and to know as they are
known. " Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness."
And we cannot but believe that their hearts will be gladdened by
the surprisingly new light in which the most trying dispensations
appear, and by the lifting up of the veil from the great and
glorious purposes which they were designed to promote. There
may still be room for the exercise of faith. But, largely, faith
will give place to sight, and hope to realization. And in their
clearer understanding of the Divine method, and their better
acquaintance with its glorious issues, they will find no small
portion of their joy. The gladness of brighter and ever-increasing
light will be theirs for ever.

^ The missing qualities in Wesley's religious state at this
time [before his conversion] are sufficiently obvious. It utterly
lacked the element of joy. Eeligion is meant to have for the
spiritual landscape the office of sunshine, but in Wesley's spiritual
sky at this time there burned no Divine light, whether of certainty
or of hope. He imagined he could distil the rich wine of spiritual
gladness otit of mechanical religious exercises ; but he found him-
self, to his own distress, and in his own words, " dull, flat, and
unaffected in the use of the most solemn ordinances." Fear, too,
like a shadow, haunted his mind : fear that he was not accepted

278 LIGHT AND GLADNESS

before God ; fear that he might lose what grace he had ; fear both
of life and of death.^

2. God is the God of gladness, as well as the God of terror.
And this needs special emphasizing for some who would limit His
interest to the graver things of life — sorrow, affliction, mourning.
It is true, beautifully true, that He is the Consolatio afflidorum,
the real, genuine Eefuge for thousands who are burdened and
heavy laden ; but it is also true that He presides over the
pleasures of His people. Is not the average Englishman's con-
ception of God that of a stern, stiff Being, more or less confined to
certain times and places, associated chiefly with stiff-backed pews,
but having very little, if anything, to do with the pleasures or the
gladder side of daily life ? This — though it has its good side — is
a view we want to review and revise. We want to get back to
the old, happy conception of the Psalmist : " Thou art about my
path and about my being, and spiest out all my ways." And
worse still : some of us keep this gladsome view of God outside
even our religion. The Hundredth Psalm has a line which runs
in the old metrical version,

" Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell,"
which is often sung as if the words were,

" Him serve with fear."
The change is a bad one. Fear has its part to play in life, but
here it spoils the whole idea of the hymn, and is out of harmony
with the verse in the Psalm from which the thought is borrowed :
" Serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with
a song." Let us get back to the original as soon as we can in
thought, word, and deed.

^ Froude reminds us how bright and happy and even humorous
were the great heroes of the Eeforniation — Luther, Calvin, and
Knox ; and yet they lived in times when tliere was far more to
lament and to be ashamed of even than in ours ; they fought a
battle for light and truth and liberty under far heavier discourage-
ments than we have to bear, and yet they were among the happiest
of men. And why ? Because they were doing something, they
were not idle and sentimental spectators of the foul state of things
around them, but every day and all day they were active in trying
to overthrow them ; they were for ever fighting against the lies

> W. H. Fitchett, Wesley and His Century, 82.

PSALM xcvii. II 279

and baseness and follies and superstitions on eveiy hand and
therefore they were not morbid or melancholy ; they knew that
God was on their side and therefore their true hearts were glad.
Difficulties did not daunt them ; wounds did not disable them ;
reproaches, curses, mortal danger did not even damp their spirits
or lower the temperature of their joy. Amidst the Egyptian
darkness, the darkness which might be felt, as we are told, the
children of Israel had light in their dwellings. True or not as
a matter of history, it is grandly true that wherever there is
righteous work for God there is light in the mind and soul,
wherever there is fidelity there is joyful gladness.^

^ Many a man gets little credit for his indomitable good cheer,
because it is supposed that this is but his natural inclination.
But a virtue is still a virtue, even though it be congenial ; and
those who have diligently kept their lamp of joy alight are not
the least worthy of God's faithful ones. As for Stevenson, he
deliberately drew upon and encouraged all the available sources
of gladness. He carried with him into manhood, not only the
glee that comes from physical vitality, and the sense of the
world's opulence, but also the spirit of the Lantern-bearer, who
carefully kept alive his inner light. His natural optimism is
unquestionable, but it should be remembered that he needed it all,
and that, if his strenuous choice of it had flagged, pessimism would
not have been far to seek. It is a great and potent secret, that
of fostering our own peculiar enthusiasm as a sacred flame,
Eegard yourself, as you face the simplest duty of to-morrow, as
tending within your soul's temple the fires of God, and you shall
find the bright parable true. Both these sources, the outward
and the inward, were largely drawn upon by Stevenson.^

III.

The Eeapers of Light and Gladness.

God's light is sown for all mankind, but only " the righteous "
can find it ; His gladness waits at the door of every soul, but it
never enters save to " the upright in heart." But who are " the
righteous" who are thus favoured, and what does it mean to
be " upright in heart " ? What Jesus meant by righteousness
was substantially what the great prophets of the Old Testament

^ C. Voysey.

' J. Kelmaii, The Faith of Robert Louis Stevenson, 250.

2So LIGHT AND GLADNESS

had meant before Him when they protested against idolatry.
He meant motive rather than deed ; He meant that equality of
mind and heart whereby a man loses sight of self-interest in the
desire to help and succour his fellow-creatures. From this stand-
point it is clear that the more righteous a man becomes the less
will he think about it ; he will cease to be self-conscious ; he will
just go on giving himself quietly and simply without asking
whether he is to be rewarded or not.

No sooner does a man become absorbed in some great
impersonal achievement, ceasing to care what may or may not
happen to himself in the process, than he begins to find that
life discloses new and vaster meaning ; and he knows more of
true blessedness than he ever knew before. He may be quite
willing to forgo everything in the shape of reward, but it is part
of the very law of universal being that he cannot do so. The
less he thinks about reward the more certainly will the highest
kind of reward pour in upon him. He cannot be wretched ; life
forbids it. He may have to go down into the darkness for a brief
hour, but it is only to bring up the everlasting light ; he may
wrestle awhile in Gethsemane, but it is only a stage in the ascent
to the gladness beyond the cross. Who will gainsay the truth of
this? It is the eternal paradox which faces every generation,
and challenges every individual experience as though it had never
been known before. It lies at the heart of all religion, and
reaches its highest expression in the life and death of our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself.

1. While it is true of all good men in every creed that light
springs up in their hearts, and joyful gladness is ever the sweet
handmaid of sincerity, yet it is especially true that God often
rewards an intense desire for righteousness with clearer views of
His own righteousness and more light to shine upon us from His
love. We have been faithful to some obligation or trust, and so
God in His mercy has revealed to us more light to shine on His
dealings with mankind, and has blessed us with the joy of knowing
more of His infinite fidelity and trustworthiness. Or we have
been more than usually kind, merciful, and generous in our
dealings with others, and then God has shown us more and more
of His inexhaustible kindness, mercy, and generosity unto all. Or

PSALM xcvii. II 281

we have had to make some daring sacrifice of worldly advantage,
some loss of position or friends rather than be false to ourselves
and our convictions, and then God has revealed to us the delight
that He takes in a brave man and in moral courage, and He puts
a joy and liveliness into our whole nature which the chances of
fortune cannot steal and the frowns of the world cannot crush.

^ I know but one way in which a man who craves the light
and cannot find it may come forth from his agony of doubt
scathless ; it is by holding fast to those things which are certain
still — the grand, simple landmarks of morality. In the darkest
hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is
doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no
future state, yet, even then, it is better to be generous than selfish,
better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false,
better to be brave than to be a coward. Blessed beyond all
earthly blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness
of the soul, has dared to hold fast to these venerable landmarks.
Thrice blessed is he who, when all is drear and cheerless within
and without, when his teachers terrify him, and his friends
shrink from him, has obstinately clung to moral good. Thrice
blessed, because his night shall pass into clear, bright day.^

2. " Light is sown for the righteous," because only the right-
eous can perceive and rejoice in the light. There are certain
rays in the spectrum that are invisible to us, simply because our
optic nerve is not sufficiently sensitive to respond to the rapidity
of their vibrations. There are new colours awaiting those who
can bring new eyes to them. So much of the joy in our life
depends on our capacity to see the Divine purpose and meaning
in the things that befall us. The comfort is there, but we cannot
take it. We are like Hagar in the wilderness, wretched with
thirst, while the fountain is there flashing back the sunlight
before our blinded eyes.

^ There is a shining light ahead, and Evangelist points
Christian to that. Every soul of man can see at least some light
of hope ahead, shining in the direction of the God or Christ or
ideal which is as yet obscure. It may be but the light of some
possible duty, some sense of honour, some belief in life, some
vague trust in the future. The point is not that the light is full,
or even comprehensible. If it be clear enough to flee towards,

^ F. W. Robertson, Lectures, Addresses, and Literary Eemains, 49.

282

LIGHT AND GLADNESS

that is enough. For, here as elsewhere, "solvitur ambulando."
"What is wanted is directed motion towards the light ; the rest
will follow. So it conies to pass that one may be on the road to
Christ when one cannot as yet see Him.^

He that walks it only thirsting

For the right, and learns to deaden

Love of self, before his journey closes,

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting

Into glossy purples, which outredden

All voluptuous garden-roses. . . .

He, that ever following her commands

On with toil of heart and knees and hands,

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won

His path upward, and prevail'd,

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled

Are close upon the shining table-lands.

To which our God Himself is moon and sun.'

3. If a man is to reap light, he must sow light. Every one of
us makes his own future. If we would have the capacity for
light hereafter, we must cultivate it now. There is a tendency
in light to beget light, just as there is a tendency in the seed to
bring forth thirty to a hundredfold. Believe and walk in the
light you have, and it shall grow from more to more unto noon-
day splendour. If in the darkness a man, loving the light, sow
the seeds of light, further illumination shall come to him here-
after.

^ " Curses come home to roost," says the proverb. No less
do gentle speech and kindly acts come back to nestle softly in our
hearts. Faber, the Koman Catholic poet, sings how he caught up
a little child and kissed it and gave it new joy in the sense of
having made a new friend. And then he adds :

I am a happier and a richer man.

Since I have sown this new joy in the earth:

'Tis no small thing for us to reap stray mirth,

In every sunny wayside where we can.

It is a joy to me to be a joy.

Which may in the most lowly heart take root;

And it is gladness to that little boy

To look out for me at the mountain foot.

> J. Keluian, The Road, i. 9. " Tennyson.

All His Benefits.

■83

Literature.

Brooke (S, A.), CJmst in Mndera Life, 351.

„ „ The Gosjiel of Joy, 67.

„ „ The Ship of the Soul, 16.

Brown (A. G.), in TJie People's Pulpit, No. 20.

„ (C. G.), ITie Word of Life, 141.
Campbell (J. M.), Grow Old Along with Me, 19.
Cross (J.), Knight-Banneret, 292.
Drummond (H.), The Ideal Life, 145.
Hall (F. 0.), Soul and Body, 73.
Ilutton (J. A.), The SouVs Triumphant Way, 23.
Iverach (J.), Tlie Other Side of Greatness, 119.
Macmillan (H.), The Ministry of Nature, 321,
Matheson (G.), Leaves for Quiet Hours, 213.
Miller (J.), Sermons Literary and Scientific, i. 270.
Morrison (G. H.), The Oldest Trade in the World, 103.
Myres (W. M.), Fragments that Remain, 89.
New (C), The Baptism of the Spirit, 278.
Owen (J.), Tlie Renewal of Youth, 1.
Pearce (J.), Tlie Alabaster Box, 141.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vii. 17._
Ptobinson (W. V.), Angel Voices, 137.
Selby (T. G.), Tlie Unheeding God, 216.

Spurgeou (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xviii. (1872), No.
1078 ; XXV. (1879), No. 1492 ; xlix. (1903), No. 2860.
„ „ Evening hy Evening, 152.

Voysey (C), Sermons, xviii. (1895), No. 34 ; xxv, (1902), No. 44 ; xxvii.

(1904), No. 10.
Christian World Pulpit, xxvii. 161 (M. G. Pearse) ; xxxvi. 218 (A. B.

Bruce) ; xlix. 72 (J. Stalker) ; Ixxv. 59 (J. Birch).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., viii. 10 (A. Whyte) ; ix. 175 (A. Saphir).
Weeldy Pulpit^ i. 582 (D. Daun).

t84

All His Benefits.

Bless the Lord, O my soul ;

And all that is within me, bless his holy name.

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 lovingkindness and tender mercies:

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things ;

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle. — Ps. ciii. 1-5.

This psalm, with which we are all familiar from our childhood,
shines in the firmament of Scripture as a star of the first magni-
tude. It is a song of praise, yet not the praise of an angel, but
the praise of one who has been redeemed from sin and from
destruction, and who has experienced that grace which, although
sin abounds unto death, doth much more abound unto eternal
life. It is the song of a saint, yet not of a glorified saint, but of
one who is still working in the lowly valley of this our earthly
pilgrimage, and who has to contend with suffering, with sin, and
to experience the chastening hand of his Heavenly Father. And
therefore it is that this psalm, after beginning upon the lofty
mountain heights of God's greatness and goodness, in which all
is bright and strong and eternal, descends into the valley where
the path is always narrow and often full of darkness and danger
and sadness. But as the Psalmist lives by faith, and as he is
saved by faith, so he is also saved by hope; and after having
described all the sadness and all the afflictions and conflicts of
this our earthly pilgrimage, he shows that even at this present
time he is a member of that heavenly and everlasting Kingdom of
which the throne of God is the centre, and where the angels, who
are bright and strong, are his fellow- worshippers, and in which

all the works which God has made will finally be subservient to

.85

286 ALL HIS BENEFITS

His glory and be irradiated with His beauty. And thus he rises
again, praising and magnifying the Lord and knowing that his
own individual soul shall, in that vast and comprehensive
Kingdom, for evermore be conscious of the life and of the glory of
the Most High.

Bless the Lord.

1. To praise God, to bless God, is only the response to the
blessing which God has given us. God speaks, and the echo
is praise. God blesses us and the response is that we bless
God. And those five verses of praise in Psalm ciii. are nothing
but the answer of the believing heart to the benediction of
Aaron, which God commanded should be continually laid upon
the people. The Lord who is the God of salvation ; the Lord,
who has revealed His Holy Name as Eedeemer ; the Lord who,
by His Spirit, imparts what the Father of love gives, what the
filial love reveals — this is the Lord who is the object of the
believer's praise. For to praise God means nothing else than to
behold God and to delight in Hiiu as the God of our salvation.
Singing may be the expression of praise, may be the helpful
accompaniment of praise, but praise is in the spirit who dwells
upon God, who sees the wonderful manifestation of God in His
Son Jesus Christ, and the wonderful salvation and treasures of
good things stored up in His beloved Son.

^ We commonly begin our prayers with a request that God
will bless us ; the Psalmist begins his prayer by calling on his soul
to bless God ! The eye of the heart is generally directed first to
its own desires ; the eye of the Psalmist's heart is directed first to
the desires of God ! It is a startling feature of prayer, a feature
seldom looked at. We think of prayer as a mount where man
stands to receive the Divine blessing. We do not often think of
it as also a mount where God stands to receive the human blessing.
Yet this latter is the thought liere. Nay, is it not the thought of
our Lord Himself ? I have often meditated on these words of
Jesus, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness " !
I take them to mean: Seek ye first the welfare of God, the
establishment of His Kingdom, the reign of His righteousness!

PSALM cm. 1-5 287

Before you yield to self-pity, before you count the number of the
things you want, consider what things are still wanting to Him !
Consider the spheres of life to which His Kingdom has not yet
spread, consider the human hearts to which His righteousness has
not yet penetrated ! Let your spirit say, " Bless the Lord." Let
the blessing upon God be your morning wish. It is not your
•power He asks, but your wish. Your benediction cannot sway the
forces of the Universe ; your Father can do that without prayer.
But it is the prayer itself that is dear to Him, the desire of your
heart for His heart's joy, the cry of your spirit for His crowning,
the longing of your soul for tlie triumph of His love. Evermore
give Him this bread ! ^

^ If we want to know what it is to praise God, let us re-
member such a chapter as the first chapter of the Epistle to the
Ephesians, where Paul blesses God who has blessed him with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, and where he sees
before him the whole counsel and purpose of the Divine election,
of the wonderful, perfect, and complete channel of the purposes
of God in the redemption which is in the blood of Jesus, and the
wonderful object and purpose of the Divine grace, that we, united
with Christ, should through all ages show forth the wonderful love
of God. That is to praise God, when we see God and when we
appropriate God as He has manifested Himself to us in Christ
Jesus. And it is only by the light which comes from above, and
by the wonderful operation of the Holy Ghost, that it is bo
wrought in the heart of the Christian, although it may be in
silence, that his soul magnifieth the Lord and his spirit rejoiceth
in God his Saviour.^

2. " Bless the Lord, 0 my soul ; and all that is within me,
bless his holy name." The Psalmist desires to bless God with all
that is within him. He who succeeds in doing this offers to God
an eloquent worship. Eloquence means speaking out, letting the
whole soul find utterance. And the Psalm before us supplies us
with a choice sample of the kind of worship made by David. In
this Psalm, mind, heart, conscience, imagination, all come into
play. The whole inner man speaks rightfully, thoughtfully,
devoutly, musically, pathetically ; and, as was to be expected, God
is praised to some purpose.

*{j The metrical version of the Psalm puts us in possession of
the fuller meaning of this verse :

^ G. Matlies«Q, Leaves for Quiet Hotirs, 213. ' A. Saphir.

288 ALL HIS BENEFITS

0 thou my soul, bless God the Lord;

And all that in me is
Be stirred up his holy name

To magnify and bless.

How truly and with what fine knowledge of the soul of every
spiritual man has this rendering caught the real point of that
verse! And it is not this once only that the metrical psalm
selects and emphasizes some word which we did not quite realize
in the prose version. Here and there it may be that to our modish
and sophisticated ears the psalms in metre may fail as poetry ;
but they never fail in spiritual discernment. They always take
l,iold of the point, of the real business of the prose text. They
always recognize the matters which really concern our souls ; so
that again and again the metrical psalm serves as a kind of com-
mentary upon the prose, developing the finer sentiments, bringing
out of the text certain beauties which we might never have
become aware of, though we recognize them at once the moment
they are set out for us. You see what I mean in this particular
instance. The prose reads : " Bless the Lord, 0 mysoul ; and all
that is within me, bless his holy name." We might read those
words again and again, feeling in each case that it is merely
a devout utterance of the soul, having nothing individual or
characteristic about it. But how the metrical version cuts down
to the root of the idea ! What a distin(ition, what a precise
meaning, the metrical form gives to the prayer !

O thou my soul, bless God the Lord;

And all that in me is
Be stirred up his holy name

To magnify and bless.

It was pure spiritual genius to bring out that idea of " stirring
up " all that is within our souls.^

II.

Forget Not.

. If we would rightly praise God, we must keep ourselves from

forgetf ulness. j\Ioses warns against this vice when he says :

" Beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God, in not keeping his

commandments, and his judgments and his statutes, which I

^ J. A. Hutton, The Soul's Triumphant Way, 23.

PSALM cm. 1-5 289

command thee this day, lest when thou hast eaten and art
full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and
when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and
thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;
then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy
God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of bondage." In the Prophets the sad complaint
re-echoes from the Lord's mouth: "Ye are they that forget
my holy mountain. M

^ One of the first stories I recall from my childhood was a
story of the evil of forgetting God. I remember the very spot on
which it was told to me. I feel the warm grasp of the hand
which had hold of mine at the time. I see once more the little
seaport town stretching up from the river mouth, with its
straggling " fisher town " at one extremity, and at the other its
rows of well-built streets and its town hall and academy. On
this occasion we were standing on a high bank looking down on
the beautiful shore at our feet. Across the tiny harbour, and
along the shore on the other side of the river, is a very different
scene. What one sees there is a dreary waste of sand. No grass
grows there, no trees shadow it, no house stands upon it. It is a
place forsaken and desolate. It has been a desolation longer than
the oldest inhabitant can remember. But it was not always
desolate. It was once a fair estate, rich in cornfields and orchards.
A stately mansion stood in the midst of it, and children played
in the orchards, and reapers reaped the corn. But the lords of
that fair estate were an evil race. They oppressed the poor,
they despised religion, they did not remember God. They loved
pleasure more than God, and the pleasures they loved were evil.
To make an open show of their evil ways they turned the day of
the Lord into a day of rioting and drunkenness. And this evil
went on a long while. It went on till the long-suffering of God
came to an end. And then upon a Sunday evening, and in the
harvest-time, when the corn was whitening for the reaper, the riot
and wickedness had come to a height. The evil lord and his evil
guests were feasting in the hall of the splendid house. And on
that very evening there came a sudden darkness and stillness into
the heavens, and out of the darkness a wind, and out of the wind
a tempest ; and, as if that tempest had been a living creature, it
lifted the sand from the shore in great whirls and clouds and
filled the air with it, and dropped it down in blinding, suffocating
showers on all those fields of corn, and on that mansion, and on
the evil-doers within. And the fair estate, with all its beautiful
PS. -xxv.-cxix. — 19

290 ALL HIS BENEFITS

gardens and fields, became g, widespread heap of sand and a
desolation, as it is to this day.^ -'

IIL

All His Benefits.

Of the benefits that David enumerates the first three are all
negative: He forgives our sin, He heals the consequences of our
sin, our diseases. He delivers us from destruction, the wages of
our sin. But in the forgiveness of sin and in the healing of our
diseases, in the deliverance from the devil and from everlasting hell,
God gives Himself, He gives the whole fulness of His love, He
elevates the soul into the very highest spiritual life ; and therefore,
the Psalmist continues, he who has been thus delivered out of
destruction is a king, he is crowned with lovingkindness and with
tender mercies, he is enriched and satisfied with good things ; and
not merely outwardly enriched, but there is a life given him which
is unfading, the youth of which is perennial, continually renewing
itself by the very strength of God."^,'

1. The Psalmist sets himself to count up the benefits he has
received from God. He has not proceeded very far when he
finds himself to be engaged in an impossible task. He finds he
cannot count the blessings he has received in a single day, how
then can he number the blessings of a week, of a mouth, of a
year, of the years of his life ? He might as well try to count the
number of the stars or the grains of sand on the seashore. It
cannot be done.

^ St. Francis, dining one day on broken bread, with a large
stone for table, cried out to his companion: "0 brother Masseo,
we are not worthy so great a treasure." When he had repeated
these words several times, his companion auswer'^^ : "Father,
how can you talk of treasure where there is so much poverty, and
indeed a lack of all things ? For we have neither cloth nor knife,
nor dish, nor table, nor house ; neither have we servant nor maid
to wait upon us." Then said St. Francis : " And this is why I
look upon it as a great treasure, because man has no hand in it,
but all has been given us by Divine Providence, as we clearly see

^ Aloxandi-r .McLeod.

PSALM cm. 1-5 291

in this bread of charity, in this beautiful table of stone, in this
clear fountain." ^

^ I was walking along one winter's night, hurrying towards
home, with my little maiden at my side. Said she, " Father, I
am going to count the stars." " Very well," I said ; "go on."
By and by I heard her counting — " Two hundred and twenty-
three, two hundred and twenty-four, two hundred and twenty-
five. Oh ! dear," she said, " I had no idea there were so many."
Ah ! dear friends, I sometimes say in my soul, " Now, Master, I
am going to count Thy benefits." I am like the little maiden.
Soon my heart sighs — sighs not with sorrow, but burdened with
such goodness, and I say within myself, " Ah ! I had no idea that
there were so many." ^

2. But if he cannot remember them all, he may at least
try not to forget them all. He may try to remember some of
them. But this also is a hard task. For memory is weak, and
the blessings are many and manifold. How can he help himself
not to forget? How shall he help himself to remember those
benefits which he values most highly ? He sets himself to find
helps to memory, helps not to forget. So he falls upon a plan
which he finds to be most helpful, and which others ever since
have found to be so. He takes those benefits which he desires not
to forget, and he ties them up in bundles. And then, to make
sure that he will not forget them, the Psalmist shapes the
bundles of God's benefits into a song. A song is the easiest thing
of all to remember. So he shapes them into a song, which people
can sing by the wayside as they journey, can carry with them
to their work, and brood over in their hours of leisure.

^ By tying the benefits up in bundles, and by shaping them
into a song, the Psalmist earned for himself the undying gratitude
of future generations. Specially has he earned for himself our
gratitude, for he gave us a song which we sing in Scotland to-day,
and have sung for more than three hundred years, when our
religious emotions are at their highest and their best. We sing
this song when the feeling of consecration has been renewed,
widened, and deepened by communion with God at His table.
I never was at a communion-time at which this song has not been
8ung, and no other song could do justice to the feelings of gratitude

1 E. Meynell, The Life of Francis Tlmnxj&oii (1913), 283.
« M. G. Pearse.

292 ALL HIS BENEFITS

of the Lord's people. So we sing, " Bless the Lord, 0 my soul,
and forget not all his benefits : who forgiveth, who healeth, who
redeemeth, who crowneth, and who satisfieth." ^

Forgiveness.

"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities."

Note how the Psalmist begins. He begins with iniquity.
Where else could a sinful man begin ? The most needful of all
things for a sinful man is to get rid of his sirf."! So the Psalmist
begins here. This beginning is not peculiar to him, it is the
common note of the Bible. In fact, we here come across one of
the distinctive peculiarities of the Bible. We may read other
literatures and never come across the notion of sin in them.
Crimes, blunders, mistakes, miseries enough one may find, but sin
as estrangement from a holy personal God who loves man and
would serve him one never finds. But in the Bible we are face
to face with sin from first to last. One chapter and a bit of
another are given to the story of the making of the world and
the making of man, and then the story of the entrance of sin is
told, and the reader is kept face to face with sin in every part of
it. In the gospel story we read at the outset : " Thou shalt call
his name Jesus : for he shall save his people from their sins " ;
and in John almost the first word about Him is, " Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." It is
characteristic of the Bible to keep its reader face to face with sin
and its consequences, till he is stirred up to the effort to get
rid of it.

^ Sometimes in business a man will say : " There is a limit to
everything. I have trusted such an one, and he has deceived me.
I have forgiven him much, but now he has crossed the score, and
I will ha\"e no more dealings with him." But it is only when
men, in their own estimation, have got over that score that the
heavenly business begins. Some minister comes from somewhere,
to preach some day, and preaches the forgiveness of sins, and that
is the becrinning of the business; and at length the man finds
Heaven for himself, and can say: "He forgiveth all mine
iniquities." ^

» James Ivcia<:h, The Other Side of Gfreatness, 121. ' A. Whyto.

PSALM cm. 1-5 293

Healing-.

"Who healeth all thy diseases."

Once a prophet said, " From the sole of the foot even unto the
head there is no soundness in it ; but wounds, and bruises, and
putrefying sores." When we read these words, we are inclined to
say they are Oriental figures of speech, exaggerated metaphors.
If our spiritual vision were as keen as that of the prophet, we
should find that he was speaking what he knew. Sin then makes
disease, and God's relation to disease is described as that of
healing. In the Scriptures this relation is described so fully that
it gives a distinctive name for God — Jehovah the Healer. He
not only forgives sin, He also so deals with the results of sin that
He removes every trace of sin. He heals all our diseases.

^ The nineteenth century produced three famous persons in
this country who contributed more than any of their contem-
poraries to the relief of human suffering in disease : Simpson, the
introducer of chloroform ; Lister, the • inventor of antiseptic
surgery ; and Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern
nursing. The second of the gi^eat discoveries completed the
beneficent work of the first. The third development — the
creation of nursing as a trained profession — has co-operated
powerfully with the other two, and would have been beneficent
even if the use of ansesthetics and antiseptics had not been
discovered. The contribution of Florence Xightingale to the
healing art was less than that of either Simpson or Lister ; but
perhaps, from its wider range, it has saved as many lives, and
relieved as much, if not so acute, suffering as either of the other
two.^

iii

Redemption.

"Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."

That is, God preserves the life that He saves. Here is first
a life forfeited. That life is then saved by forgiveness. Then
there is a life imperilled by disease, and saved by God's healing.
But that Ufe is in a thousand dangers. Many seek after the

^ Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nigfdingule, i. 439.

294 ALL HIS BENEFITS

young child — the Christ within us — to destroy it. But God
"redeemeth thy life from destruction." How often God has
saved some of us from impending ruin, He alone knows.

^^ In my native town of Stirling workmen were blasting the
castle rock near where it abuts upon a wall that lies open to
the street. The train was laid and lit, and an explosion was
momentarily expected. Suddenly, trotting round the great wall
of cliff, came a little child going straight to where the match
burned. The men shouted. That was mercy. But by their very
shouting they alarmed and bewildered the poor little thing. By
this time the mother also had come round. In a moment she
saw the danger, opened wide her arms, and cried from her very
heart, " Come to me, my darling." That was tender mercy ;
and instantly, with eager, pattering feet, the little thing ran back
and away, and stopped not until she was clasped in her mother's
bosom. Not a moment too soon, as the roar of the shattered

lock told.^.'* 5 / - . <^ —-4^ U^ ,— *..,.-,*-y.«.«-i.

^ I remember one who had been for a long -time drifting
towards an evil act which was certain to do more harm to others
than to himself, but who had not as yet determined on flinging
friends, society, work, good repute, his past and future, and God
Himself, to the winds. The one thing that kept him back was a
remnant of belief in God, in One beyond humanity, beyond the
world's laws of convention and morality. Nothing else was left,
for he had, in the desire for this wrong thing, passed beyond
caring whether the whole world went against him, whether he
injured others or not. He was as ready to destroy all the use of
his own life as he was careless of the use of the lives of others.
But he felt a slow and steady pull against him. He said to
himself, "This is God, though I know Him not." At last,
however, he determined to have his way. One day the loneliness
and longing had been too great to be borne, and when night came he
went down his garden resolved on the evil thing. " This night,"
he said, " I will take the plunge." But as he went he heard the
distant barking of a dog in the village ; the moon rose above a
dark yew tree at the end of the garden, and he was abruptly
stopped in the midst of the pathway. Something seemed to
touch him as with a finger, and to push him back. It was not
till afterwards that he analysed the feeling, and knew that the
rising of the moon over the yew tree and the barking of the dog
in the distance had brought back to him an hour in his childhood,
when in the dusk he had sat with his mother, after his father's

* A. Grosart.

PSALM cm. 1-5 295

death, in the same garden, and had heard her say — " When thou
passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee." It was this slight
touch that saved him from wrong which would have broken
more lives than his own. It was God speaking; but it would
have been as nothing to him, had he not kept his little grain of
faith in God alive, the dim consciousness that there was One who
cared for him, who had interest that he should conquer righteous-
ness. Next day, he left his home, travelled and won his battle ;
and his action redeemed not only his own but another's
life.i

^ There is an old poem which bears the curious title of
*' Strife in Heaven," the idea of which is something like this. The
poet supposes himself to be walking in the streets of the New
Jerusalem, when he comes to a crowd of saints engaged in a very
earnest discussion. He draws near and listens. The question
they are discussing is which of them is the greatest monument of
God's saving grace. After a long debate, in which each states
his case separately, and each claims to have been by far the most
wonderful trophy of God's love in all the multitude of the re-
deemed, it is finally agreed to settle the matter by a vote. Vote
after vote is taken, and the list of competition is gradually
reduced until only two remain. These are allowed to state their
case again, and the company stand ready to join in the final vote.
The first to speak is a very old man. He iDegins by saying that
it is a mere waste of time to go any further; it is absolutely
impossible that God's grace could have done more for any man in
heaven than for him. He tells again how he had led a most
wicked and vicious life — a life filled up with every conceivable
indulgence, and marred with every crime. He has been a thief, a
liar, a blasphemer, a drunkard, and a murderer. On his death-bed,
at the eleventh hour, Christ came to him and he was forgiven.
The other is also an old man, who says, in a few words, that he
was brought to Christ when he was a boy. He had led a quiet
and uneventful life, and had looked forward to heaven as long as
he could remember. The vote is taken ; and, of course, you would
say it results in favour of the first. But no, the votes are all
given to the last. We might have thought, perhaps, that the one
who led the reckless, godless life — he who had lied, thieved,
blasphemed, murdered ; he who was saved by the skin of his teeth,
just a moment before it might have been too late — had the most
to thank God for. . But the old poet knew the deeper truth. It
required great grace verily to pluck that withered brand from the

1 S. A. Brooke, The Ship of the Soul, 23.

296 ALL HIS BENEFITS

burning. It required depths, absolutely fathomless deptlis, of
mercy to forgive that veteran in sin at the close of all those
guilty years. But it required more grace to keep that other life
from guilt through all those tempted years. It required more
grace to save him from the sins of his youth and keep his
Christian boyhood pure, to steer him scathless through the
tempted years of riper manhood, to crown his days with useful-
ness, and his old age with patience and hope. Both started in
life together ; to one grace came at the end, to the other at the
beginning. The first was saved from the guilt of sin, the second
from the power of sin as well. The first was saved from dying
in sin. But he who became a Christian in his boyhood was saved
from living in sin. The one required just one great act of love at
the close of life ; the other had a life full of love — it was a greater
salvation by far. His soul was forgiven like the other, but his
life was redeemed from destruction.^ ,-

IV.

Crowning.

" Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies."

So far the Psalmist has been thinking of God's action as it
is defined in relation to sin. Now his thoughts take a grander
flight, and he thinks of the Divine action when sin is taken out
of the way, and no longer presents a barrier to the fellowship
between God and His people. His words take on a finer mean-
ing, and mould themselves into a more musical form. For he
tries to represent the intercourse between God and the children
of God, when sin is removed from between them. "Who
crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." These
words are about the most musical and pathetic in the whole
Bible, and they are as fine in meaning as they are in form.

IF God puts honour upon the brow of a forgiven man. He
does not merely forgive, and that in a formal way, but, when He
forgives. He crowns. He crowns me with the title of " son," and
He places the coronet of heirship upon my head, for "if children,
then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." Sweet
picture this. Observe that it is not a crown of merit, for " He
crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." This is
the only crown that I can consent to wear.^

> H. Drummond, The Idml Life, 149. " A. G. Brown.

PSALM cm. 1-5 297

1, ZovingJcindness. — Note how the translators of the Psahn
have been constrained to tie two English words together in order
to set forth the meaning of the original. These translators of the
Bible were poets as well as scholars. They took the two words
" love " and " kindness " and tied them together in order to shut
out the weaker meanings of both, and from the union of them set
forth a higher and better meaning than either alone could express.
Love has always been recognized to be the strongest and best
thing in the world of life, and in recent years it has come to
even larger recognition. It really holds society together, is at the
basis of family life, is the motive power of the highest activities
of mankind. But while love is so and acts so, it may partake of
the weakness or the selfishness of human nature. It may become
fierce, jealous, regardless of the interest of the person who is its
object. It may look at the person merely as belonging to itself,
and fiercely insist on exclusive possession. No doubt ideal love
would labour, toil, and spend itself for the good of the person
loved. But all love is not ideal, and it may have more ferocity
than kindness in it. So this fierce side of love is shut out, and
only the ideal side is kept, and kept by uniting it with kindness.
But kindness is apt to be weak, injudicious, and foolish. It is the
kindness, perhaps, of a fond young mother who gives the baby
whatever it desires, cloys it with sweets, or gives it unwholesome
food because the child likes it, or, as George MacDonald suggests,
gives the child a lighted candle because it cries for it. This
foolish side of kindness is shut out by tying it to the firmer,
wiser fact of love. So united, kindness becomes lovingkindness,
and the two become, in their union, something higher and better
than either of the two elements contained in it, when these are
taken by themselves..)

^ Another young friend writes : " From such an array of
beautiful characteristics as is called up by his name it is hard to
choose the greatest, but his ' loving-kindness ' is the outstanding
trait that not only those who knew him best, but those who came
only casually into contact with him, will remember with tender-
ness. How he loved every one, especially 'those who were of
the household of faith ' ! How eagerly would he seek out, even
when on holiday, the brother-minister, superannuated by aftliction
from active work, to encourage and help him by his sympathy, to
cheer him with his humour and his jollity, to stimulate him with

298 ALL HIS BENEFITS

his wide and varying interests ! And in what good stead that
wonderful fund of quiet humour stood him through the days of
pain and weakness and weariness through which God's veteran
passed, and from which he is now released ! One revered him as
a saint, but loved him as a man, a man who radiated such love as
compelled a willing love in return." ^

^ It is twenty-five years since I first had my attention drawn
to this clause. I went to college then, and one day a minister
gave me a tract, and told me, " Take that and read it, and when
you bring it back, tell me what you think of it." He said to me
— and he proved a sound prophet — " I may not live to see it, but
you will see it. The lad that spoke these words — his name will
be heard wherever the English language is spoken," — the name
was Charles Spurgeon. It was a discourse on this word — " He
crowneth me with lovingkindness and tender mercies." He had
never been to college, and had taken none of your envied degrees
that seem to stamp a man as a Master of Divinity. My friend
said : " I may not live to see it, but you will." A young man in
his teens, not far up in the offices yet, Spurgeon- was under
twenty-one when he preached a sermon that made my old friend
prophetic. " When God takes a man's head out of the dust " —
said this young fledgling Puritan preacher — " He crowns it with a
crown that is so heavy with His grace and goodness that he could
not wear it were it not lined with the sweet velvet of His loving-
kindness." Not a classic figure perhaps, but Spurgeon's figure
is graven on my memory while many a classic figure has faded
away. Many a costly gift, given carelessly with lavish abund-
ance, you have nearly forgotten : but one gift, given many years
ago, you remember still. It was only a cup of cold water,
perhaps, but given with a hand and with a look of lovingkindness.
And when God crowns us with such love as this, when He smiles
upon us, no wonder that it gladdens the heart so that a man
never forgets it.^

2. Tender mercies. — Mercy in itself is one of the grandest
things in human nature. It is not mere feeling, it is feeling in
action. It is not mere sympathy or pity, it is sympathy made
alive and active. It is not pity, it is pity going forth into action,
to bind up the broken-hearted, to comfort the sorrowful, to make
the widow's heart to sing for joy. But tender mercy is even
more than mercy, great and good though the exercise be. It ia

» Love and Life : The Story of J. Denholm Brash (1913), 179.
' Alexauder Wliyte.

PSALM cm. 1-5 299

mercy exercised in the most tender way. For mercy may be
exercised in such a way as to wound the feelings of the person to
whom you are merciful. You may intend to help your friend
who has fallen into misfortune. He may have been blameworthy,
his misfortune may have arisen from his want of thought, from
his recklessness, or even from wrong-doing. You intend to help
him, but you are annoyed with his conduct ; you insist on show-
ing him how foolish he was, how reckless was his conduct, how
unprincipled was his motive, until he almost feels that he would
be without the help if he could be free from the scolding. Or
you are merciful to the person who asks you for help, but you
fling the penny to him across the street. It is possible in this
way to undo all the effects of a merciful action by the ungracious
way in which it is done. Mercy according to our text is exercised
tenderly. You help your friend, or come to the assistance of
those who are in poverty and need, in such a way as to bind up
their wounds, to cheer them, and to give them courage to begin
the battle of life anew, though life heretofore has been all a
failure. For the mercy which man shows to man interprets for
man the tender mercies of God. After that interview with you,
during wliich you entered into the sorrow of your friend
sympathetically and tenderly, gave him of your wisdom, of your
experience, of your means, he goes forth to the work of life again
with a new outlook, with a tirmer resolution to do well. He
says to himself, " It is a good, kind world after all, and there
are good, kind people in it. I must show myself worthy
to live in so good a world, and worthy of the help I have
received." So tender mercies help, but they help in such a way
as to bind up the broken-hearted, and to open a door of hope for
those who have failed, and to give them courage to lift them
above the feeling of despair.

^ Stern and unflinching in his denunciation of drunkenness,
Ernest Wilberforce was tenderness itself in his dealings with the
individual sinner. Few cases are more distressing or more
difficult to deal with than those where a clergyman has fallen into
habits of intemperance. The Bishop's correspondence in one of
them is lying before me as I write, marked throughout by the
strong sense of justness and fairness which ever characterized him,
yet compassionate and considerate, so far as consideration was

300 ALL HIS BENEFITS

possible. The facts were clear, and the unfortunate gentleman
was induced to vacate his office without the scandal of judicial
proceedings. But there were features which induced the Bishop
to hope that, under happier auspices, he might yet do good and
useful work in his chosen calling. Without any effort at mini-
mizing the sad story, he succeeded in inducing an experienced
parish priest in another diocese to give the transgressor a fresh
start. The good Samaritan had no cause to regret his charity,
and in writing to the Bishop he congratulated the clergy of
Northumberland in having one set over them to whom they could
appeal with perfect confidence in the hour of need. " If ever," he
wrote, " I should be in a fix, I shall wish for such a friend as your
Lordship." i

Satisfaction.

" Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things ; so that
thy youth is renewed like the eagle."-

1. The word " crowneth " suggests something external, some-
thing coming to us from without, and after the crowning there may
conceivably be some wants unsupplied, some needs of man which
have not been met. But the note of Christianity is that no
human needs are left unsatisfied. " My God shall supply all your
need." Satisfied with good, so that every need shall be met — this
is the promise.

^ The thirst of the mind for truth, the thirst of the will and
conscience for guidance, and the thirst of the heart for life are
satisfied through Him who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
If there were needs which He could not or would not satisfy, He
would have told us of them.^

2. The Psalmist felt, as we often feel, that he had en erged
from the very gulf of destruction ; that he had been, as it were
against his will, rescued from moral suicide ; that all his life had
been redeemed by God. Therefore he burst out into joy and
thanksgiving! He who had been through grave sorrows; who
had known sin, disease, even destruction ; who might have cursed
life and shrieked at what men call Fate ; cries out in unfeigned

> J. B. Atlay, Bishop Enust Wilhcrforce, 162.
' James Iverach, Tli£ Other Side of Greatness, 133.

PSALM cm. 1-5 301

and mistakable rapture — it is a very outburst of song — " Bless the
Lord, 0 my soul ; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all his benefits." And
in realizing this joyful victory of the moral and spiritual powers ;
in the resurrection of his spiritual being into strength ; in the
leaving behind him in its own grave of all that was dead in his
past ; in the great cry of his heart as he looked back — " I am not
there, I am risen " — his youth was renewed like the eagle's ! It
was a great triumph ; for his best life came back in a higher and
a stronger way, with now but little chance of failure. He could
again, like the eagle, look upon the sun, and love the upper
ranges of the sky ; again soar, but with steadier beat of wing than
in youth; again possess the freedom he loved before disease and
destruction had enslaved his plumes ; again breathe the breath of
immortal love ; again in conscious union with God hear the great
spheres " in measured motion draw after the heavenly tune."
And certainty was now with this victory, for he had known and
found the Father of his spirit. The waters of his new life arose
out of the fountain Life of God Himself, and he knew whence
they came. There was now a source as well as a goal for his
ideals, hopes, efforts, for the beauty he loved, and for universal joy.
It was the Almighty Love and Life of loveliness Himself who was
now in him — a personal friend, redeemer, strengthener, exalter ;
who crowned him with lovingkindness and tender mercies. This
is the true resurrection ; this is the triumph of life.

^ The brilliant Princess Anastasia Malsoff (the Nancy
Malsoff of the Eussian Court) was one of those led to Christ by
the Mar^chale, with whom she kept up a close friendship during
the rest of her life. One of the Princess's letters is peculiarly
interesting : " I will see the Emperor in these days," she writes,
" and I will seek strength to speak to him. You see, my darling,
speaking is not enough, one must in such a case pour out one's
soul and feel that a superior force guides one and speaks for one."
It turned out as she hoped. One night she was at the Palace in
St. Petersburg. After dinner the Czar came and seated himself
beside her. Soon they were deep in intimate conversation. She
began telling him what her new-found friend in Paris had done
for her. She talked wisely as he listened attentively. At length
he said: "But, Nancy, you have always been good, always right."
" No," she answered ; " till now I have never known the Christ.

302 ALL HIS BENEFITS

She has made Him real to me, brought Him near to me, and He
has become what He never was before — my personal Friend." '■

^ " I shall be sorry," says Eckhart, the German mystic, " if I
am not younger to-morrow than I am to-day — that is, a step
nearer to the source whence I came." And Swedenborg tells us
that wlien heaven was opened to him he found that the oldest
angels seemed to be the youngest.

'Tis said there is a fount in Flower Land, —
De Leon found it, — where Old Age away
Throws weary mind and heart, and fresh as day
Springs from the dark and joins Aurora's band :
This tale, transformed by some skilled trouvere's wand
From the old myth in a Greek poet's lay,
Eests on no truth. Change bodies as Time may,
Souls do not change, though heavy be his hand.
Who of us needs this fount ? What soul is old ?
Age is a mask, — in heart we grow more young,
For in our winters we talk most of spring ; -
And as we near, slow-tottering, God's safe fold.
Youth's loved ones gather nearer : — though among
The seeming dead, youth's songs more clear they sing.*

1 J. Strahan, The MarichaU (1913), 184.
3 Maurice Francis Egan.

The Father's Pity.

303

Literature.

Buckland (A.. R.), Text Studies for a Year, 143

Clifford (J.), The Gospel of Gladaess, 17.

Conn (J.), The Fulness of Time, 1.

Dykes (J. 0.), Sermons, 138.

Fleming (A. G.), Silver Wings, 26.

McLeofl (M. J.), Heavenly IIarm,onies, 99.

Murray (\V. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 397.

Pierce (C. C), The Hunjer of the Heart for Faith, 59.

Selby/T. G.), The God of the Frail, 2.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xvi. (1870), No. 941.

Vanghan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), vii. (1868), No. 678.

Walters (F.), in Sermons bij Unitarian Ministers, 53.

Christian World Pulpit, xxx. 230 (J. Baillie) ; xxxii. 376 (F. Ferguson) ;

xxxviii. 188 (D. Hobbs) ; Ix. 376 (E. Griffith-Jones) ; Ixi. 251

(J. liitson).
Church Pulpit Year Book, 1909, p. 153.

The FATHER'S Pity.

Like as a father pitieth his children,

So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

For he knoweth our frame ;

He reraembereth that we are dust. — Ps. ciii. 13, 14.

1. " Like as a father." The history of religion shows that it has
not been easy for men to think of God in that extremely simple
and human fashion ; and yet, to Christians, no other way of
thinking appears so obvious or so natural. It met us in our
childhood, grew into the thinking of our youth, and has swayed
the conceptions we have formed of that august and invincible
power that works for righteousness and peace for evermore. We
lisped it in our earliest hymns. It had a place in the first
prayers w^e offered at our mother's knee. It was set out in many
winsome forms in the Sunday school; and when we realized
something of the joy of the Divine pardon, we felt more deeply
than ever the entire appropriateness and unsurpassed charm of
the poet's words. God is like a father. It saturates the Christian
atmosphere. It is shaping the thought and the life of the world.

And yet it is a matter of historic fact that men were thinking
and inquiring for ages before they were able to interpret God in
the terms of human fatherhood. Groping after God, if haply
they might find Him, they sought their symbols first of all in the
many-leaved picture book of nature, and said, God is like the sun,
shining in its strength, and filling the world with its radiance.
The moon is His symbol as it casts its light on the path of the
pilgrim in the night. " God is like the rock," they exclaimed ;
" His work is perfect." He abides amid the storms and stress of
life, stable as the everlasting hills.

Quite late in history did men come to the human in their
quest for the terms in which they might express God ; and when
they reached this point, they seized at first only upon the more
PS. xxv.-cxix. — 20

3o6 THE FATHER'S PITY

arresting qualities of the animal in man, and said, " God is like
Hercules " in the invincible strength with which He crushes the
evils in the world, and makes an end of them. Later still, Plato
advanced to the suggestion that God was like a "geometer," a
thinker and fashioner, full of ideas and ideals ; and, latest of all,
in one of the youngest portions of the Old Testament, not in
Genesis, not in any part of the Pentateuch, but in this wonderful
and most gracious lyric, the 103rd Psalm, possibly one of the last
contributions of Hebrew Psalmody, the seer surpasses all the
great historical religions, and pictures God to us as a pitiful,
compassionate, sin-forgiving, and soul-healing Father, and thus
supplies the basis for the most true, most worthy, and most
inspiring conception of God.

^ There was once a group of friends standing at the house
door, gazing in wonder at an eclipse. It was a cloudless night ;
and, as they saw the shadow of the earth gliding so punctually
over the face of the brilliant moon, a solemn emotion of awe fell
upon every mind, and in absolute silence they watched the
magnificent phenomenon. Everything connected with their daily
lives seemed for a season to be forgotten ; they were citizens of
infinitude; all their thoughts were swept into the regions of
immensity. But suddenly the silence was broken by a cry
from the nursery where a child had been laid to sleep. In that
company, how soon you could tell who was the mother; in a
moment she had left the scene, had rushed upstairs, and was
clasping the baby in her embrace ! What were the wonders of
nature compared to the needs of a suffering child ? More sacred
than the music of the spheres was that feeble appeal for pity ;
more powerful than the sweet influence of the Pleiades was the
attraction of love which at once absorbed that woman's soul.
Then was she most like God, not when she was exalted into
amazement at the marvels of the sky, but when she was soothing
pain and chasing fear by tenderness and pity.^

2. In depicting the milder and kindlier aspect of God's
character the Old Testament writers make pity the ground
quaUty on which everything is based. With the Psalm writers
it is a standing description of God on this side of His nature that
He is " gracious and full of compassion." His compassion for the
perishable life and oppressed state of Israel is expressly assigned

» F. Walters.

PSALM cm. 13, 14 307

by the prophets as His reason for " redeeming " His people and
forgiving their rebellions with long-suffering mercy. When He
withdraws locusts from the wasted fields of Palestine, it is because
He pities His people's sufferings. The repentant city of Nineveh
is spared because its helpless myriads touched in God's great
heart such ruth as Jonah had for his withering gourd. And after
Jerusalem's fall, the patriot-poet who mourned so exquisitely
over its ruin finds the explanation of all disaster in these
plaintive, half-reproachful words, " Thou hast not pitied." It
reads as if the Almighty's long-suffering patience with men. His
gracious kindness to His people. His relenting, even His mercy
in pardoning sin, were all felt by these old Hebrews to root
themselves in that beautiful sentiment of compassion with which
a Being so immense and self-contained in blessedness must look
down on the fragile and sorrowful creatures whose origin, whose
habitation, and whose end are all of them in the dust.

^ " Pity lies at the core of all the great religions." The
chapters of the Koran, all of them, begin with these words : " In
the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful." The vast
religion of Buddha numbers five hundred million votaries, and
pity is the keynote to it all,^

3. The sense of God's fatherly compassion grows out of man's
deepest experience. The Psalmist is face to face with his own
life, and with the life of Israel. He looks back in his history, and
counts up the " benefits " he has received from the Lord : forgive-
ness and healing, solace and renewal, quickening and uplift. He
is swayed by the spirit of praise and adoration and love ; and out
of his own growing affection there leaps up irresistibly this
thought of God. It must be so. The God who meets his sin
with such pity and pardon, bears with his errors and guilty
ignorance so patiently, must have the heart of a father. These
are the gifts of love. They reveal wisdom, intelligence, adaptation
of means to an end, but chiefly they show the same sort of care
for the soul of man as a loving father shows for his child;
they disclose the Divine heart. God forgives as a father does the
mistakes and follies and sins of his son. He delivers from peril,
He crowns with loving-kindness and tenderness. He satisfies
1 M. J. McLeod, Heavenly Harmonies for Earthly Living, 99.

3o8 THE FATHER'S PITY

the soaring desires of the spirit ; He renews the springs of life.
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them
that fear him."

But the most vital element in the Psalmist's experience is the
forgiveness of his sins. It is to that he recurs again and again.
God forgives as only a father-heart in its fullest flow of pity and
compassion can forgive. For it is not easy to forgive. Brothers
have been known to pursue one another in a spirit of retaliation
for years, and some fathers and mothers have shown hardness of
heart towards their own offspring ; but God forgives with a gener-
osity and completeness which show that no father has a love so
large as His.

Who is a pardoning God like Thee,
Or who has grace so rich and free!

It seems impossible to exaggerate in describing it. Listen to the
singer as, with soul bursting with thankfulness, he says, God does
chide — but not always; nor does He keep His anger for ever.
Take your measuring-glass and look up into the heavens. Let
your gaze reach out to the farthest depths of the infinite blue,
soar and still soar, and still you do not reach the boundaries of
His forgiving love : " He hath not dealt with us after our sins ;
nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is
high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear
him."

^ Years ago when death came to me first and took a child,
the anguish was great. Watching her while she lay dying, I
learnt for the first time what is meant by the words, " Like as a
father pitieth his children." Only so could I be taught the pity
of God. Aud I learnt too, at the same time, what God must feel
at the loss of His children. What are all these passionate
affections but parables of Divine things ? Shall God suffer and
not we ? ^

My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes

And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,

Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,

I struck him, and dismiss'd

With hard words and unkiss'd.

His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

^ Life of B. W. Dale of Birmingham, 621.

PSALM cm. 13, 14 309

Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,

I visited his bed,

But found him slumbering deep.

With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet

From his late sobbing wet.

And I, with moan,

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;

For on a table drawn beside his head,

He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters, and a red-vein'd stone,

A piece of glass abraded by the beach

And six or seven shells,

A bottle with bluebells

And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,

To comfort his sad heart.

So when that night I pray'd

To God, I wept, and said :

Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,

Not vexing Thee in death,

And Thou rememberest of what toys

We made our joys.

How weakly understood.

Thy great commanded good,

Then, fatherly not less

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,

Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say,

" I will be sorry for their childishness." ^

4. The New Testament discloses the fact that the pity of God
is the sympathy of One who associates Himself with us and under-
takes for us. When we speak of the Incarnation we think of the
Divine in the human. But there is another side to that great
truth. There is the human in the Divine — what Eobertson of
Brighton used to call the humanity of Deity, and what the late
Principal Edwards of Bala called " the humanity of God." That
is something which makes Him one with us, so that He identifies
Himself with us, and, in a word, pities us. Now nobody resents
that kind of pity, the pity of a genuine sympathy, which makes a
man suffer because you suffer and compels him so to identify
himself with you as to enter into your experience. That comes
to you like balm ; there is healing in it. It stands by your
* Coventry Patmore, The UnJcnoum Eros.

3IO THE FATHER'S PITY

side ; it puts its arms around you, so to speak, and in quivering
tones says : " My brother, my sister, my child, this misfortune
touches us both, for you are bone of my bone, and flesh of my
flesh. Because you suffer I must suffer. In the name of our common
humanity, in the name of God, let us try to help each other."
That is pity. That is the pity of God ; for that is the pity of love.
What is the meaning of Gethsemane and the cross but this,
that the Son of God by virtue of His identification with us in His
humanity entered sympathetically into the sin and suffering of
the world ? Not that He shared our sin by actual transgression,
for He knew no sin ; but as a father shares the sin and shame and
suffering of his child, so the Lord Jesus shared our sin and shame
and suffering. " Himself bare our sins in his own body on the
tree." " He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities." He who knew no sin " was made sin for us."
How otherwise could He have made atonement for us? And
what is the teaching of the parable of the Prodigal Son in this
regard ? How did the father pity his wandering boy ? He
yearned for him when he was away in the far country ; he knew
well what it all meant — the degradation, the undying stain, the
suffering. And for every pang in the heart of the son there was
an answering pang in the heart of the father. And how did the
pity express itself ? While the son was yet a great way off the
father saw him, and had compassion on him, and ran to meet him.
Ah ! pity does not think of its dignity. The pity of some people
could never get beyond a walk ; it is too often on stilts. The
father's pity made hiui run ; he ran and fell on his neck and kissed
him. And that is the pity of God; that is how it is unfolded in
the story of redemption.

^ A chord which has been once set in unison with another
vibrates (they say) when its fellow is sharply struck. God has set
His heart through human suffering into perpetual concord with
human hearts. Strike them, and the heart of God quivers for
fellowship. If this is compassion, it is so in a more literal sense
than when we use the word as a mere synonym for pity. It is
sympathy, in the Greek and New Testament sense ; it is, as our ver-
sion has it, being " touched " with the same feeling. It is the remem-
brance of His own human past which stirs within the soul of Christ,
when, now, from His high seat, He sees what mortal men endure.^

» J. O. Dykes.

PSALM cm. 13, 14 311

5. The Psalmist says that man's weakness makes a sure
appeal to the Father's heart. " For he knoweth our frame ; he
remembereth that we are dust." Dust is a synonym for frailty.
While the mountains stand fast for generations, the dust into
which they are slowly worn has no abiding place. The winds
toss it, carrying its unresisting particles whithersoever they will.
And the stuff out of which we are fashioned is just as unstable
and never at one stay. Our lives are of slenderer fibre than
unspun silk, brittle as threads of fine-drawn glass, breath-break-
able as the texture that holds together only in a vacuum. The
Psalmist goes on to speak of death, reminding us that man is like
a flower of the field which, untended by human care, unscreened
by human device, unwarmed by human art, shrivels at the first
sign of change and the first moan of desert wind, and dies
neglected and forlorn. Through the entire round of his days
he is ever matching and measuring his puny capacities against
the strong. Death, which draws the curtain over his cold, inert,
baffled clay, is but the last phase in that ever-recurring spectacle
of impotence. And yet man draws the Almighty God down to
his help ; and, marvellous to say, man draws God by reason, of his
very frailty. Of the sum of that human life over which He bends
I am but a thousand-millionth part, and yet " the Lord thinketh
upon me," who " am poor and needy " — thinketh of me the more
closely for that very reason.

^ In his essay on " The Sublime and Beautiful," Burke points
out the fact that we always associate physical smallness with the
idea of beauty, and he supports his rule by reminding us that in
every known language terms of endearment are diminutives. Is
not the reason for this common note in the taste and speech of
mankind that the hearts of the strong and the chivah'ous are
captured by the very weakness which solicits defence ? When we
are called upon to play the part of providence to the helpless we
experience a mysterious satisfaction which influences our [esthetic
judgment, and the helpless grow beavitiful in our eyes. And does
not this peculiarity in human nature give us the clue to a mystery
in the heart of God ? When He made man He put Divine qualities
into a slender framework, filled up with delicate clay, because
to such beings the deepest secret of His tenderness could be
spoken.^

1 T. G. Selby.

3ii THE FATHER'S PITY

^ Will you say to a mother, Why do you waste such love on

t poor cliild ? Do you not see that he is a cripple, has

1 vaturt' of ttie spine, always will be acripi)le? See the little

How creeping on his hands and knees ! The doctor says that

le can never be strong; always will be a source of anxiety to

\<)u; most likely never will be able to walk. Why worry so over

liin? What good will he ever be? Ah, if you spoke thus, she

"uld give you a look that would shrivel you.

My silent boy, I hold thee to my breast,

Just as I did when thou wast newly born.
It may be sinful, but I love thee best,

And kiss thy lips the longest night and morn.
Oh, thou art dear to me beyond all others,

And when I breathe my trust and bend my knee
For blessing on thy sisters and thy brothers,

God seems the nighest when I pray for tliee.^

6. God's intimate knowledge of our weakn'ess is the sure
pledge of tender parental treatment. It is certain that a very
great part of the harshness of judgment which passes among men
is the result of imperfect knowledge. You do not know the man
you are speaking about; you do not know the natural infirmities,
the bodily hindrances, the constitutional causes which affect the
person whom you are blaming. You cannot take into your
calculation all the circumstances, all the pressure, all the tempta-
tion. You cannot read his motives, you cannot dip into the secret
processes going on in that man's mind. If you could see all this,
your feelings would be very different, and your sentiments would
be reversed.

Now, of all upon earth, a parent can best estimate these
things in his own child. Has he not watched him from the first
passages of his dawning life ? Has he not seen the moulding of
his frame ? Has he not become intimate with the secret frame-
work of his being ? Can he not take a more comprehensive view
of him than any other man can ? And this pity flowing from
parental knowledge is the shadow of that love of God. He sees
what no other eye sees, and His calculations include all the
extenuating circumstances — the health, the position, the conflict,
the effort, the struggle, the sorrow, the penitence. " He knows "

^ M. J. McLeod, Heavenly Ilarmoniesfor Earthly Living, 110.

PSALM cm. 13, 14 313

and — blessed be God for the kind word, a word very rarely
known to ua — " He remembers." And so pity is the child of
knowledge. " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame ; he
remembereth that we are dust."

Not as one blind and deaf to our beseeching,

Neither forgetful that we are but dust,
Not as from heavens too high for our upreaching.

Coldly sublime, intolerably just : —

Nay but Thou knewest us, Lord Christ Thou knowest,
Well Thou rememberest our feeble frame,

Thou canst conceive our highest and our lowest,
Pulses of nobleness and aches of shame.

Therefore have pity ! — not that we accuse Thee,

Curse Thee and die and charge Thee with our woe;

Not thro' Thy fault, 0 Holy One, we lose Thee,
Nay, but our own, — yet hast Thou made us so!

Then tho' our foul and limitless transgression
Grows with our growing, with our breath began,

Eaise Thou the arms of endless intercession.
Jesus, divinest when Thou most art man ! ^

7. The Psalmist based the pity of our Heavenly Father on His
special knowledge of our frame — such knowledge as only the
Framer of it can possess. But to know man's frame, to know
what is in man, even to search and try with Divine inspection the
heart and spirit of a man, is after all something less intimate and
perfect than to be a man. To learn a child's lessons, feel a youth's
passions, think a man's thoughts ; to be actually tempted to evil
as men are tempted, and find out by trial how hard it is for them
to be good ; to undergo the moral probation and discipline peculiar
to a human creature, impossible to the Creator ; this must give —
or, if we are to think about the subject at all, it must be supposed
by us to have given — to the Son of God a fresh acquaintance with
human experience, of quite another sort from the omniscience of
the creating Father. At all events, who can help feeling this,
1 F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.

314 THE FATHER'S PITY

that, if it is possible for any one to know us, understand us, and
do us justice, Jesus Christ is that One ; since, as oar Maker, He
both knows what He made us fit to be and to do and, as our
Fellow-Man, has learned through what hindrances and temptations
we have become what we are ?

^ An obelisk, originally brought from Egypt, stands in the
piazza of St. Peter's at Eome. It was put into its present
position in the sixteenth century. It weighs a little short of a
million pounds, and required the strength of eight hundred men,
one hundred and fifty horses, and forty-six cranes, to lift it on to
its pedestal. The crowds who witnessed the feat were forbidden
to speak under pain o^ death. As the ropes were tugged by hosts
of workmen, and the huge obelisk slowly reared itself like a
waking giant, the movement suddenly stopped and the ropes
threatened to give way. The huge mass was about to fall
crashing upon the pavement. An old sailor in the crowd, familiar
with the humours of ropes and the methods of treating them,
broke the silence and cried, "Pour water on the -ropes!" The
advice was quickly followed, the ropes tightened, and the obelisk
slowly rose again and settled securely upon its base. In our
past life how often have strain, tension, and peril come to us !
The ties by which we were knit to goodness, to truth, to purity,
to faith, were sorely tested, and seemed ready to snap and plunge
us into ruin. Some temptation arose out of all proportion to
the staying power of our trust in God, some shock fraught with
impending disaster to the character, some partial alienation from
right paths threatening to strand our lives in uselessness. But
the eye of infinite wisdom was watching, and God remembered
the weakness of the tiesh. From within the unseen there came
a voice that saved us, and the peril was overpast. The strain
eased off, character strengthened itself to the emergency, and we
were kept in the plane of our providential lot. And through
this wise, watchful pity of our infirmities we come to find our-
selves with a place in the living temple, monuments of the
gentleness, the sympathy, and the upholding power of the God
who pities the frail. In the moments which show most our
weakness the Lord remembers that we are but dust, and fortifies
us against the strains and hazards which belong to our earthly
course.^

8. Who are they that experience this pity of God ? What
does the text say ? " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the
» T. G. Selby, The Qod of the Frail, 14,

PSALM cm. 13, 14 315

Lord pitieth them that fear him." The same expression occurs
in the eleventh verse: "As the heaven is high above the eartli,
so great is his mercy toward them that fear him." And again
in the seventeenth verse : " The mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him." Now, let
us not imagine for a moment that God does not yearn with
compassion over men who are utterly reckless, men who are
breaking through God's law, and treading the path that leadeth
to destruction. God pities them ; but, then, observe, they are
indifferent to Him ; and if we are indifferent to any one, we do
not care for that one's pity, we have no wish for his compassion.
God's compassion goes forth upon all men, but all men cannot
receive it, and do not receive it. It is not the idea of terror
that is conveyed by this word " fear." We do not crave mercy
from a tyrant; we demand justice from him. If one might
translate this word " fear " one should do so by two words —
"reverential love." "We can receive real sympathy only from
those we love with reverence. When we are bearing a great
trial, when we are going through our testing time, when we are
bowing under a heavy sorrow, who are the men and women from
whom we seek sympathy or pity ? It may be we seek for the
companionship of but one — only one — for whom our love is deep
and reverent.

^ Bunyan in his long treatise On the Fear of God deals
with the matter of " right fear " very fully. " Take heed," he
says in that treatise, " of hardening thy heart at any time against
convictions of judgments. I bid you before to beware of a hard
heart, now I bid you beware of hardening your soft heart. The
fear of the Lord is the pulse of the soul. Pulses that beat are
the best signs of life ; but the worst show that life is present.
Intermitting pulses are dangerous. David and Peter had an
intermitting pulse in reference to this fear." Christian is no
coward, and the adjective right is emphatic when he speaks of
right fear. The word fear has two senses, according as it relates
to dangerous or to sublime things. In the one connexion it is a
sense of danger ; in the other it is the faculty of reverence, the
habit of wonder, the continued power of aw^e and admiration.
Christian's analysis of it includes both these senses. (1) It rises
in the conviction of sin — not (it will be observed) in the approach
of punishment, but in the horror of sin itself, as a thing to be
abhorred apart from its consequences. (2) It leads to a laying

3i6 THE FATHER'S PITY

hold on Christ for salvation — in which the sense of danger and
the faculty of reverence are combined. (3) It begets in the soul a
great reverence for God.^

^ Among the children of God, while there is always that
fearful and bowed apprehension of His majesty, and that sacred
dread of all offence to Him, which is called the Fear of God, yet
of real and essential fear there is not any, but clinging of con-
fidence to Him as their Kock, Fortress, and Deliverer; and
perfect love, and casting out of fear ; so that it is not possible
that, while the mind is rightly bent on Him, there should be
dread of anything either earthly or supernatural ; and the more
dreadful seems the height of His majesty, the less fear they feel
that dwell in the shadow of it (" Of whom shall I be afraid "),
so that they are as David was, " devoted to His fear " ; whereas,
on the other hand, those who, if they may help it, never conceive
of God, but thrust away all thought and memory of Him, and in
His real terribleness and omnipresence fear Him not nor know
Him, yet are by real, acute, piercing, and ignoble fear, haunted
for evermore.^

^ John Kelman, The Road, ii. 162.

' Ruskin, Modern Painters, ii. ch. xiv. [Works, iv. 199).

The Day's Work.

J«7

Literature.

Bain (J. A. K.), For Heart and Life, 357.

Boyd (A. K. H.), Tlie Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, ii. 144.

Brooks (P.), Seeking Life, 331.

Brown (J. B.), The Christian Policy of Life, 108.

Clarke (J. E.), Common-Life Sermons, 94.

Dewhurst (F. E.), The Investment of Truth, 157.

Dix (M.), Christ at the Door of tlie Heart, 65.

Hood (P.), Dark Sayings on a Harp, 69.

Hunter (J.), De Frofundis Clamavi, 227.

Lambert (J. C), The Christian Workman, 1.

Newman (J. H.), Sermons on Subjects of the Day^ 395.

Prothero (R. E.), The Psalms in Human Life, 315.

Smith (G. A.), The Forgiveness of Sins, 89.

Christian World Pulpit, xli. 56 (G. A. Smith) ; xlii. 8 (T. Young); Ixx.

139 (H. M'Gahie) ; Ixxvii. 309 (H. S. Holland).
Church of England Pulpit, xlix. 309 (J. White); lix. 197 (B. S.

Tupholrae).
Church Times, May 6, 1910 (H. S. Holland).
Literary Churchman, xxxii. 316 (J. L. Spencer).

9*<

The DAY'S Work.

Man gfoeth forth unto his work

And to his labour until the evening. — Ps. civ. 23.

The psalm from which the text is taken is one of the most com-
plete and impressive pictures of the universe to be found in
ancient literature, and it breathes the very spirit of the Hebrew
race. It has been called the Psalm of the Cosmos. It moves
through all creation, and begins and ends with praise. Like all
the highest reaches of the human imagination, it lays hold of the
inner and deeper truth of things, and suggests much more than
literary description can convey. He was not a man of knowledge
in the modern sense, this Hebrew poet, although the wide sweep
of his thought seems to speak of some contact with foreign
culture ; but he was at home in that knowledge of God which is
Eternal Life. No careful reader of the psalm will fail to see that
it follows mainly the order and sequence of the story of the
beginnings of things with which our Bible opens — a story which
in its groupings of the creative action into progressive stages
dimly anticipates our modern idea of development : yet the psalm
is no mere copy of that story. The story of Genesis is the record
of a past and finished creation : the psalm is a picture of a con-
tinuous, ever-proceeding creation — a kind of prophecy of the
genesis of science. All the work of the ancient record we see
going on before our eyes : the wondrous week of Divine activity
is every week, and its six great days are repeated in all the days.
In the psalm, as in the Book of Genesis, we see life moving on in
the same ordered and stately way to the same goal ; rising up in
slow and steady grandeur to man, and in man reaching its summit
and crown. The going forth of man is the highest point in the
vast, ascending movement — the end or goal of life on its material
side. In this psalm, until we reach this verse, God is represented
as working alone, causing the grass to grow and giving to the

3'9

320 THE DAY'S WORK

wild beasts their food ; but man goeth forth — goeth forth a self-
conscious, self-acting being, a distinct person, a sovereign soul
with power to shape the course of his own life and activity.
And this going forth of man is not only the summing-up and end
of a creation, but the beginning of a new creation. However
closely he may be allied to what is beneath him, he belongs to
another order. Because he thinks and wills and loves, he is
kindred to the Infinite Mind and Will and Heart — kindred to
God ; not only a creature formed and sustained by the Creator's
power, but a son of God, and therefore more to God than vast
worlds and blazing suns.

^ In the Psalms, Alexander von Humboldt recognized an
epitome of scientific progress, a summary of the laws which
govern the universe. "A single Psalm, the 104th," he writes,
" may be said to present a picture of the entire Cosmos. We are
astonished to see, within the compass of a poem of such small
dimension, the universe, the heavens and the earth, thus drawn
with a few grand strokes." ^

^ In the 104th Psalm the inspired poet gives us a magnificent
picture of the movement and march of a living world. The
clouds roll on like the swift chariots of God; the winds are
winged creatures ; the springs of water run among the hills ; the
grass is growing, the sap circling through the cedars, the birds
building their nests among the branches; the moon keeps her
seasons ; the sun rises and sets , the beasts of the forest creep
forth in search of their food ; the ships are sailing upon the great
and wide sea. And of man, set in the midst of this vast, busy
scene, the Psalmist says, " Man goeth forth unto his work and to
his labour until the evening." There is a beauty and pathos in
these words which makes them smite upon the heart like the
fingers of a skilled player upon his instrument, a beauty and
pathos which is due essentially to their truthfulness to human
experience, turning them, all simple as they are, into the solemn
refrain of the Psalm of Life.^

^ R. E. Pro there. The Psalms in Human Life, 315.
J. C. Lambert, The Christian Workman, 18.

PSALM CIV. 23 321

WoEK AS A Law of Man's Life.

1. To the vast majority of men and women work is a law, first
of all, in the sense that it is a positive necessity of their daily
existence. We must eat to live, and we must work to eat ; that
is what the law comes to in its ultimate physical form.

^ In one of his poems Arthur Hugh Clough gives us a realistic
picture of morning in the city : —

Labourers settling
Slowly to work, in their limbs the lingering sweetness of

slumber ;
Humble market-carts coming in, bringing in not only
Flowers, fruit, farm-store, but sounds and sights of the country
Dwelling yet on the sense of the dreamy drivers ; soon after.
Half-awake servant-maids unfastening drowsy shutters
Up at the windows, or down letting in the air by the doorway.

No early stroller through the streets has failed to observe with
interest this awaking of a great city from its slumbers, this re-
application of itself to all its manifold tasks and toils. And if he
seeks an explanation of it all, the reason at bottom undoubtedly
is that in no other way than by arising and working can human
beings earn their daily bread. A little further on in Clough's
poem, we get a glimpse of the secret spring which drives the huge
machine, as we read of the

Little child bringing breakfast to "father," that sits on the

timber
There by the scaffolding; see, she waits for the can beside

him.^

2. But it is not merely in this lower sense that work must be
conceived of as the universal law of human life, a sense determined
by the relations in which we stand to the forces of Nature on the
one hand, and the social order on the other. Work is the proof
that man offers of his manhood. This is his law of relationship
to the complex universe. He works. He creates a world for
himself. He makes his own environment. He does not merely
accept from Nature his range of opportunity. He does not merely

^ J. C. Lambert.
PS. XXV.-CXIX. — 21

322 THE DAY'S WORK

find her useful for his purposes, and rest satisfied with the food he
can capture from her, or the shelter that she suggests. He sets
to work to bring about what he will require. He takes up what
she gives him, and out of its materials he contrives, fashions,
invents, improves, thinks, reasons, imagines, and toils until he has
brought into existence a whole creation of things that were not
there before. His life is his own in the sense that his head and
hands and heart have produced it. It could not come into ex-
istence but by the sweat of his brow. And as he began, so he
continues. He is ever at work. He is ever bettering, correcting,
enlarging. Ever a worker ! Ever a creator ! Ever a builder !
Ever labouring to win a fuller result ! Ever sowing in tears that
he may reap in joy ! Ever hoping to wring a richer spoil out of
the rugged soil ! Ever dreaming of a finer reward, ever foreseeing
a better day ; ever spending and being spent ; ever giving himself
away for a vision still denied him, of a hope still deferred ! Ever
on his pilgrim way, with his eyes set on far horizons ! Ever war-
ring with a stubborn earth which must be purged of thorn or
thistle in order to correspond with his strong desire ! So man down
all the ages, amid the awful silence of a nature that waits around
him in expectation, " goeth forth to his work and to his labour."

^ It has been well said — said by a poet — that labour is at once
the symbol of man's punishment and the secret of man's happiness.
And it has been well said too that the gospel does not abolish
labour, but gives it a new and nobler aspect. " The gospel
abolishes labour much in the same way as it abolished death : it
leaves the thing, but it changes its nature." ^

^ There are three things to which a man is born — labour, and
sorrow, and joy. Each of these three things has its baseness and
its nobleness. There is base labour, and noble labour. There is
base sorrow, and noble sorrow. There is base joy, and noble joy.
But you must not think to avoid the corruption of these things
by doing without the things themselves. Nor can any life be
right that has not all three. Labour without joy is base. Labour
without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy
without labour is base.^

^ When Charles Lamb waF released for life from his daily
drudgery of desk-work at the India Office, he felt himself the

^ A. K. H. Boyd, J^Ae Gfraver Thoughts of a CovMry Parson, ii. 148.
* Ruskiu, Time and Tide, t. § 21.

PSALM CIV. 23 323

happiest of men. " I would not go back to my prison," he said to
a friend, " ten years longer, for ten thousand pounds." He also
wrote in the same ecstatic mood to Bernard Barton: "I have
scarce steadiness of head to compose a letter," he said; "I am
free ! free as air ! I will live another fifty years. Would I could
sell you some of my leisure ! Positively the best thing a man can
do is — nothing; and next to that, perhaps good works." Two
years — two long and tedious years — passed ; and Charles Lamb's
feelings had undergone an entire change. He now discovered that
official, even humdrum work — "the daily round, the common
task " — had been good for him, though he knew it not. Time had
formerly been his friend ; it had now become his enemy. To
Bernard Barton he again wrote : " I assure you, no work is worse
than overwork ; the mind preys on itself — the most unwholesome
of food. I have ceased to care for almost anything. . . . Never
did the waters of heaven pour down upon a forlorner head. What
I can do, and overdo, is to walk. I am a sanguinary murderer of
time. But the oracle is silent." ^

3. Work, then, is the significance of our manhood. We are
those who present themselves to the earth in the eye of God as
workers. We create a world of our own — the world of human
society. We build a city, we organize a fellowship, we produce a
wealth, which were not there until we called them into existence
out of the resources and materials supplied us by God in nature.
And every one contributes to this work, every one is a worker,
who spends a continuous and rational efi'ort in creating, or sus-
taining, or fulfilling, or enriching, the. social fabric that man has
fashioned for himself. All who contribute by head, or hand, or
heart, to the common endeavour have found and verified their
manhood ; they have justified themselves as members of that
humanity which for ever goes forth to its work and to its labour.
And, reversely, those who play no such part at all, who have no
intelligible function to fulfil, who bring no contribution, who have
discovered no rational purpose for which to labour, and no special
use for their heads or their hands, and no end that they can serve,
and can see no reason why they should not be idle if they choose,
and leisured when they like, and live to please themselves — such,
the worklesB, have failed their manhood ; they have betrayed
humanity.

'S. Smiles, Character, 98.

324 THE DAY'S WORK

^ On a passenger ship the officers and crew keep the
watches day and night, and busy themselves continually with
the working and the safety of the vessel ; while the passengers,
looking upon the voyage as a mere holiday, amuse themselves on
deck by day, and lie down in their berths at night, without any
sense of responsibility. But on board ship every one knows that
the positions and relations of passengers and crew are of a special
and temporary kind, due to the specialization of social function
through the division of labour, and that they justify themselves
by that very fact. When Jack gets ashore, it is his turn for a
holiday ; while yonder lounging passenger in the deck-chair will
have to put on his harness again as soon as the vessel reaches
port, and work all the harder because of the respite he is now
enjoying. What is natural and proper, for the time being, on
board of an ocean liner is neither natural nor tolerable on the
voyage of life. Here all are sharers in a common duty and
responsibility. No one has any prescriptive right to enter him-
self in the ship's books as a mere cabin-passenger. In some
capacity or other every one is morally bound to take a part in the
working of the vessel; and, from the point of view of social
obligation, those who refuse to do so are no better than maling-
erers or mutineers.^

^ Indolence is one name of many for the abstraction of
Francis's mind and the inactivities of his body. He was not of
the stuff to " break ice in his basin by candle-light," and no doves
Ikittered against his lodging window to wake him in summer, but
he was not indolent in the struggle against indolence. Not a
lifetime of mornings spent in bed killed the desire to be up and
doing. In the trembling hand of his last months he wrote out in
big capitals on pages torn from exercise-books such texts as were
calculated to frighten him into his clothes. " Thou wilt not lie
a-bed when the last trump blows " ; " Thy sleep with the worms
will be long enough," and so on. They were ineffectual. His
was a long series of broken trysts — trysts with the sunrise,
t rysts with Sunday Mass, obligatory but impossible ; trysts with
friends. Whether it was indolence or, as he explained it, an
unsurmountable series of detaining accidents, it is certain that he,
captain of his soul, was not captain of his hours. They played
him false at every stroke of the clock, mutinied with such
cunning that he would keep an appointment in all good faith six
hours after it was past. Dismayed, he would emerge from his
room upon a household preparing for dinner, when he had lain
listening to sounds he thought betokened breakfast. He was

* J. C. Lambert.

PSALM CIV. 23 325

always behindhand with punctual eve, and in trouble with strict
noon.^

II.

Work as a High Calling of God.

1. We ought to think of our work as an expression of our
personal life — to think of it as the means granted to us to give
body and coherence and aim to the great universe-forces. And
then, if in our imagination we can identify these universe-forces
with the wisdom and love of God, the One who with us lives and
works, we shall be able to rise to the point of view which Christ
took — that point of view which becomes both light and inspira-
tion : " My Father worketh continuously, and so do I." That is
the highest reach of the human spirit — to conceive of one's work
as a part of the Divine activity itself. The daily life, with its
tasks and occupations, its duties and its cares, its problems to
solve, its burdens to carry, its beauty to appreciate and enjoy — all
these become an echo and reflection of what the infinite activity
itself is. Viewed in this light

The trivial round, the common task,
Would furnish all we ought to ask —
Eoom to deny ourselves; a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

^ " Ask me," she wrote, " to do something for your sake,
something difficult, and you will see that I shall do it regularly,
which is for me the most difficult thing of all." Let those who
reproach themselves for a desultoriness, seemingly incurable, take
heart again from the example of Florence Nightingale ! No self-
reproach recurs more often in her private outpourings at this
time than that of irregularity and even sloth. She found it
difficult to rise early in the morning; she prayed and wrestled
to be delivered from desultory thoughts, from idle dreaming,
from scrappiness in unselfish work. She wrestled and she won.
When her capacities had found full scope in congenial work,
nothing was more fixed and noteworthy in her life and work than
regularity, precision, and persistence.^

^ No author of modern times has striven more earnestly or
impressively than George Eliot to inculcate a law of duty which

1 E. Meynell, The Life of Francis Thompson (1913), 32.
* Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Niglitingale, i. 40.

326 THE DAY'S WORK

rests simply upon our human and social relations, and is inde-
pendent of the great spiritual sanctions of the Christian faith.
The late Mr. F. W. H. Myers, in one of his essays, tells how at
Cambridge he walked with her once in the Fellows' Garden of
Trinity, and how she, " taking as her text the three words which
have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet-calls of man —
the words God, Immortality, Duty — pronounced, with terrible
earnestness, how inconceivable was the first, how unbelievable the
second, and yet how peremptory and absolute the third. Never,
perhaps, had sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of im-
personal and unrecompensing law. I listened, and night fell ; her
grave majestic countenance turned towards me like a Sibyl's in the
gloom ; it was as though she withdrew from my grasp, one by
one, the two scrolls of promise, and left me the third scroll only,
awful with inevitable fate. And when we stood at length and
parted, amid that columnar circuit of the forest trees, beneath the
last twilight of starless skies, I seemed to be gazing, like Titus at
Jerusalem, on vacant seats and empty halls — on a sanctuary with
no Presence to hallow it, and heaven left lonely of a God." ^

^ Carlyle preached the gospel of work as the panacea for
human ills. But he did so with the air of a parent who is mixing
a disagreeable medicine for a child, and is insisting on its whole-
some effects in order to take away attention from its nauseousness.
To Morris work was a sheer joy. It has been said that he picked
out only those forms of work that were attractive. It would be
truer to say that whatever work he undertook he made attractive.
It was a joy to him, because he imported beauty into it. When
his spirits flagged, it meant, not that he was tired, but that his
insatiable energies cried out for even more.*

2. Work and labour have changed indeed since the Psalmist
pictured man in the fields, on the hillside, rising with the sun, to
go out to his work on the soil until the fading twilight sent him
peacefully home again. Now labour stays not with the dying day.
No evening sets in its quiet limit. On and on through the night
its vast mechanism clangs and roars. On and on through the
night the loaded trains groan and shriek ; the furnaces blaze on
in the deep holds of the liners tha,t press on untiringly through
the black waters. Labour means no longer the slow pacing of
ploughing oxen, the long watch of the creeping sheep along the
folds. It means now the storm and stress of tumultuous cities,

^ J. C. Lambert. • A. G. Rickett, William Morris, 24.

PSALM CIV. 23 327

the haste of quivering looms, the heat of rushing wheels, the shout
of hurrying multitudes, and the rush of crowded streets. Yes !
But all this is still humanity at work. It is man achieving his
purpose. It is man fulfilling his Divine prerogative. It is man
building himself a city. By his labour, tremendous in its volume
and energy and force, he comes to himself. He discloses his
powers. He reveals his elemental character. He creates a new
world. He proclaims himself a man, he discharges his obligations
to God. He fulfils his high calling.

^ Woe to us if we let our work lose the inspiration that comes
from knowing that we do it for our Heavenly Father and not for
ourselves ! We stand in danger of letting that knowledge go,
because work so absorbs us and enchains us by its own sheer
power ; but yet we know that that slavery to work which we are
aware is growing in ourselves is not the highest or most noble
type of life as we behold it in other men. We know that the
man to whom work is really sanctifying and helpful is the man
who has God behind his work ; who is able to retire out of the
fret and hurry of his work into the calmness and peace of Deity,
and come out again into his labour full of the exalted certainties
of the redemption of Christ and the love of God : to make work
sweet and fresh and interesting and spiritual by doing it not
for himself, not for itself, but for the Saviour in whom he
lives.^

^ In Millet's " Angelus " we see the toil-worn peasants, who
have been bending over the ground through the long afternoon,
standing up from their work to think reverently and prayerfully
of God, as the notes of the evening bell come floating over the
fields from the dim church tower. The pious men of Israel con-
tinually heard a Divine monition, as clear and sweet as the sound
of the Angelus-bell, reminding them that life's labours were part
of a godly service, and that the eyes of the Lord were upon them
in the midst of the common occupations of each returning day.^

III.

Work as Fellowship with God.

1, St. Paul more than once in his Epistles describes himself
and his companions in service and sacrifice as fellow- workers with

1 Phillips Brooks, Seeking Life, 347. ' J. C. Lambert.

32S THE DAY'S WORK

God. The words speak of conscious and voluntary co-operation,
of willing and intelligent oneness of purpose and effort, with
the will and work of God. In creating and perfecting His world,
in getting His will done on earth as it is in heaven, God has
made Himself dependent upon the help and fidelity of His human
children. And the more we understand of the nature of God and
the range of His working, the more shall we realize the extent to
which it is possible for man to have a share in doing God's work.
Our Lord's teaching about the Fatherhood of God and His
personal care for every detail of every life has thrown a new
light both on the nature of human work and on the spirit in
which it may be done. Since all the trivialities of life and the
petty drudgeries are steps in the progress towards one end, there
is no sphere of human activity which is excluded from contribut-
ing towards the realization of the Divine purpose for the comfort
and good of man.

All service ranks the same with God.

And there is no labourer, however humble, who may not be
inspired at his toil by the child's proud consciousness that he
is helping his Father. Under all circumstances he is called to
co-operate with God in the service of man.

^ Her devotion and her power of work were prodigious. " I
work in the wards all day," she said, " and write all night " ; and
this was hardly exaggeration. Miss Nightingale has been known,
said General Bentinck, to pass eight hours on her knees dressing
wounds and administering comfort. There were times when she
stood for twenty hours at a stretch, apportioning quarters, distribut-
ing stores, directing the labours of her staff, or assisting at the pain-
ful operations where her presence might soothe or support. She
had, said Mr. Osborae, " an utter disregard of contagion. I have
known her spend hours over men dying of cholera or fever. The
more awful to every sense, any particular case, especially if it
was that of a dying man, the more certainly might her slight
form be seen bending over him, administering to his ease by
every means in her power, and seldom quitting his side till death
released him." ^

^ You remember George Eliot's fine poem on the famous
violin-maker of Cremona and its lesson :

' Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale, i. 284.

PSALM CIV. 23 329

. . . Not God Himself can make man's best
Without best men to help Him. . . .

'Tis God gives skill,
But not without men's hands: He could not make
Antonio Stradivari's violins
Without Antonio.

It is a bold saying, but true. We have a work to do in the world
which God cannot do, which we must do, or it will be left un-
done. Only as we co-operate with Him, can His will be done on
earth as in heaven.^

2. The Divine power in the world is not an abstract, im-
personal energy. God is in the world creating and perfecting, His
power and spirit dwelling in and working through industrious,
righteous, faithful, beneficent lives. The unit of power in the
world is not God isolated from man, and not man isolated from
God ; but God and man united, working purposely and continu-
ously together; God quickening and inspiring man, and man
opening his life to be a part of the Divine life of the world. The
religion of Jesus Christ represents this union of man and God in
purpose and work. Man works with God : God inspires man.
" My Father," said Jesus, " works continuously and I work. The
works I do are not Mine, but the Father's who sent ^le. I do
what I see My Father doing. And as the Father sent Me so
send I you. The glory He has given to Me I give to you — that
we may all be one, doing the same thing, working the same
work."

^j We have all been tired in our time, one may presume ; we
have toiled in business, or in some ambitious course, or in the
perfecting of some accomplishment, or even in the mastery of
some game or the pursuit of some amusement, till we were utterly
wearied : how many of us have so toiled in love ? How many of
us have been wearied and worn with some labour to which we
set ourselves for God's sake ? This is what the Apostle has in
view in his phrase " labour of love," and, strange as it may appear,
it is one of the things for which he gives God thanks. But is he
not right ? Is it not a thing to evoke gratitude and joy, that God
counts us worthy to be fellow-labourers with Him in the manifold
works which love imposes ?2

^ John Hunter, De Profundis Claviavi, 238.

' J. Denney, The Epistles to the Thessaloniaiis, 29.

330 THE DAY'S WORK

Ah! brothers, let us work our work, for love

Of what the God in us prevails to do !

And if, when all is done, the unanswering void

And silence weigh upon our souls, remember

The music of a lonely heart may help

How many lonely hearts unknown to him !

The seeming void and silence are aware

With audience august, invisible.

Who yield thank-offering, encouragement,

And strong co-operation; the dim deep

Is awful with the God in whom we move.

Who moulds to consummation where we fail,

And saith, " Well done ! " to every faithful deed,

Who in Himself will full accomplish all.^

3. If work is ever to win its honour, it will be from out of
the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. He was Himself the ideal
worker. He Kved in the spirit of work, aware of the task set
Him — lived to do the will of Him that sent Him ; conscious of
the strain of the allotted limit — the twelve hours of the working
day into which all the work must be crowded before the night
fall, in which no man can work ; living ever among men as one
that worketh; straining under the yoke as He felt the terrible
pressure of His task; straitened until it was accomplished;
consecrated to the work of glorifying the Father by doing the
work which He gave Him to do; yielding Himself to death as
soon as He could pronounce that work to have been done faith-
fully and could say over it, " It is finished."

^ The highest soul this world has seen was a mechanic by
trade. Behind His year and a half as a teacher lay long years in
which He toiled in wood, " making ploughs and yokes," as one of
the earliest Fathers says. And that was a preaching mightier
perhaps than His mightiest word. It was the inauguration of
labour's day. It was the shifting of the basis of esteem. In the
age into which He came, work of that kind was under taboo.
The Greek, the Eoman, thought it an occupation for slaves. And
for long ages after, that continued the current view. It was
endorsed by official Christianity. The Pope in the splendour of
his Court forgot the tradition of the Carpenter. To-day we are
beginning once more to remember it. The Eedeemer of our soul

* Roden Noel, Collected Poems, 354.

PSALM CIV. 23 331

is becoming the Redeemer of our economics, of our social state.
The age-long blindness is passing away,^

Lord of the breeze, the rolling tide,

The rivers rushing to the sea,
The clouds that through the azure glide, —

Well works the hand that works with Thee.

How finely toil, from morn till eve,
Thy ministers of light and shade ;

How fair a web the sunbeams weave
Of waving grass and blossoms made!

O Thou that madest earth and man

That man should make an earth more fair,

Give us to see Thy larger plan
And Thy creative joy to share.

Had we but eyes, and hands of skill.
Had we but love, our work would be

Wisely begun, and bettered still.
Till all were perfected by Thee.

Work Thou with us, that what is wrought

May bring to earth diviner days,
While in the higher realms of thought

A temple glorious we raise.''

IV.

WOKK AND EeST.

The strangest thing about work is the way in which all men
praise it, and yet all men try to get away from it. There is no
subject so popular as the blessedness of work. There is no theory
so universal as that of the wretchedness of not being compelled to
work. There is no man who does not feel a certain excited sense
of admiration, a certain satisfaction, a certain comfort that things
are right, when he stands where men are working their hardest,
where trade is roaring or the great hammers are deafening you

* J. Brierley, Life and the Ideal, 24.

* "W. G. Tarrant, SoTigs Devout, 48.

332 THE DAY'S WORK

as they clang upon the iron. Everywhere work and the ap-
proval of work ! and yet everywhere the desire to get away from
work! Everywhere what all these men we see are toiling for
is to make such an accumulation of money that they shall not
have to toil any longer. Now, this double sense, this value of
work and impatience with work as they exist together, seems to
be the crude expression in men's minds of the conviction that
work is good, that men degenerate and rust without it, and yet
that work is at its best and brings its best results, is most
honourable and most useful, only when it is aiming at something
beyond itself. Everybody will bear witness that this is the
healthiest feeling about any work that we have to do ; satisfaction
and pleasure in doing it, but expectation of having it done some
(liy and graduating from it into some higher state which we
think of as rest.

1. If we look to the arrangements of nature for indications
of what man's life is meant to be, we see at once that, bravely as
she has provided for his work, she has not thought of him only as
a working being. She has set her morning sun in the sky to
tempt — nay, to summon — him forth to his work and to his labour,
to make him ashamed of himself if he loiters and shirks at home ;
but she has limited her daylight, she has given her sun only his
appointed hours, and the labour and work are always to be only
" until the evening." Eest as truly as work is written in her
constitution. Eest, then as much as work is an element of life.

^ After a very hard day's work, — during which he had con-
firmed candidates, preached at the re-opening of a church, spoken
two or three times, and done much beside in a manner which
perhaps no person but himself could have accomplished, — Bishop
Wilberforce returned in the evening to Turvey, where he was
staying. A small party had been invited to meet him at dinner, and
there was some bright and pleasant conversation. When the time
came for retiring into the drawing-room, the Bishop, who looked
a little fatigued, said to me : " There is nothing which makes me
more absolutely disgusted with myself than feeling tired when
evening comes. What business have I to be tired ? nothing gives
me any comfort at all but that verse in the Psalms, — ' Man
goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening ' ;
and so, I suppose that, when evening comes, he may rest." ^
' J. W. Burgou, Lives of Twelve Goud Men, ii. 89.

PSx^LM CIV. 23 333

2. Man goes out to his work, to his labour, only with one
softening clause in the agreement — " until the evening." There
are limits set; there are reliefs permitted and contrived; there
are moments for slackening, for recreation, for repose. Not
unbroken this labour ; not monotonously blind this work. No,
fixed times, ordered signals, ordained closes !

Sunset and evening star.
And one clear call for me.

Man knows the signs. He is not left forgotten or unconsidered.
He can calculate when the strain will be off.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark.

So, in kindly, successive periods, he turns to the rest that he has
earned. "He goeth forth to his work "with the friendly sense
in his heart that it will not last for ever. It will end in the quiet
hour when the sun goes down.

^ When in the beginning God said : Let there be Light, and
there was Light, Light did not spring into undivided empire, but
was ordained to rule alternately with darkness. Day and night
abide for ever. AVhat was the reason, so far as man is concerned,
for this curbing and restriction of so free an element as Light ?
The readiest reason seems to be — for our relief and rest. But that
is not half the reason. Our light is broken up and shortened, not
only in order to afford us intervals of rest, but also to bestow upon
us intensity ; not only to relieve our faculties from the strain of
life, but also to strain and stimulate them ever more keenly.
According to Christ Himself the night cometh when no man can
work, not merely that man may hope for release beneath its
shelter, but that he may work while it is called to-day. Had
there been no interval, since first upon the tones of God's word
Light rippled across the face of the deep — had the Sun been
created to stand still in the midst of the heavens, then indeed one
might say there would have been no progress for man. Let your
imagination strike Night out of the world, and you need not begin
to speculate on the iron frames men should have required to bear
the unrelieved strain, for it is tolerably certain that, without the
urgency and discipline which a limited day brings upon our life,
we should never have been stimulated to enough of toil to make
us weary. Night, which has been called the Liberator of the
Slave, is far more the task-mistress of the free — a task-mistress
who does not scourge nor drive us in panic, but who startles our

334 THE DAY'S WORK

sluggishness, rallies our wandering thoughts, develops our instincts
of order, reduces our impulsiveness to methods, incites us to our
very best, and only then crowns her beneficence by rewarding
our obedience with rest. In short. Night, while she is nature's
mercy on our weakness, is nature's purest discipline for our
strength.^

3. The daily drawing of the curtain between man and his
active labours represents and continually reminds us of the need
of the internal as well as the external in our lives. It brings
up to us our need, by bringing up to us our opportunity, of
meditation, of contemplation. For active life is always tending
to become shallow. It is always forgetting its motives, forgetting its
principles, forgetting what it is so busy for, and settling itself into
superficial habits. So God shuts us out from our work and bids
us daily think what the heart of our work is, what we are doing
it for. If this is the meaning of the evening — and no man
sees the daylight sink away and the shadows gather without
sensitively feeling some such meaning in it — then surely we
need it.

^ It is hard to see how, were it not for the continually
repeated, daily stoppages of work, we could remember, as we
need to remember, the great close of work which is coming to
every one of us and may be very near. I picture to myself a
world without an evening, a world with an unsetting daylight,
and with men who never tired at their tasks ; and it seems as if
death in a world like that would be so much more terrible and
mysterious than it is now ; when once a day, for many years, we
have learned that work was not meant to last always, and have
had to drop our tools as if in practice and rehearsal for the great
darkness when we are to let them go for ever.*

" And is the twilight closing fast ?

(I hear the night-breeze wild) ;
And is the long week's work all done ? "

"Thy work is done, my child."

" Must I not rise at dawn of day ?

(The night-breeze swells so wild);
And must I not resume my toil ? "

" No ! nevermore, my child."

^ George Adam Sraitli, The Forgiveness of Sins, 92.
■ Phillips Brooks, Seeki'iig Life, 318.

PSALM CIV. 23 335

•' And may I sleep through all the dark ?

(The wind to-night is wild) ;
And may I rest tired head and feet ? "

" Thou mayest rest, my child."

" And may I fold my feeble hands ?

(Hush ! breezes sad and wild) ;
And may I close these wearied lids ? "

"Yes, close thine eyes, my child."

" Oh, passing sweet these closing hours !

And sweet the night-breeze mild.
And the Sabbath-day that cometh fast ! "

" The Eternal Day, my child."

"The night is gone, clear breaks the dawn,

It rises soft and mild;
Dear Lord ! I see Thee face to face 1 **

" Yes ! face to face, my child."

Leanness of Soul.

PS. XXV.-CXIX. — 2 2

Literature.

Banks (L. A.), David and his Friends, 212.

Din wood ie (J.), Outline Studies. 157.

Eyton (R.), The Search for God, 88.

Holden (J. S.), Life's Flood-Tide, 35.

Jeffs (H.), The Art of Exposition, 133.

Jellett (H.), Sermons on Special and Festival Occasions, 115.

Maclaren (A.), The Book of Psalms (Expositor's Bible), iii. 139.

Murphy (J. B. C), The Service of the Master, 160.

Parker (J.), T]ie City Temple, i. 147.

Perowne (J. J. S.), The Book of Psalms, ii. 223.

Spurgeon (C. H.), The Treasury of David, v. 77, 97.

Voysey (C), Sermons, ix. (1886), No. 47.

Wordsworth (C), Christian Boyhood at a Public School, ii. 189.

saB

Leanness of Soul.

And he gave them their request ;

But sent leanness into their soul. — Ps. cvi. 15.

1. The history of God's past is a record of continuous mercies,
the history of man's is one of as continuous sin. The memory
of the former quickened the Psalmist into his sunny song of
thankfulness in the previous psalm ; that of the latter moves
him to the confessions in this one. The two psalms are comple-
ments of each other, and are connected not only as being both
retrospective, but by the identity of their beginnings and the
difference of their points of view. The parts of the early history
dealt with in the one are lightly touched or altogether omitted in
the other. The key-note of Psalm cv. is, " Eemember his mighty
deeds" ; that of Psalm cvi. is, " They forgot his mighty deeds."

2. After an introduction in some measure like that in Psalm cv.,
the Psalmist plunges into his theme, and draws out the long, sad
story of Israel's faithlessness, of which he recounts seven instances
during the wilderness sojourn. One is the lusting for flesh food
— an evil traced to forgetfulness of God's doings, to which is
added impatient disinchnation to wait the unfolding of His counsel
or plan. These evils cropped up with strange celerity. The
memory of benefits was transient, as if they had been written on
the blown sands of the desert. " They hasted ; they forgot his
works." Of how many of us that has to be said ! We remember
pain and sorrow longer than joy and pleasure. It is always difficult
to bridle desires and be still until God discloses His purposes.
We are all apt to try to force His hand open, and to impose our
wishes on Him, rather than to let His will mould us. So, on
forgetfulness and impatience there followed then, as there follow
still, eager longings after material good and a tempting of God,
who is " tempted " when unbelief demands proofs of His power,

340 LEANNESS OF SOUL

instead of waiting patiently for Him, In Num. xi. 33 Jehovah is
said to have smitten the people " with a very great plague." The
psalm specifies more particularly the nature of the stroke by
calling it "leanness" or "wasting sickness," which invaded the
life of the sinners. The words are true in a deeper sense, though
not so meant. For whoever sets his hot desires in self-willed
fashion on material good, and succeeds in securing their gratifica-
tion, gains with the satiety of his lower sense the loss of a shrivelled
spiritual nature. Full-fed flesh makes starved souls.

Desire and its Gratification.

1. The words of the text have a wider scope than as a
reference to an incident in Israelitish history. ' They tell a sad
story indeed, written in the annals of God's ancient people, but
they call up stories innumerable in the lives of men for whose
example the story was written, but who have failed to profit by
it, and to whose lives there may be appended the same legend,
" He gave them their request ; but sent leanness into their soul."
And if we are like the Israelites, if we forget all that God has
done for the promotion of our happiness here, all that He has
done to fit us for a higher state of being hereafter ; if we will not
wait for His counsel, wait for a time when we shall no longer see
His dealings darkly reflected to us in an imperfect mirror, but
clear before us in the pure atmosphere of heaven ; and if, instead
of patiently bearing with the conditions of our pilgrim life, we
murmur because we cannot have all our wishes gratified, and are
dissatisfied with the restraints under which we may be placed,
is it incredible that God should punish us, as He did them, by
granting us the things upon which we have set our hearts ?

2. It is certain that God does not always interfere to keep us
from sin, for that would frustrate His purpose in wishing us to
grow good by experience, to grow good by first hating evil and
then loving the good so that we may follow and do the good from
a free choice. He will help us if we earnestly desire it, but not
otherwise; for that would be forcing instead of drawing and

PSALM cvi. 15 341

winning our wills to His. By the discipline of experience God
often lets us have our own way, permits us to gain what we
desire, sometimes honourably, at other times dishonourably,
through the mazes of meanness and even of crime. Some desires
are in themselves perfectly innocent and lawful, others vicious
and unlawful. But under the discipline of God the gratification
of desires quite lawful in themselves sometimes leads to our
moral and spiritual injury.

^ God recognizes and respects, at all times, His gift to man
of freewill. God does not, for example, force grace upon the soul.
He does not even, in some cases, reveal Himself except to those
who seek Him. He points out to us indeed the right way.
" Walk in this way," He says, " and it shall be your glory and
your joy." But He does not say, "Walk in it, you shall and
must." And, in like manner, if God sees that our hearts are set
upon something which we have said we must have, at all costs,
He says, " You shall have it — but the consequences of your choice
be upon your own head ! " There is much insight and teaching in
the old fable of Midas, King of Phrygia, who prayed that every-
thing he touched might turn to gold. But his wish, when it was
granted, proved a fatal one, for his very food turned into gold also,
and soon he was starving.^

^ It is well to pray that God should put into our minds good
desires, and that we should use our wills to keep ourselves from
dwelling too much upon small and pitiful desires, for the fear is
that they will be abundantly gratified. And thus when the time
comes for recollection, it is a very wonderful thing to look back
over Hfe, and see how eagerly gracious God has been to us. He
knows very well that we cannot learn the paltry value of the
things we desire, if they are withheld from us, but only if they
are granted to us; and thus we have no reason to doubt His
fatherly intention, because He does so much dispose life to please
us. And we need not take it for granted that He will lead us by
harsh and provocative discipline, though when He grants our
desire, He sometimes sends leanness withal into our sovl.^

3. It does not follow that all pleasure or attainment of desire
is highly dangerous, if not pernicious, and that the welfare of the
soul is incompatible with physical enjoyment. All these con-
clusions are false. The mischief arising from gratification is

' J. B. C. Murphy, The Service of the Master, 165.
* A. C. Benson, Joyous Gard (1913). 91.

342 LEANNESS OF SOUL

caused only by the undue importance which is attached to it, and
not by the gratification itself, so long as it is lawful. The
righteous and loving God, we may be sure, does not grudge us any
one of our pleasures, is not moved with malignity or envy, that
He should seek to revenge Himself for our pleasure by smiting
our souls with the curse of leanness. But He knows the infinite
value of the soul and the necessity for its being properly
nourished and in full vigour, and He must teach us by experience
how immensely more valuable the soul is and how far more
needful it is for us to have our souls in health than to have any
earthly desires satisfied. He did so teach those poets of old
who said " The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands
of gold and silver." " I have esteemed the words of his mouth
more than my necessary food." " Thou art my God, my bliss.
My welfare is nothing without thee." It is to bring us into this
state that, whenever we set our hearts too much upon our own
gratification, our souls are made to suffer for it.'

^ A man may have before him only the attainment of a
perfectly honourable and legitimate ambition. Let such an one,
in the Name of God, go on, and prosper. But if it so be that God
is banished from that man's life because of his ambition — if he
begin to say that he has " no time " for prayer, for the reading of
God's Word, for meditation upon holy tilings, no time for prepara-
tion for Holy Communion — then let him tremble also. He will
get his desire, it may be, but what will that avail him if, when he
has won the prize, it suddenly lose all its value in his eyes and
bruig him no real satisfaction ; if there shall spring up within him
the consciousness of a never-dying, ever-increasing hunger — a
hunger of the soul — a gnawing, a restlessness, a craving, which
God, and God alone, can satisfy and soothe ? And what is all
this but fulness of body and leanness of soul ? ^

4. Mark where the judgment of God falls. It falls on the
highest nature — it falls on the soul ! The man on whom God's
disapprobation rests, withers at his very root. His mental power
declines, his moral nature shrivels ; he goes down in the volume
and quality of his being. Think of a lean soul ! Ko compass,
no grandeur, no tenderness of manhood ! A lean soul, narrow,
stunted, withered, sapless, blind, deaf, idiotic ! The man would
have his prize ; he would set up his own wisdom ; he would be as
1 J. B. C. Murphy, The Service of the MaaUr, 167.

PSALM cvi. 15 343

God unto himself ; and now look at him, and see how hunger-
bitten and ghastly is his dishonoured soul. We know the horror,
the ghastliness, of external emaciation brought about by illness,
when man or woman becomes literally skin and bone. What
a suggestion such a sight conveys of the possibilities of inward
emaciation ! Beneath the sleek, prosperous, well-fed, comfortable
appearance, what if there be, hidden from men but open before
God, a horrible emaciation in a man's real self-leanness of soul !

^ You have heard of the white ant that commits such terrible
devastations in wooden buildings in some portions of the globe.
Tliat little insect will insert itself into the largest wooden
structure that men can put up, and in course of time it will eat
away the whole of it, leaving nothing but the thinnest outer shell ;
the building will look as if nothing had befallen it ; the shape
will be unaltered ; but put your finger upon it, or bring the
slightest pressure to bear upon it, and you will find that it is no
longer solid, but a hollow and useless outline. Is there not a
more terrible power that enters into the inner nature of man, and
utterly consumes all that is strong and noble and beautiful in his
soul ? 1

II.

The Lower Satisfaction.

1. Of how many is it true that the attainment of wealth and
the gratification of ambition have not satisfied an ever-increasing
longing for more, and that the happiness which they were expected
to secure is ever marred by a leanness that enters into the soul.
Moral and spiritual decline often follows the too eager pursuit of
earthly things. " They that will be rich," says the Apostle, " fall
into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hui tful
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." How must
it be in this money-loving age with the many whose whole souls
are filled with this fatal desire, and how terrible is the spiritual
leanness of a soul from which the love of money has wholly
driven out the love of God ! So far as our outward circumstances
are concerned, our fullest request may have been granted. We
may have estates, titles, honours; men may wait for our word,
and follow our guidance in all secular speculations and engage-

* Josuph Parker.

344 LEANNESS OF SOUL

ments ; and yet it may be said of us, " In thy lifetime thou
reeeivedst thy good things" — so, with the request on the one
hand answered to the utmost, we have on the other a soul that
has been dwarfed almost up to the point of extinction.

^ There is a deep lesson to be read in a strange picture by
Burne Jones, called " The Depths of the Sea." A mermaid, beauti-
ful in face, but hideously repellent in her scaly train, has flung
her arms around a youth, and is dragging him down through the
green waters to her cave. In her face is the intense malignity
of cruel triumph and cruel scorn ; in the youth's face is the agony
of frustration and of death. And the motto below is, "Habes
tota quod mente petisti, Infelix ! " — " Thou hast what thou sought-
est with all thy soul, unhappy one." Oh that it were in my
power to preach to all young men a sermon of meaning so intense
as that picture ! The mermaid, like the Siren of mythology, like
the strange woman of the Proverbs, is the harlot Sense. She is
the type of carnal temptation, ending in disillusion, shame, anguish,
death. It is the meaning of the saying of the rabbis, " The demons
come to us smiling and beautiful : when they have done their
work, they drop their mask." It is the meaning of Solomon :
" But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guesta
are in the depths of hell." God has granted to that youth his
heart's desire, and sent leanness withal into his bones. He has
got what he passionately longed for, and it is — death ! ^

^ " But sent leanness into their soul." Ah, that " but " ! It
embittered all. The meat was poison to them when it came
without a blessing : whatever it might do in fattening the body,
it was poor stuff when it made the soul lean. If we must know
scantiness, may God grant it may not be scantiness of soul : yet
this is a common attendant upon worldly prosperity. When
wealth grows with many a man his worldly estate is fatter, but
his soul's state is leaner. To gain silver and lose gold is a poor
increase ; but to win for the body and lose for the soul is far
worse. How earnestly might Israel have unprayed her prayers
had she known what would come with their answer ! The prayers
of lust will have to be wept over. We fret and fume till we have
our desire, and then we have to fret still more because the attain-
ment of it ends in bitter disappointment.^

2. We must guard against the mistake — into which we may

so easily fall — of applying the text and the lessons to be drawn

' F. W. Farrar, Social and Present Day Questions, 174.
' C. H. Spurgeou.

PSALM cvi. 15 345

from it only to the rich and prosperous, whereas it applies to them
in exactly the same sense as it applies to every one, whether he
be rich or poor, who is in the state of earnest desire for some
earthly good or who is in the state of satisfied desire, a content-
ment wholly derived from possession or gratification. And this
experience is to be met with in all classes, among all sorts and
conditions of men. The Israelites, of whom the words of the
text were spoken, were certainly not among the rich, but at
the time were poor and afflicted — or thought themselves so —
and were therefore all the more in danger of the ill effects of full
gratification.

^ There are business men in our city to-day who have schemed
for a future which, if analysed, would disclose nothing but a care-
ful regard for personal and domestic comfort. I can give you
the brief programme of such men : it runs after this fashion —
country, garden, quietness, out-door amusements. They are at
perfect liberty to leave the city, to abandon the poor, to get away
from all that is foetid, noisome, and otherwise offensive; but let
them beware lest, in reaching this supposed heaven, they find
that they have gone in the wrong direction, and that where they
expected heaven to begin they find that they have only reached
the outward edge of earth.^

^ There is a German folk story of a very poor charcoal burner
who had a kind heart and was always doing good turns to people.
He often wished that he were rich that he might help still more.
One day in the forest a wicked-looking gnome appeared and told
him he would make him rich on one condition. He must exchange
his heart of flesh for a wonderful mechanical stone heart that the
gnome had made and kept in his workshop in a cave underneath
the forest. The poor man did not like the condition, but was
tempted and consented to the bargain. He was cast into a deep
sleep and when he awoke the exchange had been effected and he
felt the stone heart working within him with perfect regularity,
but it was cold, very cold. When he got back to the village
everybody noticed the change. He was harsh, overbearing, a
changed man ; riches came to him ; everything he touched turned
to gold, but the richer he grew, the colder seemed the heart,
and when old age crept upon him he longed to be poor again
and have back his warm human heart. That is a modern way of
saying that the man got his request, but leanness came to
his soul."

* Joseph Parker. * H. Jeflfs.

346 LEANNESS OF SOUL

III.

The Higiier Satisfaction.

1. How are we to avoid the creeping over us of this insidious
disease — leanness of soul ? The Apostle shall answer : — " Set your
affections on things above." We conquer by the force and direc-
tion of desire. Desire is, in the moral world, like the law of
gravitation in the natural world — it determines man's relations
to beings and objects around him. Desire is the raw material of
goodness or wickedness, and tlius it has everything to do with the
formation of character. There is no power like it. Hence the
importance attached in the Bible to strong wishes : " Ask, and
ye shall have " ; " Seek, and ye shall find " ; " Knock, and it
shall be opened unto you." Wishes are in truth prayers. We
do not pray only when we utter conscious prayers. Every time
we wish for anything, our Father understands our wishes.

2. The great lesson, then, which we have to learn from this
text is to say from the heart, with trembling yet earnest love,
"Not my will but thine be done." That is the lesson ; but where
is the school in which it can be learned ? The school is called
Calvary. There is no other school in which this lesson is taught.
Men may try to reason themselves into it ; men may try by fine
philosophy to come to a point of resignation that shall yield them
high advantages ; but all their labour will be in vain. We must
be slain on the Saviour's cross ; we must enter fully into the pain
which our Saviour endured ; our hands and our feet must be nailed
to the accursed yet blessed tree ; the very last desire of our selfish-
ness must be extinguished, and then shall we come into the joy
and the infinite peace of walking with God. Whither are our
desires tending ? In which direction are they bearing us, upwards
or downwards ? Are we letting ourselves drift towards some
crisis which is the culmination of a gradual deterioration, and
which may leave us with what we want (or think that we want),
at the cost of everything which makes life worth living ? Is desire
more and more concentrated on the material, the sensuous ? Is
some accomplishment or some passing interest utterly possessing
us, and are we becoming lean within — without faith, without

PSALM cvi. 15 347

sympathy, without self-respect, without generosity, letting others
minister to us without giving aught in return ? If so, it may be
well to look on to the end. A day and hour will come when desire
will be manifested ; when the true, deep-seated desire of each soul
will be seen. Now there are restraints that hinder its manifesta-
tion ; there are all sorts of considerations and motives which are
keeping us back and causing us to hide our real desires. Then
every man's true aim and object, as well as every man's work, will
be manifested ; each one, freed from constraint, will turn to his
own way. The lips of the Judge need not open to pronounce any
sentence. He but lifts off each constraining law, each limiting
infirmity, each instrument of education, and the result speaks for
itself. Each soul, by its own inner tendency, seeks its own place.
Father and son, brother and brother, sister and sister, wife and
husband, each with the old habitual restraints lifted off them,
turn to their own place — the one goes by an inner power to the
right, the other to the left. It needs no angel to guide or urge
them on. Each one turns to his own desire, to fulness or leanness,
to heaven or hell.

" He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him." " Delight
thyself also in the Lord ; and he shall give thee the desires of
thine heart." " 0 rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him ;
and he will give thee thine heart's desire." It is true we have to
wait ; it is true that we have to find our way to rest often through
many very hvimbling disappointments ; but because the mouth of
the Lord hath spoken, we may be sure that the denial of our
prayers is one of the Divine blessings which fall to our lot, and
that when we perish in the outward man the inward man is
blessed with the renewal which will be consummated in the
imperishable and unmingled bliss of heaven. Let us dare to
desire, to wish, to ask for as our chief good, to be like Christ ; to
have reproduced within us that loveliness of character, that
tenderness of sympathy, that strength of endurance, that calm-
ness under suffering, that patient self-possession which character-
ized Him. We cannot see in His life anything but beauty. Let
us dare to wish, to long, to pray, to struggle to be like Him,
and He will give us our desire, and send fulness undreamt of —
the fulness of love, and faith, and strength, and patience — into our
inmost soul.

348 LEANNESS OF SOUL

^ Goodness and happiness are not one yet ; and their conflict
oscillates through the centuries from asceticism on the one side to
riot on the other, and from Puritanism to Stuart licence. This
ever-recurring oscillation indicates a beautiful truth laid bare by
our Lord. James Hinton devoted almost all his books to this
conflict of goodness and happiness, and pointed out that our Lord
had solved their conflict. The human heart desires happiness, and,
at the same time, righteousness. A most wholesome thing it is
to desire happiness. A heart that does not desire happiness is one
with which I should be very sorry to have much to do. Happi-
ness is a legitimate and a God-implanted desire, of which men and
women need never be ashamed provided they link it to goodness.
But the linking of it to goodness is only to be done by using self
for others' good. That is what Hinton points out as the sum of
our Lord's teaching for this life, and the conditions which are
to be perfect conditions here we may assume to be entrance
conditions of the life which is to come.^

The awakening swan grows tired at laSt
Of weltering pastures where he feeds;

With wings and feet behind him cast,
He cleaves the labyrinth of the reeds.

He arches out his sparkling plumes,

He wades and plunges, till he finds
Beneath his breast the azure glooms

Where the great river brims and winds.

Then, with white sails set to the breeze,

The current cold about his feet,
He fares to those Hesperides

Where morning and his comrades meet.

Nor — since within his kindling veins

A livelier ichor stirs at last —
Regrets the gross and juicy stains,

The saps and savours of the past;

But through the august and solemn void

Of misty waters holds his way,
By some ecstatic thirst decoyed

Towards raptures of the radiant day.

1 The Life of William Denny, 319.

PSALM cvi. 15 349

So sails the soul, and cannot rest,

Inglorious, in the marsh of peace,
But leaves the good, to seek the best.

Though all its calms and comforts cease, —

Though what it seems to hold be lost,

Though that grow far which once was nigh, —

By torturing hope in anguish tossed.
The awakened soul must sail or die.*

1 Edmund Gobse, In Eusset and iSilver,

A Volunteer Army.

Literature.

Ball (C. J.), Testimonies to Christ, 209.

Critchley (G.), WTien the Angels have gone Away, 163.

Duff (R. S.), Pleasant Places, 120.

Henderson (A.), Sermons, 9.

Macgregor (W. M.), Jesus Christ the Son of God, 52.

Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, iii. 321.

Meyer (F. B.), Christian Living, 62.

Morrison (G. H.), Flood^Tide, 282.

Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vii. 129.

Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, ii. No, 74.

„ „ Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xlvii. (1901), No. 2724.

Tipple (S. A.), Days of Old, 200.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons to Children, i. 132.

„ „ Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xiv. (1884), No. 1291.

3S3

A Volunteer Army.

Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy power :
In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning-,
Thou hast the dew of thy youth.— Ps. ex. 3.

1. This psalm was composed by some patriotic Hebrew poet on
the sallying forth of the king to war, to whom he hears Jehovah
promising support and success in the coming campaign, and sees
in imagination Jehovah Himself accompanying the king as his
chariot rolled away, driving with him, seated by his side, to the
battle. Fired by this vision, he pictures him triumphantly
victorious over his foes, their power shattered, and the field
heaped with their dead bodies ; while he describes the enthusiasm
of the people for the sovereign and his cause, the readiness with
which they flock to follow him on his march to the frontier, the
great multitude eager to put themselves at his disposal for the
fray ; and the splendid appearance of the troops, in their glittering
armour, like priests clad in sacred vestments, or victims decked
for the sacrifice, innumerable and brilliant as dew-drops from the
womb of morning, and fresh as dew in comprising all the fine
youth, all the young blood and vigour of the land.

But in the course of time the psalm came to be read as a
prophetic description of what should be achieved by the future
Messiah of whom the nation dreamt ; to whom, indeed, would be
the gathering of the people ; who would prove the champion of
Israel's redemption, and of whose Kingdom and dominion there
would be no end. His name enduring for ever. His name continu-
ing as long as the sun throughout all generations.

^ This was a favourite psalm of Luther's. "The 110th," he

says, " is very fine. It describes the kingdom and priesthood of

Jesus Christ, and declares Him to be the King of all things and

the intercessor for all men ; to whom all things have been remitted

PS. xxv.-cxix. — 23

354 A VOLUNTEER ARMY

by His Father, and who has compassion on us all. 'Tis a noble
psalm ; if I were well, I would endeavour to make a Commentary
upon it." ^

2. In accordance with the warlike tone of the whole psalm,
the subjects of the monarch are described as an army. The
military metaphor comes out more clearly when we attach the
true meaning to the words, " in the day of thy power " : Calvin
translates, " at the time of the assembling of their army " — " au
jour des montres," " in the day of the review." And the meaning
is, " Thy subjects shall be ready in the day when thou dost muster
thy forces, and set them in array for the war."

Patriots.

"Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy power."

1. The subjects of the King are true patriots. There are no
mercenaries in these ranks, no pressed men. The soldiers are all
volunteers.

There are two kinds of submission and service. There is sub-
mission because you cannot help it, and there is submission be-
cause you like it. There is a sullen bowing down beneath the
weight of a hand which you are too feeble to resist, and there is a
glad surrender to a love which it would be a pain not to obey.
Some of us feel that we are shut in by immense and sovereign
power which we cannot oppose. And yet, like some raging rebel
in a dungeon, or some fluttering bird in a cage, we beat ourselves
all bruised and bloody against the bars in vain attempts at
liberty, alternating with fits of cowed apathy as we slink into a
corner of our cell. Some of us, however, feel that we are en-
closed on every side by that mighty hand which none can resist,
and from which we would not stray if we could ; and we joyfully
hide beneath its shelter, and gladly obey when it points. Con-
strained obedience is no obedience. Unless there be the glad
surrender of the will and heart, there is no surrender at alL

^ R. E. Prothero, The Psalms in Human Life, 122.

PSALM ex. 3 355

God does not want compulsory submission. He does not care to
rule over people who are only crushed down by greater power.
He does not count that those serve who sullenly acquiesce be-
cause they dare not oppose. Christ seeks for no pressed men in
His ranks. Whosoever does not enlist joyfully is not reckoned aa
His.

^ An ironic historian sets side by side Frederick the Great's
account of the performance of his troops in one battle and a home
letter of a recruit engaged in it. " Never," says Frederick, " have
my troops done such marvels in point of gallantry, never since it
has been my honour to lead them." And the soldier tells his
squalid story, of men driven into battle with blows from sergeants'
canes, skulking, when they could, behind walls, and taking the
opportunity of passing through a vineyard to desert in scores.
Frederick won many battles, but he won them in spite of a
detestable system, and this poet finds a promise of triumph for
his King in the glad loyalty with which He inspires His soldiers.^

2. The soldiers are not only volunteers ; they are animated by
a spirit of self-surrender and sacrifice. The word here rendered
" willing " is employed throughout the Levitical law for " freewill
offerings." It is a striking word in the Hebrew. We have a
similar idea in Ps. Ixviii. 9, where we are told that God has poured
forth a refreshing rain for His inheritance because it is weary.
And as we receive the refreshing rain of God's Holy Spirit from
heaven, in order that we may become a river pouring out His
riches, so the real meaning of the Hebrew is this, " Thy people
shall become a freewill offering in the day of thy power." It is
in that host as it was in the army whose heroic self-devotion was
chanted by Deborah under her palm tree — " The people willingly
offered themselves." Hence came courage, devotion, victory.
With their lives in their hands they flung themselves on the foe,
and nothing could stand against the onset of men who recked not
of themselves.

For there is this one grand thing even about the devilry of
war — the transcendent self-abnegation with which, however poor
and unworthy may be the cause, a man casts himself away, " what
time the foeman's line is broke." The poorest, most vulgar, most
animal natures rise for a moment into something like nobility, as

* W. M. Macgregor, Jesus Christ Uie Son o/ God, §9.

356 A VOLUNTEER ARMY

the surge of the strong emotion lifts them to that height of
heroism. Life is then most glorious when it is given away for a
great cause. That sacrifice is the one noble and chivalrous
element which gives interest to war, the one thing that can be
disentangled from its hideous associations, and can be transferred
to higher regions of life. That spirit of lofty consecration and
utter self-forgetfulness must be ours, if we would be Christ's
soldiers. Our obedience will then be glad when we feel the force
of, and yield to, that gentle persuasive entreaty, " I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice."

^ "I raised such men," said Cromwell, " as had the fear of
God before them, as made some conscience of what they did ; and
from that day forward, I must say they were never beaten."

^ To be true to himself, to renounce nothing which he knew
to be good and yet bring all things captive to the obedience of
Christ, was the problem before him. He hesitated long before he
could believe that such a solution was possible. His heart was
with this rich, attractive world of human life, in the multiplicity
and wealth of its illustrations, until it was revealed to him that it
assumed a richer but a holier aspect when seen in the light of
God. But to this end, he must submit his will to the Divine will
in the spirit of absolute obedience. Here the struggle was deep
and prolonged. It was a moral struggle mainly, not primarily
intellectual or emotional. He feared that he should lose some-
thing in sacrificing his own will to God's will. How the gulf was
bridged he could not tell. He wrote down as one of the first of
the texts on which he should preach, " Thy people shall be willing
in the day of thy power," with the comment that " willingness is
the first Christian step." Thus the conversion of Phillips Brooks
becomes a representative process of his age. So far as the age
has been great, through science or through literature, its greatness
passed into bis soul. The weakness of his age, its sentimentalism,
its fatalism, ho o\ercame in himself when he made the absolute
surrender of his will to God. All that he had hitherto loved and
cherished as the highest, instead of being lost, was given back to
him in fuller measure. To the standard he had now raised there
rallied great convictions and blessed experiences, the sense of the
unity of life, tlie harmony of the whole creation, the consciousness
of joy in being alive, the conviction that heaven is the goal of
earth.i

* Phillip$ Brooks : Memories of his Life, by A. V. G. Allen, 82.

PSALM ex. 3 357

11.

Patriot-Priests.

" In the beauties of holiness."

The phrase " in the beauty of holiness " is frequently used for
the sacerdotal garments, the holy festal attire of the priests of the
Lord. So the soldiers are priests as well as patriots.

1. The King and Leader is Himself a Priest of God's making,
another Melchizedek. In different ages of the world there have
been men in whom a certain native priestliness has been apparent,
men born to bring others into the secrets of God, and seeming to
need no introduction or furtherance themselves ; men who, in the
Scots phrase, are " far ben," for they always, with unveiled face,
see God. It is their task to make the hidden things apprehensible
to those who belong to the rough world outside. And God's King,
when He comes, will be a priest of that kind, whose priesthood is
a matter of native endowment and not of human ordination.

The mediaeval emperor was a deacon in the Eoman Church,
just as the pope, on his side, was a great secular prince. In
Israel, too, the king had something of priestly rank. But here is
no such fictitious dignity. " Thou art a priest of my making,"
says God, " another Melchizedek." Professor Davidson comments
on the picture which is given us of Melchizedek — without father,
without mother, without descent. " He passes over the stage a
king, a priest, living ; that sight of him is all we ever get. He is
like a portrait having always the same qualities, presenting
always the same aspect, looking down on us always with the same
eyes, which turn and follow us wherever we may stand — always
royal, always priestly, always individual, and neither receiving nor
imparting what he is, but being all in virtue of himself."

The conquering King whom the psalm hymns is a Priest for
ever ; and He is followed by an army of priests. The soldiers are
gathered in the day of the muster, with high courage and willing
devotion, ready to fling away their lives ; but they are clad not in
mail, but in priestly robes, like those who wait before the altar rather
than like those who plunge into the fight, like those who compassed

358 A VOLUNTEER ARMY

Jericho with the ark for their standard and tlie trumpets for all
their weapons. We can scarcely fail to remember the words which
echo these and interpret them. The armies which were in heaven
followed Him on white horses, clothed in tine linen, white and clean.
Christina Kossetti comments on the strangeness of such
armour against cut of sword and thrust of spear. But the
suggestion is that the soldiers have one heart with their Leader,
and are great in consecration like Himself. They go out after
Him where hard blows are struck, where there is turmoil and
shouting and the burden of the weary day, but they go as priests.
That warfare which belongs to the extension of the Kingdom of
God calls for services which may often be sordid and ugly and
painful ; but when they are rightly rendered they are as sacred
and as acceptable as any incense offering in the dim seclusion of a
temple. The one priestly sacrifice worth speaking of which men
can render is the offering of a heart given willingly to the Divine
service: and the cause is sure to prevail which can count on
volunteers of that complexion.

^ Dr. Butler, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, writing
of Keith-Falconer, who had been one of his pupils at Harrow,
says : " I do not think our dear friend and I had any further
communication with each other till the end of last year (1886),
when I received from him at Davos-Platz a most kind letter of
congratulation on my appointment to the Mastership of Trinity.
He told me also of the plan which he had formed for going to
Aden, and there employing his knowledge of Arabic for missionary
purposes. The result of this generous enterprise we know but
too well. The work was scarcely begun before it reached its
earthly end. To those who believe in the abiding results of
devotion to the cause and the Person of Christ, his short life will
not seem a failure. His image will remain fresh in the hearts of
many as of a man exceptionally noble and exceptionally winning,
recalling to them their own highest visions of unselfish service to
God and man, and helping them to hold fast the truth that in the
spiritual world nothing but self-sacrifice is permanently fruitful,
and that the seed of a truly Christian life is never quickened
except it die." ^

2. The priestly attire sup^gests that the great power which we
are to wield in our Christian warfare is character. Purity of
^ B. Sinker, Memorial* qf the Hon. Ion Keitfi- Falconer, 28.

PSALM ex. 3 359

heart and life, transparent simple goodness, manifest in men's
sight — these will arm us against dangers, and these will bring our
brethren glad captives to our Lord. We serve Him best, and
advance His Kingdom most, when the habit of our souls is that
righteousness with which He invests our nakedness. Be like your
Lord, and as His soldiers you will conquer, and as His priests you
will win some to His love and fear. Nothing else will avail
without that. Without that dress no man finds a place in the
ranks.

^ " I have known many a man," says Thoreau, " who pretended
to be a Christian ; but it was ridiculous, for he had no genius for
it." This poet was persuaded that his King would go far because
of the temper of the people. " They offer themselves willingly ;
in holy, beautiful garments they come, fresh, young, countless like
dew at the dawn." ^

^ Turn your energies towards your moral cultivation. In doing
so you will accumulate imperishable riches. All that your worldly
care can bring will be the doubtful possession of riches of doubtful
value. In the possession of the moral wealth of a noble and
disciplined character, you possess that which can neither wither
nor be stolen. What we have we must leave at the threshold of
the grave. What we are goes with us into the other world.
Eiches will drop from our dying hand into the grasp of others.
Character passes with us into the presence of God. Character is
everything. This, rather than worldly riches, is the true end of
life. Tlie perfecting of this is the true purpose of God in life.^

^ Few things tell on character more surely and precisely than
the goal on which the heart is set and the temper in which that
goal is sought. And certainly the Christian character, as it
appears in Christ-like lives, does not look at all as though it had
been formed and fostered and determined by a mercenary attention
to a selfish aim. For the faculties and the capacity that grow in
those who try to be true to Christ in daily life are strikingly ill-
suited for the opportunities of enjoyment which might be imagined
in a heaven of selfishness. Christians do not grow in the capacity
for selfish pleasure, nor attain an exceptional power of relishing to
the utmost a separate and individual gratification. The faculty
which they develop is the faculty of self-denial; of glad, un-
hindered self-forgetf uluess for others' sake ; of delighting in good-
ness and eliciting what is best in others ; of simple, cheerful,
unclouded self-surrender. These, and such as these, are the

1 W. M. Macgregor. ^ Bishop Boyd Carpenter.

36o A VOLUNTEER ARMY

powers that accrue to those who choose the Christian life ; and it
is strange if the way along which they are acquired is a way of
self-seeking ; strange if, in striving towards a paradise of selfish
pleasure, there is formed a character which would be as wretched
there as a selfish character in the heaven of the saints. Sui'ely it
is a very different sort of aim and quest that is betrayed in the
development of the Christian character and in the lines on which
it presses forward ; its preparation through the discipline of this
life is for something else than what is here called pleasure or
success ; the faculties that are strengthened with its strength must
have a work surpassing all our thoughts, and the capacity it
brings can never be satisfied with aught that is created. For, in
truth, the Christian character prophesies of this — that God has
made us for Himself ; and that there is neither rest, nor goal, nor
joy for man, save in His love.^

III.

Patriot-Priests in Perpetual Youth.

"From the womb of the tnorningf, thou hast the dew of thy youth."

Alexander Henderson, expounding this passage, says : " The
words are somewhat obscure even to the learned ear, but look to
the 133rd Psalm, and there ye will see a place to help to clear
them. Always (however) observe here, * from the womb of the
morning, thou hast the dew of thy youth,' that as in a May
morning, when there is no extremity of heat, the dew falls so thick
that all the fields are covered with it, and it falls in such a secret
manner that none sees it fall, so the Lord, in the day of His
power, He shall multiply His people, and He shall multiply them
in a secret manner ; so that it is marvellous to the world, that
once there should seem to be so few or none of them, and then
incontinent He should make them to be through all estates."

1. The " dew of thy youth " has often been understood to
mean the fresh youthful energy attributed by the psalm to the
Priest-King. It has been suggested that the historical setting
of the psalm is to be found in the Maccabean period. The heroic
Judas had fallen in battle. Only one Maccabee remained, an
' Francis Paget, Studies in the Cliristian Character.

PSALM ex. 3 361

elder brother, Simon, who had been passed over till this time —
a great man and a wise one, it would seem, who had deliberately
and unselfishly stood aside while his younger brethren had been
doing theii mighty work. He had been their lieutenant, counsellor,
helper in every way. " The father of them all " was the affection-
ate title which he bore among them ; the organizer and statesman
of the valiant band ; one of those strong, keen, silent souls who
are content to work in obscurity, so that the grand object is
obtained, but who often have more real power than those who
stand glittering in the front. But now his time was come — come
when he was apparently more than sixty years of age. He rose
to the occasion; he took the critical and dangerous place. He
went up to Jerusalem, stood among the excited and trembling
multitude, and said : " Ye yourselves know what great things I
and my brethren and my father's house have done for the laws
and the sanctuary. You know the battles and troubles we have
seen, by reason whereof all my brethren are slain for Israel's sake,
and I am left alone. Now therefore, be it far from me that I
should spare mine own life in any time of trouble, for I am no
better than my brethren, I will defend my nation and the
sanctuary, and our wives and our children, though all the heathen
be gathered together to destroy us for very malice."

The people gazed upon the grand old man. They watched his
kindling eye, his martial bearing; they saw the fires of a still
youthful spirit burning in the aged frame, and they answered with
a loud voice, " Thou shalt be our leader. Fight thou our battles,
and whatsoever thou commandest us, we will do." Then they
brought him into the temple, clothed him in the sacred robes,
placed the tiara upon his head, and saluted him as the great
Priest-King of Israel: and it may be that this 110th Psalm
preserves the memory of the coronation anthem sung at that
service in the temple when the old man with the brave young
heart inside him stood before the awestruck multitudes and took
the perilous honour of the lofty place. A joy-shout of the people
finds its echo in the text, " From the breaking of the morning,
thou hast the dew of thy youth " ; that is to say, " Though aged, it
is upon thee still."

T] Certain leaders in their young days have led their troops to
battle, and, by the loudness of their voice, and the strength of

362 A VOLUNTEER ARMY

their bodies, have inspired their men with courage; hue the old
warrior hath his hair sown with grey; he begins to be decrepit,
and no longer can lead men to battle. It is not so vith Jesus
Christ. He has still the dew of His youth. The same Christ
who led His troops to battle in His early youth leads them now.
The arm which smote the sinner with His word smites now ; it is
as unpalsied as it was before. The eye which looked upon His
friends with gladness, and upon His foemen with a glance most
stern and high — that same eye is regarding us now, undimmed,
like that of Moses. He has the dew of His youth.^

^ As I witness the energies of nature, I feel that the heart
that fashioned it was young. There is no sign of age about crea-
tion. There is no trace of the weariness of years. It is inspired
with an abounding energy that tells me of a fresh and youthful
mind. Christ may have lived from everlasting ages before the
moment of creation came ; but the eternal morning was still upon
His brow when He conceived and bodied out the world. There
are the powers of youth in it. There are the energies of opening
life. " Thou hast the dew of thy youth." 2

2. We may however take " youth " to be a collective noun,
equivalent to young men. In that case the army is described as
a host of young warriors, led forth in their fresh strength and
countless numbers and gleaming beauty, like the dew of the
morning. Did you never see the dew-drops glistening on the
earth ? and did you never ask, " Whence came these ? How came
they here so infinite in number, so lavishly scattered everywhere,
80 pure and brilliant ? " Nature whispered the answer, " They
came from the womb of the morning." So God's people will come
forth as noiselessly, as mysteriously, as divinely, as if they came
" from the womb of the morning," like the dew-drops. Science
has laboured to discover the origin of dew, and perhaps has
guessed it ; but to the Eastern, one of the greatest riddles was.
Out of whose womb came the dew ? Who is the mother of those
pearly drops ? Now, so will God's people come mysteriously.
Again, the dew-drops — who made them ? Do kings and princes
rise up and hold their sceptres, and bid the clouds shed tears, or
affright them to weeping by the beating of the drum ? Do armies
march to the battle to force the sky to give up its treasure, and
scatter its diamonds lavishly? No; God speaks; He whispers in
* 0. H. Spurgeon. ' G. H. MonisoQ, FloodTuU, 286.

PSALM ex. 3 363

the ears of nature, and it weeps for joy at the glad news that the
morning is coming. God does it ; there is no apparent agency
employed, no thunder, no lightning ; God has done it. That is
how God's people shall be saved ; they come forth from the
" womb of the morning"; divinely called, divinely brought, divinely
blessed, divinely numbered, divinely scattered over the entire
surface of the globe, divinely refreshing to the world, they proceed
from the " womb of the morning."

% When you go out, delighted, into the dew of the morning,
have you ever considered why it is so rich upon the grass ; — why
it is not upon the trees ? It is partly on the trees, but yet your
memory of it will be always chiefly of its gleam upon the lawn.
On many trees you will find there is none at all. I cannot follow
out here the many inquiries connected with this subject, but,
broadly remember the branched trees are fed chiefly by rain, — the
unbranched ones by dew, visible or invisible ; that is to say, at all
events by moisture which they can gather for themselves out of
the air ; or else by streams and springs. Hence the division of
the verse of the song of Moses : " My doctrine shall drop as the
rain ; my speech shall distil as the dew : as the small rain upon
the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." ^

^ Until I heard from my friend Mr. Tyrwhitt of the cold felt
at night in camping on Sinai, I could not understand how deep
the feeling of the Arab, no less than the Greek, must have been
respecting the Divine gift of the dew, — nor with what sense of
thankfulness for miraculous blessing the question of Job would be
uttered, " The hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it ? "
Then compare the first words of the blessing of Isaac : " God give
thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of earth " ; and,
again, the first words of the song of Moses : " Give ear, oh ye
heavens, — for my speech shall distil as the dew " ; and you will
see at once why this heavenly food (manna) was made to shine
clear in the desert, like an enduring of its dew ; — Divine remaining
for continual need. Frozen, as the Alpine snow — pure for ever.*

3. The soldiers of this King retain their youth. He who has
fellowship with God, and lives in the constant reception of the
supernatural life and grace which come from Jesus Christ,
possesses the secret of perpetual youth. The world ages us, time
and physical changes tell on us all, and the strength which belongs

* Ruskin, Proserpina, i. chap. iii. § 22.
' Ruskin, Deucalion, i. chap. vii. § 12.

364 A VOLUNTEER ARMY

to the life of nature ebbs away ; but the life eternal is subject to
no laws of decay and owes nothing to the external world. So we
may be ever young in heart and spirit. It is possible for a man
to carry the freshness, the buoyancy, the elastic cheerfulness, the
joyful hope of his earliest days, right on through the monotony of
middle-aged maturity, and even into old age shadowed by the long
reflection of the tombs which the setting sun casts over the path.
It is possible for us to grow younger as we grow older, because we
drink more full draughts of the fountain of life, and so to have
to say at the last, " Thou hast kept the good wine until now."
" Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men
shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength." If we live near Christ, and draw our life from
Him, then we may blend the hopes of youth with the experience
and memory of age ; be at once calm and joyous, wise and strong,
preserving the blessedness of each stage of life into that which
follows, and thus at last possessing the sweetness and the good of
all at once. We may not only bear fruit in old age, but have
buds, blossoms, and fruit — the varying product and adornment
of every stage of life united in our characters.

A man is not old, however hoary and bent, who is conversing,
as Emerson says, with what is above him, with the religious eye
looking upward, and abandoned the while with delight to the
inspirations flowing in from all sides. A man is not old in
whom the faculty of imagination is undecayed, who throbs with
sympathy as eager and strong as ever for whatsoever is just and
lovely and pure and true ; whose mind, still responsive and aspir-
ing, is fully open to new thoughts and new ideas, and cherishes
dreams of the ideal ; upon whom no weight of custom or of habit
lies so heavily that he cannot move out of grooves under the
direction of some felt better way, or who carries with him the
optimism which, without hiding its face from the dark and ugly
facts of existence, can front them smilingly, and sing its song in
defiance of them, because of faith in humanity and trust in the
divine purpose of the Universe. A man is not old, who is at one
with Michael Angelo when, just bofore he died on the verge of
ninety, he carved an allegorical tlgure, and inscribed on it in large
letters, " Still learning," or whose heart echoes Kobert Browning,
when he sang :

PSALM ex. 3 365

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all nor be afraid ! "

^ 1st December 1895. A pleasant party at York House. The
conversation straying to Watts, Miss Lawless, who was sitting on
one side of me, mentioned that he had said to her : " I think I am
quite accurate in telling you that I saw the sun rise every day
last summer," and Mrs. Tyrrell, who was sitting on my other side,
told us that he had said to her : " I am seventy-eight, and I hope
still to do my best work." ^

4. The soldier of the cross should exercise in the world a
gracious refreshing influence, like the dew. The dew, formed in
the silence of the darkness while men sleep, falling as willingly
on a bit of dead wood as anywhere, hanging its pearls on every
poor spike of grass, and dressing everything on which it lies with
strange beauty, each separate globule tiny and evanescent, but each
flashing back the light, and each a perfect sphere, feeble one by
one, but united mighty to make the pastures of the wilderness
rejoice — so, created in silence by an unseen influence, feeble when
taken in detail but strong in their myriads, glad to occupy the
lowliest place, and each " bright with something of celestial light,"
Christian men and women are to be in the midst of many people
as dew from the Lord.

^ The personal influence of Henry Bradshaw (the librarian at
Cambridge University) was extraordinary. It was not gained by
any arts,nor did he ever manifest theslightest wish to interfere or to
exercise influence. One just knew him to be a man of guileless life,
laborious, high-principled, incapable of any sort of meanness or
malice. To love is to understand everything, says the French
proverb. It is not easy really to improve people by scolding
them or lecturing them, but if one knows that a generous, un-
suspicious, high-minded man has a real aflfection for one, it is
impossible not to be restrained by the thought from acting in a
way that he would disapprove. Bradshaw's influence over the
men he knew was stronger than the influence of any other man
at Cambridge. But his affection was sisterly — if one can use the

^ M. E. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary, 1892-95, ii. 290.

366 A VOLUNTEER ARMY

word — rather than paternal. He was fond of little demonstra-
tions of affection, would pat and stroke one's hand as he talked,
and yet there was never the least shadow of sentimentality about
it. I have never heard any one suggest that there was anything
weak or unmanly about his tenderness. It was preserved from
that by his critical judgment, his excellent sense, his power of
saying the most incisive things, and the irony which, however
lambent, had got a very clear cutting edge, and which he was
always ready to use if there was occasion. If any one traded on
the affection of Bradshaw or counted on indulgence, he was sure
to be instantly and kindly snubbed. It was more that there was
an atmosphere of intimacy and confidence in one's relations with
him, which pervaded the time spent in his company as with
fragrant summer air.^

^ When love has made the most of the man himself it over-
flows to bless others. Christ's disciples are not here to be
ministered unto, but to minister. Eeligion, says Christ, is love,
and love is gentle toward those with hollow eyes and famine-
stricken faces. Love is kindly toward those who have a tragedy
written in the sharpened countenance. Love is patient toward
those who have lost fidelity as a man loses a golden coin ; who
have lost morality as one who flounders in the Alpine drifts.
And this religion of love takes on a thousand modern forms. If
it is not rowing out against the darkness and storm, as did Grace
Darling, to save the shipwrecked, it is going forth to those tossed
upon life's billows, to succour and to save. For love is making
the individual life beautiful, making the home beautiful, and
will at last make the Church and State beautiful. Men will not
bow down to crowned power nor philosophic power nor aesthetic
power ; but in the presence of a great soul, filled with vigour of
inspiration and glowing with love, man will do obeisance. There
is no force upon earth like Divine love in the heart of man, and
at last that force will sweeten and regenerate society.^

» A. C. Benson, The Leaves of the Tree, 225.
= N. D. Hillis, The Investment of Influence, 274.

The Brook in the Way.

367

Literature.

Chadwick (G. A.), Pilcdds Gift, 266.
Hanks (W. P.), The Eternal Witness, 81.
Hunter (J.), The Angels of God, 27.
Jerdan (C), Gospel Milk and Honey, 245. ,
Jones (J. D.), The Unfettered Word, 145.
Norton (J. N.), Old Paths, 231.
Piggott (W. C), Tlie Imperishable Word, 190.
Smellie (A.), Service and Inspiration, 49.

368

The Brook in the Way.

He shall drink of the brook in the way :
Therefore shall he lift up the head.— Ps. ex. 7.

1. This jubilant and magnificent psalm opens with a passage which
was taken possession of by the Apostles, in the name of their Lord,
so long ago that it has lost any suggestion of foreignness; and
just as some of our older colonies have acquired a look of England
overseas, so do we welcome these verses when we come upon
them, as if they were an outlying tract of the New Testament.
They give a description of the King, set at God's right hand, a
Priest for ever, which in itself is great ; and yet, in the writer's
view, it was only a preparation for something else. These things
were spoken of Him that faith might have a chance ; for what
possessed the poet was not that his King was great and highly
favoured, but that a King so great would go far and that of His
conquests there would be no end. It is through getting big
thoughts of the King that men are prepared to cherish worthier
expectations with regard to the Kingdom.

2. The poet first shows the kingship at rest, as it is in its
dignity, created and secured by God, and when his heart is full
of that he goes on to show the kingship in action. A royalty
based upon the will of God, which, indeed, is nothing else than
an instrument of that will, cannot but make way ; present and
future have nothing in them to withstand it, and thus it will go
farther and farther, passing out at last beyond the imagination of
men. That is the poet's idea, which a rhetorician would have
expressed in some resounding phrase ; but as an artist this man
had no liking for vague words without any picture in them. He
wanted men to feel that the King beyond their sight was pushing
His conquests still, and he manages that by a quaint touch of
imagination. The King, urging on His enemies in their flight,
PS. xxv.-cxix. — 24

370 THE BROOK IN THE WAY

stops for a moment to drink, and then He passes off the scene with
head uplifted, fresh as when the battle-day began. There He is —
the true King, God's gift to men, travelling out beyond our sight,
on always vaster enterprises, and without a sign of flagging
strength. That fired the poet's soul, and it should live with us
as the scope and outlook of the psalm.

The Ideal King.

1. Who is this King and Captain that the poet celebrates ?
The answer must be that we have here not a portrait but an
ideal, which embodies the dream of those who trusted that God
would give them one day a ruler who should be all that a king
can be to men. The poet follows this warrior priest, this priestly
king, to the war ; he sees him winning victory after victory, until
the earth seems filled with the slaughtered bodies of his foes.
But he grows weary and tired in the conflict ; his tongue cleaves
to his mouth for thirst ; his sword well-nigh drops from his hand
for sheer weariness as he toils on beneath the fierce glare of the
Eastern sun. And it seems as if he must faint and fall before
the full fruits of victory are reaped, when suddenly a little brook
of cool and limpid water presents itself to his gaze, and the faint
and tired warrior stoops and drinks a long, deep draught, and the
clear, cool water brings refreshing and new strength to his ex-
hausted frame, so that, with new vigour and determination, he
resumes the pursuit, and makes the victory final and complete.
" He shall drink of the brook in the way : therefore shall he lift
up the head."

2. This ideal King overthrows all His enemies and wins a
lasting dominion because He is God's own partner. He knows
how to conquer. He is content that His battles should be taken
out of His hands, and that the victory when it comes should be
God's victory and not His own. In Him there is no self-assertion
or display; He accepts what God allows and asks no more.
Inferior men may be restless, as they take on themselves the
burden of the world and its future, striking hotly in defence

PSALM ex. 7 ' 371

of their view of truth, and growing troubled and dejected when
that view does not make way. But in the true Master of men
there is a superlative trust in God ; He suffers His own effort and
His own message to pass into the sum of God's providential
forces, which are working for new heavens and a new earth. He
does not bear the burden of the world anxiously, but leaves it in
the strong hands of Him who can sustain it all. Peter speaks of
Jesus " sitting at the right hand of God, expecting," which is a
word of admonition for all unquiet minds so ludicrously solicitous
about the interests and the work of God. But whilst He was
still on earth, Jesus suffered God to fight His battles for Him.
He tarried for the Lord's leisure. He believed in powers which
work slowly and without noise, and He knew the rest of heart of
those who wait for God and are content that He should work.

3. " What is to hinder this man from governing ? " says
Carlyle of the Abbot Samson. " There is in him what far
transcends all apprenticeships ; in the man himself there exists
a model of governing, something to govern by. He has the
living ideal of a governor in him." In like fashion the poet
sweeps aside the whole mob of kings so called, David and
Solomon and their posterity, who in turn had claimed to sit on
the throne of Jehovah. He did not mean that kind of thing
at all — a merely titular kingship, which had no promise in it.
One day there will be born a King, possessing every gift of rule,
born to command the wavering hearts of men; and when He
comes the first to acknowledge Him will be God, who will make
a place in His universe for Him, and raise Him not to where
these spectral majesties have sat, these uneasy phantasms which
have flitted across the scene, but to where none ever sat before.
" Sit at my right hand."

Thus Christ alone answers fully to the description of the
conquering King, who is also " a priest for ever after the order of
Melchizedek." It is He alone who goes forth at the head of
an army numberless as the dewdrops of a summer morn, every
soldier in it clothed in holy garments, sweeping His enemies
before Him, gaining one victory after another until they are
all beneath His feet, and His Kingdom stretches from the river
unto the ends of the earth.

372 THE BROOK IN THE WAY

4. This King not only sits as partner with the King of
kings, but is content to share the lot of the common soldier.
The Psalmist writes of " his Lord " at the right hand of Jehovah,
that He shall be refreshed along His conquering march, not with
the rich wines of Helbon cooled in the snows of Lebanon, but,
like any private soldier, from the wayside brook. And He shall
need refreshment, having taken His full share of toil. This
contrast between a splendid destiny and the simplest life was
never so true of any as of Jesus Christ. It is this contrast that
moves St. Paul to astonishment in the words, " God sent forth
his Son, born of a woman, born under the law." We have not
a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infir-
mity, but One who was tempted in all points like as we are — weary,
athirst, and faint. For thirty years Jesus lived the frugal and
simple life of a carpenter's son in a quiet village among the hills
of Galilee. His first recorded temptation was to break His
fellowship with us by claiming miraculous supplies, at least of
bread ; but this help, which He gave to others, He would not
Himself employ. Never once did Jesus use His special powers
for Himself to make a difference between His life and ours, or
drink of other streams but such as ran by the wayside for all.
His first miracle was to make large supplies of wine for a
marriage feast ; but, for His own part, He would sit by the
wayside fountain, waiting, and would ask a lost woman to bestow
on Him a cup of cold water. The fever of His cruel death was
alleviated by the vinegar, the sour wine, of the private soldiers
beneath His cross. Even after His resurrection, when He had
already entered upon that sublime and mysterious life which it
is our highest hope to share, He did not scorn to take of the fish
which they had drawn from the Lake of Galilee, and, again, even
of the cold fish which remained from a former meal.

^ The troops of Charles the Twelfth, in sore distress and
half inclined to mutiny, brought him a specimen of their bread,
which was hard and sour and black. To their astonishment,
the king ate it with a relish, and quietly answered : " It is not
good bread, but it can be eaten." There was no more thought
of mutiny in that camp ; nor will such a leader ever lack men
to follow, to suffer, and to die with him,^

» G. A. Cbadwick, Pilate a Gift, 209.

PSALM ex. 7 373

(1) The Son of God became one with us in talcing our nature.
He did not come to the world robed in cloud and fire and
storm, and attended by an army of angels. Rather, He did
much to conceal His majesty during the time that He lived on
earth. He was born a Jew; and the Hebrew nation was "the
fewest of all peoples" — not one of the great broad streams of
mankind, but as a " brook in the way " ; yet the Lord Jesus
drank of that brook. " He took not on him the nature of angels ;
but he took on him the seed of Abraham." Without for a
moment ceasing to be God, He stooped to become a babe in the
manger, a humble and inquiring boy growing up a working
carpenter in a country town, then a homeless wayfarer, a
rejected religious teacher, and at last a crucified slave.

(2) Our Great Captain at length bowed His head to drink
our cup of suffering and sorrow. That bitter cup was put into
His hand in the garden of Gethsemane, and He did not refuse
to drink it. He did not, as He might have done, use His
almighty power to deliver Himself from His enemies. He gave
Himself up, a weary and unarmed man, to their wicked will.
Out of love for us, and with a view to our redemption, He
allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross. And there He was
" made a curse for us," bearing our sin and shame and doom.

% Nothing can have a more tranquillizing effect upon us in
this world than the frequent consideration of the afflictions,
necessities, contempt, calumnies, insults, and humiliations which
our Lord suffered from His birth to His most painful death.
When we contemplate such a weight of bitterness as this, are
we not wrong in giving to the trifling misfortunes which befall
us even the names of adversities and injuries ? Are we not
ashamed to ask a share of His Divine patience to help us to
bear such trifles as these, seeing that the smallest modicum of
moderation and humility would suffice to make us bear calmly
the insults offered to us ? ^

^ Before the apotheosis of the cross, suffering was a curse
from which man fled ; now it becomes a purification of the soul,
a sacred trial sent by Eternal Love, a Divine dispensation meant
to sanctify and ennoble us, an acceptable aid to faith, a strano-e
initiation into happiness. 0 power of belief! — All remains the
same, and yet all is changed. A new certitude arises to deny
* The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, 172.

374 THE BROOK IN THE WAY

the apparent and the tan;j;ible ; it pierces through the mystery
of things, it places an invisible Father behind visible nature, it
shows us joy shining through tears, and makes of pain the
beginning of joy. And so, for those who have believed, the tomb
becomes heaven, and on the funeral pyre of life they sing the
hosanna of immortality ; a sacred madness has renewed the face
of the world for them, and when they wish to explain what they
feel, their ecstasy makes them incomprehensible ; they speak
with tongues. A wild intoxication of self-sacrifice, contempt
for death, tlie thirst for eternity, the delirium of love — these
are what the unalterable gentleness of the Crucified has had
power to bring forth. By His pardon of His executioners, and
by that unconquerable sense in Him of an indissoluble union
with God, Jesus, on His cross, kindled an inextinguishable fire
and revolutionized the world.^

Christ's Heart was wrung for me, if mine is sore ;
And if my feet are weary. His have bled;
He had no place wherein to lay His Head;
If I am burdened, He was burdened more.
The cup I drink. He drank of long before;
He felt the unuttered anguish which I dread;
He hungered who the hungry thousands fed.
And thirsted who the world's refreshment bore.
If grief be such a looking-glass as shows

Christ's Face and man's in some sort made alike,
Then grief is pleasure with a subtle taste :
Wherefore should any fret or faint or haste?
Grief is not grievous to a soul that knows

Christ comes, — and listens for that hour to strike.*

The Common Brook.

" He shall drink of the brook in the way." It is wonderful to
think of the spiritual life of Jesus nourislied by the same means
of grace as are available for us all. At every point in Christ's
experience there was a sense of obstacle and resistance. Salvation
for Him was every day a task entailing agony. But always He
bore down the resistance, and, welcoming the reliefs that were

1 JmieVs Journal, (trans, by Mrs. Humphry Ward), 168.
•OhmliuaG. RoswcUi, Verses, 37.

PSALM ex. 7 375

given Him by God, He passed on with lifted head to the burden
and the battle of the new day, sure of Himself, sure of His cause,
very sure of God and victory. " True souls always are hilarious."
Think of Him when the disciples came back from their first
excursion, elated, as small men will be, by their minute successes ;
their ministry, one may suppose, had scarcely drawn attention in
the single province of Galilee, and He had taken on Himself the
redemption of the world. But hear His comment, " When you
were away I was watching Satan and he was fallen " (an imperfect
tense followed by an aorist). The most meagre encourage-
ment, the first faint effort of a soul to free itself, spoke home
to His heart, and He drew water with joy out of the wells of
salvation.

We do not find that one innocent pleasure which came " in
the way " to Jesus was sourly or wilfully refused by Him. He
would leave a feast at once, if called by Jairus to a sick-bed ; but
He would not refuse the feast of His friends in Bethany, though
He knew that He was reproached for eating and drinking, and
though He felt His death to be so near that the ointment then
poured upon Him would go with Him to His burial. How does
His example affect us ? We may have to refuse pleasures because
we are weak, because temptations must be avoided, because we
have no longer any choice except to cripple our life, or, having two
feet, to be cast into hell fire ; but this is not a thing to boast of.
Or, like St. Paul, we may deny ourselves for our weak brother's
sake, which is an honour, and a Christ-like thing ; but the rule,
apart from special cases, is that the best and truest life is such as
welcomes and is refreshed by all simple pleasures which sparkle
and sing by our life's path, which do not require us to leave the
road of duty that we may drink of them.

^ Eastern people have a very skilful way of drinking from a
flowing stream without stopping in their running. They throw
the water up into the mouth. An Eastern traveller writes : " In
an excursion across an Arabian desert, some of the Arabs, on
coming to water, rushed to it, and, stooping sufficiently to allow
the right hand to reach the water, they threw it up into their
mouths so dexterously, that I never observed any of the water
to fall upon the breast. I often tried to do it, but never
succeeded."

376 THE BROOK IN THE WAY

1. Jesus found refreshment in quiet communion with nature.
In one of his letters Nathaniel Hawthorne speaks about bathing
himself in " the refreshing waters of solitude and open-air nature,"
and there is no season of the year in which we may not find this
source of rest and refreshment for the mind and heart. The
creation may always be our recreation. To be in love with this
beautiful world is to be at the secret source of many a noble
pleasure. To have a mind and heart open to the highest
impressions of the natural universe, to be able to enter into the
life of a summer or a winter day, to enjoy a night of stars, to feel
the beauty of a flower, the grandeur of a storm, the spell of the
wide waters or the high mountains, is to have abundant means of
recovery and renewal always nigh at hand whenever we feel the
need of calling ourselves off for a time from the excitement and
strain of the daily conflict. It is true that nature does not
yield the sympathy which the passionate human heart requires,
but insensibly she helps her lovers to bear their burdens and to
find rest in God. We are quickened and comforted by outward
things more than we know. The sun and moon and stars,
unaffected by our little controversies, rebuke and soothe us as we
gaze on their tranquil glory. The mountains bring peace, and our
fretfulness is carried away by the rushing river at our feet. Not
only in the synagogue did Jesus find refreshment, but in the lilies
of the field, in the sunset sky, among the hills, and by the Lake of
Galilee.

^ In his suggestive journal, Amiel, describing a country walk
taken when a dark and troubled mood was upon him, thus writes :
" The sunlight, the green leaves, the sky, all whispered to me, ' Be
of good cheer and courage, poor wounded one ! ' " We are all at
times poor wounded ones, needing all the refreshment and healing
we can find. And,

What simple joys from simple sources spring!*

By the avenue, on to the mansion,

There runs a clear stream all the way,
Pursuing my path, I can see it.
And list to its roundelay ;
Still gleaming and glancing.
Still laughing and dancing,
It carols along all day.

1 J. Hunter, The Angels of Qod, 32.

PSALM ex. 7 377

In summer its rippling music,

Delight and refreshing instils,
In winter, by torrent-notes swollen,
Its songs all the dreariness fills ;
Still leaping and bounding,
Its echoes resounding.
With rapture my soul it thrills.

And precious my " Brook by the way " is,

As Homewards I journey along,
New life in His depths I discover,
New courage I take from His song;
In gloom and in gladness,
In sunshine and sadness,
He is my Salvation strong ! ^

2. One of the richest streams that water the desert of life is
that of social sympathy and helpfulness, whereby we give and
take of the rich solace of brotherly love. To feel that the world
is a little better for our being, that, when the little light of our
life goes out, it will not have altogether failed to light some other
fire of warmth and helpfulness ; that some lives will go onward
a little stronger, and more hopeful, for something we have been,
or said, or even tried to be, this is a brook of consolation which
becomes the more precious the nearer we draw to the isolation of
death. Wretched is the man who has missed this brook of gentle
human ministry in life's way, and recognized too late how much
of his soul's life he has lost in saving it.

Nor, that time,
When nature had subdued him to herself,
Would he forget those Beings to whose minds
Warm from the labours of benevolence
The world, and human life, appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh.
Inly disturbed, to think that others felt
What he must never feel.

^ George MacDonald says ; " To know a man who can be

trusted will do more for one's moral nature than all the books

of divinity that were ever written." The beauty of the outward

world is full of Divine lielp, but there is more beauty and more

' T. Cra-nrford, Horcte Serenae, 71.

378 THE BROOK IN THE WAY

inspiration in living excellence than in tlie fairest natural scenes.
Wonderfully refreshing is the heart's speech of the truly wise and
good, but more beneficent is the brave thought wlien it becomes
the brave deed, and more life-giving the Divine Word when it is
made flesh and dwells among us. How rich the quickening and
renewing influences which come from the presence and example
of men who lift clearly before us the nobler ideals of life ; from
the memory of the faithful dead ; and from the biographic page —

Bright affluent spirits, breathing but to bless,

Whose presence cheers men's eyes and warms their hearts,

Whose lavish goodness this old world renews,

Like the free sunshine and the liberal air.^

^ There is a mysterious power in sympathy, and I thank
God that the stream of sympathy is ever " in the way " of
sorrowing souls. I see much sorrow, much pain, much heart-
break, but I see also, and I thank God for it, much sympathy.
Indeed, I am persuaded we never know what a wealth of sym-
pathy and love there dwells in many a heart until sorrow calls
it forth. And how a little sympathy comforts, and cheers, and
refreshes the soul. " She did help me," said a poor soul about one
who was a veritable angel of mercy. " I felt so much better for
her visit." " Well, what did she say to you ? " I asked. " Well, she
didn't say much, but she sat with me and held my hand," That
good woman's sympathy, silent sympathy, was a veritable " brook
in the way" to that poor bereaved and lonely soul, and she
drank of it and lifted up her head.

3. Another brook may be found in the appointed means of
grace. Christ frequently drank of it. "There is a river, the
streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place
of the tabernacles of the Most High." We must seek, as our
fathers did, the perennial springs of refreshment that are to be
found in the private and public ordinances of religion. The ex-
citements and exhaustions of modern life make this duty even
more imperative. Industry and enterprise are good ; but life is
not only action, it is thought and feeling also. We do ourselves
the greatest wrong if we allow our activities to crowd meditation
and prayer out of our days and to rob us of the secret of rest in
God. To have depth and elevation and tranquillity in life, and the
aim kept high, and the impulse true and steady, it is absolutely
* J. Hunter, The Angels of God, 36.

PSALM ex. 7 379

necessary for mind and heart to have constant access to the
Source of inspiration. It is a moral calamity to lose the medi-
tative and worshipful spirit. Reverence, faith, and aspiration
are the springs of noble and fruitful living. Sunday and the
Church stand for our highest life. They invite us to drink of
waters that rise from cool and unpolluted depths. They offer an
opportunity of finding that truest rest and recreation which
come through mental and spiritual quickening and uplifting, and
of verifying the word of prophecy, " They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength."

^ I know a little chapel in my own native land, away out in
the country, far from village and town. But every Sabbath from
miles around the farmers and farm labourers gather in the little
building to hear the gospel preached. Their lives are hard and
monotonous enough ; but they find peace, joy, love, in the little
chapel, and because of what it has been to them they have called
it " Elim." There the name stands graven over the door — Elim,
the place of springing water and shady palm trees. And that
is what the sanctuary always is to the humble worshipper.
Whether it is called by the name or not, it is an Elim to him. I
read in the old Book of one who was sore distressed by the diffi-
culties and troubles of life. They harassed him and well-nigh
drove him to distraction. And it seemed as if the trouble would
crush and overwhelm him, until — notice that — until he went into
the sanctuary, and then the trouble all disappeared and his heart
was filled with the peace of God. " I came to church tired,"
wrote one to me only last week. " I came to church tired, and
not a little soul weary ; I left rested, refreshed, strengthened ; I
met my Lord there." ^

4. The brook that truly quenches our thirst issues from the
throne of God. All merely ethical and philanthropic systems lack
power to slake man's thirst, apart from the love of Him who was
Love Incarnate. He, and He alone, it is who makes human life
glad with the rivers of God ; who gives us to drink not only of
the " still waters " of His peace, but of the rich renewing wine of
His blood.

Faith that looks up to Him finds " streams in the desert," and
many a brook of consolation and refreshment in the way of life's
sternest conflicts. Of such a faith it is true —

» J. D. Jones, The Elims of Life, 182.

38o THE BROOK IN THE WAY

The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

^ I remember an incident in the biography of a prince in
learning, who, alas, was not a little child in the family of God.
Once, in a time of depression, John Stuart Mill found comfort in
music, until the thought came to him that, the octave having no
more than eight tones in it, there must be limitations to the
possibilities of melody. Even this spiritual octave of ours,
various and marvellous as its messages are, has its limitations.
Let us quench our thirst at the Fountainhead.^

^ Augustine tried the broken cisterns and he was thirsty
still. " Turned from Thee, the One Good, I lost myself among a
multiplicity of things. I wandered into fruitless seed-beds of
sorrow, with a proud dejecteduess and a restlesa weariness. I
bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne
by me, yet where to repose it I found not." So the eager and
often disappointed quest went on, until, under the fig-tree in the
garden at Milan, in the year of our Saviour 386, he put on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and made no provision for the flesh. Then
his lips were opened, and he could sing : " This is the happy life,
to rejoice to Thee and of Thee and for Thee ; this is it, and there
is no other. Too late I learned to know Thee, 0 Thou Beauty of
ancient days, too late I learned to love Thee ! Many and great
are my infirmities ; but Thy medicine is mightier."

5. The use of the brook is to give refreshment and strength
to continue the battle. Each age has its own impulse which
carries it a little way, but then there is the temptation to relax
and to rest in what has been attained, as if that were the
measure of the thought of God. But with another age a new
call has come and courage to deal with it. Men have not come
to the end of the warfare to which Christ has committed them.
The gospel has a promise for every creature under heaven ; it has
an application to every variety of condition ; it proves its power
in men of every age. "It starts each epoch and each century
witli renewed ardour and redoubled vigour." The things that
have been are tlie pale shadows of things which are to be. But
' A. Smellie, Service and Iiispiralion, 70.

PSALM ex. 7 381

every victory over sin in the present or in the future has its
explanation in the greatness of the heart of the Redeemer, who
still passes uudiscouraged on His way.

At the extreme limit of his vision this poet saw not rest and
quiescence, but the King setting forth upon yet greater conquests.
We are a laggard race, ever anxious and unready, afraid of
what may come, doubtful if righteousness can really win the
day ; and our chief need is to kindle faith for the world afresh by
a better study of the world's King. " He shall not fail nor be
discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth ; and the isles
shall wait for his law."

^ I think I have sometimes noticed in you an impatience of
mind which you should guard against carefully. Pin this maxim
up in your memory — that Nature abhors the credit system, and
that we never get anything in life till we have paid for it. Any-
thing good, I mean; evil things we always pay for afterwards,
and always when we find it hardest to do it. By paying for
them, of course, I mean labouring for them. Tell me how much
good solid work a young man has in him, and I will erect a horo-
scope for him as accurate as Guy Mannering's for young Bertram.
Talents are absolutely nothing to a man except he have the
faculty of work along with them. They, in fact, turn upon him
and worry him, as Actaeon's dogs did — you remember the story ?
Patience and perseverance — these are the sails and the rudder
even of genius, without which it is only a wretched hulk upon the
waters.^

^ The husbandman sows his seed and toils on, and persistence
reaps the harvest. The scholar opens his books and toils on, and
persistence reaps fame. The reformer attacks the evil and toils
on, and persistence destroys the evil. The force that is constant
will always overcome the force that is less constant. Indeed,
there never lived a man that came to anything who lacked this
quality of pertinacity and adherence. How is it that the
mountain-climber reached that summit of 23,000 feet ? Plainly
by going on and on until his foot was on the last stone and the
whole earth was under his feet. The motto of David Livingstone
was in these words: "I determined never to stop until I had
come to the end and achieved my purpose." When Livingstone's
work in Africa was done, the Dark Continent was mapped out
and spread fully before the merchants of the world. He crossed
Africa four times, and marched for days up to his armpits in
^ Letters of James Rvssell Lowell, i. 183.

382 THE BROOK IN THE WAY

water, endured twenty-seven attacks of fever, was surrounded
with enemies on every side, faced mutiny, poisoned arrows, wild
beasts, the bite of serpents, but never gave up. By sheer, dogged
persistence and faith in God he conquered, acting as if he thought
his body was us immortal as his spirit.^

^ By his zeal, constancy, and wisdom, by his mechanical
genius and his gift of languages, Mackay had made himself a
household word and a power in the whole region of Uganda. His
hopefulness and courage never failed him. The misfortunes which
overtook the Uganda mission at various times were regarded by
timid and fearful souls at home as indications from God that the
work there should be abandoned. When Mackay heard of these
proposals, he wrote : " Are you joking ? If you tell me in earnest
that such a suggestion has been made, I only answer. Never!
Tell me, ye faint hearts, to whom ye mean to give up the mission ?
Is it to murderous raiders like Mwanga, or to slave-traders from
Zanzibar, or to English and Belgian dealers in rifles and gun-
powder, or to German spirit-sellers? All are in the field, and
they make no talk of ' giving up ' their respective missions ! "
That was the spirit which burnt in the heart of Mackay to the
end of his brief life.^

» N. D. Hillis, The Contagion of Character, 228.
" W. G. Berry, Bishop Hcmnington, 180.

What shall I Render?

383

Literature.

Burrows (H. W.), Parochial Sermons^ iii. 154.

Ketcham (W. E.), Thanksgiving Sermons, 245,

Kirkpatrick (A. F.), The Book of Psalms (Cambridge Bible), 690.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Psalms li.-cxlv., 273.

„ „ The Book of Psalms (Expositor's Bible), iii. 226.

Martin (S.), Rain upon the Mourn Grass, 273.
Price (A, C), Fifty Sermons, vii. 73,
Rowlands (D.), in Jesus in the Cornfield, 173.

Spurgeon (C. H,), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xvi. (1870), No. 910.
Stevens (H.), Sermon Outlines, 307,
Tyndall (C. H.), Object Sermons in Outline, 162.
Waterston (R.), Thoughts on the Lord's Supper, 129.
Watkinson (W, L.), The Education of the Heart, 253.
Wilkinson (J. B.), Mission Sermons, i. 222.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxii, 394 (R. H, HadJen) ; xxxvi. 396 (P.

Mearns) ; Ivi. 229 (J. Percival).
Church of England Pulpit, xlviii. 195 (J, Percival),
Examiner, Oct, 5, 1905 (J. H. Jowett).
Homildic Review, New Ser., xxxix. 29 (T. H. Stockton),
Literary Churchman, xxxviii. (1892) 334 (F. St. J. Corbett),

384

What shall I Render?

What shall I render unto the Lord
For all his benefits toward me?
I will take the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the Lord..
^_X-wiii pay my vows imto the Lord,

-¥ea, 4a the presence of all his people.— Ps. cxvi. 12-14.

1. The psalm from which this text is taken is a psalm of thanks-
giving. It is one of six called the Great Hallel, extending from
the 113th to the 118th, which were sung by the Jews at their
great festivals, especially at the Passover. It was probably one of
these psalms that was sung by our Saviour and His eleven
disciples when He instituted His own supper, at the close of His
last Passover with them ; as we are told in the evangelic story,
" When they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the mount of
Olives."

2. It appears that the Psalmist, when he wrote this psalm,
had been delivered by God out of some mighty trouble. How
great that trouble was may be gathered from the telling language
in which he describes it. " The sorrows of death compassed me,
and the pains of hell gat hold upon me : I found trouble and
sorrow." But while in this terrible situation he directed his
thoughts heavenward, and looked for help where he had often
found help before. Nor did he look in vain ; for he says, " Thou
hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my
feet from falling." And in the text he communes with his own
soul, and considers how he may most effectually prove his
gratitude for this timely deliverance. " What shall I render unto
the Lord for all his benefits toward me ? "

PS. xxv.-cxix. — 25

386 WHAT SHALL I RENDER?

A Bountiful Giver.

1. The Psalmist was not one of those thoughtless and in-
different men who pass through life receiving all, enjoying all,
expecting all, without ever bestowing a thought on the bountiful
Giver. On the contrary, he seems to have been so overwhelmed
by the magnitude and multiplicity of God's benefits that he
scarcely knew how to express his gratitude. The language he
employs is that of a man perplexed, bewildered, overcome, hardly
knowing what to say or how to act. " For all his benefits toward
me" — benefits great, benefits small, benefits temporal, benefits
spiritual ; but all benefits unmerited and free. " For all his
benefits;" as they rose before his view, a vast, countless host,
they laid him under a debt of obligation which he could never
hope to discharge.

^ My father's gift of appreciation was of a most charming
type. The constant repetitions of a blessing never dulled the fine
edge of his gratitude. He had a sunlit bedroom, and every
morning, so my mother tells me, he said, '* What a beautiful
bedroom ! We must thank God ! " ^

2. Few of us are adequately thankful for the commonplace
blessings which surround us ; we take them as a matter of course.
We do not know what it is to be without them ; we see no
prospect of being deprived of them. If the world has not gone
very well with us, it has not gone very badly ; because we might
have more to complain of, we forget for how much we ought to
be grateful. Let us contemplate, as in the presence of God, all
the proofs that we have experienced of His mercy ; the pure
affection that He has inspired, the sins that have been forgiven
us, the snares which we have escaped, the protection we have
received. Let our hearts be touched with the remembrance of all
the precious proofs of His goodness. Add to this the sorrows
that He has sent to sanctify our hearts ; for we should look upon
these also as proofs of His love for us. Let pralif.ude for yie
past inspire us with confidence in the future! Tet us never

»X<we and /J/c7'Tnr.^6iy o/ J^l flenhclm'Srash (1913), 166.

PSALM cxvi. 12-14 ^9

a day, and the happy united family rudely broken up. And yet
as soon as I opened the door, and met the sorrowing widow, these
were the first words that leapt to her lips : " How good God has
been ' " Even in the night-tmie she had been counting the stars,
and in the awful pangs of bereavement she had felt the amazing
consolations of Christ. What an eye she had for the benefits of
the Lord ! ^

11.

A Grateful Eecipient.

1. As his grateful heart thinks of all God's benefits to him, the
Psalmist feels at once the impulse to requite and the impossibility
of doing so. With a kind of glad despair he asks the question
that ever springs to thankful lips, and, having nothing to give,
recognizes the only possible return to God to be the acceptance of
the brimming chalice which His goodness commends to his thirst.
The great thought, then, which lies here is that we best requite
God"by "thankfully taking what He gives. The Psalmist asks
wKa't he can render, and he answers that he will further take !
And this is the very essence of true gratitude. The best return
we can make for a gift of God is to take a higher gift. Have we
thanked Him for our daily bread ? Then the best return we can
make is to take the bread of life. Have we thanked Him for our
sleep ? Then the best return we can make is to take His gift of
rest and peace. Have we thanked Him for our health ? Then
the best return we can make is to seek His gift of holiness. " I
will take the finest thing upon the Lord's table ! He has given
me this gift, now I will take a bigger gift ! " We do an ill thing
to our Lord if we are profuse about His secondary gifts and leave
His best upon the table. " My joy I give unto you." Have we
taken that yet ? " My peace I give unto you." Have we taken
that yet ? " Glories upon glories hath our God prepared." And
the first element in all praise and worship is to take the richer
gifts the Lord is offering unto us.

2. Do we not feel that all the beauty and bloom of a gift is
gone if the giver hopes to receive as much again ? Do we not
feel that it is all gone if the receiver thinks of repaying it in any

1 J. H. Jowett.

390 WHAT SHALL I RENDER?

! coin but that of the heart ? Love gives because it delights in
giving. It gives that it may express itself and may bless the
recipient. If there be any thouglit of return, it is only the return
of love. That is how God gives ; and we requite Him by taking
rather than by giving, not merely because He needs nothing, and
we have nothing which is not His. If that were all, it might be
as true of an almighty tyrant, and might be so used as to forbid
all worship before the gloomy presence, to give reverence and
love to whom were as impertinent as the grossest offerings of
savage idolaters. But the motive of His giving to us is the
deepest reason why our best recompense to Him is our thankful
reception of His mercies.

3. The key-note of the highest and happiest life is thankful-
ness. Thankfulness means personal communion with God ; a
perpetual longing to do His will, an absorbing anxiety not to
offend Him. Thankfulness involves a passionate love for the
human race, a deep sense of responsibility for our brothers and
sisters in God's royal family, active endeavours to allay the ills
around us. Thankfulness necessitates the strengthening and
refreshing of our immortal souls by every grace and every agency
we can command. So be thankful ! The years that we are here
are few and fitful. It is worth taking some trouble to make them
fragrant and interesting. They may be so if we will. Life is full
of opportunities ; it is for us prayerfully, profitably, thankfully, to
use them. They may not lead us to all that we hope for ; they
may not open upon realities we have long sighed after ; they may
not help us to gratify material aspirations ; but they will always
point us to avenues of gratitude and thankfulness, to possibilities
of effort and goodness. And though there be vouchsafed to us
nothing more glorious — as men count glory — than the elementary
endowments, the ordinary mercies, the commonplace benefits of
life ; though fame and wealth and honour never cluster round our
names, none the less — nay, all the more — may we lie down at last
in peace and quietly commend our souls to Him who gave them,
to do for them and with them what He thinks wisest and best in
the harvest of the hereafter.

^ There was an expression which Samuel KuLherford con-
stantly used — a "drowned debtor to God's mercy." He meant

PSALM cxvi. 12-14 391

that he was over head and ears in debt to God : he could not tell
how deep his obligations were, so he just called himself "a
drowned debtor " to the lovingkindness and the mercy of his God.
^ The question in the text recalls a well-known incident in
the life of a famous soldier, who also became a famous Christian —
Colonel James Gardiner. One night, when he was little thinking
of Divine things, but on the contrary had made an appointment
of the most vicious kind, he was waiting for the appointed hour,
when he saw, or thought he saw, before him in the room wherein
he sat alone, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ
upon the cross, and he was impressed, as if a voice had said to
him to this effect — " 0 sinner, I did all this for thee ; what hast
thou done for Me ? " The vision and the words he heard were
the means of Colonel Gardiner's conversion. The words quoted,
it may be added, suggested Frances Eidley Havergal's well-known
hymn beginning: —

1 gave My life for thee.
My precious blood I shed,

That thou might'st ransora'd be,
And quicken'd from the dead.

I gave My life for thee;
What hast thou given for Me?
Miss Havergal was staying with a German divine, in whose study
was a picture of our crucified Saviour, beneath which was placed
the motto : " I did this for thee ; what hast thou done for Me ? "
She had come in weary, and, sitting down in front of the picture,
the Saviour's eyes seemed to rest upon her. She read the motto,
and the lines of her hymn flashed upon her, and she at once wrote
them in pencil on a scrap of paper. Looking tliem over she
thought them so poor that she tossed them on the fire, but they
fell out untouched. Some months afterwards she showed them to
her father, who encouraged her to preserve them, and he wrote
the tune " Baca " specially for them. The hymn was published in
Good Words, and becoming a favourite soon found its way into
the hymn-books of the Christian Church.^

in.

A Consecrated Lipe.

1. God bestows so many blessings upon us that we can in one
sense of the word return absolutely nothing to Him for His gifts. V

^ Canon J. Duncan, Popular HyTmis, 215.

39i WHAT SHALL I RENDER?

^Tlie Psalmist's words imply this : I can bring Thee no great gift,
I can lay no priceless offering at Thy feet, I have nothing that
is not already Thine own, for all has come from Thee. I will
take the cup of salvation. I will accept Thy bounteous mercy
with a thankful heart. I will seek to link all my life to Thee.
This thought helps us to meet a very common temptation. A

J man may realize something of the goodness of God. He may
' say to himself : " If 1 had very large means like some men, how
much 1 would try to do in return ! I would build a stately
cathedral for the service of God, a noble house of prayer for all
time. I would endow a hospital to minister to human suffering.
I would put the liighest education within the reach of the poorest
man. But I have so little income, it scarcely overlaps my own
pressing wants." Then, because he cannot do great things, he
sinks back and does nothing at all. He would reform an
empire, but does not order his own house. He dreams of cleans-
ing a city, but never sweeps before his own door. - The Psalmist
teaches us the true lesson, and shows us what we may all do.
y [ We may give ourselv^es first of all, and then the avenues of service
' will open out before us according to His will.

^ Any dreams which she may have harboured of literary dis-
tinction, she had pat resolutely away from her. " Oh God," she
had written in her diary at Cairo, " Thou puttest into my heart
this great desire to devote myself to the sick and sorrowful. I
offer it to Thee. Do with it what is for Thy service." ^

2. Taking the cup of salvation, in its simple, full meaning,
expresses the pledging of our personality to God, the consecra-
tion of ourselves to His service. We recognize Him as Redeemer,
Deliverer, and Friend, and acknowledge ourselves His in life and
death. Our trustful heart, our acquiescent will, our obedient life,
our whole personality must be surrendered in the power of love.
Christ Himself gave us not only the ritual of an ordinance, but
the pattern for our lives, when He " took the cup and gave thanks."
And now for us common joys become sacraments, enjoyment
becomes worship, and the cup which holds the bitter or the sweet
skilfully mingled for our lives becomes the cup of blessing and
salvulion drunk in remembrance of Him. If we carried tiiat spirit
* Sir Ed waul Cook, The Life of Florenoe Nightingale, i. 95.

PSALM cxvi. 12-14 393

with us into all our small duties, sorrows, and gladnesses, how

different they would all seem !

^ " Salvation " can scarcely be taken in its highest meaning
in our text, both because the whole tone of the psalm fixes its
reference to lower blessings, and because the word is in the plural
in the Hebrew. " The cup of salvations " expresses, by that
plural form, the fulness and variety of the manifold and multi-
form deliverances which God had wrought and was working for
the Psalmist. His whole lot in life appears to him as a cup full
of tender goodness, loving faithfulness, delivering grace. It runs
over with Divine acts of help and sustenance.^

3. Many cups may be offered us as we go through life. We
may for the moment be dazzled by the gemmed and sparkling
cup of earthly pleasure, or the cup of worldly aims and ambitions.
Let us put them aside. Let each one say, " I will take the cup
of salvation." I will accept and use all God's offered mercy. The
chalice of redeeming love shall be my chiefest treasure. I will
take it — I will seek to be God's true child, the grateful son of so
loving a Father. I will endeavour in all things to do His will,
hoping to be guided ever by His grace and shielded ever by His
protecting care.

^ There is an old legend of an enchanted cup filled with poison,
and put treacherously into a king's hand. He made the sign of
the Cross and named the name of God over it, and it shivered in
his grasp. Do you take that name of the Lord as a test ? Name
Him over many a cup of which you are eager to drink, and the
1 glittering fragments will lie at your feet, and the poison be spilled
I on the ground. What you cannot lift before His pure eyes and
think of Him while you enjoy is not for you. Friendships, schemes,
plans, ambitions, amusements, speculations, studies, loves, busi-
nesses— can you call on the name of the Lord while you put these
cups to your lips ? If not, fling them behind you, for they are
full of poison which, for all its sugared sweetness, at the last will
" bite like a serpent and sting like an adder." ^

' A. Maulareu. * Ibid.

394 WHAT SHALL I RENDER?

IV.

A Vow AND ITS Fulfilment.

When the cords of death compassed the Psalmist (ver. 3), he
had made a strong and secret vow. He said to himself, " If I get
over this I will live a more pronounced life unto the Lord." " If
I get my strength back, I will use it for the King." " If I get out
of this darkness, I will take a lamp and light the feet of other
men." And now he is better again, and he sets about redeeming
his vow. The midnight vow was redeemed in the morning. As
soon as he was out of the peril he remembered his covenant.
" Now ! " There must be no delay. In this sphere delays are
attended with infinite peril. We may trifle with anything rather
than with a fresh and tender vow. Well begun is half done. And
he will also surround the redemption of his vow with publicity.
He will do something publicly which will strongly proclaim him
on God's side, and tell to all men that he has given his devotion
to Him. And that must be our way. The vow we made in
secret must be performed openly. We must do something to
indicate that we have passed through a great experience, and that
we are remembering the benefits of the Lord. We can speak His
name to another. We can write some gracious letter to a friend.
We can attach ourselves publicly to the Master's Church. We
can commit ourselves openly and outwardly as professed followers
of the King. And wherever we are, throughout all our life,
we must continue to pay our vows. In joy, in sorrow, in the
valley, on the mount, the vow must perpetually be redeemed.
And if that be our part, fervent and unbroken, the Lord's part
will also endure. He will continually be pouring His benefits
upon us, and we shall grow in riches with every passing day.

^ Hugh Miller, in his letters, gives an interesting account of
his experience. He thought he was falling into consumption —
that stone-cutter's tuberculosis was settling upon his lungs —
and, realizing that death might not be far away, he thought of
living a new and better life. He had always piqued himself on
being true to his word. If he passed his word to a fellow-workman,
no man could ever say that he had broken it, even if it was a
promise given to an idiot boy that passed his time around the

PSALM cxvi. 12-14 395

shed. To him the promise was sacred and most honourably kept.
Well, why not pass his word to God, why not give a promise Lo
the Almighty, and then in his native honesty begin a life of
holiness and love ? Fascinated with the idea, he gave his solemn
vow, — alas ! only to break it and befool himself, and clothe his
soul with shame. He, so honest before men, so staunch and
upright and true, found out he was little better than a bankrupt
and a liar in the presence of the living God. This led to a
humbling exercise of soul, and a truer knowledge of grace. The
lesson is a valuable one, and we are slow to learn it. Our cold
dead vows, apart from God, are nothing.^

^ E. Waterston, I'houyfUs on the Lord's Supper, 136.

The Day which the Lord made.

397

Literature.

Beveridge (W.), Theological IVorks, iii. 418.
Blackley (T.), Practical Sermons, i. 82.
Church (R. W.), Village Sermons, ii. 142.
Cottam (S. E.), New Sermons for a New Century, 117.
Frank (M.), Sermons, ii. 112,
Fuller (M.), The Lord's Day, 109.
Hall (R.), Works, v. 380.
Hutton (R. E.), The Crown of Christ, ii. 7.
Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., v. 1.
Liddon (H. P.), Easter in St. Paul's, 1G9.
Maclaren (A.), The Book of Psalms (Expositor's Bible), iii. 232.
Mills (B. R. v.), The Marks of the Church, 224.
Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, vi. 94.
Simcox (W. H.), The Cessation of Prophecy, 310.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tahernacle Pulpit, xxiv. (1878), No. 1420.
Strong (A. H.), Miscellanies, ii. 219.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xi. (1875), No. 948.
Wilkinson (J. B.), Mission Sermons, i. 176.

Christian World Pulpit, xi. 314 (R. Glover) ; xxxv. 276 (Canon
Rowsell).

S9>

The Day which the Lord made.

This is the day which the Lord hath made ;

We will rejoice and be glad in it.— Ps. czviii. 24.

This is unmistakably a psalm for use in the Temple worship, and
was probably meant to be sung antiphonally, on some day of
national rejoicing indicated in the text. A general concurrence
of opinion points to the period of the restoration from Babylon
as its date, but different events connected with that restoration
have been selected. The psalm implies the completion of the
Temple, and therefore shuts out any point prior to that. Delitzsch
fixes on the dedication of the Temple as the occasion; but the
view is still more probable which supposes that it was sung on
the great celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, recorded in
Neh, viii. 14-18. In later times ver. 25 was the festal cry raised
while the altar of burnt-offering was solemnly compassed, once on
each of the first six days of the Feast of Tabernacles, and seven
times on the seventh.

1. Apparently the psalm falls into two halves, of which the
former half (w. 1-16) seems to have been sung as a processional
hymn while approaching the sanctuary, and the latter (w. 17-29),
partly at the Temple gates, partly by a chorus of priests within,
and partly by the procession when it had entered. Verses 22, 23,
24 probably belong to the priestly chorus. They set forth the
great truth made manifest by restored Israel's presence in the
rebuilt Temple. The metaphor is suggested by the incidents con-
nected with the rebuilding. The " stone " is obviously Israel,
weak, contemptible, but now once more laid as the very founda-
tion stone of God's house in the world. The broad truth taught
by its history is that God lays as the basis of His building, i.e.,
uses for the execution of His purposes, that which the wisdom of

man despises and tosses aside.

399

400 THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE

2. The general truth contained here is that of St. Paul's great
saying, " God chose the weak things of the world, that he might
put to shame the things that are strong." It is a law which finds
its highest exemplification in the foundation for God's true temple,
other than which can no man lay. Israel is not only a figure of
Christ ; there is an organic unity between Him and them. What-
ever, therefore, is true of Israel in a lower sense is true in its
highest sense of Christ. If Israel is the rejected stone made the
head of the corner, this is far truer of Him who was indeed
rejected of men, but chosen of God and precious, the corner stone
of the one great living temple of the redeemed.

The text is best regarded as the continuation of the choral
praise in vv. 22, 23. " The day " is that of the festival now in pro-
gress, the joyful culmination of God's manifold deliverances. It is
a day in which joy is duty, and no heart has a right to be too
heavy to leap for gladness. Private sorrows enough many of the
jubilant worshippers no doubt had, but the sight of the Stone laid
as the head of the corner should bring joy even to such. If sad-
ness was ingratitude and almost treason then, what sorrow should
now be so dense that it cannot be pierced by the Light which
lighteth every man ?

3. In our Lord's time the whole of this psalm was applied to
the Messiah by the Jewish interpreters. Christ was the Stone,
refused by the builders of Israel, but afterwards made the Head
of the corner. His was the welcome, " Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord " ; to Him was addressed the prayer,
" Hosanna, save, I pray," as on Palm Sunday, by the Jewish
multitude. Thus it was very natural for the Christian Church to
find in the words, " This is the day which the Lord hath made ;
we will rejoice and be glad in it," an application to our Lord
Jesus Christ. What was the day in Christ's life which He made
His own, beyond all others ? Not His birthday ; for that meant
His entrance on a life of sorrows. Not His ascension day ; for
that was the closing scene of a triumph already achieved. Not
His transfiguration day; it was a momentary flash of glory
in a career of pain. Not the day of His crucifixion ; it was a
great day for a ruined world, but for Him it marked the lowest
stage of humiliation and of woe. The day of days in the life of

PSALM cxviii. 24 401

Christ was the day of His resurrection. It reflected a new glory
on the day of His birth. It witnessed a triumph of which the
ascension was but a completion. It was to the transfiguration
what the sunrise is to the earliest dawn. It poured a flood of
light and meaning on Calvary itself ; and showed that what took
place there was not simply the death-scene of an innocent Sufferer,
but a sacrifice which would have power with God to the end of time.

Something of this kind is what was felt by the early Christians
about Easter Day ; and as it was the greatest day in the life of
Jesus Christ, so for them it was the greatest day in the whole
year. It was the day of days ; it was the Lord's Own Day.
Every Lord's Day in the year was a weekly feast of Christ's rising
from the dead ; on Easter Day, the force and meaning of all these
Lord's Days were gathered into one consummate expression of joy
and praise. " This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we
will rejoice and be glad in it."

^ The song of the angels, the voice at the baptism, the agony
in the garden, the sublime anguish of Calvary, would have been
inexplicable without the light which was reflected back upon them
by the angels at the open tomb on the morning of the resurrec-
tion. Such a nature aud such a life were not formed and fashioned
within the narrow limits of time and space ; they brought infinity
and immortality within the confines of the world. Alone among
men, Christ has visibly put on immortality; but that sublime
truth does not rest on the resurrection ; it rests on the very
structure of man's nature and life. Neither is comprehensible
without it; neither is ever complete in itself; both aftirm its
reality and predict its fuller disclosure. The risen Christ does
not stand solitary in a vast circle of unopened graves ; He is the
visible witness to the sublime truth that the grave has no victory
and death no sting; for life and immortality are one and the
same.^

Oh, had I lived in that great day,

How had its glory new
Fill'd earth and heaven, and caught away
My ravish'd spirit too !

No thoughts that to the world belong

Had stood against the wave
Of love which set so deep and strong
From Christ's then open grave.
1 H. W. Mabie, The Life of the Spirit, 360.
PS. XXV.-CXIX. — 26

402 THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE

No cloister-floor of humid stone
Had been too cold for me;

For me no Eastern desert lone
Had been too far to flee>

A Day of Victory.

The joy of Easter is inspired by the hope which the day of our
Lord's resurrection warrants and quickens. What is this hope,
and how does it spring from our Saviour's rising again from the
dead? The great hope which the resurrection sets before us is
the completeness of our life after death.

1. The difficulty of believing in a future life is due, not to
the reason, but to the imagination as controlled by the senses.
Who of us has not made this discovery, in some one of those dark
hours which sooner or later visit every human life ? Who of us
has not stood by the open coffin, and felt himself, or marked how
others feel, the terrific empire of sense in the presence of death ?
The form which was once full of life, quivering with expressive-
ness, with thought, with feeling, now lies before us cold and
motionless, like a plaster cast of its former self. Perhaps the
traces of what must follow are already discernible ; and forthwith
the imagination surrenders itself, like a docile pupil, to the
guidance of the senses, and ends by proclaiming the victory of
death ; a victory too clear, too complete, too unquestionable, to
allow reason or revelation to raise their voices in favour of any
sort of life that can possibly survive it.

2. Now it was to deal with this specific difficulty that our
Lord willed to die, and then, by a literal bodily resurrection, to
rise from the grave. He would grapple with the imperious
urgency of the senses and the imagination on their own ground.
He would beat down by an act, palpable to the senses, and attested
by evidence which should warrant its reality for all time, the
tyrant power which sought to shut out from man the hope of an

' Matthew Arnold, Elegiac Poems.

PSALM cxviii. 24 403

immortal life. When the disciples saw that the Eisen Being
before them was their Lord ; when they noted His pierced hands,
His feet, His side ; when they conversed with Him, ate with Him,
listened to Him, followed Him much as of old ; then they knew
that the Master who had been killed upon the cross by a pro-
tracted agony, and committed to the grave as a bleeding and
mangled corpse, had really risen from death, and had opened
a new era of hope for the human race. And for us, in a distant
age, this fact that Christ rose from death is not less full of
precious hope and joy than for our first forefathers in the faith.
For the early Christians the resurrection was practically Christi-
anity, nay, the whole of Christianity, in so far as Christianity as
a whole rested on it as the proof-fact of its having come from
heaven. This is what the first Christians felt: of the truth of
their faith " God had given an assurance unto all men, in that he
had raised Jesus from the dead." Therefore did the resurrection
inspire them with such fervent joy.

^ If it belong to man to rejoice when some great General has
fought his country's enemies, and beaten them and led their chiefs
captives ; if on such occasions our bells ring, and our cities are
decked with garlands, and flags wave, and there are feastings and
banquetings.

And the tumult of their acclaim is rolled

Through the open gates of the city afar,

To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star,

if a nation joys in the return of the triumphant General, and
hearts are warmed all through the length and breadth of the land
at the news, as by electric sympathy, and all agree to make
holiday, because now the yoke of the invader has been broken,
and they feel themselves free — and hearth, and home, and wife,
and child, and all that they hold dear is rescued out of peril, and
the possession secured to them — how much more surely ought
the Christian to be glad and rejoice on each recurrence of Easter ?
For it is the anniversary of the Lord's Victory. He comes to us
as the Captain of our Salvation, comes amongst us fresh from
combat, " with dyed garments from Bozrah," " treading in the
greatness of his strength " ; He comes, leading the Invader a
prisoner, leading captivity captive.^

» R. D. B. Rawnsley.

404 THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE

II.

A Day of Rejoicing.

1. The joy of Easter is the joy of a great certainty. The
resurrection of our Saviour is the fact which makes an intelligent
Christian certain of the truth of his creed. The Apostles entered
on their work with one conviction, prominent beyond all others.
It was that the truth of Christianity, and its claim upon the
minds and hearts of men, depended mainly upon the fact of the
resurrection of Christ from the dead.^ Within a few weeks of
the occurrence, and amidst 'a population passionately interested in
denying the truth of what they said, they took every opportunity
of virtually saying, " Christianity is true ; it is true because
Christ has risen from death." They could not have ventured to
do tliis unless they had been sure of the fact upon which they
were so ready to risk everything, even life itself ; sure, with that
sort of certainty which comes from actual experience.

^ To my mind, the spiritual miracle of the Crucifixion was
an infinitely greater miracle than the physical miracle of the
Eesurrection — a much more impressive evidence of the actual
mingling of the Divine with the human. It is strange that a
world which can accept heartily the one should find it so difficult,
and in some cases so impossible, to accept the other. This implies,
I think, that what it does accept it accepts without any true
insight into the wonder and majesty of the personal manifestation
the reality of which it professes to recognize. Certainly ours is a
superstitious age, though superstitious rather in the excess of its
respect for the physical energies of the universe, than in the
excess of its respect for the spiritual.^

2. It is always very difficult to realize any great joy or great
sorrow. We cannot realize it by wishing to do so. What brings
joys and sorrows of this world home to us is their circumstances
and accompaniments. When a friend dies, we cannot at first
believe him taken from us; we cannot believe ourselves to be in any
new place when we are just come to it. When we are told a thing,
we assent to it, we do not doubt it, but we do not feel it to be true,
we do not understand it as a fact which must take up a position

'■ R. H. Mutton, Aspects of Bcligiom and Hcientific Thought, 168.

PSALM cxviii. 24 405

or station in our thoughts, and must be acted from and acted
towards, must be dealt with as existing : that is, we do not reahze
it. It cannot be denied that we have much to do, very much,
before we rise to the understanding of our new nature and its
privileges, and learn to rejoice and be glad in the day which the
Lord hath made; "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened
that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is
the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe,
according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought
in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his
own right hand in the heavenly places."

/,^ Unbelief once wrote at the entrance of a cemetery the word
" Fuerunt," " They have been." Faith always writes over the gate
of a churchyard, " I am the Eesurrection and the Life." ToJ
unbelief the dead are but memories ; memories of "beings who have
ceased to be. To faith the dead are living, working, praying
friends, whom nothing but the dulness of sense hides from sight.^

3. The joy of Easter is the joy of a great reaction : a reaction
from anxiety and sorrow. So it was at the time of Christ's
resurrection. The Apostles had been crushed by the sufferings
and death of Jesus Christ. They had trusted that it was "he
which should have redeemed Israel." Their disappointment, their
despondency, their anguish were exactly proportioned to their
earlier hopes. When He was in His grave, all seemed over ; and
when He appeared, first to one, and then to another, on the day
of His resurrection, they could not keep their feelings of welcome
and delight — traversed though these were by a sense of wondering
awe — within anything lil^e bounds. It was a change from dark-
ness to light, from fear to hope, from death to endless life, for the
world at large. Those who first felt it, and rejoiced, are long
since gathered to their rest ; but others came after them, to whom
it was just as really a cause of joy as to the women who were
early at the tomb ; and to us at this present time, separated by
nineteen hundred years from the Apostles and followers of the
risen Son of God, His rising again is quite as much a matter to
encourage us to triumphant faith, to comfort us in trouble and in
death, as it was to them.

^ H. P. Liddon, Easter in St. Faul's, 178

4o6 THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE

^ Finding that one of his children had been greatly shocked
and overcome by the first sight of death, he tenderly endeavoured
to remove the feeling which had been awakened, and opening a
Bible, pointed to the words, " Then cometh Simon Peter following
him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen
clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself." Nothing, he
said, to his mind, afforded us such comfort when shrinking from
the outward accompaniments of death, — the grave, the grave-
clothes, the loneliness, — as the thought that all these had been
around our Lord Himself, round Him who died, and is now alive
for evermore.^

4 The joy of Easter is the holy joy of quiet triumph, of hymns
of victory and exulting faith. The Lord is risen ! What more
can the glad Church of the redeemed say ? She can only repeat
it again and again with multiplied Alleluias. Words seem out of
place, for the joy of the Church is too deep to express itself in the
ordinary language of the world — and yet it is to the world that
she brings the glad tidings of the victory of her Lord. No wonder
then that the earth is glad and beautiful in this foregleam of the
coming day, when He shall fulfil His promise, " Behold, I make all
things new." Even in the order of nature there is nothing but
joy and the coming of new life in the spring-time of the world.
The very air is full of the songs of the birds, and fragrant with
the first fresh scents of the forests and meadows, as they clothe
themselves again with foliage and verdure after the long days of
wintry gloom, decay and death.

See the world's beauty budding forth anew,
Shows with the Lord His gifts returning too !
The earth with flowers is deck'd, the sky serene ;
The heavenly portals glow with brighter sheen.
The greenwood-leaves, the flowering meadows tell
Of Christ, triumphant over gloomy hell.
Hail ! Festal Day ! for evermore ador'd,
Wherein God conquer'd hell, and upward soar'd,

^ Be sure there is a unity of Law in the universe, and if in
that which we call the natural world there is one consistent
thought producing one consistent fact, the same thought holds

' A. P. Stankj, Life of TJumas Anwld, D.D., i. 219.

PSALM cxviii. 24 407

good in the world of Man ; and the life which we possess when we
die — the life which is in thought, feeling, will, and the rest — will
frame for itself, as quickly, as individually, as eagerly, a new form
as the seed in spring has done when we see its twofold arrow
cleave the ground. This will be the resurrection, and of the great
law of which this is the outcome, the result of which we see in
Nature, in all things — the result of which we do not see in Man —
for its result in us is wrought after death — the resurrection of
Christ is the only known result in humanity. The life in
Christ took new form when His earthly body died, and the fact
that it had done so was revealed to His disciples. They knew
He was alive again, and had a new and living form — that on the
death of His mortal body, an immortal form became His own.
He was not unclothed, but clothed upon. Properly speaking, that
is no miracle, if miracle be defined as the violation or transcending
of law. It is, in my mind, that which always takes place in the
other world when we die ; shown to us in this world for once, that
we might know it. It is not a reversion, it is a revelation, of law ;
it is not apart from our knowledge, it is the declarations that the
same idea that rules the growth of life in the world of Nature
rules its growth in the world of Man. The resurrection of the
body is the renewing of form.^

The yearly miracle of spring.

Of budding tree and blooming flower,

Which Nature's feathered laureates sing
In my cold ear from hour to hour,

Spreads all its wonders round my feet;

And every wakeful sense is fed
On thoughts that o'er and o'er repeat,

" The Kesurrection of the Dead ! "

If these half vital things have force

To break the spell which winter weaves,

To wake, and clothe the wrinkled corse
In the full life of shining leaves;

Shall I sit down in vague despair,

And marvel if the nobler soul
We laid in earth shall ever dare

To wake to life, and backward roll

^ Stopford A. Brooke.

4o8 THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE

The sealing stone, and striding out,

Claim its eternity, and head
Creation once again, and shout,

"The Eesuriection of the Dead"?*

IIL

A Day of Eemembrance.

1. Christ's resurrection has not become less important by the
passage of years ; its virtue is not diminished, its grace and power
are not worn out. If Christ had indeed risen this very morning,
His resurrection would not be in reality of more concern to us
than it is now. Christ is risen — risen never to die again, to be
for ever that which He was the first moment when He conquered
death. He is there above, the Saviour who could not be kept in
captivity by the grave ; the very same who spoke to Mary
Magdalene, and reproved the doubting Thomas, and talked on the
way to Emmaus, and broke bread on the sea-shore. And what
was true of Him then is true now ; what could be said of Him then
can be said now ; what He did then for those who loved Him and
believed Him, He can do now ; what they felt towards Him — the
rejoicing and the glorying trust, and the conquering comfort and
strength — it is ours to choose whether we shall not feel it too.
The Light which broke on men on that third day, shines as
brightly on all believing hearts now as it did on St. Peter and
St. John, not a mere remembrance of past glory and gladness, but
an unfailing and uninterrupted spring of present hope and
strength. And it will shine long after we are gone, to cheer the
hearts and raise the joy of our children, and of all the unborn
generations to the end of the world.

\5i It is the one inspiring element of Christianity that it throws
us in boundless hope upon the future, and forbids us to dwell in
the poisonous shadows of the past. A new and better growth is
before us, a fresher, a diviner, a more enthusiastic life awaits us.
We are to wake up satisfied in the likeness of Christ, the ever
young Humanity. Therefore, " forgetting those things which are
behind," let us "press forward to the mark of the prize of our
high calling in Christ Jesus." ^

1 Geoi-e rionrj' Bokor, The Book of the Dead, 147. * Stopford A. Brooke.

PSALM cxviii. 24 409

The women sought the tomb at dawn of day,

And as they went they wept and made their moan:

" His sepulchre is guarded by a stone,
And who for us shall roll the stone away ? "
But lo ! — an Angel, robed in white array.

Had rent the rock and sat thereon alone.

" Fear not," said he ; " the Lord hath overthrown
The power of Death : I show you where He lay."
We echo oftentimes that cry of old:

Huge stumbling-blocks confront us whilst we wait
And wonder, weeping, who wijl help afford :
But as we question sorrowing, behold !

The stone is rolled away, though it is great,
And on it sits the Angel of the Lord.^

^2. The resurrection of Christ was to His early followers a call,
a call louder than that of the trumpet on Mount Sinai, to newness
of life and newness of hope. It called men of old when it was
first preached ; it calls men still, now that its remembrance never
ceases among us. It calls aloud to newness of life, it calls on the
sinner and the careless to arise from the death of sin to the life of
righteousness ; it cries aloud, " Awake thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." We know
how it made St. Paul cry out, " If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the
right hand of God." " In that he died, he died unto sin once :
but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye
also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord." These were the feelings, these
were the thoughts, which came into the minds of the first
believers in Christ. They felt how much they had to do with the
resurrection. It had weaned them from sin; it strengthened
them, day by day, in all holiness and love. The resurrection had
changed everything to them, and they lived as men to whom this
world had become nothing except a place to live in holily, where
they might love and serve their brethren, and wait patiently God's
will, till their call came to that world and home which was to be
for ever. Christ's resurrection calls us also not only to begin a
new life, but to go on with it, with renewed zeal and carefulness,
if by His grace we have begun it. It reminds us once more how
^ Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Verses, Wise or Otherwise, 197.

4IO THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE

mighty to save, how unwearied to uphold and help, is He whom
we have for our Leader and Guide through life. He, if we are
trusting Him, is One who has broken the bauds of death, who is
in truth the Watcher of our way, and the Director of our steps ;
He is One who has endured and conquered — endured all and
conquered all — to lend us of His strength, to feed our faintness
with His renewed life, to show us of that truth and light which
He has won for men. We have only to go to Him for it. We
have only to go straight forward in the way of obedience and
holiness, and we need not fear that we shall fail.

3. There may still be for each of us many anxieties, many
sorrows, many bitter disappointments and griefs in life ; for God
does not promise tranquillity, but quite the opposite. Yet in spite
of all this there will be joy in God, and peace, and rest, through
the abiding union with Him who is " our peace." As we conquer
sin we grow in likeness to Jesus Christ ; and as we become like
Him we share, through an ever-growing closeness of union, the
joy, the peace, and the brightness of the resurrection life. " I will
see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man
taketh from you." As children say to themselves, " This is the
spring," or " This is the sea," trying to grasp the thought and not
let it go ; as travellers in a foreign land say, " This is that great
city," or " This is that famous building," knowing it has a long
history through centuries, and vexed with themselves that they
know so little about it ; so let us say. This is the Day of Days,
the Pioyal Day, the Lord's Day. This is the day on which Christ
rose from the dead ; the day which brought us salvation. It is
a day which has made us greater than we know. It is our Day
of Rest, the true Sabbath. We have had enough of weariness,
and dreariness, and listlessness, and sorrow, and remorse. We
have had enough of this troublesome world. We have had
enough of its noise and din. Noise is its best music. But now
there is a stillness that speaks. We know how strange the
feeling is of perfect silence after continued sound. Such is our
blessedness now. Calm and serene days have begun ; and Clirist
is heard in them, and His still small voice, because the world
speaks not. I^t us only put off the world, and we put on
Christ. The receding from one ia an approach to the other.

PSALM cxviii. 24 411

May we grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and

Saviour, season after season, year after year, till He takes to
Himself, first one, then another, in the order He thinks fit, to be
separated from each other for a little while, to be united together
for ever, in the Kingdom of His Father and our Father, His God
and our God.

^ When one says, " Lord, I believe," in Jesus' sense, he
means that he trusts — a very different thing. Jesus' physical
Eesurrection, in the same way, is a question that can be decided
only by evidence, and is within the province of reason. His
spiritual Eesurrection is a drama of the soul, and a matter of
faith. When I declare my belief that on the third day Jesus
rose, I am really yielding to evidence. When I am crucified
with Christ, buried with Christ, and rise to newness of life
in Christ, I am believing after the very sense of Jesus.^

* John Watson, The Mind of the MasUr.

The Clean Path.

4>S

Literature.

Cox (S.), The BircCs Nest, 131.

Gumming (J. E.), in Convention Addresses delivered at Bridge of Allan,

1895, p. 59.
GriflQn (E. D.), Plain Practical Sermons, ii. 465.
Hopps (J. P.), Sermons of Love and Life, 65.
Leitch (R.), The Light of the Gentiles, 157,
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Psalms li.-cxlv., 281.
Murphy (J. B. C), The Service of the Master, 9.
Norton (J. N.), Warning and Teaching, 140.
Simeon (C), Works, vi. 302.
Smith (W. C), Sermons, 146.
Voysey (C), Sermons, xxi. (1898), No. 22.
Wiseman (N.), Children's Sermons, 205.
Christian World Pulpit, xii. 198 (A. P. Peabody) ; xxiv. 90 (H. W.

Beecher) ; xxix. 315 (H. W. Beecher).
Church Pulpit Year Book, 1911, p. 271.
Preacher's Magazine, iv. 272 (J. Feather).

4»4

The Clean Path.

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed thereto according to thy word.— Ps. cxix. 9.

1. It is a great matter to know what is the right question to
put, and how to put it rightly. The secrets of nature disclose
themselves to the man who knows how to question her properly ;
for he is already on the line of its solution when he sees clearly
what the exact problem is. So also in any discussion, he who
can lay aside all extraneous and irrelevant matter, and put his
finger on the real point at issue, has already half won the battle ;
for our errors mainly arise from our mixing up of what is essential
with subordinate points, the settlement of which is of no vital
consequence. It is the same in the affairs of practical life.
There, too, it is all-important to put clearly before our minds
what is the supreme question we have to deal with as moral and
responsible beings. Our character will depend on the answer
to that, but the answer will not be difficult if we put the question
rightly. Here we are, for a few short years, in a world of
struggle and conflict, having duties to ourselves and to each
other and to God, having also various endowments and various
temptations. What is the line of thought which should press
on each of us as the supreme matter for our most serious
consideration ? What is the question which every young man
should put to himself as he looks out on the troubled sea of life
with which he has to battle, and where he may make shipwreck
if he take not heed ?

2. The question of our text, "Wherewithal shall a young
man cleanse his way ? " if not absolutely the foremost, is yet
among the weightiest thoughts which we should be laying to
heart. There are, no doubt, still graver questions which we
will do well to put to om-selves. What is the chief end of

4i6 THE CLEAN PATH

man? What is that by failing to achieve which we shall lose
the very object of our existence ? Or, again, What shall a man
do to be saved ? or yet further, Wherewithal shall a young man
cleanse his heart ? These are points of still greater moment,
and carry deeper results than the question of the Psalmist here.
At bottom, no doubt, he had in view the cleansing of the heart
as well as of the way ; for his was no shallow spirit, that cared
only for mere outside behaviour. The Psalmist knew that we
must begin by purifying the fountain if the stream is to be
made pure. But the question, as he formally puts it, points
to our actions rather than our desires and affections, and so far
it is defective. Still, any young man who shall put before him
the cleansing of his way as the aim which he must specially
strive to reach, will surely make a very much worthier life for
himself than they do who start in the race careless whether
the way they take be miry or clean.

An Anxious Question.

"Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?"

There are many questions about the future with which it is
natural for young people to occupy themselves ; and it is to be
feared that the most of them ask more anxiously " How shall I
make my way ? " than " How shall I cleanse my way ? " It is
needful carefully to ponder the questions : " How shall I get on
in the world — be happy, fortunate ? " and the like. But there is
another and more important question : " How shall I cleanse my
way ? " For purity is the best thing ; and to be good is a wiser
as well as a nobler object of ambition than any other.

1. The question of the Psalmist broadly stated is this, Can a
man live, in all respects and in all his paths, a pure and beautiful
life ? and can all his ways be clean ? We know well how much
the question involves ; we know also what the answer means ;
but we can answer without hesitation — as an ideal, Yes. A
man can go into the world, and take his part in all natui'al and

PSALM cxix. 9 417

necessary engagements, and yet have, all through, a cleansed way.
He may go into business, become a politician, enjoy pleasure, and
build up a home, without inevitable stain, without wading to his
object through dishonour ; and is not this just what we want, to
make all life what it ought to be ? If the way of business were
clean, if the ways of pleasure were clean, if the sanctities of
domestic life were all kept unsullied, what a world it would be !
What would become of fraud, and over-reaching, and plotting, and
treachery, and strife, and the sickening suspicions of one another
that now half choke human love and threaten to starve or poison
the charities of life ? We all know what would become of these
things. They would die away as naturally as the mists before
the advance of day. And why should it not be ? Why should
uot a man begin life with the deep conviction that his may be a
cleansed way ?

2. But when the Psalmist speaks of cleansing our way, he
implies that, at some points at least, our way has led us through
the mire. The picture in his mind was of this sort. There stood
before him a young man who had not long set out on the journey
of life and who yet, to his own deep surprise and disgust, found
many stains of travel already upon him. He had not meant to go
wrong ; as yet, perhaps, he has not gone very far wrong. And yet,
where did all this filth come from ? And how is it to be got rid
of ? And if, at the very outset of the journey, he has wandered
into by-paths which have left these ugly stains upon him, what will
he be like when he reaches the end of his journey ? How can he
hope to keep a right course, and to present himself, without spot,
before God at the last ? In short, how is he to make his way
clean, and to keep it clean ?

3. There are in our lives no isolated acts, but only ways. The
wrong of which we say, " Only this once, and it shall never be
repeated," provokes its own repetition, starts us in its own
direction. The violation of truth or integrity, with the expecta-
tion and purpose of retrieving it speedily, involves us in a
labyrinth, in which we lose our way, and may never find our way
back. The laws of sobriety or purity once transgressed, we have
not the power which we previously thought we had to retrace our

PS. .\.;\'.-cxix. — 27

4i8 THE CLEAN PATH

steps. We meant an act ; we have found a way — a precipitous
way, too, on which we gain momentum with every step. A way
has a direction, and leads some whither. A way is continuous ;
and, if we are in it, we are advancing in it. A way differs in its
direction from other ways, and diverges more and more from them
the farther one travels upon it. There is hardly any error so
perilous as that of imagining that there can be isolated acts or
states of mind. Every present has its closely affiliated future.
Every deed, every reverie, every thought, is a cause. We are
moving on in character, as in years. We are not to-day what
we were a week ago. We are advancing either in holiness or
in unholiness.

^ Nature moves physically towards perfection, and morally
there must be the same unseen but necessary motion. For if the
Darwinian theory be true, the law of natural selection applies to
all the moral history of mankind, as well as to the physical.
Evil must die ultimately as the weaker element 'in the struggle
with the good. The slow consent of the world's history is in
the direction of moral goodness, as its physical development is
ever toward higher forms. This progress, of course, does not
necessarily embrace any particular form of life or especial ra«e.
A given race may die, or may remain stagnant. The development
goes on with some new variety or form of life. Such a " current
of things towards rigliteousness," or towards physical perfection, is
slow, almost imperceptible. It is like the silent motion of the
stars of heaven through eternity towards one centre of the
universe. But if once the theory of development be accepted and
this fact be admitted, what higher evidence can be demanded of a
benevolent and perfect Creator than a current of all things
towards the best, a drift towards perfection, a silent, august,
secular movement of all beings and forms of life, all thought and
morals, all history and events towards the completely good and
perfect ? ^

^ Perhaps the present generation has heard more than enough
about progress. Talk of tliat kind is an affectation that was
always unprofitable, and has now become stale. Heal progress
needs no trumpeting. It announces itself like the flowing stream,
which brawls only among the barren rocks, and is most felt as a
beneficent agency that is penetrating and vitalizing in those parts
where friction and noise are reduced to a minimum. True
advancement is humble, earnest, practical. It is single-minded,

' I'lte Life of Charlis Loring Brace, 302

PSALM cxix. 9 419

simple-hearted devotion, ever growing in intelligence, to those
grand objects which are dear to Christ and the angels, and the
over-shadowing grandeur of which makes obtruding self-conscious-
ness impossible. The Apostles advanced by forsaking the
tradition of men and clea\'ing unto the word of the Lord, that
they might do for the world what could be done in no other way.
Luther advanced by bringing men up to the simple record of the
New Testament, that they might find a firm footing as they
passed into eternity and faced the awful facts of life and destiny.
We can advance in the present day only as we come nearer to
Jesus Christ, and bring others with us.^

^ The poet sings —

Our lives must climb from hope to hope,

And realize our longinsr,
but it is not often that the record of a man's progress towards
a pronounced condition of spiritual exaltation is one of uninter-
rupted climbing. There are usually some prominent milestones
that mark momentous crises in the journey, frequently some
definite boundary to which one can point and say, This is where
such a one first dedicated himself to the service of God and
of his fellows. But with Quintin Hogg one can trace the ever-
mounting path back to his earliest days until it is lost in the pure
innocence that is God's birth-gift to every little child. There is
no apparent genesis of conviction, of dedication. From a child
upward he seems to have been imbued with a .sense of service
owed to a Wonderful Benefactor, and though of course there must
have been times of struugle and of darkness, they were principally
of a mental rather than of a spiritual character, causing no
interruption of his self-appointed labours and leaving no con-
temporary external indications of their presence.^

A Simple Answer

" By taking heed."

1. The answer, like the question of the text, is not perhaps the
supremely best, but it is nevertheless very true, and needful to be
borne in mind. We should begin by asking, " Wherewithal shall
I cleanse my heart ? " and the reply to that is, " If any man be in

* James Stark, John Murker of Banff, 54.

* E. M. Hogg, Quintin Hogg, 35.

420 THE CLEAN PATH

Christ he is a new creature " — renewed in the spirit of his mind
after the likeness of Christ. But, allowing that, for the practical
uses of life, nothing better could be said to one than this. Take
heed to your ways, and direct them according to the Word of God
For not a little of the evil of this world arises from the heed-
lessness of youth. We did not mean to do wrong. Very few do,
at least in the beginning. There may be some who have from the
first perverse and evil natures, wholly indisposed to go the right
way. But on the whole these are not the common staple of
human creatures. Most youths are not wishful to do wrong, but
would rather, if it did not cost very much trouble, do right in the
main. But they do not think as strenuously about it as they
should. They are not very watchful of their conduct, or careful
to guide it aright ; and so they fall into a snare. It is this heed-
lessness, this inconsiderateness, which does not weigh seriously the
step we are going to take, and the consequences it may involve —
this is the beginning of many a downward course.' " Oh," we say,
" I did not think ; I did not mean any wrong," and we are fain to
consider that a sufficient excuse. But it is not a sufficient excuse.
We ought to think. God has given us a power of "seeing
before and after" that we may direct our steps aright; and it
will not serve our purpose that we did not use that power, but
blundered into the mire which we should clearly have avoided.
The foremost duty of a man is to think what he is about.

^ The best made road wants looking after if it is to be kept in
repair. What would become of a railway that had no surfacemen
and platelayers going along the line and noticing whether any-
thing was amiss ? I remember once seeing a bit of an old Eoman
road; the lava rocks were there, but for want of care, here a
young sapling had grown up between two of them and had driven
them apart, there were many split by the frost ; here was a great
ugly gap full of mud, and the whole thing ended in a jungle.
How shall a man keep his road in repair ? " By taking heed
thereto." Things that are left to go anyhow in this world have a
strange knack of going one how. You do not need anything else
than negligence to ensure that things will come to grief. ^

^ One of the greatest of living Englishmen sums up the whole
teaching of Goethe, the wisest German of the nineteenth century,
in the brief citation: " Gedenko, zu leben," which means literally,

' A. Maclaren.

PSALM cxix. 9 421

"Think, to live." Carlyle translates, "Think of living." But
you will all get hold of its meaning if I say that what it comes to
is this : " If you would live rightly and well, you must think —
think how it is best to live." So that, you see, two of the
wisest men of our own time are of one mind with the Psalmist
who lived between two and three thousand years before them.
He says, " If you would walk in pure and noble ways of life, think
of your ways." ^

2. If we examine our self-consciousness, we shall find that it is
never as to the qualities of actions that we feel doubt or hesita-
tion. The questions which perplex us, and which it is unspeak-
ably dangerous for a young person to begin to ask, are such as
these : How far may I go in a wrong direction, and yet be sure to
go no farther ? Is there any harm in a slight compromise of
principle ? Can I not with ultimate safety trespass once, or a
little way, on forbidden ground ? Can I not try the first pleasant,
attractive steps on a way which I am determined on no account to
pursue farther ? May I not go as far in the wrong as others are
going, without reproach and without fear ? Is there not some
redeeming grace in companionship, so that I may venture witli
others a little farther than I would be willing to go alone ? May
not my conscience, under careful home-training and choice home-
examples, have become more rigid and scrupulous than is befitting
or manly in one who has emerged into comparative freedom ?
In these questions are the beginnings of evil — the first, it may be,
fatal steps in miry ways.

•[j If you once allow yourself to fall into a habit of evil of
whatever kind, the idea that you are helpless, that you are made
so, that it is your nature, will very speedily creep in and try to
lay hold of your mind. Whether it be a sin of passion or of
temper, which comes only at times, lea%dng you free to live a right
and perhaps even a religious life in the intervals, and returning
with a sort of easy victory in the hour of temptation, making your
falls all the more miserable by their contrast with your happier
and better moments ; or some of those palsies of the soul which
seem to benumb the will — sloth for instance, or selfishness ; or
again, a petty fault which mars all your life without seeming ever
to stain it deeply, making you ashamed, and justly ashamed,
that you should find a difficulty in overcoming such a trifle ; in

» S. Cox, The Bird's Nest, 136.

422 THE CLEAN PATH

such cases, over and above the temptation to the sin itself, there
soon comes the added temptation to treat it as hopeless, to give
up in despair, to reconcile yourself to your enemy, and say that
you are made so, and cannot do otherwise. And this is indeed no
trifling addition. The one chance of escape from habitual sin is
never to intermit the struggle : do that, and you are quite sure to
conquer; some better opportunity for getting power over the
temptation presents itself ; or the temptation seems to go away
of itself, you do not know how; or it returns less and less
frequently, till it returns no more ; its going may be in one way
or in another ; but persevere in the battle, and go it surely will.
Thus ere now have Christians overcome bodijy temptations, to
some men the severest trials of all; thus have Christians tamed
down unruly temper ; thus have they conquered pride and
vanity ; thus have they taught themselves to be true.^

3. But it is not in man to direct his steps aright. Therefore
God has bestowed on us what sliould be " a lamp unto our feet,
and a light unto our path." It is something to be heedful and to
walk warily, for we are beset on all hands by snares and tempta-
tions. But that is not enough. For besides these dangers that
encompass us without, we have other perils to face in the shape
of false ideals, mistaken views of what a man should be and do.
Therefore the Psalmist reminds us that we can cleanse our ways
only by taking heed to them according to God's Word. He
meant, of course, the Law of the Lord as it had been made known
to Israel of old. That was to be their practical guide in the
path of duty in his day. It was not merely a doctrine they were
to believe, but a commandment they must obey. And a noble
law it was, of brave and manly and self-denying virtue, leading
them up the steep heights of arduous duty to the fellowship of
Israel's God. Yet, good and precious though it was, quickening
the soul to a higher life than the rest of the world dreamt of, we
have now a surer word and a fairer example to direct us, a more
potent inspiration also urging us to higher and holier attainments.
Think of the Perfect Man, the model of holy beauty, who is in
all things our example, who teaches how to be rich in poverty, how
to be wise though unlearned, how to bear wrong meekly, how to be
true and faithful and brave with all the world against Him, and
how to forget Himself in the love He bore to all,
> Archbishop Tempi*.

PSALM cxix. 9 423

•[[ In St. Peter the love of God is shown in Christian example.
A plain and simple mind, fixed on plain duties, finding in the
great law of right a supreme satisfaction, St. Peter seems to think
of our Lord chiefly as showing us what we ought to be and do,
and sent by the infinite love of God for that purpose. Do
Christians find their duty hard ? " Even hereunto were ye called :
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye
should follow his steps : who did no sin, neither was guile found
in his mouth : who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when
he suff"ered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him
that judgeth righteously : who his own self bare our sins in his
own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live
unto righteousness : by whose stripes ye were healed." Or, again,
are Christians persecuted ? They are reminded that " Christ also
hath once suff'ered for sins, the just for the unjust." And so
throughout his writings St. Peter ever seems to think of God's
love as upholding a man in doing what it is right to do, in bearing
what it is right to bear, and of Christ's life as the assurance of that
love.^

4. In Christ, who is the Incarnate Word, we have an all-
sufficient Guide on our way through life. A guide of conduct
must be plain — and whatever doubts and difficulties there may
be about the doctrines of Christianity there is none about its
morality, A guide of conduct must be decisive — and there is no
faltering in the utterance of the Book as to right and wrong. A
guide of conduct must be capable of application to the wide
diversities of character, age, circumstance — and the morality of
the New Testament especially, and of the Old in a measure,
secures that, because it does not trouble itself about minute details,
but deals with large principles. A guide for morals must be far
in advance of the followers, and it has taken generations and
centuries to work into men's consciences, and' to work out in
men's practice, a portion of the morality of that Book. If the
world kept the commandments of the New Testament, the world
would be in the millennium ; and all the sin and crime, and
ninety-nine-hundredths of all the sorrow, of earth would have
vanished like an ugly dream.

^ I never saw a useful Christian who was not a student of
the Bible. If a man neglect his Bible, he may pray and ask God
* Archbishop Temple.

424 THE CLEAN PATH

to use him in His work, but God cannot make use of him, for
there is not much for the Holy Ghost to work upon. We
cannot overcome Satan with our feelings. The reason why some
people have such bitter experience is that they try to overcome
the devil by their feelings and experiences. Christ overcame
Satan by the Word}

5. The fatal defect of all attempts at keeping our heart by our
own watchfulness is that keeper and kept are one and the same,
and so there may be mutiny in the garrison, and the very forces
that ought to subdue the rebellion may have gone over to the
rebels. We want a power outside of us to steady us. We
want another motive to be brought to bear upon our conduct,
and upon our convictions and our will, mightier than any that
now influence them ; and we get that if we will yield ourselves to
the love that has come down from heaven to save us, and says to
us, " If ye love me, keep my commandments." We want, for keeping
ourselves and cleansing our way, reinforcements to our own inward
vigour, and we shall get these if we will trust to Jesus Christ,
who will breathe into us the spirit of His own life, which will
make us " free from the law of sin and death." We want, if our
path is to be cleansed, forgiveness for a past path, which is in
some measure stained and foul, as well as strength for the future,
to deliver us from the dreadful influence of the habit of evil.
And we get all these in the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanses
from all sin.

^ How are we to be made holy ? God has made full provision
for it. There is wonderful provision laid down in the Word for
our sanctification. First of all there is the blood of Jesus Christ
which cleanseth from all sin. There is power in it to cleanse
even the young man's heart. Secondly, there is the washing with
the Word. You remember the Lord said to His disciples, " Now,
ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you."
Thirdly, there is the keeping power of Christ Himself. " I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep
that which I have committed unto him against that day." The
power of Christ to keep is another part of the provision that God
lias made to keep us holy. Then there is the Holy Spirit of God,
whose special office on earth is to do this work of sanctification
through Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ; the Word of the

» D. L. Moody.

PSALM cxix. 9 425

living God ; the keeping power of Christ ; the sanctifying power
of the Holy Ghost. What a provision is this ! ^

Four letters that a child may trace!

Yet men who read may feel a thrill
From powers that know not time nor space,

Vibrations of the eternal will —
With body and mind and soul respond
To "Love" and all that lies beyond.

On truth's wide sea, thought's tiny skiff
Goes dancing far beyond our speech,

Yet thought is but a hieroglyph

Of boundless worlds it cannot reach :

We label our poor idols " God,"

And map with logic heavens untrod.

Music and beauty, life and art —

Eegalia of the Presence hid —
Command our worship, move our heart,

Write " Love " on every coffin-lid :
But infinite — beyond, above —
The hope within that one word " Love." *

' J. Elder Gumming. ^ Annie Matlieson, Mayiime Soiigs, 59.

The Wondrous Law.

4«7

Literature.

Flint (R.), Sermons and Addresses, 133.

Harper (F.), Nine Sermoiis, 31.

Ker (J.), Sermons, i. 29.

Matheson (G.), Messages of Hope, 241.

Salmond (C. A.), For Daijs of Youth, 346.

Voysey (C), Sermons, vi. (1883), No. 44 ; mx. (1896), No. 16 ; xxvi.

(1903), No. 22.
Whincup (D. W.), The Training of Life, 21.
British Weekly Pulpit, iii. 401 (W. Sanday).
Treasury (New York), xx. 722.

«a8

The Wondrous Law.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold
Wondrous things out of thy law. — Ps. cxix. i8.

This is a very uncommon idea — that wonder should be the result
of intellectual development or the " opening of the eyes." The
prevailing notion is the reverse — that wonder belongs to the
primitive age alike of the individual and of the race. We say
colloquially, " I opened my eyes in astonishment " ; the Psalmist's
expression is the converse, " I became astonished by opening my
eyes." What the Psalmist says is that the marvels of life escape
us by reason of our ignorance. His prayer is just the contrary of
the common prayer. The common prayer is, " Make me a simple
child again that I may feel the mystery of all things and bow
with reverence before them." But the Psalmist says, " Emancipate
me from the ignorance of childhood, for it is only when I shall
see with the eyes of a man that I shall behold the mystery, the
marvel, the unfathomable depth, of that ocean on whose bosom
I live and move and have my being."

^1 Do we find that the sense of wonder belongs to children ?
Not so. The sense of mystery is precisely what a child does not
feel. He asks many questions; but he will accept the crudest
answers as quite adequate explanations. He has not a conscious-
ness of limitation. He has a feeling of power beyond his strength ;
he will put out his hand to catch the moon. He does not at an
early date inquire where he came from. He does not ask who
made a watch or who made the sun. To him the watch and the
sun are both alive — moving by their own strength, upheld by
their own power. His eyes are not opened, and therefore his
wonder is not awake. To wake his wonder you must unbar the
door of his mind. The mystery comes with his experience — not
with the want of it. I do not read that man marvelled in Eden ;
I do that they marvelled in Galilee. Eden was as wonderful as
Galilee ; but the eyes were not opened. Knowledge is the parent

of mystery. Experience is the forerunner of reverence. Only

429

430 THE WONDROUS LAW

they who have let down the pitcher can utter the cry, " The well
is deep." ^

"[j Mr. Morley, in his Life, of Gladstone, speaking of his entrance
into college life at Oxford, says : " It was from Gladstone's intro-
duction into this enchanted and inspiring world that we recognize
the beginning of the wonderful course which was to show how
great a thing the life of a man may be made." So with Christian.
Here, in the Interpreter's House, his spiritual experiences really
begin. He is no longer in the outer circle of the world's empty
life ; he has come within the circle of God's direct purposes and
protecting power. Dangers he will have to meet, trials of faith
and courage ; the Hill of Difficulty, the Valley of Humiliation, the
Castle of Giant Despair, the struggle with Apollyon — all this is
before him. But he is on the pilgrim-road to Zion. There is the
sweet companionship; there are the wonders by the way — the
Interpreter's House, the Cross where the burden is removed, the
Palace Beautiful, the sight of the Delectable Mountains, the Eiver
of the Water of Life. So whatever might be the difficulties,
Christian was on enchanted ground. He was near to God. He
was on the path whose end was heaven. The wicket gate admits
him to the rich field of Christian experience : the only experience
that has any lasting value.^

1. The sense of wonder is one of our most useful emotions.
The mind cannot remain long in a state of monotony without
something like pain, or if it does, it is a sign of the low level to
which it has sunk. It has a craving after what is fresh, and God
has provided for this in the form of the world. He has made the
works of nature pass before us with a perpetually diversified face.
He has created summer and winter, and so ordered the sun that it
has probably never set with the same look since man first saw it.
Those works of nature are constantly turning up new subjects of
thought and study, and will do so, during the world's existence;
while, at the same time, the world itself is weaving an ever-
shifting and many-coloured web of history. In all this there is
a stimulus to man to lead him to look and think.

^ Not by " mathesis," not by deduction, or construction, not by
measuring, or searching, canst thou find out God, but only by the

' G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, 242.

» D. W. Whincup, The Training of Life, 21.

PSALM cxix. i8 431

faithful cry from the roadside of the world as He passes — " Open
thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy
law." In that prayer you have literally expressed to you, not in
any wise as we too carelessly assume metaphorically, the two
functions of the exercised senses, of which you have so often, I
fear incredulously, heard me affirm the necessary connexion — the
discerning of what is beautiful and of what is right. " Wondrous
things out of thy law." Wondrous, not as to the uneducated
senses they are in terror, but wondrous to the educated senses in
gentleness and delight ; so that while to the modern demonstrator
of the laws of Nature they become mysterious as dreadful in their
tyranny, to the ancient perceiver of the laws of Heaven they be-
came lovely no less than wondrous: in the tenderness and the
voice of the Borgo Allegri, at the feet of the Mother of Christ,
was joy no less of allegiance than wonder — " Oh, how love I thy
law."i

2. Wonder rises into admiration as we contemplate things
that are grand and beautiful. There is a chord in the human
heart to which the beautiful and sublime respond, whether these
appear in the material or in the spiritual world. If we could only
take men away for a little out of the dull, dead round, and from
the corroding and often debasing things that draw them down in
their common life, there are objects such as these appealing to
them daily and hourly, and asking them if they have not a soul.
Eich sunsets and moonlit skies are there, only requiring eyes to
see them, and acts of self-devotion and heroism are being per-
formed, and lives of patient suffering led, under our sight, which
are as capable of thrilling us as anything recorded in history.

^ At a later time the Mar^chale delivered addresses in other
cities of France — such as Nimes, Marseilles, Havre, Rouen, Lyons
— and she was everywhere astonished to find that the French,
who seem the most thoughtless, are yet among the most thought-
ful people in the world. The result of such Conferences as these
cannot be tabulated. For one thing, they made the Mar^chale
more than ever a mother-confessor and spiritual director. The
thoughts of many hearts were revealed to her at private inter-
views of which no record was kept, and in letters, one of which
may be given : —

" Your marvellous faith, your simple and powerful eloquence
so deeply moved me that I cannot but thank you. I thank you

^ Euskin, Schools of Art in Florence, § 90 ( Works, xxiii. 250).

432 THE WONDROUS LAW

AS an artist, as a sincere admirer of beautiful work, of great char-
acters ; I thank you as a man blas6, sceptical, benumbed and
deadened. As a child I adored Jesus, and now, after having
thought much and suffered infinite pains which you cannot
understand, I have said adieu to faith and also adieu to hope!
I have become one of those you call sceptics. Ah ! do not say
' terrible ' sceptic, but unfortunate, pitiable, unhappy sceptic.
You are, Madame, a great, beautiful, generous heart, and if ever
earnest good wishes have been worth anything, I have cherished
them for you, your work, and those who fight by your side. You
will believe me, an unbeliever, who envies you, admires you, and
ideally loves you." ^

3. Wonder and admiration deepen into awe as we realize the
mystery of life. A reflective mind can take but a very few steps
in thinking till it comes upon this. It is not so much that there
are things unknown around us as that there are things unTcnowdble,
that there is an infinite and a mystery in the universe which we
cannot now penetrate, and which may for ever stretch beyond us.
The tokens of man's highest nature lie not in his being able to
comprehend but in his ability to feel that there are things which
he cannot comprehend, and which he yet feels to be true and
real, before which he is compelled to fall down in reverent awe.
It is here, above all, that man comes into contact with religion,
with a God, with an eternity ; and he in whom there is little
sense of wonder, or in whom it has been blunted and degraded,
will have a proportionately feeble impression of these grand
subjects which the soul can feel to be real but can never fully
grasp.

^ I can call my Father a brave man (ein Tapferer). Man's
face he did not fear; God he always feared: his Keverence, I
think, was considerably mixed with Fear. Yet not slavish Fear ;
rather Awe, as of unutterable Depths of Silence, through which
flickered a trembling Hope. How he used to speak of Death
(especially in late years) or rather to be silent, and look of it!
There was no feeling in him here that he cared to hide : he
trembled at the really terrible ; the mock-terrible he cared nought
for. — That last act of his Life ; when in the last agony, with the
thick ghastly vapours of Death rising round him to choke him,
he burst through and called with a man's voice on the great God
to have mercy on him : that was like the epitome and concluding

' Jauies Strahan, The Maridiale (1913), 123.

PSALM cxix. 1 8 433

summary of his whole Life. God gave him strength to wrestle
with the King of Terrors, as it were even then to prevail. All his
strength came from God, and ever sought new nourishment there.
God be thanked for it.^

II.

1. There is nothing so wonderful as God's law; indeed, it
may justly be said to include in itself all that is most wonderful —
all that truly merits our admiration — all that will really reward
our curiosity. For what is it? The Psalmist here was not
thinking merely of the law given to Moses or of the words written
in any book, however sacred. He was not thinking of spoken
words or written characters, but of eternal realities. He was an
earnest man, and his mind sought to be in contact with truth
itself ; he was a pious man, and his heart longed for nothing less
or lower than communion with the living God. He felt himself
in the Divine presence, and he felt that the Divine law was
within and around him. The Bible tells us much about the law
of God, but it is only by a figure of speech that we call it the law
of God or even that it contains the law of God. In the Bible and
other books we have the statements of God's laws, but these laws
themselves are far too real to be in any book.

2. It is the law of God that keeps the stars in their courses,
regulates the movements of the seas and the revolutions of the
earth, develops the plant and organizes the animal, works in our
instincts and guides our reason, marks out the path of humanity
and determines the rise and fall, the weal and woe, of nations, and
measures out to virtue and vice their due rewards in time and
eternity. It is not truly separable from God Himself, but is the
whole of the modes in which He manifests His power, and wisdom,
and goodness in the universe, — the whole of the ways in which
He operates through matter and spirit, in creation, providence, and
redemption, as Father and King and Judge. Hence it is that we
say it is not only most wonderful but includes in itself all that is
wonderful. The wonders of physical nature, of the human soul
and human history, and of redeeming love and grace, are all
wonders of that law of God which the Psalmist longed and prayed

' Carlyle, Reminiscences, i. 10.
PS. xxv.-cxix. — 28

434 THE WONDROUS LAW

to behold — that law which ruleth alike in what is least and
in what is greatest, to which all things in heaven and earth do
homage, the seat of which is the bosom of the Eternal, the voice
of which is the harmony of the universe.

^ I read in the Bible that God has " set his glory in the
heavens," but in merely reading this I do not see that glory ; it
is only to be seen by " considering the heavens, which are the work
of God's fingers ; the moon and the stars, which he has ordained."
This terrible law — " the wages of sin is death " — has been published
in the Bible, but it does not exist and work in the Bible ; it exists
and works in the lives of sinful beings like you and me, and if
we do not see it in ourselves we shall never see it at all, although
we read a thousand times the words which announce it. So with
its gracious counterpart — " the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ." These blessed words point us to the most consoling
law in all the universe, but they point us away from themselves ;
and only by our souls coming into communion with a living God
through a living Saviour can they behold the wonders of mercy
and truth which are in that law.^

^ Really, so far as spiritual vision is concerned, the angels
must look upon this earth as a big blind asylum. We see close
to us, but not afar off; we see the surface, and miss the depths ;
we see not as wide awake, but as those who rub their eyes hardly
knowing whether they wake or sleep. Have I seen the " wondrous
things " out of God's law — the things which accompany salva-
tion. Many feel the intellectual interest of God's Word, enjoy
its eloquence, extol its moral worth, or they appreciate its pru-
dential wisdom, like Napoleon, who put it in the political section of
his library ; but they do not grasp its spiritual, saving message.
They gather shining pebbles and painted shells, and overlook the
pearl of great price. Oh ! to see the wondrous depths of redeem-
ing love ! Whilst I study systems of theology and search the com-
mentaries of exegetes do I sufficiently remember the promised
Revealer and wait His illumination ? " Ye have an unction from
the Holy One, and know all things." *

III.

1. The most wonderful of all laws are God's moral and spiritual
laws. They are the laws of God in a far liigher sense than other
laws. The laws of the physical world might have been quite

1 Robert Flint. * W. L. Watkinson.

PSALM cxix. 1 8 435

different from what they are. God made them to be what they are
by making the phyaical world itself what it is. If He had made quite
a different material world with quite other laws, He would have
been none the less God, the true object of our worship. But He
did not make the fundamental laws of moral life to be what they
are by any mere forthputting of His will. They are eternal and
unchangeable. That God should alter them would be for Him
to cease to be wise and righteous and holy and loving. It would
be for Him to cease to be God. The wonders of these laws are
thus the wonders of the Divine nature, and far greater, therefore,
than any wonders of created nature. At the same time, these
laws are the laws of our natures, of our spirits, of what is much
higher and much more wonderful than anything else to be beheld in
nature. " On earth," it has been said, " there is nothing great but
man, and in man there is nothing great but mind." And certainly
a soul is a far more wonderful thing than even a star, a spiritual
being than a material world, and its laws are far more wonderful. It
is spiritual law that determines men's relations to their God and to
one another, and it is on obedience or disobedience to it that the
weal or woe of individuals or societies chiefly depends, so that all
the marvels and mysteries of human nature and destiny gather
round it.

^ I am not quite sure that the sole, or even chief, end of
punishment is the reformation of the offender. I think a great
deal of law. Law rules Deity ; and its awful majesty is above
individual happiness. That is what Kant calls " the categorical
imperative," that is, a sense of duty which commands categorically
or absolutely — not saying " it is better," but " thou shalt." Why ?
Because " thou shalt," that is all. It is not best to do right —
thou must do right ; and the conscience that feels that, and in that
way, is the nearest to Divine humanity. Not that law was made,
like the Sabbath, for man, but man was made for it. He is beneath
it, a grain of dust before it ; it moves on, and if he will not move
before it, it crushes him ; that is all, and that is punishment. I
fancy that grand notion of law is what we have lost, what we
require to get, before we are in a position to discuss the question
of punishment at all, or to understand what it is.^

2. To behold fully how wonderful the law is — how sacred God
regards it to be — how terrible disobedience to it is — it is to the
^ Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W, Robertson, 236.

436 THE WONDROUS LAW

cross we must look ; to the cross, towering high above all other
subjects, in the midst of the ages, in the presence of the nations,
to show sin in all its hideousness and righteousness in all its per-
fections. If we can see no wonders in the law which Christ died
to satisfy and glorify, if we do not see it to be imspeakably more
wonderful than all the other laws, assuredly our blindness is great
indeed, and we cannot too earnestly cry to a merciful God, " Open
Thou mine eyes."

^ In a letter to her father Miss Nightingale says :
" What I dislike in Kenan is not that it is fine writing, but
that it is all fine writing. His Christ is the hero of a novel ; he
himself, a successful novel-writer. I am revolted l)y such expres-
sions as charmant, delicieux, religion du pur sentiment, in such a
subject. ... As for the ' religion of sentiment,' I really don't
know what he means. It is an expression of Balzac's. If he
means the ' religion of love,' I agree and do not agree. We must
love something loveable. And a religion of love must certainly
include the explaining of God's character to be something loveable
— of God's * providence,' which is the self-same thing as God's
Laws, as something loving and loveable. On the other hand I go
along with Christ, not with Kenan's Christ, far more than most
Christians do. I do not think that ' Christ on the Cross ' is the
highest expression hitherto of God — not in the vulgar meaning of
the Atonement — but God does hang on the Cross every day in
every one of us; the whole meaning of God's 'providence,' i.e.
His laws, is the Cross. When Christ preaches the Cross,
when all mystical theology preaches the Cross, I go along with
them entirely. It is the self-same thing as what I mean when
I say that God educates the world by His laws, i.e. by sin
— that man must create mankind — that all this evil, i.e. the
Cross, is the proof of God's goodness, is the only way by which
God could work out man's salvation without a contradiction. You
say, but there is too much evil. I say, there is just enough (not
a millionth part of a grain more than is necessary) to teach man
by his own mistakes, — by his sins, if you will — to show man the
way to perfection in eternity — to perfection which is the only
happiness." ^

IV.

Man's eyes are veiled, so that he sees but a little way into
God's law. Our intellectual perception of law is one thing and
' Sir Edward Cook, Tlu Life of Florence NigJitingale, i. 486.

PSALM cxix. i8 437

our spiritual perception of God in law is a very different thing.
To see law itself we need only a clear and disciplined under-
standing. To see God in law we need spiritual discernment.
The eye sees only what it brings with it the power of seeing.
And neither mere bodily vision nor mere intellectual vision will
enable us to behold spiritual reality. The things of the spirit
must be spiritually discerned.

^ When on a serene night millions of stars sparkle in the
depths of the sky, any man who has bodily eyes, although he may
have no talent and culture, has only to raise them upwards to
embrace at a glance all the splendours of the firmament, and
thereby to receive into his soul, at least in some measure, the
impressions which so sublime a spectacle is fitted to produce.
But there may stand beside him one whose intellectual ability is
far greater, and who has improved that ability to the utmost by
diligent and carefully directed exercise, yet if Providence have
denied to him the blessing of sight, in vain for him will there be
all magnificence. There is another sky, and one far grander than
the azure vault which is stretched over our heads, and this mystic
sky is filled with the stars of Divine truth, the wonders of
creative power, the mysteries of infinite wisdom, the bounties of
Divine beneficence, the beauties of absolute holiness, the marvels
of redeeming love, the riches of the Godhead, the glories of
Father, Son, and Spirit, shining far more bright and pure than
the sun at noonday. And yet to great men, to the wise of this
world, to the most scholarly and the most scientific of men, they
may be quite invisible, although they are lighting up with their
Divine radiance the path of the simple peasant and causing his
heart to leap and sing with joy as he beholds them.^

^ 1 remember very well when Sir Eedvers Buller came home
from South Africa, in almost the first speech he made after
landing at Southampton, he drew attention to the immense
superiority of the Boer over the Briton in the matter of vision.
Accustomed to the clear atmosphere and vast distances of South
Africa, the Boer had brought his sight faculty to such a pitch of
perfection that he could see a moving object a mile or two farther
ofi* than the average Englishman could, with the result that he
was aware of the approacli of the English soldier long before the
Englishman became aware of his nearness. And Sir Red vers did
not hesitate to set down some of our calamities and disasters and
defeats to this cause.^

1 Robert Flint. * J. D, Jones, Elims of Life, 126.

438 THE WONDROUS LAW

1. One cause of this blindness is a hereditary defect in the
uiibelicviny heart, a natural congenital blindness, which the lapse
of years has not cured. We are all burn blind, and remain blind
to moral and spiritual truth long after birth. Discernment
between right and wrong, a sense of duty, a sense of failure and
secret shame in consequence, is a state or faculty into which we
can grow only after we have lived as mere animals about four or
five years. It takes some years longer before we grow into
knowledge of the ideas of character, of trustworthiness in parents,
of their unselfish love, and of the intense kindness of that
discipline which at first we resisted and resented. Before that
development we were blind, we could not discern spiritual things ;
we could not know what true love is, for love is the most spiritual
of all human faculties. It crowns the climax of all strictly human
qualities. But, though it seems incredible, it is true that some
men and women have grown up without any moral sense being
developed, and also without any knowledge or sense of true love.

^ I came across a man well advanced in years who confided
to me that he believed neither in God nor in a future life. I at
once asked him: "Did you ever really love any one in the
world ? " After some days' reflection, he replied to me : " No, I
don't think I ever did love anybody — at least, not as you define
true love." Now, if you cannot get as far as love in human
development, you must, of course, be blind to God. You cannot
see Him, cannot take any pleasure in the thought of Him, but
must be practically dead towards Him.^

2. Another cause of blindness is to be found in the conditions
of life which are either forced upon ils or have been chosen by our-
selves. The worst and most widespread of these conditions is
absorption in the concerns and pleasures of this life. Rich and
poor alike sufifer from this absorption, yet the rich suffer from it
far more than the poor. Want and distress may open our eyes to
God, fulness and luxury never. So long as our hearts are fixed
wholly on worldly good and animal indulgence, our souls are
utterly blind to God and to all spiritual things.

^ Christian saw in Interpreter's House two boys, Passion and
Patience. Passion had a bag of gold in his hand, but Patience
was willing to take his Governor's advice and wait for liis good

' GbarlM Voyaey.

PSALM cxix. i8 439

things till the next year. And these two boys, says John Bunyan,
are typical of the worldly man and the true Christian. The
worldly man, with his favourite proverb of " A bird in the hand
is worth two in the bush," wants his good things at once; he
wants his bag of gold in the hand, not seeming to realize that his
money must perish with him ; but the Christian is willing to do
without this world's wealth, because he looks not at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.^

^ A scientist delivered a lecture a little time ago in which he
maintained, on the basis of studies started by the observation
of the eye of a wounded bird, that all diseases of the body
register themselves in the eye, that it was even possible to judge
the location of the disease by the part of the pupil affected.
Whether this can be demonstrated or not, there is no doubt that
the eye has its connexion with organs of the body that are less
honourably placed, and is affected by their accidents and dis-
quietudes. Diseases of the blood and of the digestive functions
cloud and vex the sight. You shall not be careless of your
eating and drinking and maintain clear vision. The mists and
the filmy globes which float before the eye are the indices of
things wrong in parts of the system that are remote from the eye
itself, and to be remedied by neither eye-lotions nor glasses. So
neglect of the spiritual life results in blurred spiritual vision.^

3. Above and beyond these things which naturally darken
our souls, there lie the conditions which we may create for
ourselves. Not knowing anything about the soul and the
spiritual* life, some steep themselves in studies and occupations
which prevent all entrance of light into their minds concerning
God and His ways. They keep the company of irreligious and
unbelieving men like themselves. They pore over essays and
volumes which not only throw not a gleam of light upon the
spiritual world, but are purposely written to shut it out, to
make it more and more difficult to see God, to deepen the
darkness in which they started on their search for what they
call " Truth." Thus, blind at the beginning, they take for their
guides men and books still more blind than themselves, and
flounder on with ever less and less power to recover their
sight. And all the while they studiously neglect those means
by which their eyes may be opened. They never lift up their

^ J. D. Jones, Elims of Life, 134.

* W. C. Piggott, The Imperishable Word, 68.

440 THE WONDROUS LAW

hearts to God. They avoid all thoughts of religion unless only
to sneer at it, or to look down upon it with supercilious curiosity.
They never attend public worship or put themselves in the way
of hearing what they never have heard. "What is the use,"
cry the more intelligent among them — " what is the use of
praying to a God who is absolutely unknowable ? " But they
forget that God is unknowable only to those who think Him
to be 80, to those who never pray. If they did but confer with
those who have lifted up their hearts to God and have found
Him, they might be brought to go down upon their knees to
pray, " Lord, open Thou mine eyes that I may see."

^ A little steam vessel in which I was sailing round the
coast of Arran, emitted such a thick pall of smoke as to blot
out the vision of Goat Fell. And sometimes our souls create
those obscuring clouds and hide the glory of God. It may be the
vapour of pride. It may be the steam of unclean passion. It
may be the smoke of timidity and fear.

O may no earth-born cloud arise

To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes.^

Night comes ; soon alone shall fancy follow sadly in her flight
Where the fiery dust of evening, shaken from the feet of light,
Thrusts its monstrous barriers between the pure, the good,

the true.
That our weeping eyes may strain for, but shall never after view.
Only yester eve I watched with heart at rest the nebulae
Looming far within the shadowy shining of the Milky Way ;
Finding in the stillness joy and hope for all the" sons of men ;
Now what silent anguish fills a night more beautiful than then :
For earth's age of pain has come, and all her sister planets

weep.
Thinking of her fires of morning passing into dreamless sleep.
In this cycle of great sorrow for the moments that we last
We too shall be linked by weeping to the greatness of lier

past:
But the coming race shall know not, and the fount of tears

shall dry,
And the arid heart of man shall be arid as the desert sky.
So within my mind the darkness dawned, and round me

everywhere
Hope departed with the twilight, leaving only dumb despair.'

1 J. H. Jowett. * A. E., ColltUed Poems (1913), 26.

PSALM cxix. i8 441

The Psalmist does not ask for a new faculty, but for clearer
vision. The eyes are there already ; they need only to be opened.
It is not the bestowal of a new and supernatural power that
enables a man to read the Bible to profit, but the quickening
of a power he already possesses. A man will never grow into
the knowledge of God's Word by idly waiting for some new
gift of discernment, but by diligently using that which God has
already bestowed upon him, and using at the same time all
other helps that lie within his reach. There are men and books
that seem, beyond others, to have the power of aiding insight.
All of us have felt it in the contact of some affinity of nature
which makes them our best helpers ; the kindred clay upon the
eyes by which the great Enlightener removes our blindness
(John ix. 6). Let us seek for such, and if we find them let us
employ them without leaning on them. Above all, let us give
our whole mind in patient, loving study to the book itself, and
where we fail, at any essential part, God will either send His
evangelist Philip to our aid (Acts viii.) or instruct us Himself.
But it is only to patient, loving study that help is given. God
could have poured all knowledge into us by easy inspiration, but it
is by earnest search alone that it can become the treasure of the soul.

1. If we are to get spiritual sight our prayer must be
sincere. The old Hebrew poet, speaking with a true insight
confirmed by experience, says: "If thou seek him, he will be
found of thee ; yea, if thou seek him diligently with thy whole
heart." That is the secret. It will not do to be seeking God
with a heart looking back to the idol which had taken His place.
It will not do to be wanting to have God and the idol at one
and the same time. God has made that to be impossible for
the soul of man. One God or idol at a time, or not God at all.
And while any lingering love for the idol remains, there is no
room for God to enter in. It is not His fault, or His unwilling-
ness, or His jealousy. But it is our own Divine incapacity to
trifle or dissemble with Him; it is our own Divine necessity
for wholeness, for uprightness and sincerity, that mak<es any
attempt at double-mindedness futile.

442 THE WONDROUS LAW

^ An old colleague and friend of Denholm Brash writes : —
" Chief among my impressions of his excellences is that of his
utter sincerity. It was so invariable that it bewildered the
average man. He never troubled about maintaining any
position he might have taken up yesterday. He told you
what he thought to-day ; every passing mood was faithfully
reflected in his words; the fleeting opinion or feeling was not
concealed. You were allowed to trace processes in his thought
which most men hide from view. ... I have seen him confound
an old fox of a man by sheer candour. He left the enemy
breathless with surprise at a simplicity he had thought faded
out of the world with Eden. The man's arts would have been
a match for any arts they encountered, bub artlessness dumb-
founded him. The armour of light not only defended the wearer,
but dismayed the assailant. Never was thi.s servant of truth ' off
duty,' and with the audacious simplicity of love he would attack
an apparently impregnable fortress, and with one well-planted
shot would bring a wliole pile of hypocrisies toppling down. He
had a short method with some of these Goliaths which worked
wonders." ^

2. We must bring our hearts into harmony with the law.
At South Kensington there is a clock made above 500 years
ago under the hammer of a Glastonbury monk. It has measured
out the moments of fifteen generations of men. That piece of
mechanism has done and is still doing its maker's will. It has
served its maker's purpose. It fulfils his praiseworthy intention
and so praises him. Every stroke of its pendulum is to the glory
of the Glastonbury smith. The thing has done good and done
right. It keeps (so to say) its maker's commandment. What
he meant it to do it has done well and truly. Perhaps it may
seem a little strained to apply such phraseology to a piece of
inanimate mechanism, but it will surely aid us in seeing what
the moralist means by telling men to live as they were meant
to live. Think of this clockwork of the brain, this delicate
mechanism of thought and feeling. Year in, year out, the restless
wheels of desire and feeling, of thought and passion, play into
one another and mark results on the solemn dial of life. Matters
may be so mismanaged as to put the machinery into a whirl
of wild confusion. It is, on the other hand, possible to secure
» Lne and Life . The Story of J. Denholm Bradi, 163.

PSALM cxix. i8 443

such inward adjustment, such balance, such regulative control,
such true impulse, as to make the soul a splendid harmony
and the life a utility which men acknowledge with reverence
and benediction. With God's works as with man's the essential
thing is to be true to the Maker's purpose. There is a command-
ment, a Divine intention, to which every one must be true. " Thy
hands have made me, and fashioned me ; give me understanding
that I may learn thy commandment."

^ The Lord will draw us and securely lead us to Himself,
in a way contrary to all our natural will, until He have divested
us thereof, and consumed it and made it thoroughly subject unto
the Divine will. For this is His will : that we should cease to
regard our own wishes or dislikes ; that it should become a
light matter to us whether He give or take away, whether
we have abundance or suffer want, and let all things go, if only
we may receive and apprehend God Himself ; that, whether
things please or displease us, we may leave all things to take
their course and cleave to Him alone. Then first do we attain
to the fulness of God's love as His children, when it is no
longer happiness or misery, prosperity or adversity, that draws
us to Him, or keeps us back from Him. What we should then
experience none can utter ; but it would be something far better
than when we were burning with the first flame of love, and had
great emotion but less true submission ; for here, though there
may be less show of zeal, and less vehemence of feeling, there
is more true faithfulness to God. That we may attain thereunto,
may God help us with His grace. Amen ! ^

3. In proportion as we love and obey the law, its wonders
unfold themselves to our cleansed vision. Emerson says in his
essay on Nature, " The health of the eye seems to demand a
horizon. We are never tired so long as we can see far enough."
It is quite true that wide vision is refreshing. We have all been
more depressingly tired in our own houses than on the broad
upland and under the open sky. The mountaineer in his loftiest
adventure knows no such oppressive weariness as the woman
who sits "in unwomanly rags plying her needle and thread."
The man with the widest and furthest vision is the man with
the most exuberant energy. Jesus, even with Gethsemane and
Calvary before Him, is not so weary of life as Judas. St. Paul in
1 Tauler's Li/'e amd Sermons (trans, by Susanna Winkworth), 297.

444 THE WONDROUS LAW

labours more abundant is never so jaded as Nero. The
early Christian martyrs, with their vision of the Name, amid
all the unspeakable horror of their torture, were not so weary
of their sufferings as their persecutors were weary of their
persecution. They might still sing, as Chesterton splendidly
puts it in the " Ballad of the White Horse,"

That on you is fallen the shadow,

And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory

Than we are tired of shame.

That though you hunt the Christian man

Like a hare on the hill side.
The hare has still more heart to run

Than you have heart to ride.
That though all lances split on you.

All swords be heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose

Thau you to win again.

Liberty in God's Law,

445

Literature.

Bramston (J. T.), Fratribus, 125. 1

Campbell (L.), The Christian Ideal, 109.

Farrar (F. W.), The Voice from Sinai, 85.

Ferguson (F.), in Sermons on the Psalms, 115.

King (E.), The Love and Wisdom of God, 294.

Knight (W.), Things Neiv and Old, 172.

Roberts (A.), Miscellaneous Sermons, 295.

Selby (T. G.), The Strenuous Gospel, 380.

Stanley (A. P.), Sermons in the East, 123.

Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, iii. 19.

Christian World Pulpit, xxxvii. 355 (M. Bryce) ; 1. 121 (E. King).

Preacher's Magazine, ii. 220 (W. Hawkins).

Sunday Magazine, 1891, p. 171 (S. A. Tipple).

Treasury (New York), xxi. 675 (H. C. Swentzel).

446

Liberty in God's Law.

I have seen an end of all perfection ;

But thy commandment is exceeding broad. — Ps. cxix. 96.

This psalm throbs throughout with true reh"gion, and is evidently
the production of some venerable father in Israel who had
endured greatly and had not fainted; who had been divinely
taught and chastened by the toils, the troubles, and the tempta-
tions of life ; who had striven to live in loyalty to the law revealed
to him, and was left at once ardent about right doing, and devoted
to meditation ; at once sadly conscious of infirmity and weakness,
and joyfully trustful in God's goodness and mercy. Nevertheless,
though thus confident, the writer of the psalm confesses, " I have
seen an end of all perfection." There is a sound of weariness and
depression in the words ; we can hear speaking in them a man
who had suffered disenchantments and disappointments, who had
tried things that looked inviting to find them less charming than
they looked, void of what they had promised ; a man who had
aimed sanguinely in vain, and had sorrowfully learned that it must
always be in vain ; who had nursed bright expectations that had
not been fulfilled, although again and again he had felt sure that
they were going to be, and who knew now they never could be.

^ This was the favourite text of Dean Stanley, a choice
characteristic alike of the man and of his work : " I see that all
things come to an end ; but Thy commandment is exceeding
broad." [Prayer-Book Version.] These words are inscribed on
his own and his wife's tomb in Henry vii.'s chapel in Westminster
Abbey.

The Unsatisfactoriness of Our ExrEBiENCE.

1. It was no young man who spoke the words of the text;
young people have not seen " an end of all perfection," have not

448 LIBERTY IN GOD'S LAW

arrived at the conclusion that every radiance is stained by the
shadow of defect, that the fullest is not full, the most complete
incomplete. On the contrary, they are setting out to climb to
the top of delectable mountains descried in the distance, where
they shall build their tabernacle and stay. They have visions of
the perfect, and count on realizing them — would infallibly realize
them, they say to themselves, if only such or such circumstances
were granted them; and what is there to which they may not
attain with all the world before them ? No ; he who uttered the
exclamation of the text must have been a comparatively old man
— a man, at all events, who had lived much, who had passed
through many vicissitudes ; who had found out with oft-repeated
trial how much he could not do of what he once thought him-
self capable of doing, the delusiveness of many an apparent
possibility.

^ There was much in 1850 to sadden Watts ; the want of
response, except amongst his own personal friends, to all the
enthusiasm with which he had returned to England, full of faith
in a revival of great art, was making itself felt with chilling
effect year by year. In a moment of depression he writes : " I do
not expect at most to have the opportunity of doing more than
prepare the way for better men — and not that always; more
often I sit among the ruins of my aspirations, watching the tide of
time." No wonder that in such a mood he once signed " Finis " in
the corner of one of his pictures. But the challenge to despair
was given by Mr. Kuskin, who, on reading the word, took up the
charcoal and added beneath, " et initium." If the end, then a
beginning ; and so it proved to be.^

2. Perhaps the disillusion which depressed the Psalmist, and
for which he had found an antidote in the permanence and
magnitude of the Divine law, was not limited to the religious
aspect of life only. By his own simple pathway he had reached
the conclusion, familiar to modern thinkers, that the present
world is not of unimpeachable perfection, but a chaos of knotted
problems, amazing anomalies, clashing interests, contending
principles. He set out with other views, but he reminds himself
that moral processes go on working themselves out upon a scale
of immeasurable greatness, when the secular movements which
' Ucorgt Frederic Waits, i. 126.

PSALM cxix. 96 449

once promised amelioration are threatened with arrest and defeat.
God's inward law, larger than the designs appearing in the
history of contemporary nations, forms the centre round which
his baffled and faltering faith rallies. Spiritual ends are con-
tinued in that larger kingdom of the unseen. God's changeless
and ever-enlarging law of right satisfies that sense of moral
greatness which the course of secular events so often seems to
mock.

^ I am old enough to be done with work, only that I feel that
my best words have not been said after all, that what has been
said is not its full expression. All is incomplete, and I must
wait for the fresh, strong life of immortahty, in the hope that
through the mercy of Him who " knoweth our frame " and our
weaknesses, I may be enabled to do better with the talent He has
given me than I have done.^

^ The longer we live the less we are inclined to be hero-
worshippers, seeing more failings in the men and things we
revered in the enthusiasm of youth. " I have seen an end of all
perfection " ; but it is well if we can add, " thy commandment is
exceeding broad." The more, however, we get to know the
temptations and trials of men, and feel how our own accomplish-
ment falls short of our ideal, the more charitable we become.^

One day I grieved because our greatest gain

Grows pale beside the smallest loss we feel;

One hour of wrong can years of right repeal;
One faulty link can spoil the strongest chain;
One little thorn can cause a cruel pain

That twice ten thousand roses cannot heal;

One harsh discordant note can straightway steal
All harmony from e'en the sweetest strain.
To these my doubts there came an answer sure —

" God's laws are right if rightly understood !

Man's patent of perfection lies in this.
That nought imperfect can his soul endure:

The highest natures seek the highest good

Till they are perfect as their Father is."^

^ Life and Letters of J. G. Whittier, ii. 657.

* John Ker, Thoughts for Hecurt and Life, 13.

' Ellen Thorneycioft Fowler, Verses, Wise or Otherwise, 189.

PS. XXV. -CXIX. — 29

450 LIBERTY IN GOD'S LAW

The Satisfactoriness of God's Law.

1. Everything earthly is only partial; it covers only a part
of life. Whether it be wealth, fame, knowledge, power, it has
a limit ; its territory is not commensurate with the whole life of
man. Though I have all knowledge, said the Apostle, and under-
stand all mysteries, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Knowledge is measurable. There are heights and depths of spirit
which it cannot fill. There is a limit to it. The only thing
immeasurable is love, for love is the Infinite Himself. Nothing
can endure for ever except that which touches the deeps of life,
for that which is only fragmentary and partial must pass away.
So there is an end to it also in the sense of termination because
the limited must terminate ; and, because there is an end to it, it
will not satisfy us. We must have something without an end,
because the spirit of man is larger than time, larger than any
finite period ; and, however man may have sometimes tried in the
perverseness of his heart to deny it, he is still a child of
immortality, and nothing less than immortality filled to the
brim with possession will ever satisfy the yearning of man.
" Broad is thy command exceedingly." That is, it is immeasur-
able, it has no limit. This must be the Psalmist's meaning,
otherwise the contrast fails, and the command of God, being
limited, must be declared inadequate like all other perfections.
But the word of God has no limit whatsoever. Immeasurable !
As soon as we touch the command of God with our heart and
soul and spirit, at once we know that we are at the centre of
immeasurableness. It reveals to us straight away the infinite
God, the soul, and immortality.

^ " There are two things," said Kant, " that fill me with
amazement, the starry heaven above me, and the moral law
within me." Both of them immeasurable, stretching away into
infinity, with man at the centre of them ; yet God's word is
higher than the heavens, and when the moral law has touched
the life of man he knows that he belongs to the infinite vast, and
cannot be satisfied without it.^

» J. Thomas.

PSALM cxix. 96 451

^ Man feels capacities within him that ask an eternity for
bloom and fruitage. There is in nature something that sends him
iin yearning search beyond and above nature.

That type of perfect in his mind
In nature can he nowhere find.
He sows himself on every wind.

In the entire universe, as revealed to man by his senses, there
is nothing perfect ; and the central impulse in all man's noblest
striving is derived from the aspiration of his spirit towards a
perfect truth, a perfect beauty, a perfect happiness, which are
exemplified nowhere in the world. Art, religion, and the im-
petuous career of the race towards a higher grade of civilization,
depend alike upon universal imperfection of the material world
and the impossibility that a God-related spirit, which man is,
should be contented therewith.^

2. Our advance is towards this infinite. It is in an unbroken
advance towards it that human excellence consists. The standard
of perfection lifts itself on new heights with the march of each
new day and month. The perfection of yesterday ceases to be
the perfection of to-day, because the commandment is ever adding
increments to the demands it makes upon us, and binding the
conscience with fresh sanctions. As men are emancipated from
the senses and ushered into more delicate spheres of perception
and experience, they find themselves face to face with new laws
that have to be kept, new decalogues that must be reverently
obeyed, new obligations that must be strenuously fulfilled.

^ The law which the God of righteousness, and the Father of
all the families of the earth, may impose upon the children of
men is obviously larger in its range of applications than the law
congruous to the sovereignty of one known chietiy as the Lord of
Hosts, and the Defender of an isolated group of clans. The
precepts breathed into the conscience by One who has come into
immediate converse with His worshippers exceed in scope and
surpass in fine discriminations the precepts enjoined by a Divine
King who dwells apart and is adored from afar by a people smitten
with fear because of His majesty. To know the length and
breadth, the depth and height of the love which surpasseth know-
ledge means that the soul is brought face to face with ranges of
the commandment hitherto unexplored by human thought. The

^ P. Bayne, Lessons from My Masters, 284.

452 LIBERTY IN GOD'S LAW

law cannot possibly be the same for an Israelite who stands before
the flame-girt Horeb and the believer who bows wondering before
the Cross where the Man of Sorrows bears the burdens of man-
kind. The commandment is broad before the vision of the man,
to whom all life is becoming a theophany.^

^ Christ is the personification not of one part only, but of the
whole of the law of God. His character has not the littleness of
a mere teacher, nor the narrowness of a hermit or a saint, nor the
eccentricity of genius. " His shoulder," as the Prophet says, is
broad enough " to bear the government " and the sins of the whole
world. His mind is wide enough to sympathize with all our
infirmities, as well as with all our efforts after good in every
direction. No griefs of life are more trying than those which
arise from the half-goodness or the half-wisdom of those whom
we wish to love and respect. It is when we think of these things
that the Perfect Law and the Perfect Mind of Christ is so in-
expressibly consoling.2

3. Unlike that story of the iron shroud or . room, which
enclosed its prisoner, day by day, within a narrower and narrower
circle, the chamber of duty and of God's commandment widens,
and opens, and expands with new interests, new enjoyments, new
affections, new hopes, at every successive step we take, till we find
ourselves at last in that Presence, where there is indeed " fulness
of joy and pleasures for evermore."

Our earthly life, the earthly life of those whom we have
known and loved, is cut short by that dark abyss into which we
cannot penetrate, and over which our thoughts can hardly pass.
But God's commandment — and the fulfilment of God's command-
ment— is "exceeding broad"; it is broad enough to span even
that wide and deep river which parts this life and the next.
For it is this that makes this life and the next life one. Know-
ledge, prophecies, gifts of all kinds pass away, but the love of God
and the love of man never fail. They continue into the unseen
world beyond the grave ; the remembrance of these things, as we
have known them here, enables us still to think of them there ;
the unselfish purpose, the generous sympathy, the deep affection,
the transparent sincerity, the long self-control, the simple humility,
of those to whom the commandment of God has been precious —

' T. G. Selby, The Slremiotis Gospel, 394.
* A. P. Stanley, Servians in (he East, 129.

PSALM cxix. 96 453

these are the arches of that bridge on which our thoughts and
hopes cross and re-cross the widest and most mysterious of all the
chasms which divide us ; the gulf which divides the dead and the
living, the gulf which divides God and man.

^ In Stark's Life of Murker of Banff we have this portrait of
a church member : The last day on which her pastor saw Elspeth
alive he asked, " Have you no fears at all in crossing the Jordan ? "
" No," was the reply, " what should I be fear'd for, when I see
Him who is the life an' the resurrection on the ither side. His
word drives awa' a' the mists. I'm just like a bairn that's been
awa' on the fields pu'in' flowers, an' I maun confess whyles chasin'
butterflies, and noo when the sun's fa'en I'm gaun toddlin' hame.
I've a wee bit burnie to cross ; but, man, there's the stappin'-stanes
0' His promises, an' wi' my feet firm on them, I've nae cause tae
fear." After awhile she again opened her lips, and was heard to
say, " He is wi' me in the swellings of Jordan." ^

III.

The Value of Dissatisfaction.

1. The Psalmist had desired and purposed to keep God's law,
to be and to do the best according to his light, and had never been
able to accomplish his object, had been always falling short of it ;
the perfection he craved and sought had always evaded him ; he
had striven worthily, and had more or less done worthily too ; but
it did not satisfy him — there was an excellence to be reached that
was not reached. Or he had had conceptions of duty that had
seemed to him all-comprehending, embracing all that could be
required of him. Here, he had thought, was the whole duty of
man ; but in acting out, or endeavouring to act out, these concep-
tions, others, larger and loftier, had risen upon him. In follow-
ing his standard of right, the standard rose, leaving him far
behind when he fancied himself nigh ; in yielding to the demands
of conscience, the demands increased ; the more he did, the more
his obligation grew ; so that he would have said with a modern
poet —

I see the wider but I sigh the more,
Most progress is most failure.

^ J. Stark, John Murker of Banff, 188.

454 LIBERTY IN GOD'S LAW

Nothing satisfied the Psalmist; the present discredited the
past, only to be in its turn discredited ; every seeming fulness
proved shortly an illusion, and why ? Because a Divine command-
ment had been revealed to him which continually transcended all,
which was continually showing something more and greater to
be done, and continually urging him on when any height was
gained. The more he looked into it, the more it enlarged for
him the field of duty. When he fancied he had fulfilled all, it
would straightway be whispering in his ear some fresh claim;
when he meditated repose, it would still be disturbing him. Had
he not known this commandment, he might have known the peace
of satisfaction ; it was its presence with, and pressure on, him that
made an end of perfection, and kept him always discontented with
the best that had been wrought. Yet our Psalmist would not
have been without the commandment. " Oh, how I love thy law ! "
he cries, in the very next verse. This, in fact, was his distinction,
his dignity, and blessedness — that he had it to his perpetual rest-
lessness and dissatisfaction, and could not be as careless and
happy as the heathen, though he should propose to be; that
he had a vision of the right and of the good which robbed
him of ease, and before which every highest attainment paled
to poorness.

Here is the beautiful Divine secret of our troubled dissatisfac-
tion with things ; that we bear within us a commandment greater
than ourselves, and are more than we are or can be. Our ever-
lasting sense of limitation means that our illimitableness, our
unappeasable hunger is due to our self-transcending capacity;
nothing contents us because we are more than everything, because
we are not a mere part of the visible system, but include, so to
speak, something supernatural; capabilities, susceptibilities, not
adjusted like the powers of other creatures to the scope and
conditions of this mortal life, but overshooting them. And here,
in the grander than ourselves, or the world — for the world is
always insufficient for it, and we are always inferior to it — here
in the grander than ourselves or the world which, possessing us,
keeps us ever insatiable, ever unable to find perfection, let the
world yield us what it will, or let us grow to what we may — here
is the God of whom we dream and never hear or see, and whom
men seek in vain to prove.

PSALM cxix. 96 455

We feel, do we not ? that we are capable of developments in
knowledge and virtue which are never reached, that we are
always imperfect at our best and greatest, and yet that there is
no goodness or greatness to which we may not aspire ; that there
are no limits to our possible progress. We are burdened with an
ideal which, strive and attain as we may, is always reproaching,
depreciating, condemning us, always looking down on us with eyes
of disdain. There is that in us which declares continually that
we might be and ought to be what we cannot be, what with all
our wistfulness and effort we are perpetually hindered from being.
And what does it signify but that we are invaded by the Infinite
— that God is in us ? Our weary unrest, our successive disen-
chantments and disappointments, our scorn of what we have
gained or wrought, our sighs, as we " look before and after, and
pine for what is not " — these are the hints and tokens of God.

^ Inward distaste — emptiness — discontent. Is it trouble of
conscience, or sorrow of heart ? or the soul preying upon itself ?
or merely a sense of strength decaying and time running to waste ?
Is sadness — or regret — or fear — at the root of it ? I do not know :
but this dull sense of misery has danger in it ; it leads to rash
efforts and mad decisions. 0 for escape from self, for something
to stifle the importunate voice of want and yearning ! Discontent
is the father of temptation. How can we gorge the invisible
serpent hidden at the bottom of our well, — gorge it so that it may
sleep ? At the heart of all this rage and vain rebellion there lies
— what ? Aspiration, yearning ! We are athirst for the infinite
— for love — for I know not what. It is the instinct of happiness,
which like some wild animal is restless for its prey. It is God
calling — God avenging Himself.^

2. It would not answer even for the Christian who has meant
to surrender his will, and really wants to be perfected in the will
of God, to be made safe in his plans and kept in continual train
of successes. He wants a reminder every hour — some defeat,
surprise, adversity, peril ; to be agitated, mortified, beaten out of
his courses, so that all that remains of self-will in him may be sifted
out of him, and the very scent of his old perversity cleared. If
we could be excused from all these changes and somersets, and go
on securely in our projects, it would ruin the best of us. Life
^ Amiel's Journal (trans, by Mrs. Humphry Ward), 271.

456 LIBERTY IN GOD'S LAW

needs to have an element of danger and agitation, — perilous,
changeful, eventful ; we need to have our evil will met by
the stronger will of God, in order to be kept advised, by our
experience, of the impossibility of that which our sin has under-
taken. It would not do for us to be uniformly successful even in
our best meant and holiest works, our prayers, our acts of
sacrifice, our sacred enjoyments; for we should very soon fall
back into the subtle power of our self-will, and begin to imagine,
in our vanity, that we are doing something ourselves. Even here
we need to be defeated and baffled now and then, that we may
be shaken out of our self-reliance and sufficiency, else the taste of
our evil habits remains in us, and our scent is not changed.

"We trust and fear, we question and believe,
From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave,
Frail as the web that misty night has spun,
Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun.

While the calm centuries spell their lessons out,
Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt;
When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne,
The chosen Prophet knew His voice alone;
When Pilate's hall that awful question heard,
The heavenly Captive answered not a word.

Eternal Truth ! beyond our hopes and fears
Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres!
From age to age, while history carves sublime
On her waste rock the flaming curves of time,
How the wild swayings of our planet show
That worlds unseen surround the world we know.*
* Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Prini'd fcj/ Morhison & Oibb I.imitrd, Edinhunk

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