{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13353/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13353","id":"gutenberg_13353","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13353","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Psalms -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"LITTLE BOOKS ON RELIGION\n\nEdited by\n\nThe Rev. W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.\n\nElegantly bound in cloth, price _1s. 6d._ each.\n\nChrist and the Future Life.\nBy R.W. Dale, LL.D.\n\nThe Seven Words from the Cross.\nBy the Rev. W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.\n\nThe Visions of a Prophet.\nBy the Rev. Professor Marcus Dods, D.D.\n\nWhy be a Christian?\nAddresses to Young Men. By the same\nAuthor.\n\nThe Four Temperaments.\nBy the Rev. Alexander Whyte, D.D.\n\nThe Upper Room.\nBy the Rev. John Watson, M.A., D.D.\n\nFour Psalms.\nBy the Rev. Professor George Adam Smith, D.D., LL.D.\n\nGospel Questions and Answers.\nBy the Rev. James Denney, D.D.\n\nThe Unity and Symmetry of the Bible.\nBy the Rev. John Monro Gibson, D.D.\n\n\n_HODDER & STOUGHTON_\n\nFOUR PSALMS\n\nXXIII. XXXVI. LII. CXXI.\n\nINTERPRETED FOR PRACTICAL USE\n\nBY\n\nGEORGE ADAM SMITH\n\n\nHODDER AND STOUGHTON\n\nTO\n\nM.S. AND H.A.S.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI\nPSALM XXIII: GOD OUR SHEPHERD\n\nII\nPSALM XXXVI: THE GREATER REALISM\n\nIII\nPSALM LII: RELIGION THE OPEN AIR OF THE SOUL\n\nIV\nPSALM CXXI: THE MINISTRY OF THE HILLS AND ALL GREAT THINGS\nPSALM XXIII\n\nGOD OUR SHEPHERD\n\n\nThe twenty-third Psalm seems to break in two at the end of the fourth\nverse. The first four verses clearly reflect a pastoral scene; the fifth\nappears to carry us off, without warning, to very different associations.\nThis, however, is only in appearance. The last two verses are as pastoral\nas the first four. If these show us the shepherd with his sheep upon the\npasture, those follow him, shepherd still, to where in his tent he\ndispenses the desert's hospitality to some poor fugitive from blood. The\nPsalm is thus a unity, even of metaphor. We shall see afterwards that it\nis also a spiritual unity; but at present let us summon up the landscape\non which both of these features--the shepherd on his pasture and the\nshepherd in his tent--lie side by side, equal sacraments of the grace and\nshelter of our God.\n\nA Syrian or an Arabian pasture is very different from the narrow meadows\nand fenced hill-sides with which we are familiar. It is vast, and often\nvirtually boundless. By far the greater part of it is desert--that is,\nland not absolutely barren, but refreshed by rain for only a few months,\nand through the rest of the year abandoned to the pitiless sun that sucks\nall life from the soil. The landscape is nearly all glare: monotonous\nlevels or low ranges of hillocks, with as little character upon them as\nthe waves of the sea, and shimmering in mirage under a cloudless heaven.\nThis bewildering monotony is broken by only two exceptions. Here and there\nthe ground is cleft to a deep ravine, which gapes in black contrast to the\nglare, and by its sudden darkness blinds the men and sheep that enter it\nto the beasts of prey which have their lairs in the recesses. But there\nare also hollows as gentle and lovely as those ravines are terrible, where\nwater bubbles up and runs quietly between grassy banks through the open\nshade of trees.\n\nOn such a wilderness, it is evident that the person and character of the\nshepherd must mean a great deal more to the sheep than they can possibly\nmean in this country. With us, sheep left to themselves may be seen any\nday--in a field or on a hill-side with a far-travelling fence to keep them\nfrom straying. But I do not remember ever to have seen in the East a flock\nof sheep without a shepherd.\n\nOn such a landscape as I have described he is obviously indispensable.\nWhen you meet him there, 'alone of all his reasoning kind,' armed,\nweather-beaten, and looking out with eyes of care upon his scattered\nflock, their sole provision and defence, your heart leaps up to ask: Is\nthere in all the world so dear a sacrament of life and peace as he?\n\nThere is, and very near himself. As prominent a feature in the wilderness\nas the shepherd is the shepherd's tent. To Western eyes a cluster of\ndesert homes looks ugly enough--brown and black lumps, often cast down\nanyhow, with a few loutish men lolling on the trampled sand in front of\nthe low doorways, that a man has to stoop uncomfortably to enter. But\nconceive coming to these a man who is fugitive--fugitive across such a\nwilderness. Conceive a man fleeing for his life as Sisera fled when he\nsought the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. To him that space\nof trampled sand, with the ragged black mouths above it, mean not only\nfood and rest, but dear life itself. There, by the golden law of the\ndesert's hospitality, he knows that he may eat in peace, that though his\nenemies come up to the very door, and his table be spread as it were in\ntheir presence, he need not flinch nor stint his heart of her security.\n\nThat was the landscape the Psalmist saw, and it seemed to him to reflect\nthe mingled wildness and beauty of his own life. Human life was just this\nwilderness of terrible contrasts, where the light is so bright, but the\nshadows the darker and more treacherous; where the pasture is rich, but\nscattered in the wrinkles of vast deserts; where the paths are illusive,\nyet man's passion flies swift and straight to its revenge; where all is\nseparation and disorder, yet law sweeps inexorable, and a man is hunted\ndown to death by his blood-guiltiness. But not in anything is life more\nlike the Wilderness than in this, that it is the presence and character of\nOne, which make all the difference to us who are its silly sheep; that it\nis His grace and hospitality which alone avail us when we awaken to the\nfact that our lives cannot be fully figured by those of sheep, for men are\nfugitives in need of more than food--men are fugitives with the conscience\nand the habit of sin relentless on their track. This is the main lesson of\nthe Psalm: the faith into which many generations of God's Church have sung\nan ever richer experience of His Guidance and His Grace. We may gather it\nup under these three heads--they cannot be too simple: I. The Lord is a\nShepherd; II. The Lord is my Shepherd; and, III. if that be too feeble a\nfigure to meet the fugitive and hunted life of man, the Lord is my Host\nand my Sanctuary for ever.\n\nI. _The Lord is my Shepherd_: or--as the Greek, vibrating to the force of\nthe original--_The Lord is shepherding me; I shall not want_. This is the\ntheme of the first four verses.\n\nEvery one feels that the Psalm was written by a shepherd, and the first\nthing that is obvious is that he has made his God after his own image.\n\nThere are many in our day who sneer at that kind of theology--pretty,\nindeed, as the pearl or the tear, but like tear or pearl a natural and\npartly a morbid deposit--a mere human process which, according to them,\npretty well explains all religion; the result of man's instinct to see\nhimself reflected on the cloud that bounds his view; man's honest but\ndeluded effort to put himself in charge of the best part of himself,\nfilling the throne of an imaginary heaven with an impossible exaggeration\nof his own virtues.\n\nBut it is far better to hold with Jesus Christ than with such reasoners.\nJesus Christ tells us that a man cannot be wrong if he argues towards God\nfrom what he finds best in himself. _If ye then, being evil, know how to\ngive good gifts to your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father\ngive the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? What man of you, having an\nhundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine\nin the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?\nEither what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth\nnot light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find\nit? ... Likewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the\nangels of God over one sinner that repenteth_.\n\nThat is a true witness, and strikes Amen out of every chord of our hearts.\nThe Power, so evident in nature that He needs no proof, the Being so far\nbeyond us in wisdom and in might, must also be our great superior in every\nquality which is more excellent than might. With thoughts more sleepless\nthan our thoughts, as the sun is more constant than our lamps; with a\nheart that steadfastly cares for us, as we fitfully care for one another;\nmore kingly than our noblest king, more fatherly than our fondest\nfatherhood; of deeper, truer compassion than ever mother poured upon us;\nwhom, when a man feels that he highest thing in life is to be a shepherd,\nhe calls his Shepherd, and knows that, as the shepherd, _whose the sheep\nare_, shrinks not to seek one of his lost at risk of limb or life, so his\nGod cannot be less in readiness of love or of self-sacrifice. Such is the\nfaith of strong and unselfish men all down the ages. And its strength is\nthis, that it is no mere conclusion of logic, but the inevitable and\nincreasing result of duty done and love kept pure--of fatherhood and\nmotherhood and friendship fulfilled. One remembers how Browning has put\nit in the mouth of David, when the latter has done all he can do for\n'Saul,' and is helpless:\n\n  Do I find love so full in my nature,\n  God's ultimate gift,\n  That I doubt His own love can\n  compete with it? ...\n  Would I fain in my impotent yearning\n  do all for this man;\n  And dare doubt he alone shall not\n  help him, who yet alone can?\n  Could I wrestle to raise him from\n  sorrow, grow poor to enrich,\n  To fill up his life, starve my own out,\n  I would--knowing which\n  I know that my service is perfect.\n  Oh, speak through me now!\n  Would I suffer for him that I love?\n  So wouldst thou--so wilt thou!\n\nThus have felt and known the unselfish of all ages. It is not only from\ntheir depths, but from their topmost heights--heaven still how far!--that\nmen cry out and say, _There is a rock higher than I!_ God is stronger than\ntheir strength, more loving than their uttermost love, and in so far as\nthey have loved and sacrificed themselves for others, they have obtained\nthe infallible proof, that God too lives and loves and gives Himself away.\nNothing can shake that faith, for it rests on the best instincts of our\nnature, and is the crown of all faithful life. He was no hireling herdsman\nwho wrote these verses, but one whose heart was in his work, who did\njustly by it, magnifying his office, and who never scamped it, else had he\nnot dared to call his God a shepherd. And so in every relation of our own\nlives. While insincerity and unfaithfulness to duty mean nothing less than\nthe loss of the clearness and sureness of our faith in God; duty nobly\ndone, love to the uttermost, are witnesses to God's love and ceaseless\ncare, witnesses which grow more convincing every day.\n\nThe second, third and fourth verses give the details. Each of them is\ntaken directly from the shepherd's custom, and applied without\ninterpretation to the care of man's soul by God. _He maketh me lie\ndown_--the verb is to bring the flocks to fold or couch--_on pastures of\ngreen grass_--the young fresh grass of spring-time. _By waters of rest He\nrefresheth me_.[1] This last verb is difficult to render in English; the\noriginal meaning was evidently to guide the flock to drink, from which it\ncame to have the more general force of sustaining or nourishing. _My life\nHe restoreth_--bringeth back again from death. _He leadeth me in paths\nof righteousness for His name's sake_, not necessarily straight paths, but\npaths that fulfil the duty of paths and lead to somewhere, unlike most\ndesert tracks which spring up, tempt your feet for a little, and then\ndisappear. _Yea, though I walk in a valley of deep darkness, I will fear\nno evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff_ are not synonymous,\nfor even the shepherd of to-day, though often armed with a gun, carries\ntwo instruments of wood, his great oak club, thick enough to brain a wild\nbeast, and his staff to lean upon or to touch his sheep, while the ancient\nshepherd without firearms would surely still more require both. _They will\ncomfort me_--a very beautiful verb, the literal meaning of which is to\nhelp another, choked with grief or fear, to breathe freely, and give his\nheart air.\n\n[Footnote 1: The Greek reads: epi hudatos anapause\u251c\u2524s exethrepse me]\n\nThese simple figures of the conduct of the soul by God are their own\ninterpretation. Who, from his experience, cannot read into them more than\nany other may help him to find? Only on two points is a word required.\n_Righteousness_ has no theological meaning. The Psalmist, as the above\nexposition has stated, is thinking of such desert paths as have an end and\ngoal, to which they faultlessly lead the traveller: and in God's care of\nman their analogy is not the experience of justification and forgiveness,\nbut the wider assurance that he who follows the will of God walks not in\nvain, that in the end he arrives, for all God's paths lead onward and lead\nhome. This thought is clinched with an expression which would not have the\nsame force if righteousness were taken in a theological sense: _for His\nname's sake._ No being has the right to the name of guide or shepherd\nunless the paths by which he takes the flock do bring them to their\npasture and rest. The other ambiguous phrase is the _vale of deep\ndarkness_. As is well known, the letters of the word may be made to spell\n_shadow of death_; but the other way of taking them is the more probable.\nThis, however, need not lead us away from the associations with which our\nold translation has invested them. It is not only darkness that the poet\nis describing, but the darkness where death lurks for the poor sheep,--the\ngorges, in whose deep shadows are the lairs of wild beasts, and the\nshepherd and his club are needed. It stands thus for every dismal and\ndeadly passage through which the soul may pass, and, most of all, it is\nthe Valley of the Shadow of Death. There God is with men no less than by\nthe waters of repose, or along the successful paths of active life. Was He\nable to recover the soul from life's wayside weariness and hunger?--He\nwill equally defend and keep it amid life's deadliest dangers.\n\nII. But the Psalm is not only theology. It is personal religion. Whether\nthe Psalmist sang it first of the Church of God as a whole, or of the\nindividual, the Church herself has sung it, through all generations, of\nthe individual. By the natural progress of religion from the universal to\nthe particular; by the authority of the Lord Jesus, who calls men singly\nto the Father, and one by one assures them of God's Providence, Grace and\nGlory; by the millions who have taken Him at His word, and every man of\nthem in the loneliness of temptation and duty and death proved His\npromise--we also in our turn dare to believe that this Psalm is a psalm\nfor the individual. The Lord is _my_ shepherd: He maketh _me_ to lie down:\nHe leadeth _me_: He restoreth _my_ soul. Lay your attention upon the\nlittle word. Ask yourself, if since it was first put upon your lips you\nhave ever used it with anything more than the lips: if you have any right\nto use it: if you have ever taken any steps towards winning the right to\nuse it. To claim God for our own, to have and enjoy Him as ours, means, as\nChrist our Master said over and over again, that we give ourselves to Him,\nand take Him to our hearts. Sheep do not choose their shepherd, but man\nhas to choose--else the peace and the fulness of life which are here\nfigured remain a dream and become no experience for him.\n\nDo not say that this talk of surrender to God is unreal to you. Happiness,\ncontentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved\nover and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the\nsoul. Lives are changed by a moment's listening to conscience, by a single\nand quiet inclination of the mind. We must submit ourselves to God. We\nmust bring our wills under His. Here and now we can do this by resolution\nand effort, in the strength of His Spirit, which is nearer us than we\nknow. The thing is no mystery, and not at all vague. The mistake people\nmake about it is to seek for it in some artificial and conventional form.\nWe have it travestied to-day under many forms--under the form of throwing\nopen the heart to excitement in an atmosphere removed from real life as\nfar as possible: under the form of assent to a dogma: under the form of\nadherence to a church.\n\nBut do you summon up the most real things in your life--the duty that is\na disgust: the sacrifice for others from which you shrink. Summon up your\nbesetting sin--the temptation which, for all your present peace, you know\nwill be upon you before twenty-four hours are past. Summon up these grim\nrealities of your life,--and in face of them give yourself to God's will,\nput your weakness into the keeping of His grace. He is as real as they\nare, and the act of will by which you give yourself to Him and His Service\nwill be as true and as solid an experience as the many acts of will by\nwhich you have so often yielded to them.\n\nOtherwise this beautiful name, this name Shepherd, must remain to you the\nemptiest of metaphors: this Psalm only a fair song instead of the\nindestructible experience which both Name and Psalm become to him who\ngives himself to God.\n\nMen and women, who in this Christian land have grown up with this Psalm in\nyour hearts, in all the great crises of life that are ahead shall this\nPsalm revisit us. In perplexity and doubt, in temptation and sorrow, and\nin death, like our mother's face shall this Psalm she put upon our lips\ncome back to us. Woe to us then, if we have done nothing to help us to\nbelieve it! As when one lies sick in a foreign land, and music that is\ndear comes down the street and swells by him, and lifts his thoughts a\nlittle from himself, but passes over and melts into the distance, and he\nlies colder and more forsaken than before--so shall it be with us and this\nPsalm.\n\nBut if we do give our hearts to God and His Will, if day by day of our\nstrength we work and serve, live and suffer, with contented hearts--then I\nknow what we shall say when the day of our darkness and loneliness comes\ndown, whether it be of temptation, or of responsibility, or of death\nitself. In that day we shall lift our faces and say: _Yea, though I am\nwalking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death I do fear no evil, for Thou\nart with me, and Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me_!\n\nIII. But some one may turn round upon all this and say: 'It is simple, it\nis ideal, but the real man cannot reach it out of real life. For he is not\nthe mere sheep, turned easily by a touch of the staff. He is a man: his\nlife is no mere search for grass, it is a being searched; it is not a\nfollowing, it is a flight. Not from the future do we shrink, even though\ndeath be there. The past is on our track, and hunts us down. We need more\nthan guidance: we need grace.'\n\nThis is probably what the Psalmist himself felt when he did not close with\nthe fourth verse, otherwise so natural a climax. He knew that weariness\nand death are not the last enemies of man. He knew that the future is\nnever the true man's only fear. He remembered the inexorableness of the\npast; he remembered that blood-guiltiness, which sheep never feel, is\nworse to men than death. As perchance one day he lifted his eyes from his\nsheep and saw a fugitive from the avenger of blood crossing the plain,\nwhile his sheep scattered right and left before this wild intruder into\ntheir quiet world,--so he felt his fair and gentle thoughts within him\nscattered by the visitation of his past; so he felt how rudely law breaks\nthrough our pious fancies, and must be dealt with before their peace can\nbe secure; so he felt, as every true man has felt with him, that the\nreligion, however bright and brave, which takes no account of sin, is the\nreligion which has not a last nor a highest word for life.\n\nConsider this system of blood revenge. It was the one element of law in\nthe lawless life of the desert. Everything else in the wilderness might\nswerve and stray. This alone persisted and was infallible. It crossed the\nworld; it lasted through generations. The fear of it never died down in\nthe heart of the hunted man, nor the duty of it in the heart of the\nhunter. The holiest sanctions confirmed it,--the safety of society, the\nhonour of the family, love for the dead. And yet, from this endless\nprocess, which hunted a man like conscience, a shelter was found in the\ncustom of Eastern hospitality--the 'golden piety of the wilderness,' as it\nhas been called. Every wanderer, whatever his character or his past might\nbe, was received as the; 'guest of God'--such is the beautiful name which\nthey still give him,--furnished with food, and kept inviolate, his host\nbecoming responsible for his safety.\n\nThat the Psalmist had this custom in view, when composing the last two\nverses of the Psalm, is plain from the phrase with which these open: _Thou\nspreadest before me a table in the very face of mine enemies_; and perhaps\nalso from the unusual metaphor in verse 6: _Surely goodness and mercy\nshall follow,_ or _hunt, me all the days of my life._\n\nAnd even if those were right (which I do not admit) who interpret the\nenemies and pursuers as the mere foes and persecutors of the pious, it is\nplain that to us using the Psalm this interpretation will not suffice. How\ncan we speak of this custom of blood-revenge and think only of our\nmaterial foes? If we know ourselves, and if our conscience be quick, then\nof all our experiences there is but one which suits this figure of\nblood-revenge, when and wheresoever in the Old Testament it is applied to\nman's spiritual life. So only do the conscience and the habit of sin\npursue a man. Our real enemies are not our opponents, our adversities, our\ncares and pains. These our enemies! Better comrades, better guides, better\nmasters no man ever had. Our enemies are our evil deeds and their\nmemories, our pride, our selfishness, our malice, our passions, which by\nconscience or by habit pursue us with a relentlessness past the power of\nfigure to express. We know how they persist from youth unto the grave:\n_the sting of death is sin._ We know what they want: nothing less than our\nwhole character and will. _Simon, Simon_, said Christ to a soul on the\nedge of a great temptation, _Satan hath asked you back again for himself_.\n\nYet it is the abounding message of the whole Bible, of which our\ntwenty-third Psalm is but a small fragment, that for this conscience and\nthis habit of sin God hath made provision, even as sure as those thoughts\nof His guidance which refresh us in the heat of life and comfort us amidst\nits shadows.\n\nIn Nature? Yes: for here too the goodness of God leadeth to repentance.\nThere is nothing which the fifth verse so readily brings to mind as the\ngrace of the Divine hospitality in nature. _Thou spreadest a table before\nme in the presence of mine enemies_. How these words contrast the fever\nand uncertain battle of our life with the calmness and surety of the\nDivine order! Through the cross currents of human strife, fretted and\nstained, the tides of nature keep their steady course, and rise to their\ninvariable margins. The seasons come up undisturbed by crime and war.\nSpring creeps even into the beleaguered city; through the tents of the\nbesiegers, across trench and scarp, among the wheels of the cannon, and\nover the graves of the dead, grass and wild flowers speed, spreading\nGod's table. He sendeth His rain upon the just and the unjust. And even\nhere the display is not merely natural, nor spread only in the sight of\nour physical enemies; but God's goodness leadeth to repentance, and Nature\nis equipped even for deliverance from sin. Who has come out upon a great\nlandscape, who has looked across the sea, who has lifted his eyes to the\nhills and felt the winds of God blowing off their snows, who has heard\nearth's countless voices rising heavenwards, but has felt: What a wide\nplace this world is for repentance! Man does find in Nature deliverance\nfrom himself, oblivion of his past, with peace and purity! And yet the\nprovision, though real, is little more than temporary. The herdsmen of the\ndesert are not obliged to furnish to their fugitive guest shelter for more\nthan two nights with the day between. Little more than two nights with the\nday between is the respite from conscience and habit which Nature provides\nfor the sinful heart. She is the million-fold opportunity of repentance;\nshe is not the final or everlasting grace of God. And, therefore, whatever\nmay have been the original intention of our Psalmist, the spiritual\nfeeling of the Church has understood his last two verses to sing of that\nmercy and forgiveness of our God which were spoken to men by the prophets,\nbut reached the fulness of their proclamation and proof in Jesus Christ.\nHe who owned the simple trust of the first four verses, saying, 'Thou art\nright, I am the Good Shepherd,' so that since He walked on earth the name\nis no more a mere metaphor of God, but the dearest, strongest reality\nwhich has ever visited this world of shadows--He also has been proved by\nmen as the Host and Defender of all who seek His aid from the memory and\nthe pursuit of sin. So He received them in the days of His flesh, as they\ndrifted upon Him across the wilderness of life, pressed by every evil with\nwhich it is possible for sin to harry men. To Him they were all 'guests of\nGod,' welcomed for His sake, irrespective of what their past might have\nbeen. And so, being lifted up, He still draws us to Himself, and still\nproves Himself able to come between us and our past. Whatever we may flee\nfrom He keeps it away, so that, although to the last, for penitence, we\nmay be reminded of our sins, and our enemies come again and again to the\nopen door of memory, in Him we are secure. He is our defence, and our\npeace is impregnable.\n\n\n\n\nPSALM XXXVI\n\nTHE GREATER REALISM\n\n\nLike the twenty-third Psalm, the thirty-sixth seems to fall into two\nunconnected parts, but with this difference, that while both of the\ntwenty-third are understood by us, and heartily enjoyed, of the\nthirty-sixth we appreciate only those verses, 5-10, which contain an\nadoration of God's mercy and righteousness. Verses 1-4, a study of sin,\nare unintelligible in our versions, and hardly ever sung, except in\nroutine, by a Christian congregation. So sudden is the break between the\ntwo parts, and so opposite their contents, that they have been taken by\nsome critics to be fragments of independent origin. This, however, would\nonly raise the more difficult question: Why, being born apart, and\napparently so unsympathetic, were they ever wedded? To a more careful\nreading the Psalm yields itself a unity. The sudden break from the close\nstudy of sin to the adoration of God's grace is designed, and from his\nrhapsody the Psalmist returns to pray, in verses 10-12, against that same\nevil with which he had opened his poem. Indeed, it is in this, its most\nadmirable method, more than in details, that the Psalm is instructive and\ninspiring.\n\nThe problem of Israel's faith was the existence of evil in its most\npainful form of the successful and complacent sinner, the oppressor of\ngood men. This problem our Psalm takes, not, like other Psalms, in its\ncruel bearing upon the people of God, but in its mysterious growth in the\ncharacter of the wicked man. Through four verses of vivid realism we\nfollow the progress of sin. Then, when eye and heart are full of the\nhorror, the Psalmist steps suddenly back, and lifts his gaze beyond and\nabove his study of evil to God's own world that stretches everywhere. The\neffect is to put the problem into a new perspective. The black bulk which\nhad come between the Singer and his Sun shrinks from his new position to a\npoint against that universal goodness of the Lord, and he conceives not\nonly courage to pray against it, but the grace to feel it already beneath\nhis feet. This is not an intellectual solution of the problem of evil: but\nit is a practical one. The Psalm is a study--if we can call anything so\nenthusiastic a study--in proportion; the reduction of the cruel facts of\nexperience to their relation to other facts as real but of infinite comfort\nand glory; the expansion, in short, of the words of verse 9: _In Thy light\nwe see light_.\n\nThe Psalmist's analysis of sin has been spoiled in translation. Take our\nOld Version, or the Revised one, and you will find no meaning in the first\ntwo verses, but take the rendering offered on the margin by the Revisers\n(and approved by most scholars), and you get a meaning intelligible,\nprofound, and true to experience:\n\n  _Oracle of sin hath the wicked in the\n    midst of his heart;\n  There is no fear of God before his eyes_.\n\nThe word _oracle_ means probably secret whisper, but is elsewhere used\n(except in one case) of God's word to His prophets. It is the instrument\nof revelation. The wicked man has in him something comparable to this. Sin\nseems as mysterious and as imperative as God's own voice to the heart of\nHis servants. And to counteract this there is no awe of God Himself.\nTemptation in all its mystery, and with no religious awe to meet it--such\nis the beginning of sin.\n\nThe second verse is also obscure. It seems to describe the terrible power\nwhich sin has of making men believe that though they continue to do evil\nthey may still keep their conscience. The verse translates most readily,\nthough not without some doubt:\n\n  _For it flatters him, in his eyes,\n  That he will discover his guilt--that he will hate it_.\n\nWhile sin takes from a man his healthy taste for what is good, and his\npower to loathe evil, it deludes him with the fancy that he still enjoys\nthem. Temptation, when we yield, is succeeded by self-delusion.\n\nThe third and fourth verses follow clearly with the aggravated effects.\nSin ceases to flatter, and the man's habits are openly upon him. Truth,\ncommon-sense and all virtue are left behind:\n\n  _The words of his mouth are iniquity\n  and deceit,\n  He has given up thinking sensibly\n  and doing good._\n\nSo he becomes presumptuous and obstinate.\n\n_He devises iniquity upon his bed_--which is but the Hebrew for 'planning\nevil in cold blood'--\n\n  _He takes up his post on a way that\n  is not good,\n  He abhors not evil_.\n\nThere we have the whole biography of sin from its first whisper in the\ncentre of man's being, where it seems to speak with the mystery and power\nof God's own word, to the time when, through the corruption of every\ninstinct and quality of virtue, it reaches the border of his being and\ndestroys the last possibility of penitence. It is the horror of Evil in\nthe four stages of its growth: Temptation, Delusion, Audacity, and Habit\nending in Death.\n\nTo us sin has not become any less of a mystery or a pain. Temptation is as\nsudden and demonic. Into every soul, however purged and fenced, evil\nappears to have as much freedom of entrance as God Himself. It begins as\nearly. In the heart of every little child God works, but they who next to\nGod have most right there, the father and the mother, know that something\nelse has had, with God, precedence of themselves. As the years go on, and\nthe knowledge of good and evil grows, becoming ever more jealous and\nexpert a sentinel, it still finds its watch and fence of the outside world\nmocked by the mysterious upburst of sin within. The whole mystery of\ntemptation is to have sins suggested to us, and to be swept after them by\na sudden enthusiasm, which sometimes feels as strong as the Spirit of God\never made in us the enthusiasm for virtue. 'There are moments when our\npassions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder.\nThey carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in an instant does the\nwork of long premeditation.'[2] 'An inspiration of crime,' that is the\n_oracle of sin_. From that come the panic and the despair of temptation.\nThe heart, which has still left in it some loyalty to God, is horrified by\nthe ease and the surprise of evil. Yet the greater horror is that this\nhorror may be lost: that men and women do continually exchange it for a\ncomplacent and careless temper toward the besetting sin which they have\nonce felt to be worse than death. From being panic-stricken at the rise\nand surge of temptation, they will (and there is no more marvellous change\nin all fickle man's experience) grow easy and scornful about it, time\nafter time permitting it to overcome them, in the delusion that they may\nreassert themselves when they will, and put it beneath their feet. The\nrest is certain. Falsehood becomes natural to him who was born loyal,\naudacity to him who grew up timid and scrupulous. The impulsive lover of\ngood, who has fallen through the very warmth of his nature, develops into\nthe deliberate sensualist. Natures sensitive and enthusiastic grow\nabsolutely empty of power to revolt against what is unjust or foul. A\ngreat writer once said of himself in middle life: 'I am proud and\nintellectual, but forced by the habits of years to like the base and\ndishonourable from which I formerly revolted.' Little children have the\nseeds of all this within them; men and women are born with the inspiration\nwhich starts these mysterious and direful changes; the fatal decadence\ntakes place in countless lives.\n\n[Footnote 2: George Eliot.]\n\nBefore facts so horrifying--they are _within_ as well as everywhere around\nus--our real need is not an intellectual explanation of why they are\npermitted or whence this taint in the race arose. For, supposing that we\nwere capable of understanding this, the probability is that we might\nbecome tolerant of the facts themselves, and, perceiving that cruelty and\nsin had a necessary place in the universe, lose the mind to fight them.\nConstituted as are the most of mankind, for them to discover a reason for\na fact is, if not to conceive a respect for it, at least to feel a\nplausible excuse for their sluggishness and timidity in dealing with it.\nNay, the very study of sin for the purpose of acquainting ourselves with\nits nature, too often either intoxicates the will, or paralyses it with\ndespair; and it is in recoil from the whole subject that we most surely\nrecover health to fight evil in ourselves and nerve to work for the\ndeliverance from it of others. The practical solution of our problem is to\nremember how much else there is in the Universe, how much else that is\nutterly away from and opposed to sin. We must engross ourselves in that,\nwe must exult in that. We must remember goodness, not only in the\ncountless scattered instances about us, but in its infinite resource in\nthe Power and Character of God Himself. We must feel that the Universe is\npervaded by this: that it is the atmosphere of life, and that the whole\nvisible framework of the world offers signals and sacraments of its real\npresence. We may not, we shall not, be able to reconcile this goodness\nwith the cruel facts about us; but at least we shall have reduced these to\na new proportion and perspective; we shall have disengaged our wills from\nthe horrid influence of evil, and received a new temper for that contest,\nin which it is temper far more than any knowledge which overcomes.\n\nThis is what our Psalmist does. From the awful realism of Sin he sweeps,\nwithout pause or attempt at argument, into a vision of all the goodness of\nGod. The Divine Attributes spread out before him, and it takes him the\nlargest things in nature to describe them: the personal loving-kindness\nand righteousness of the Most High: the care of Providence: the tenderness\nof intimate fellowship with God: the security of faith: the satisfaction\nof worship. He makes no claim that everything is therefore clear: still\n_are Thy judgments the Great Deep_, fathomless, awful. But we receive new\nvigour of life as from _a fountain of life,_ and the eyes, that had been\nstrained and blinded, _see light:_ light to work, light to fight, light to\nhope. Mark how the rapture breaks away with the name of God:\n\n  _LORD, to the heavens is Thy leal\n    love!\n  Thy faithfulness to the clouds!\n  Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God,\n  Thy judgments are the Great Deep_.\n\n  _Man and beast thou preservest, O LORD.\n  How precious is Thy leal love, O God!\n  And so the children of men put their\n    trust in the shadow of Thy wings.\n  They shall be satisfied with the fatness of Thy house;\n  And of the river of Thy pleasures\n    Thou shall give them to drink.\n  For with Thee is the fountain of life,\n  In Thy light we see light_.\n\nThe prayer follows, and closes with the assurance of victory as if already\nexperienced:\n\n  _Continue Thy leal love unto them that know Thee,\n  And Thy righteousness to the upright of heart.\n  Let not the foot of pride come against me,\n  Nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.\n  There are the workers of iniquity\n  fallen,\n  They are flung down and shall not\n  be able to rise_.\n\nTwo remarks remain.\n\nA prevailing temper of our own literature makes the method of this Psalm\ninvaluable to us. A large and influential number of our writers have lent\nthemselves, with ability and earnestness, to such an analysis of sin as we\nfind in the first four verses of the Psalm. The inmost lusts and passions\nof men's hearts are laid bare with a cool and audacious frankness, and the\nresults are inexorably traced in all their revolting vividness of action\nand character. I suppose that there has not been a period, at least since\nthe Reformation, which has had the real facts of sin so nakedly and\nfearfully laid before it. The authors of the process call it Realism. But\nit is not the sum of the Real, nor anything like it. Those studies of sin\nand wickedness, which our moral microscopes have laid bare, are but\npuddles in a Universe, and the Universe is not only Law and Order, but is\npervaded by the character of its Maker. God's mercy still reaches to the\nheavens, and His faithfulness to the clouds. We must resolutely and with\n'pious obstinacy' lift our hearts to that, else we perish. I think of one\nvery flagrant tale, in which the selfishness, the lusts and the cruelties\nof modern men are described with the rarest of power, and so as to reduce\nthe reader to despair, till he realises that the author has emptied the\nlife of which he treats of everything else, except a fair background of\nnature which is introduced only to exhibit the evil facts in more horrid\nrelief. The author studies sin in a vacuum, an impossible situation. God\nhas been left out, and the conviction of His pardon. Left out are the\npower of man's heart to turn, the gift of penitence, the mysterious\noperations of the Spirit, and the sense of the trustfulness and patience\nof God with the worst souls of men. These are not less realities than the\nothers; they are within the knowledge of, they bless, every stratum of\nlife in our Christian land; they are the biggest realities in the world\nto-day. Let us then meet the so-called realism of our times with this\nGreater Realism. Let us tell men who exhibit sin and wickedness apart from\nGod and from man's power of penitence, apart from love and from the\nrealised holiness of our human race, that they are working in a vacuum,\nand their experiment is therefore the most un-real that can be imagined.\nWe may not be able to eliminate the cruel facts of sin from our universe,\nbut do not let us therefore eliminate the rest of the Universe from our\nstudy of sin. Let us be true to the Greater Realism.\n\nAgain, the whole Psalm is on the famous keynote of the Epistle to the\nPhilippians: _Rejoice in the Lord_. This is after all the only safe temper\nfor tempted men. By preachers of a theology as narrow as their experience,\nit is often said that our guilt and native vileness, our unquestioned\nperil and instability, are such that no man of us can afford to be\nexultant in this life. But surely, just because of these, we cannot afford\nto be anything else. Whether from the fascination or from the despair of\nsin, nothing saves like an ardent and enthusiastic belief in the goodness\nand the love of God. Let us strenuously lift the heart to that. Let us\nrejoice and exult in it, and so we shall be safe. But, withal, we must\nbeware of taking a narrow or an abstract view of what that goodness is.\nThe fault of many Christians is that they turn to some theological\ndefinition, or to some mystical refinement of it, and their hearts are\nstarved. We must seek the loving-kindness of God in all the breadth and\nopen-air of common life. _Lord, Thou preservest man and beast_. Or, as\nSt. Paul put it in that same Epistle: _Whatsoever things are true,\nwhatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever\nthings are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of\ngood report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on\nthese things_. It is, once more, the Greater Realism. But behind Paul's\ncrowd of glorious facts let us not miss the greatest Reality of all, God\nHimself. God's righteousness and love, His grace and patience toward us,\nbecome more and more of a wonder as we dwell upon them, and by force of\ntheir wonder the most real facts of our experience. _How excellent is Thy\nloving-kindness, O God. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say unto\nyou, Rejoice_.\n\n\n\n\nPSALM LII\n\nRELIGION THE OPEN\nAIR OF THE SOUL\n\n\nWith the thirty-sixth Psalm we may take the fifty-second, which attacks\nthe same problem of evil in pretty much the same temper. It is peculiar in\nnot being addressed, like others, to God or to the Psalmist's own soul,\nbut to the wicked man himself. It is, at first at least, neither a prayer\nnor a meditation, but a challenge and an arraignment of character.\n\nSome may be disposed to cavil at its bitterness, and to say that for\nChristians it is too full of threats and vengeance. Perhaps it is; nay,\ncertainly it is. But there are two noble feelings in it, and two vivid\npictures of character. The Psalm is inspired by a brave contempt for\nwickedness in high places, and by a most devout trust in the love of God.\nAnd in expressing these two noble tempers, the poet analyses two\ncharacters. He analyses the character which is ruled from within by the\nlove of Self, and he gives his own experience of a character inspired from\nwithout by faith--by faith in the mercy of the Living God.\n\nWe Christians too hastily dismiss from our own uses the so-called Cursing\nPsalms. It is unfortunate that the translators have so often tempted us to\nthis by exaggerating the violence of the Hebrew at the expense of its\ninsight, its discrimination, and its sometimes delicate satire. If only we\nhad a version that produced the exact colours of the original, and if we\nourselves had the quick conscience and the honest wit to carry over the\nideas into terms suitable to our own day--in which the selfishness of the\nhuman heart is the same old thing it ever was, though it uses milder and\nmore subtle means,--then we should feel the touch of a power not merely of\ndramatic interest but of moral conviction, where we have been too much\naccustomed to think that we were hearing only ancient rant. So treated,\nPsalms like the fifth, the tenth, the fourteenth, and the fifty-second,\nwhich we so often pass over, offended by their violence, become quick and\npowerful, the very word of God to our own times and hearts.\n\nLet us take a more literal version of the Psalm before us:\n\n  _Why glory in evil, big man?\n  The leal love of God is all day long.\n  Thy tongue planneth mischiefs,\n  Like a razor sharp-whetted, thou worker of fraud.\n  Thou lovest evil more than good,\n  Lying than speaking the truth.\n  Thou lovest all words of voracity,\n    Tongue of deceit.\n  God also shall tear thee down, once for all_,\n\n  _Cut thee out, and pluck thee from the\n    tent,\n  And uproot thee from off the land\n      of the living.\n  That the righteous may see and fear,\n  And at him they shall laugh_.\n\n    '_Lo! the fellow who sets not God\n      for his stronghold,\n      But trusts in the mass of his\n      wealth,\n      Is strong in his mischief_.'\n\n  _But I like an olive-tree, green in God's\n    house,\n  I have trusted in God's leal love for\n    ever and aye.\n  I will praise Thee for ever, that Thou\n    hast done [this],\n  And I will wait on Thy name--for\n    'tis good--\n  In face of Thy saints_.\n\n\nThe character who is challenged is easily made out, and we may recognize\nhow natural he is and how near to ourselves.\n\nIn the first verse he is called by a name expressing unusual strength or\ninfluence--a mighty man, _a hero_. The term may be used ironically, like\nour 'big fellow', 'big man.' But, whether this is irony or not, the man's\nbigness had material solidity. He was _rooted in the land of the living,_\nhe _had abundance of riches._ Riches are no sin in themselves, as the\nexaggerated language of some people of the present day would lead us to\nimagine. Rich men are not always sent to hell, nor poor men always to\nheaven. As St. Augustine remarks with his usual cleverness: 'It was not\nhis poverty but his piety which sent Lazarus in the parable to heaven, and\nwhen he got there, he found a rich man's bosom to rest in!' Riches are no\nsin in themselves, but, like all forms of strength, a very great and\ndangerous temptation. This man had yielded. Prosperity was so unchanging\nwith him that he had come to trust it, and did not feel the need of\ntrusting anything else. He was strong enough to stand alone: so strong\nthat he tried to stand without God. If he was like many self-centred men\nof our own time he probably did not admit this. But it is not profession\nwhich reveals where a man puts his trust. It is the practice and discipline\nof life, betraying us by a hundred commonplace ways, in spite of all the\northodoxy we boast. It is sorrow and duty and the call to self-denial. When\nthis man's feelings got low, when he was visited by touches of\nmelancholy--those chills sent forward from the grave to every mortal\ntravelling thither,--when conscience made him weak and fearful, then _he\nmade not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches_.\nWith that audacity which the touch of property breeds in Us, he said, 'I\nam sure of to-morrow,' plunged into cruel plans, _gloried in his\nmischief_, and was himself again.\n\nTrusting in riches--we all do it, when we seek to drive away uncomfortable\nfears and the visitations of conscience by self-indulgence; when, instead\nof saying _I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my\nhelp_?--and seeking the steep and arduous consolations of duty, we look\ninto our nearest friends' faces and whine for a sympathy that is often\ninsincere, or lie down in some place of comfort that is stolen or unclean.\n\nNo man with such habits stops there. This big man _strengthened himself in\nhis wickedness_ and in all manner of guile and cruelty. It is a natural\ndevelopment. The heart which finds life in material wealth is usually\ncertain to go farther and seek for more in the satisfaction of base and\nsullen appetites. We hear, it is true, a great deal about the softening\ninfluence of wealth, and moralists speak of luxury as if its bad effects\nwere negative and it only enervated. But if riches and the habit of\ntrusting to them, if the material comforts of life and complacency in\nthem, only made men sleek and tame--if luxury did nothing but soften and\nemasculate--the world would have been far more stupid and far less cruel\nthan it is to-day.\n\nThey are not negative tempers, but very positive and aggressive ones, which\nthe Bible associates with a love of wealth, and we have but to remember\nhistory to know that the Bible is right. Luxury may have dulled the\ncombative instincts in man, but it has often nursed the meanly cruel ones.\nThe Romans with the rapid growth of their wealth loved the battlefield\nless; but the sight of the arena, with its struggling gladiators, and\nbeasts tearing women and children, became more of a necessity to their\nappetites. Take two instances. Titus was a rough, hardened soldier; but he\nwept at the horrors which his siege obliged him to inflict on Jerusalem.\nNero was an artist, and fiddled while Rome was burning. Coddle your boys;\nyou may keep them from wishing to fight their equals, but you will not cure\nthem of torturing animals. Idleness means not only sluggishness, but a\nmorbid and criminal desire for sensation, which honest industry would have\nsweated out of the flesh. Money often renders those who have it\nunconsciously impatient with the slowness of poorer men, and unconsciously\ninsolent about their defects. Everywhere, on the high places of history,\nand within our own humble experience, we perceive the same truth, that\nmaterialism, and the temper which trusts in wealth or in success, does not\nturn men into fat oxen, but into tigers. Hence the frequency with which the\nOld Testament, and especially the Psalms, connect an abundance of wealth\nwith a strength of wickedness, and bracket for the same degree of doom the\nrich man and the violent one. Our Psalm is natural in adding to the clause,\n_trusting in the abundance of riches,_ that other about _strengthening\nhimself in wickedness_. This is the very temper of a prosperous and\npampered life: which seeks lust or cruelty not to forget itself, as a\nstunted and tortured nature may be forgiven for doing, but in order to work\noff its superfluous blood.\n\nObserve, too, how much sins of the tongue are mentioned,-, lying,\nbackbiting and the love of swallowing men's reputations whole. _Thou lovest\nall words of voracity, thou tongue of deceit_. We are, too, apt to think\nthat sins of speech most fiercely beset weak and puny characters: men that\nhave no weapon but a sharp and nasty tongue. Yet none use their words more\nrecklessly than the strong, who have not been sobered by the rebuffs and\nuncertainties of life. Power and position often make a man trifle with the\ntruth. A big man's word carries far, and he knows it; till the temptation\nto be dogmatic or satirical, to snub and crush with a word, is as near to\nhim as to a slave-driver is the fourteen-feet thong in his hand, with a\nline of bare black backs before him.\n\nThese things are written of ourselves. In his great book on 'Democracy in\nAmerica,' De Tocqueville pointed out, more than fifty years ago, the\ndangers into which the religious middle classes fall by the spread of\nwealth and comfort. That danger has increased, till for the _rich_ on whom\nChrist called woe, we might well substitute the _comfortable._ At a time\nwhen a very moderate income brings within our reach nearly all the\nresources of civilisation, which of us does not find day by day a dozen\ndistractions that drown for him the voice of conscience: a crowd of men to\nlose himself in from God and his best friends: half a dozen base comforts,\nin the lap of which he forgets duty and dreams only of self? Comfort makes\nus all thoughtless, and thoughtlessness is the parent of every cruelty.\n\nThe Psalm makes no attempt to turn this tyrant whom it challenges; it\ninvokes the mercy of God, not to change him, but to show how vain his\nboasts are, and to give heart to those whom he oppresses. God's mercy\nendureth for ever; but he must pass away. The righteous shall see his end,\nand fear and laugh: their satire will have religion in it. But though the\nPsalm does not design this sinner's conversion, its very challenge contains\nan indication of the means by which he and all selfish people who are like\nhim may be changed to nobler lives. In this respect it has a gospel for us\nall, which may be thus stated.\n\nThere are poor invalids who ought to get their health again by seeking the\nopen air and sunshine, but who keep between their bed and their hearthrug,\ncowering over their fire with the blinds pulled down;--to whom comes the\nwise doctor, pulls up the blinds, shows them that it is day outside, with\nthe sun shining and the trees growing, and men walking about, and tells\nthem that the health they are trying to get inside, and thereby only\nmaking themselves worse invalids, they will get out there. This big man\nwas such a moral invalid, seeking strength within his own riches and\nqualities. And so doing he had developed the nasty indoor tempers, till it\nseemed pleasant and satisfactory to him to be spiteful, slanderous and\nfalse. Meantime, outside the darkened windows of his selfishness, the mercy\nof God, in which other men gloried and grew strong, rose every day. With\none sweep the Psalmist tears the curtains down and lets in the sunshine.\n_The leal love of God is every day_. There, in that commonplace daily\nlight: in that love which is as near you as the open air and as free as\nthe sunshine, are the life and exultation which you seek so vainly within\nyourself.\n\nIt was in the sunshine that the Psalmist felt himself growing:\n\n  _But I am like an olive-tree, green in God's house.\n  I trust in the leal love of God for ever and aye_.\n\nThis open-air figure suggests (though we have no confirmation of the fact)\na tree growing in the high temple precincts, as trees to this day grow upon\nthe Haram around the great mosque in Jerusalem, open to the sunshine and\nwashed by the great rush of wind from the west. The Old Testament as much\nas the New haunts the open air for its figures of religion--a tree in full\nfoliage, a tree planted by a river, a river brimming to its banks, the\nwaves of a summer sea. Now this is not only because there is nothing else\nthat will reflect the freedom of God's grace and the lavish joy it brings\nupon the world, but still more because the Bible feels the eternal truth,\nthat to win this joy and freedom a man has got to go outside himself,\noutside his selfishness and other close tempers, outside his feelings and\nthoughts about himself, and receive the truths of religion as objective to\nhim, taking the knowledge of God's pardon and peace as freely as he takes\nthe sunshine of heaven, the calm of earth in summer, and the cool, strong\nwinds from off the hills. To those old founders of our faith, religion was\nnever man's feelings about religion: it was the love of God. God was not\nman's thoughts about God, but God Himself in His wonderful grace and truth,\nobjective to our hearts. Therefore those ancient saints moved to the Spirit\nas the tree rustles to the wind, and as in summer she is green and glad in\nthe sunshine that bathes her, so they rejoiced in the Lord, and in His\ngoodness. _I will give thanks, for_ THOU _hast done it_.\n\nBut this getting out of self does not only bring a man into the open air,\nand to gladness in a God who worketh for him. It gives him the company of\nall good and noble men. I _will wait on Thy name, for it is good, in the\npresence of Thy saints_. What a fellowship faith and unselfishness make a\nman aware of!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us turn back for a moment to the man, to whose close character this\nopen air is offered  as a contrast. Is it really difficult for us to\nimagine him? There is not one of us who has not tried this kind of thing\nagain and again,--and has succeeded in it with far less substance than the\ngreat man had to come and go upon. He trusted in the abundance of his\nriches: he lost God for the multitude of his temptations. But for us there\nis no such excuse. There has been no pleasure too sordid, no comfort too\nselfish, no profit too mean, no honour too cheap and vulgar, but we have\nsometimes preferred it, in seeking for happiness, to the infinite and\neverlasting mercy of our God. We may not be big men, and deserve to have\npsalms written about us; but in our own little ways we exult in our\nselfishness and the tempers it breeds in us just as guiltily as he did,\nand just as foolishly, for God's great love is as near to us, and could as\neasily chase these vapours from our souls, if we would but open the windows\nto its air.\n\nTake one or two commonplace cases that do not require the great capital\nwhich this fellow put into his business of sinning, but are quite within\nreach of your and my very ordinary means of selfishness.\n\nYou have been overreached in some business competition, or disappointed in\ngetting a post, or foiled along some path of public service. You come home\nwith a natural vexation in your heart: sore at being beaten and anxious\nabout your legitimate interests. It is all right enough. But sit down at\nthe fire for a little and brood over it. Shut God out as care and anger\ncan. Forget that your Bible is at your elbow. Think only of your wrong, and\nit is wonderful how soon you will find spite rising, and envy and the\ncruellest hate. It is wonderful how quickly plans of revenge will form\nthemselves in your usually slow mind, and how happy they will make you.\nMalice is like brandy to a man's brain, and will send him back with a\nbeaming face to the work he left with scowls. Ah, _why boast thyself in\nmischief, O man? God's leal love is all day long!_ The Bible is within\nreach of you. The lustre is as fresh on the promises as the rain-drops were\nunder the glints of sun this morning. Walk there with God in His own\ngarden: all God's steps are comfort and promise to the meek who will walk\nwith Him. God is full of gentleness, and His gentleness shall make you\ngreat. _I will be as the dew unto Israel_. Or seek with the Master the\ncrowds of men. Keep near Him in the dust and the crush: watch how He\nendures the contradiction of sinners, how patient He is with men, how\nforgiving. Watch most of all how He prays. Bow the knee like Him, and He\nshall lift thee up a sane and a happy man. To think of it--all that Divine\nfellowship and solace may be ours by opening the pages of a Book which lies\non every table. _God's love is all the day_.\n\nLet the other case be for young men and young women. For you the fresh air\nand sunshine are not yet shut out by the high walls of success or the thick\nones of material prosperity. The dust of strife for you has not yet hidden\nheaven. But we all know that passion can build as solidly as wealth, and\nthat a young heart may be as closely prisoned in a sudden temptation as an\nold one among the substantial accumulations of a lifetime. What is\nTemptation?\n\n  I turned to her: she built a house\n  And Thought was her swift architect,\n  And Falsehood let the curtains fall,\n  And Fancy all the tables deck'd.\n\n  And so we shut the world out,\n  Soul and Temptation face to face,\n  And perfumed air and music sweet,\n  And soft desire fill'd all the place.\n\nO brothers, in such an hour, and it comes to every one of us, think upon\nthe vast world outside, and the walls so magically built will as magically\nfall. God's sunshine is there, and God's fresh air, to think upon which,\nwith the companies of men and women who walk up and down in it and are\nfair, is the most sovereign charm against temptation that I know. _Why\nglory in this evil_? Put that challenge to your heart in the crisis of\nevery evil passion. _God's mercy is all day long_. Think of the love of\nthe Father: of His patience with thee, of His trust of thee; think of the\nLove of the Redeemer, Who gave Himself for thy life; think of the great\nobjective truths of religion--righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy\nGhost. Or if these seem unsubstantial thoughts, that flash and fade\nagain like clouds on the western sky at evening, come out among the\nflesh-and-blood proofs of them which walk our own day. Frequent the\npure, strong men and women who are in sight of us all, fair on every\ncountryside, radiant in every city crowd. Hearken to the greater spirits\nwho by their songs and books come down and speak with the lowliest and\nmost fallen. And do not forget the holy dead, nor doubt that though unseen\nthey are with us still.\n\n  _I will wait on Thy name,\n  for 'tis good, in face of Thy\n  Saints._\n\n\n\n\nPSALM CXXI\n\nTHE MINISTRY OF THE HILLS AND ALL GREAT THINGS\n\n\nWe catch the key-note of this Psalm if we read the words _whence cometh my\nhelp_ not as a statement but as a question. Our older version takes them\nas a statement; it makes the Psalmist look to the hills, as if his help\nbroke and shouted from them all like waterfalls. But with the Revised\nVersion we ought to read: _I will lift mine eyes unto the mountains--from\nwhence cometh my help?_ The Psalmist looks up, not because his help is\nstored there, but because the sight of the hills stirs within him an\nintense hope. His heart is immediately full of the prayer, _Whence cometh\nmy help_? and of the answer, _My help is from the Lord, that made heaven\nand earth_.\n\nWe need not wish to fix a locality or a date to this Psalm. It is enough\nthat the singer had a mountain skyline in view, and that below in the\nshadows, so dark that we cannot make out their features, lay God's church\nand people. They were threatened, and there was neither help nor hope of\nhelp among themselves.\n\nPerhaps it was one of those frequent periods in the life of Israel, in\nwhich the religious institutions of the people were so abased that the\nPsalmist could see in them no pledge nor provocation of hope. Indeed, these\ninstitutions may have been altogether overthrown. There was no leader on\nwhom God had set His seal, and the national life had nothing to raise the\nheart, but was full of base thoughts and paltry issues that dissipate\nfaith, and render the interference of God an improbable thing. So the\nPsalmist lifted his thoughts to the sacraments which God has fixed in the\nframework of His world. He did not identify his help with the hills--no\ntrue Israelite could have done that,--but the sight of them started his\nhope and filled his heart with the desire to pray. This may have happened\nat sunrise, when, even more than at other hours, mountains fulfil the\nministry of hope. Below them all was in darkness; it was still night, but\nthe peaks saw the morning, and the signal of its coming fell swiftly down\ntheir flanks. In this case the Psalm is a matin-song, a character which\nthe rest of the verses carry out. Or at any other hour of the day, it may\nsimply have been the high, clear outline of the hills which inspired the\nPsalm--that firm step between heaven and earth, that margin of a world of\npossibility beyond. A prophet has said, _How beautiful upon the mountains\nare the feet of them that bring good tidings!_ But to our Psalmist the\nmountains spread a threshold for a Divine arrival. Up there God Himself\nmay be felt to be afoot.\n\nNow to a pure heart and a hungry heart this is always what a mountain view\neffects. 'A hill-top,' says a recent writer, 'is a moral as well as a\nphysical elevation.' He is right, or men would not have worshipped on\nhill-tops, nor high places have become synonymous with sacred ones. Whether\nwe climb them or gaze at them, the mountains produce in us that mingling of\nmoral and physical emotion in which the temper of true worship consists.\nThey seclude us from trifles, and give the mind the fellowship of\ngreatness. They inspire patience and peace; they speak of faithfulness and\nguardianship. But chiefly the mountains are sacraments of hope. That high,\nsteadfast line--how it raises the spirits, and lifts the heart from care;\nhow early it signals the day, how near it brings heaven! To men of old its\nmargin excited thoughts of an enchanted world beyond; its clear step\nbetween heaven and earth made easy the imagination of God descending among\nmen.\n\nSo it is here. At the sight of the hills our Psalmist's hope--instead of\nlying asleep in confidence of a help too far away to be vivid, or dying of\nstarvation because that help is so long of coming--leaps to her feet, all\nwatch and welcome for an instant arrival. _Whence cometh my help? My help\ncometh from the Lord, that made heaven and earth_. This is not fancy; it is\nan attitude of real life. This is not a poet with a happy phrase for his\nidea: it is a sentry at his difficult post, challenging the signal, and\nwelcoming the arrival, of that help which makes all the difference to life.\n\nBut we may widen the application of the Psalmist's words far beyond the\nhills. This is a big thing to which he lifts his eyes to feed his hope. God\nis unseen; so he betakes himself to the biggest thing he can see. And\ntherein is a lesson which we need all across our life. For it is just\nbecause, instead of lifting our eyes to the big things around us, we busy\nand engross ourselves with trifles, that the practical enthusiasm which\nbeats through this Psalm is failing among us, and that we have so little\nfaith in God's readiness to act, and to act speedily, within the circle of\nour own experience. Trifles, however innocent or dutiful they may be, do\nnot move within us the fundamental pieties. They reveal no stage worthy for\nGod to act upon. They give no help to the imagination to realise Him as\nnear. A church which never lifts her eyes above her own denominational\ndetails, petty differences in doctrine or government, petty matters of\nritual and posture, cannot continue to believe in the nearness of the\nliving God. The strain on faith is too great to last. The reason recoils\nfrom admitting that God can help on such battle-fields as those on which\nthe churches are often so busy, that He can come to help such causes as\nthe sects, neglectful of the real interests of the world, too often stoop\nto champion. And so the churches insensibly get settled in far-off,\nabstract views of God, and are sapped of the primal and practical energies\nof religion. Whereas it is evident that in the religious communities which\nlift their eyes above their low hedges to the high hills of God--to the\ngreat simple outlines of His kingdom, to the ideals and destiny which God\nhas set before mankind--in such churches faith in His nearness to the world\nand in His readiness to help must always abound. To men who have an eye for\nthe big things of earth, God will always seem to be afoot upon it. They\nare conscious of an arena worthy for Him to descend upon, and of causes\nworthy for Him to interfere in. It is no shock to their reason, no undue\nstrain upon their imagination, to feel the Almighty and the All-loving come\ndown to earth, when earth has such horizons and such issues.\n\nTurning to ourselves as individuals, we may ask why we have such distant\nnotions of God, so shy a faith of His coming within the circle of our own\nlife and work? Why are our prayers so formal, so empty of the expectation\nof an immediate and divine answer? Why is our attitude at our work so\ndestitute of practical enthusiasm? Because we, too, are not lifting our\neyes to the hills. We are looking for nothing but little things, and\ntherefore we see nowhere any threshold or field worthy of God. How can the\nsense that the living God is near to our life, that He is interested in it\nand willing to help it, survive in us, if our life be full of petty things?\nAbsorption in trifles, attention only to the meaner aspects of life, is\nkilling more faith than is killed by aggressive unbelief. For if all a man\nsees of life be his own interests, if all he sees of home be its comforts,\nif all he sees of religion be the outlines of his own denomination, the\ncomplexion of his preacher's doctrine, the agreeableness and taste of his\nfellow-worshippers--to such a man God must always seem far away, for in\nthose things there is no call upon either mind or heart to feel God near.\nBut if, instead of limiting ourselves to trifles, we resolutely and 'with\npious obstinacy' lift our eyes to the hills--whether to those great\nmountain-tops of history which the dawn of the new heavens has already\ntouched, periods of faith and action that signal to our more forward but\nlower ages the promise of His coming; or to the great essentials of human\nexperience that at sunrise, noon and evening remain the same through all\nages; or to the ideals of truth and justice; to the possibilities of human\nnature about us; to the stature of the highest characters within our sight;\nto the bulk and sweep of the people's life; to the destinies of our own\nnation that still rise high above all party dust and strife--then we shall\nsee thresholds prepared for a divine arrival, conditions upon which we can\nrealise God acting. Our hope will spring, an eager sentinel, as if she\nalready heard upon them all the footfalls of His coming.\n\nThese lines may meet the eyes of some who have lost their faith, and are\nsorry and weary to have lost it. Whether the blame be outside yourselves,\nin the littleness of many of the prevailing aspects of religious life, and\nthe crowding of our religious arenas with the pettiest of interests, or\nwithin yourselves, in your own mean and slovenly views of life, your\nindolence to extricate details and discriminate the large eternal issues\namong them--there is for you but one way back to faith. Lift your eyes to\nthe hills. Let your attention haunt the spots where life rises most near to\nheaven, and your hearts will again become full of hopes and reasons for God\nbeing at work upon earth.\n\nLet those who, still in their youth, have preserved their faith and\nfullness of hope, keep looking up. Amid all the cynicism and the\nbelittling of life, strenuously take the highest views of life. Amid all\nthe selfishness and impatience, which in our day consider life upon its\nlowest levels, and there break it up into short and selfish interests,\nstrenuously lift your eyes and sweep with them the main outlines, summits\nand issues. May no man lose sight of the hills for want of looking up,\ntill at the last he is laid upon his back,--and then must look up whether\nhe has done so before or not--and in the evening clearness and evening\nquiet those great outlines stand forth before his eyes--stand forth but\nfor a few moments and are lost for ever in the falling night.\n\nMany men have bravely lifted their eyes to the hills, who have felt nothing\ncome back upon them save a vague wonder and influence of purity. They have\nbeen struck with an awe to which they could give no name, with a health and\nenergy which they could only ascribe to physical infection. But to this\nPsalmist the hope and worship which the hills excited were satisfied by the\nrevelation of a Person. Above earth and her hills he saw a Character.\n\nThere have been revelations of God more rich and brilliant than this one.\nBut its simplicity suits the Psalmist's point of view. He is looking to the\nhills. It is on that high line he sees his Helper appearing. Now we all\nknow how a figure looks upon a skyline. We see just the outline of it--a\nsilhouette, as it were: no details, expression, voice nor colour, but only\nan attitude. This is all the Psalmist sees of God on that high threshold\nagainst the light--His attitude. The attitude is that of a sentinel. The\nLord is thy Keeper--thy watchman. The figure is familiar in Palestine,\nespecially where the tents of the nomads lie. The camp or flock lies low\namong the tumbled hills, unable to see far, and subject, in the intricate\nland, to sudden surprise. But sentinels are posted on eminences round\nabout, erect and watchful. This is the figure which the Psalmist sees his\nhelp assume upon the skyline to which he has lifted his eyes.\n\nCompared with other experiences of God, this outline of Him may seem bare.\nYet if we feel the fact of it with freshness of heart and imagination, what\nmay it not do for us? Life may be hallowed by no thought more powerfully\nthan by this, that it is watched: nor peace secured by any stronger trust\nthan that the Almighty assumes responsibility for it; nor has work ever\nbeen inspired by keener sense of honour than when we feel that God gives\nus freedom and safety for it. These are the fundamental pieties of the\nsoul; and no elaborateness of doctrine can compensate for the loss of fresh\nconvictions of their truth.\n\n_The Lord is thy Keeper_. If men had only not left this article out of\ntheir creeds when they added all the rest, how changed the religious life\nof to-day would have been!--how simple, how strenuous, how possibly heroic!\n\n_The Lord is thy Keeper_. What sense of proportion and what tact does the\nthought of those sleepless thoughts bring upon our life! How quickly it\nrestores the instinct to discriminate between what is essential and what is\nnot essential in faith and morals; that instinct, from the loss of which\nthe religious world of to-day suffers so much. How hard does it make us\nwith ourselves that His eyes are on us, yet how hopeful that He counts us\nworth protecting! When we realise, that not only many of the primal forces\nof character, but its true balance and proportion, are thus due to so\nsimple a faith in God, we understand the insistence laid upon this by the\nprophets and by Christ. There is no truth which the prophets press more\nsteadily upon Israel than that all their national life lies in the sight\nand on the care of God. The burden of many prophetic orations is no more\nthan this--you are defended, you are understood, you are watched, by God.\nAnd in the Sermon on the Mount, and in that address to the disciples now\ngiven in the tenth of Matthew, there is no message more clear or frequent\nthan that God cares for us, has to be reckoned with by all our enemies, is\naware of everything that befalls us, and while He relieves us from\nresponsibility in the things that are too great for us, makes us the more\nto feel our responsibility for things within our power--in short, that the\nLord is our Keeper.\n\nOf course we shall be able to realise this, according as we realise life.\nIf we have a heart for the magnitudes of life, it will not seem vain to\nbelieve that God Himself should guard it.\n\nIf we keep looking to the hills, God shall be very clear upon them as our\nKeeper.\n\nBut this distant view of God upon the skyline, full as it is of discipline\nand of peace, does not satisfy the Psalmist. To him the Lord is not only\nIsrael's Keeper or Sentinel, but the Lord is also _thy shade on thy right\nhand: the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night._ The\norigin of these expressions is vague, but their application here is vivid\nenough. A sentinel is too far away, and is, physically, too narrow a figure\nto fulfil man's imagination of God. The Psalmist requires something near\nenough to express both intimacy and shelter. So he calls God the Comrade as\nwell as the Sentinel of His people; their Champion as well as their\nWatchman. The _shade upon thy right hand_ is of course the shade upon the\nfighting or working arm, to preserve it from exposure, and in the full\nfreedom of its power.\n\nNow it is never ideas about God, nor even aspirations after Him, which in\nthe real battle of life keep us fresh and unexhausted. Ideas, and even\naspirations, strain as much as they lift. They give the mind its direction,\nbut by themselves they cannot carry it all the way. Nor is the influence of\na Personality sufficient if that Personality remain far off. Reverence\nalone never saved any human soul in the storm of life. It is One by our\nside Whom we need. It is by the sense of trust, of sympathy, of\ncomradeship, of fighting together in the ranks, that our strength is\nthrilled and our right hand preserved in freshness. Without all this\nbetween us and bare heaven, we must in the end weary and wither.\n\nTwofold is the experience in which we especially need such compassion and\nfellowship--in the time of responsibility and in the time of temptation.\nThese are the two great Lonelinesses of life--the Loneliness of the Height\nand the Loneliness of the Deep--in which the heart needs to be sure of more\nthan being remembered and watched. The Loneliness of the Height, when God\nhas led us to the duty of a great decision, or given us the charge of other\nlives, or sent us on the quest of some truth, or lifted us to a vision and\nideal. The king, the father, the thinker, the artist, all know this\nloneliness of the height, which no human fellow can share, no human heart\nfully sympathise with. Then it is that, with another Psalmist, the heart,\nexposed to the bare heaven, cries out for something higher than itself to\ncome between the heaven and it: _What time my heart is overwhelmed do Thou\nlead me unto the rock that is higher than I_; and God answers us by being\nHimself _a shade upon the right hand, and the sun shall not smite by day,\nnor the moon by night_. And there is the Loneliness of the Deep, when we\nare plunged into the pit of our hearts to fight with terrible\ntemptations--a conflict no other man knows about or can help us in. Shall\nGod, Who sees us fighting there, and falling under the sense of our\nhelplessness, leave us to fight alone? The Lord is thy shade on thy right\nhand; thy Comrade, fighting with thee, His presence shall keep thy heart\nbrave and thine arm fresh. It is a truth enforced through the whole of the\nOld Testament. God is not a God far away. He descends, He comes to our\nside: He battles for and suffers with His own.\n\nThese then are the main thoughts of this Psalm. What new authority and\nvividness have Jesus Christ and His Cross put into them? There are few of\nthe Psalms which the early Christians more frequently employed of Christ.\nOn the lintel of an ancient house in Hauran I once read the inscription:\n'O Jesus Christ, be the shelter and defence of the home and of the whole\nfamily, and bless their incoming and outgoing.' How may we also sing this\nPsalm of Christ? By remembering the new pledges He has given us, that God's\nthoughts and God's heart are with us. By remembering the infinite degree,\nwhich the Cross has revealed, not only of the interest God takes in our\nlife, but of the responsibility He Himself assumes for its eternal issues.\nThe Cross was no new thing. The Cross was the putting of the Love of God,\nof the Blood of Christ, into the old fundamental pieties of the human\nheart, the realising by Jesus in Himself of the dearest truths about God.\nLook up, then, and sing this Psalm of Him. Can we lift our eyes to any of\nthe hills without seeing His figure upon them? Is there a human ideal, duty\nor hope, with which Jesus is not inseparably and for ever identified? Is\nthere a human experience--the struggle of the individual heart in\ntemptation, the pity of the multitude, the warfare against the strongholds\nof wickedness--from which we can imagine Him absent? No; it is impossible\nfor any high outline of morality or religion to break upon the eyes of our\nrace, it is impossible for any field of righteous battle, any floor of\nsuffering to unroll, without the vision of Christ upon it. He dominates our\nhighest aspirations, and is felt by our side in our deepest sorrows. There\nis no loneliness, whether of height or of depth, which He does not enter by\nthe side of His own.\n\nWho has warned us like Christ? To this day He stands the great Sentinel of\ncivilisation. If all within the camp do not acknowledge Him, no new thing\nstarts up in its midst, no new thing comes upon it from outside, which He\ndoes not challenge. His judgment is still the highest, clearest, safest the\nworld has ever known; and each new effort of service, each new movement of\nknowledge, is determined by its worth to His Kingdom.\n\nWho has assumed responsibility for our life as Christ has? Who has taken\nupon himself the safety and the honour, not of the little tribe for whom\nthis Psalm was first sung, but of the whole of the children of men! He\ncalled about Himself our weariness, He lifted our sorrow, He disposed of\nour sin--as only God can call or lift or dispose. Nothing exhausted His\npity, or His confidence to deal with us; nothing ever betrayed a fault in\nHis character, or belied the trust His people put in Him. _He suffers not\nthy foot_ _to be moved; He neither slumbers nor sleeps_.\n\nFor all this we sing the Psalm of Christ. We know that so long as we have\nour conversation among the lofty things of life, His dominating Presence\ngrows only the more clear; and so long as we are beset by things adverse\nand tempting, His sympathy and His prevailing grace become the more sure.\n\n_The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul_.\n\n_The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time\nforth and for evermore._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEdinburgh University Press\nT. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty\n\nBy the same Author\n\nTHE HISTORICAL\n\nGEOGRAPHY OF THE\n\nHOLY LAND\n\nWith Six Maps, specially prepared.\n\n_Seventh Thousand. 8vo, cloth_, _15s_.\n\nWith New Index and additions, and corrections.\n\n'A very noteworthy contribution to the study of sacred history, based\nupon the three indispensable conditions of personal acquaintance with\nthe land, a study of the explorations, discoveries, and decipherments\n... and the employment of the results of Biblical criticism.'--_Times_.\n\n'Professor Smith is well equipped at all points for this work. He is\nabreast of the latest findings of Scripture exegesis, and of geographical\nsurvey, and of arch\u251c\u017dological exploration; and he has himself travelled\nwidely over Palestine. The value of the work is incalculably increased\nby the series of geographical maps, the first of the kind representing\nthe whole lift and lie of the land by gradations of colour.'--_Scotsman_.\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF ISAIAH\n\nVOL. I.--CHAPS, I.--XXXIX.\n\n_Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d_.\n\n\n'This is a very attractive book. Mr. George Adam Smith has such a mastery\nof the scholarship of his subject that it would be sheer impertinence for\nmost scholars, even if tolerable Hebraists, to criticise his translations.\nAll we desire is to let English readers know how very lucid, impressive,\nand, indeed, how vivid a study of Isaiah is within their reach.... We will\ngive an example of both aspects of this most fascinating\nbook.'--_Spectator_.\n\n\n\n\nVOL. II.--CHAPS, XL.--LXVI.\n\n_Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d_.\n\n\n'It is needless to mention the literary merits which in reviews of the\nfirst volume of this work were so abundantly recognised. This is, indeed,\none of the few theological works which it is a pure pleasure to read; nor\nneed one in the case of the present volume add the qualifying remark that\nthe homiletical element is somewhat unduly large. The scholarship, too, is\nstill as accurate as might be expected from Mr. Smith's excellent\ntraining.'--_Academy_.\n\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS\n\n%_Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d_%.\n\n%VOL.I.--AMOS, HOSEA, AND MICAH%.\n\n%With an Introduction and a Sketch of Prophecy in Early Israel.%\n\n\n'The work of an interesting writer, an excellent theologian, whose\nprevious book on Isaiah showed the same qualities of fairness, historical\nimagination, and enthusiasm for a great subject that now appear in the\nhandling of these precious fragments from the lesser prophets of Israel.\nEach separate prophecy calls out an appropriate literary and historical\ncommentary written with a true sense for life and reality, and with that\neffort to get at the psychological and historical background which\ncharacterises all that is best in modern critical work.'--_Times_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF\nTHE TWELVE PROPHETS\n\nVOL. II. _Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d_.\n\nCompleting 'The Expositor's Bible,' in 49 Volumes.\n\nTHE PREACHING OF\n\nTHE OLD TESTAMENT\n\nTO THE AGE\n\n_Crown 8vo, cloth, 1s_.\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON\n\n\nTHE PSALMS\n\n_IN THREE VOLUMES_\n\nBy Alexander Maclaren, D.D.\n\n_Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. each_.\n\nIn 'The Expositor's Bible' Series.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA\n\nBIBLICAL COMMENTARY\n\nON THE PSALMS\n\nBy Professor Franz Delitzsch\n\nTranslated by the Rev. David Eaton, M.A. from the latest Edition, and\nSpecially Revised by the Author.\n\n_In Three Volumes    Crown 8vo, each 7s. 6d_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTHE PSALTER\n\nBy Joseph Parker, D.D.\n\nVOL. XII. in 'The People's Bible.'\n\n_Demy 8vo, 6s_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON","title":"Four Psalms XXIII. XXXVI. LII. CXXI.: Interpreted for practical use","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":15057}