{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42360/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42360","id":"gutenberg_42360","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42360","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Psalms, XLII -- Commentaries","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Transcriber's note:\n\nText enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\nSmall capital text has been replaced with all capitals.\n\nVariations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained\nexcept in obvious cases of typographical error.\n\nMissing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the\noriginal text.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n  THE HART\n  AND\n  THE WATER-BROOKS;\n\n  A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION OF\n  THE FORTY-SECOND PSALM.\n\n  BY THE\n  REV. JOHN R. MACDUFF,\n  AUTHOR OF \"MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES,\" \"MEMORIES OF GENNESARET,\"\n  \"WORDS Of JESUS,\" ETC. ETC.\n\n  \"The portion of God's Word that is specially precious to me, more so\n  than I am able to express, is Psalm forty-second.\"--HARRINGTON\n  EVANS' LIFE, p. 399.\n\n  \"What a precious, soul-comforting Psalm is that forty-second!\"--LIFE\n  OF CAPTAIN HAMMOND, p. 289.\n\n  LONDON:\n  JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.\n  M.DCCC.LX.\n\n\n\n\n  EDINBURGH:\n  PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY,\n  PAUL'S WORK.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FORTY-SECOND PSALM.\n\n\u00b6 _To the Chief Musician_, MASCHIL, _for the Sons of Korah._\n\n\n  1  As the hart panteth after the water-brooks,--so panteth my soul\n           after thee, O God.\n\n  2  My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:--when shall I come\n           and appear before God?\n\n  3  My tears have been my meat day and night,\n     While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?\n\n  4  When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me:\n     For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house\n           of God,\n     With the voice of joy and praise,--with a multitude that kept\n           holy day.\n\n  5  Why art thou cast down, O my soul?--and why art thou disquieted\n           in me?\n     Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him\n     For the help of his countenance [or, His presence is salvation].\n\n  6  O my God, my soul is cast down within me:\n     Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of\n           the Hermonites,\n     From the hill Mizar.\n\n  7  Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts;\n     All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.\n\n  8  Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time,\n     And in the night his song shall be with me,\n     And my prayer unto the God of my life.\n\n  9  I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me?\n     Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?\n\n  10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me;\n     While they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?\n\n  11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul?--and why art thou disquieted\n           within me?\n     Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him,\n     Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.[1]\n\n  [1] The title of the Psalm (\u05de\u05e9\u05db\u05d9\u05dc MASCHIL--_instruction_,) is\n  the same as that of other twelve. Some have referred the word\n  merely to the music--indicating the tune to which the Psalms were\n  set,--demanding of the sons of Korah, and \"the chief musician,\"\n  (the conductors of temple-song,) some melody specially adapted to\n  the sentiments they contain. Others, with greater probability,\n  take it as indicative of their _design_;--that while expressive of\n  personal feeling and experience, they were intended for the\n  \"instruction\" and comfort of the Church in all ages. Hence the\n  term given to them of _didactic_.\n\n  Though his name is not mentioned, there is little doubt that\n  David, and not the sons of Korah, as some have supposed, was the\n  author of this Psalm. The reader is referred to _Hengstenberg_ for\n  a statement of the internal grounds, in the Psalm itself, to\n  favour this conclusion. \"To me,\" says Calvin, \"it appears more\n  probable that the sons of Korah are here mentioned because this\n  Psalm was committed as a precious treasure to be preserved by\n  them;--as we know that out of the number of the singers some were\n  chosen and appointed to be keepers of the Psalms. That there is no\n  mention made of David's name, does not in itself involve any\n  difficulty, since we see the same omission in other Psalms, of\n  which there is, notwithstanding, the strongest grounds for\n  concluding that he was author.\"\n\n  According to an arbitrary division by the Jews of their Psalter\n  into five parts, supposed to have been made by Ezra after the\n  return from Babylon, the Forty-second Psalm forms the commencement\n  of the second book. Regarding its structure, we may remark, that\n  it is divided into two portions or _strophes_, each of these\n  closing with a refrain in verses 5 and 11.\n\nThe following is an excellent poetical paraphrase of the Psalm, by\nBishop Lowth:--\n\n    \"As pants the wearied hart for cooling springs,\n      That sinks exhausted in the summer's chase;\n    So pants my longing soul, great King of kings!\n      So thirsts to reach Thy sacred dwelling-place.\n\n    \"On briny tears my famish'd soul hath fed,\n      While taunting foes deride my deep despair;\n    'Say, where is now thy Great Deliverer fled,\n      Thy mighty God, deserted wanderer, where?'\n\n    \"Oft dwell my thoughts on those thrice happy days,\n      When to Thy fane I led the willing throng;\n    Our mirth was worship, all our pleasure praise,\n      And festal joys still closed with sacred song.\n\n    \"Why throb, my heart? why sink, my saddening soul,\n      Why droop to earth, with various foes oppress'd?\n    My years shall yet in blissful circles roll,\n      And peace be yet an inmate of this breast.\n\n    \"By Jordan's banks with devious steps I stray,\n      O'er Hermon's rugged rocks and deserts dear:\n    E'en there Thy hand shall guide my lonely way,\n      There Thy remembrance shall my spirit cheer.\n\n    \"In rapid floods the vernal torrents roll,\n      Harsh sounding cataracts responsive roar;\n    Thine angry billows overwhelm my soul,\n      And dash my shatter'd bark from shore to shore.\n\n    \"Yet Thy sure mercies ever in my sight,\n      My heart shall gladden through the tedious day;\n    And 'midst the dark and gloomy shades of night,\n      To Thee I'll fondly tune the grateful lay.\n\n    \"Rock of my hope! great Solace of my heart!\n      Why, why desert the offspring of Thy care,\n    While taunting foes thus point th' invidious dart,\n      'Where is thy God, abandon'd wanderer, where?'\n\n    \"Why faint, my soul? why doubt Jehovah's aid?\n      Thy God the God of mercy still shall prove;\n    Within His courts thy thanks shall yet be paid,\n      Unquestion'd be His pity and His love.\"\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\n                                         PAGE\n\n  I. THE SCENE OF THE PSALM,                2\n\n  II. THE GENERAL SCOPE OF THE PSALM,      10\n\n  III. A PECULIAR EXPERIENCE,              24\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF THE PSALM.\n\n\n  I. THE HART PANTING,                     36\n\n  II. THE HART WOUNDED,                    46\n\n  III. THE LIVING GOD,                     60\n\n  IV. THE TAUNT,                           78\n\n  V. THE TAUNT,                            90\n\n  VI. SABBATH MEMORIES,                   102\n\n  VII. HOPE,                              122\n\n  VIII. THE HILL MIZAR,                   141\n\n  IX. THE CLIMAX,                         166\n\n  X. LESSONS,                             180\n\n  XI. FAITH AND PRAYER,                   192\n\n  XII. THE QUIET HAVEN,                   212\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nThe Scene of the Psalm.\n\n\n    \"Where is thy favour'd haunt, Eternal Voice,\n        The region of Thy choice,\n    Where, undisturb'd by sin and earth, the soul\n        Owns Thine entire control?\n    'Tis on the mountain's summit dark and high,\n        Where storms are hurrying by:\n    'Tis 'mid the strong foundations of the earth,\n        Where torrents have their birth.\n    No sounds of worldly toil ascending there\n        Mar the full burst of prayer;\n    Lone nature feels that she may freely breathe,\n        And round us and beneath\n    Are heard her sacred tones: the fitful sweep\n        Of winds across the steep,\n    The dashing waters where the air is still,\n        From many a torrent rill--.\n    Such sounds as make deep silence in the heart\n        For thought to do her part.\"\n\n\"The spot was so attractive to me, as well as the view of the\nsurrounding country so charming, that I had great difficulty in\ntearing myself away from it. In the foreground, at my feet, was the\nJordan flowing through its woods of tamarisks. On the other side rose\ngently the plain of Beisan surmounted by the high _tell_ of that name.\nIn the distance were the mountains of Gilboa--the whole stretch of\nwhich is seen, even as far as ancient Jezreel.\"--_Van de Velde's\nTravels in Syria and Palestine_, vol. ii. p. 355.\n\n\nI.\n\nTHE SCENE OF THE PSALM.\n\nAll recent explorers of Palestine speak in glowing terms of that\n\"solemn eastern background,\" with its mellow tints of blue and purple,\nrising conspicuous, as if a wall built by giants, from the deep gorge\nor valley of the Jordan. This mountain range, and especially the hills\nof Gilead, with their rugged ravines and forests of sycamore and\nterebinth, are full of blended memories of joy and sadness. From one\nof these slopes, the Father of the Faithful obtained his first view of\nhis children's heritage. On another, the Angels of God--the two bright\ncelestial bands--greeted Jacob on his return from his sojourn in\nSyria.[2] From another, trains of wailing captives on their way to\nBabylon, must oft and again have taken through their tears their last\nlook of \"the mountains round about Jerusalem.\" Nigh the same spot, the\nfootsteps of our blessed Redeemer Himself lingered, when death was\nhovering over the couch of the friend He loved at Bethany. Martha and\nMary, from their Village-home, must have lifted their eyes to these\nsame \"hills,\" from whence they knew, in the extremity of their\nanguish, their \"help\" alone could come. While, at a later period, the\nsame spot was rendered illustrious as the locality of _Pella_, the\nmountain fortress and asylum whither their Lord had admonished His\nfollowers to flee, when the Imperial Eagles of Rome were gathered by\nTitus around the devoted city.[3]\n\n  [2] Gen. xxxii. 1.\n\n  [3] See Mr Stanley's chapter, in his \"Sinai and Palestine,\" on\n  \"Per\u00e6a and the Trans-Jordanic Tribes,\" in which these different\n  references are graphically grouped together. \"The Per\u00e6an hills are\n  the 'Pisgah' of the earlier history: to the later history they\n  occupy the pathetic relation that has been immortalised in the\n  name of 'the long ridge,' from which the first and last view of\n  Granada is obtained. They are the 'Last Sigh' of the Israelite\n  exile.\"--(P. 328.)\n\nThis \"land beyond the Jordan\" still further derives an imperishable\ninterest from being the exile-retreat of the sweet Singer of Israel in\nthe most pathetic period of his chequered life and reign. There is no\nmore touching episode in all Hebrew history than the recorded flight\nof David from his capital on the occasion of the rebellion of Absalom\nand the defection of his people. Passing, barefoot and weeping,\nacross the brook Kedron, and thence by the fords of Jericho, he sped\nnorthwards with his faithful adherents, and found a temporary shelter\namid these remote fastnessess.\n\nMinds of a peculiar temperament have often found it a relief, in\nseasons of sadness, to give expression to their pent-up feelings in\npoetry or song. Ancient as well as modern verse and music abound with\nstriking examples of this,--\"Songs in the Night,\" when the mouldering\nharp was taken down from the willows by some captive spirit, and made\nto pour forth its strains or numbers in touching elegy. David's own\nlament for Jonathan is a gush of intensified feeling which will occur\nto all, and which could have been penned only in an agony of tears.[4]\n\n  [4] As an example in modern poetry, need we refer to that noblest\n  tribute ever penned over departed worth, the \"_In Memoriam_\" of\n  Tennyson; or in modern song, to the exquisite and plaintive\n  loveliness of this very Psalm, set to music by Mendelssohn, and so\n  well known by the title, \"_As the hart panteth_.\"\n\nIt was a spirit crushed and broken with other, but not less poignant\nsorrows, which dictated this Psalm of his exile. May we not imagine\nthat, in addition to the tension of feeling produced by his altered\nfortunes, there was in the very scene of his banishment, where the\nplaintive descant was composed, much to inspire poetic sentiment? The\nalternate calm and discord of outer nature found their response in his\nown chequered experiences. Nature's \u00c6olian harp--its invisible strings\ncomposed of rustling leaves and foaming brooks, or the harsher tones\nof tempest and thunder, flood and waterfall--awoke the latent\nharmonies of his soul. They furnished him with a key-note to discourse\nhigher melodies, and embody struggling thoughts in inspired numbers.\nIn reading this Psalm we at once feel that we are with the Minstrel\nKing, not in the Tabernacle of Zion, but in some glorious \"House not\nmade with hands,\"--some Cathedral whose aisles are rocky cliffs and\ntangled branches, and its roof the canopy of Heaven!\n\nLet us picture him seated in one of those deep glens listening to the\nmurmur of the rivulet and the wail of the forest. Suddenly the sky is\novercast Dark clouds roll their masses along the purple peaks. The\nlightning flashes; and the old oaks and terebinths of Bashan bend\nunder the tumult of the storm. The higher rivulets have swelled the\nchannel of Jordan,--\"deep calls to deep\"--the waves chafe and riot\nalong the narrow gorges. Suddenly a struggling ray of sunshine steals\namid the strife, and a stray note from some bird answers joyously to\nits gleam. It is, however, _but_ a gleam. The sky again threatens,\nfresh bolts wake the mountain echoes. The river rolls on in augmented\nvolume, and the wind wrestles fiercely as ever with the denizens of\nthe forest. At last the contest is at an end. The sky is calm--the air\nrefreshed--the woods are vocal with song--ten thousand dripping boughs\nsparkle in the sunlight; the meadows wear a lovelier emerald; and\nrock, and branch, and floweret, are reflected in the bosom of the\nstream.\n\nAs the royal spectator with a poet and painter's eye is gazing on this\nshifting diorama, and when Nature is laughing and joyous again amid\nher own tear-drops, another simple incident arrests his attention. A\nHart or Deer, hit by the archers or pursued by some wild beast on\nthese \"mountains of the leopards,\" with hot eyeballs and panting\nsides, comes bounding down the forest glade to quench the rage of\nthirst. The sight suggests nobler aspirations. With trembling hand and\ntearful eye the exiled spectator awakes his harp-strings, and\nbequeaths to us one of the most pathetic musings in the whole Psalter.\nThe 23d has happily been called \"the nightingale of the Psalms;\" this\nmay appropriately be termed \"the turtle-dove.\" We hear the lonely bird\nas if seated on a solitary branch warbling its \"reproachful music,\" or\nrather struggling on the ground with broken wing, uttering a doleful\nlament. These strains form an epitome of the Christian life--a diary\nof religious experience, which, after three thousand years, find an\necho in every heart. Who can wonder that they have smoothed the\ndeath-pillow of dying saints, and taken a thorn from the crown of the\nnoble army of martyrs![5]\n\n  [5] I refer the reader to the words quoted on the title-page. They\n  form the dying testimony and experience of one of the holiest men\n  of any age. We have seen in the possession of a revered friend,\n  the Bible which belonged to the great Marquis of Argyle, and which\n  formed his constant companion during the period of his\n  imprisonment. Almost every verse of the 42d Psalm is specially\n  marked. Some of the verses, such as the third, are noted with a\n  double stroke. We may well imagine him, after closing such \"an\n  afflicted man's companion,\" thus writing to his Marchioness--\"They\n  may shut me in prison where they please, but they cannot shut out\n  God from me.\"\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nThe General Scope of the Psalm.\n\n\n    \"Like unto ships far off at sea,\n    Outward or homeward bound are we:\n    Before, behind, and all around\n    Floats and swings the horizon's bound;\n    Seems at its outer rims to rise,\n    And climb the crystal wall of the skies;\n    And then again to turn and sink,\n    As if we could slide from its outer brink.\n    Ah! it is not the sea that sinks and shelves,\n    But ourselves\n    That rock and rise\n    With endless and uneasy motion--\n    Now touching the very skies,\n    Now sinking into the depths of ocean.\"\n\n\"The Scriptures have laid a flat opposition between faith and sense.\nWe live by faith and not by sense. They are two buckets--the life of\nfaith and the life of sense; when one goes up, the other goes\ndown.\"--_Bridge_, 1637.\n\n\"There are twins striving within me; a Jacob and an Esau. I can,\nthrough Thy grace, imitate Thy choice, and say with Thee, _Jacob have\nI loved, and Esau have I hated_. Blessed God! make Thou that word of\nThine good in me, that _the elder shall serve the younger_.\"--_Bishop\nHall_, 1656.\n\n\nII.\n\nTHE GENERAL SCOPE OF THE PSALM.\n\n\"If the Book of Psalms be, as some have styled it, a mirror or\nlooking-glass of pious and devout affections, this Psalm, in\nparticular, deserves as much as any one Psalm to be so entitled, and\nis as proper as any other to kindle and excite such in us. Gracious\ndesires are here strong and fervent; gracious hopes and fears, joys\nand sorrows, are here struggling. Or we may take it for a conflict\nbetween sense and faith; sense objecting, and faith answering.\"[6]\n\n  [6] Matthew Henry.\n\nIn these few words, the Father of commentators, with his wonted\ndiscernment, has given us the key to the true interpretation of this\nsacred song. It may be regarded, indeed, as the Old Testament parallel\nto the 7th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, in which another\ninspired writer truthfully and powerfully portrays the same great\nstruggle between corruption and grace, faith and sense, \"the old and\nthe new man.\"\n\nThere are two antagonist principles in the heart of every believer,\ncorresponding to the great forces which act in the material world. The\ntendency of his new nature is to gravitate towards God--the Divine Sun\nof his being--the centre of his fondest affections--the object of his\ndeepest love. But \"there is a law in his members warring against the\nlaw of his mind;\"[7]--the remains of his _old_ nature, leading him to\nwander in wide and eccentric orbit from the grand Source of light, and\nhappiness, and joy! \"_What will ye see in the Shulamite?_\" asks the\nSpouse in the Canticles, personating the believer (at a time, too,\nwhen conscious of devoted attachment to the Lord she loved). The reply\nis, \"_As it were the company of two armies_.\" (Sol. Song vi. 13.)\nSight on the one hand, Faith on the other. The carnal mind, which is\nenmity against God, battling with the renewed spiritual mind, which\nbrings life and peace. Affections heaven-born, counteracted and marred\nby affections earth-born. The magnet would be true to its pole but\nfor disturbing moral influences. The eagle would soar, but it is\nchained to the cage of corruption. The believer would tread boldly on\nthe waves, but unbelief threatens to sink him. He would fight the\nbattles of the faith, but there is \"a body of death\" chained to his\nheavenly nature, which compels him to mingle denunciations of himself\nas \"a wretched man\" with the shouts of victory.[8]\n\n  [7] Rom. vii. 23.\n\n  [8] Rom. vii. 24, 25.\n\nWe may imagine David, when he composed this Psalm, wrapped in silent\ncontemplation--the past, the present, and the future suggesting\nmingled reflections. The shepherd, the king, the fugitive! Sad comment\non the alternations of human life! humbling lesson for God's Anointed!\nIt furnishes him with a true estimate of the world's greatness. It has\ntaught him the utter nothingness of all here as a portion for the\nsoul. Amid outward trial and inward despondency, FAITH looks to its\nonly true refuge and resting-place. His truant heart softened and\nsaddened by calamity, turns to its God,--\"_As the hart panteth after\nthe water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul\nthirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear\nbefore God?_\" (Ver. 1, 2.) But the wave is beaten back again! He\nremembers his sins and his sorrows, and (more galling to his sensitive\nspirit) the taunts of ungodly scoffers. \"_My tears have been my meat\nday and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?_\"\n(Ver. 3.) Moreover, he is denied the solace of public ordinances. He\ncan no longer, as once he could, light the decaying ashes of his faith\nat the fires of the altar. Memory dwelt with chastened sadness on the\nhours of holy convocation. \"_When I remember these things, I pour out\nmy soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude; I went with them to\nthe house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude\nthat kept holy-day._\" (Ver. 4.) But, once more, the new-born principle\nregains the mastery. He rebukes his own unbelief, urges renewed\ndependence on God, and triumphs in the assurance of His countenance\nand love. \"_Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou\ndisquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the\nhelp of his countenance._\" (Ver. 5.) But again the harp is muffled!\n_Unbelief_ musters her ranks; fresh remembrances of sin and sorrow\ncrowd upon him. \"_O my God, my soul is cast down within me._\" (Ver.\n6.) _Faith_, however, has its antidote at hand, and the momentary\ncause of depression is removed. The memory of former succours and\nmercies inspires with confidence for the future, and he immediately\nadds, \"_I will remember_ THEE (in this the place of my Exile) _from\nthe land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar_.\"\n\nBut the storm-clouds are still wreathing his sky;--nay, it seems as if\nthe tempest were deepening. Fresh assaults of temptation are coming in\nupon him;--there seems no light in the cloud, no ray in the darkness.\n\"_Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts; all thy\nwaves and thy billows are gone over me._\" (Ver. 7.) But again, his own\nextremity is God's opportunity; Faith is seen cresting the resurgent\nwaves. Lifting his voice above the storm, he thus expresses his\nassurance in God's faithfulness, \"_Yet the Lord will command his\nloving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be\nwith me, and my prayer unto the God of my life_.\" (Ver. 8.) Nay, he\nresolves in all time to come to provide against the return of seasons\nof guilty distrust and misgiving. He dictates and transcribes the very\nwords of a prayer to be employed as an antidote in any such recurring\nmoments of despondency. He resolves to rise above frames and feelings,\nand to plant his feet on the Rock of Ages, which these fluctuating\nbillows can never shake;--\"_I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou\nforgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the\nenemy?_\" (Ver. 9.) The Old nature makes one last and final effort, ere\nabandoning the conflict. Unbelief rallies its strength. A former\nassault is renewed. \"_As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies\nreproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_\" (Ver.\n10.) But he reverts to his prayer! He adopts his own liturgy for a\ntime of sorrow. \"_Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou\ndisquieted within me? hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him._\"\n(Ver. 11.) He seems to be \"answered while yet speaking;\" for he closes\nwith the joyful declaration, \"_Who is the health of my countenance,\nand my God_.\" (Ver. 11.) He had made a similar assertion in a former\nverse (Ver. 5), \"_I shall yet praise him for the help of his\ncountenance_;\" but now he can add the language of triumphant\nassurance, \"My God!\" The conflict is ended;--sense quits the field,\nand faith conquers. He began the Psalm in trouble, he ends it with\njoy. Its notes throughout are on the minor key, but these merge at\nlast into a strain of triumph. He began comparing himself to the\nstricken deer--the helpless, breathless, panting fugitive;--he ends it\nwith angel's words,--with the motto and watchword in which a seraph\nmight well glory--heaven knows no happier--\"MY GOD!\"\n\n\"He looked,\" says Matthew Henry, \"upon the living God as his chief\ngood, and had set his heart upon Him accordingly, and was resolved to\nlive and die by Him; and casting anchor thus at first, he rides out\nthe storm.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nO child of God! touchingly expressive picture have we here of the\nstrange vicissitudes in thy history. The shuttle in the web of thy\nspiritual life, darting hither and thither, weaving its chameleon\nhues; or, to adopt a more appropriate emblem, thy heart a\nbattle-field, and \"no discharge in that war\" till the pilgrim-armour\nbe exchanged for the pilgrim-rest:--sense and sin doing their utmost\nto quench the bivouac-fires of faith, and give the enemy the\nadvantage: ay, and they _would_ succeed in quenching these, did not\nthe Lord of pilgrims feed with the oil of His own grace the\nlanguishing flame. \"Sometimes,\" it has been well said, \"in the Voyages\nof the Soul, we feel that we can only go by anxious soundings,--the\ncompass itself seeming useless--not knowing our bearings,--nearing\nhere Christ--then perhaps the dim tolling bell amidst the thick\ndarkness warning us to keep off.\"[9] But fear not; He will \"bring you\nto the haven where ye would be.\" The voice of triumph will be heard\nhigh above the water-floods. The contest may be long, but it will not\nbe doubtful. He who rules the raging of the sea will, in His own good\ntime, say, \"Peace, be still, and immediately there will be a great\ncalm.\" Have you ever watched the career of the tiny branch or withered\nleaf which has been tossed into a little virgin rill on one of our\nhigh-table lands or mountain moors? For a while, in its serpentine\ncourse, it is borne sluggishly along, impeded by protruding moss, or\nstone, or lichen. Now it circles and saunters hither and thither on\nthe lazy streamlet--now floating back towards the point of departure,\nas if uncertain which direction to choose. A passing breath of wind\ncarries it to the centre, and the buoyant rivulet sings its way\njoyously onward, bearing its little burden through copse, and birch,\nand heather. But again it is obstructed. Some deep inky pool detains\nit in the narrow ravine. There it is sucked in, whirled and twisted\nabout, chafed and tortured with the conflict of waters; or else it\nlies a helpless prisoner, immured by the rocks in their fretting\ncaldrons. But by and by, with a new impulse it breaks away along the\nrapid torrent-stream, bounding over cascade and waterfall, home to its\nocean destiny.\n\n  [9] Cheever's \"Windings.\"\n\nSo it is with the soul! It is often apparently the sport and captive\nof opposing currents. It has its pools of darkness, its eddies of\nunbelief, its jagged rocks of despair, but it will eventually clear\nthem all. \"All motion,\" to use the words of one of the best and\nsaintliest of the old writers on this very Psalm (Sibbs), and which\ncarry out our illustration, \"All motion tends to rest, and ends in it.\nGod is the centre and resting-place of the soul; and here David takes\nup his rest, and so let us. We see that discussing of objections in\nthe consistory of the Soul, settles the Soul at last--Faith at length\nsilencing all risings to the contrary. Then whatsoever times come, we\nare sure of a hiding-place and a sanctuary.\"\n\nYes! your life, notwithstanding all these fluctuations, will end\ntriumphantly. It may, as in this Psalm, be now a p\u00e6an, then a dirge;\nnow a _Miserere_, then a _Te Deum_. The _Miserere_ and _Te Deum_ may\nbe interweaved throughout; but the latter will close the\nLife-story--the concluding strain will be the anthem of Victory. You\nmay arrest the arrow in its flight--you may chain the waterfall, or\nstay the lightning, sooner than unsay the words of God, \"_He that hath\nbegun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus\nChrist_.\" (Phil. i. 6.)\n\nRemember, God does not say, that \"good work\" is never to be impeded.\nHe has never given promise in Scripture of an unclouded\nday--uninterrupted sunshine--a waveless, stormless sea. No, \"the\nmorning without clouds\" is a heavenly emblem. The earthly one is \"a\nday, in which the light shall neither be clear nor dark.\" (Zech. xiv.\n6.) The analogy of the outer world of nature, at least under these\nour chequered and ever-varying skies, teaches us this. Spring comes\nsmiling, and pours her blossoms into the lap of Summer. But the skies\nlower, and the rain and battering hail descend, and the virgin\nblossoms droop their heads and almost die. Summer again smiles and the\nmeadows look gay; the flowers ring merry chimes with their leaves and\npetals, and Autumn with glowing face is opening her bosom for the\nexpected treasure. But all at once drought comes with her fiery\nfootsteps. Every blade and floweret, gasping for breath, lift their\nblanched eyelids to the brazen sky; or the night-winds rock the laden\nbranches and strew the ground. Thus we see it is not one unvarying,\nunchecked progression, from the opening bud to the matured fruit. But\nevery succeeding month is scarred and mutilated by drought and\nmoisture, wind and rain, storm and sunshine. Yet, never once has\nAutumn failed to gather up her golden sheaves; ay, and if you ask her\ntestimony, she will tell that the very storm, and wind, and rain you\ndreaded as foes, were the best auxiliaries in filling her yellow\ngarners.\n\nIf the experience of any one here present be that of \"the deep\" and\n\"the water-flood\"--\"the stormy wind and tempest,\" think ever of the\nclosing words of the Psalm, and let them \"turn your mourning into\ndancing; take off your sackcloth, and gird you with gladness!\" _You_\nmay change towards God, but He is unchanging towards _you_. The stars\nmay be swept from our view by intervening clouds, but they shine\nbright as ever,--undimmed altar-fires in the great temple of the\nuniverse. Our _vision_ may be at fault, but not their radiance and\nundying glory. The Being \"not confined to temples made with hands,\"\nwho met this wrestler of old in the forest of Gilead, and poured\nbetter than Gilead's balm into his bosom, is the same now as He was\nthen. And if thou art a wrestler too, He seems through the moaning of\nthe storm to say, \"_Though thou fall, yet shalt thou not be cast down\nutterly, for the Lord upholdeth thee with his right hand_.\"\n\n\"_My God!_\" Oh, if that be the last entry in the Diary of religious\nexperience, be not desponding now because of present passing shadows,\nbut \"thank God and take courage.\" It is written that \"at evening-time\nit shall be light.\" (Zech. xiv. 7.) The sun may wade all day through\nmurky clouds, but he will pillow his head at night on a setting couch\nof vermilion and gold. \"Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall\nye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers\nwith _yellow gold_.\"[10] It was said by aged Jacob, in his prophetic\ndeath-song, regarding that very tribe on the borders of which the\nroyal exile now sang, \"GAD, _a troop shall overcome him: but he shall\novercome at the last_.\"[11] Was not this the key-note of his present\nelegy? Faith could lift its head triumphant in the clang of battle,\namid these troops of spiritual plunderers, and sing, \"_Though an host\nshould encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should\nrise against me, in_ THIS _will I be confident._\"[12]\n\n  [10] Ps. lxviii. 13.\n\n  [11] Gen. xlix. 19.\n\n  [12] Ps. xxvii. 3.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nA Peculiar Experience.\n\n\n    \"I ask'd the Lord that I might grow\n      In faith, and love, and every grace;\n    Might more of His salvation know,\n      And seek more earnestly His face.\n\n    \"'Twas He who taught me thus to pray;\n      And He, I trust, has answer'd prayer,\n    But it has been in such a way\n      As almost drove me to despair.\n\n    \"I hoped that in some favour'd hour\n      At once He'd answer my request;\n    And by His love's constraining power,\n      Subdue my sins and give me rest.\n\n    \"Instead of this, He made me feel\n      The hidden evils of my heart;\n    And let the angry powers of hell\n      Assault my soul in every part.\"\n\n    --_Cowper._\n\n\"If we listen to David's harp, we shall hear as many hearse-like\nharmonies as carols.\"--_Lord Bacon._\n\n\"If we be either in outward affliction or in inward distress, we may\naccommodate to ourselves the melancholy expressions we find here. If\nnot, we must sympathise with those whose case they speak too plainly,\nand thank God it is not our own case.\"--_Matthew Henry._\n\n\nIII.\n\nA PECULIAR EXPERIENCE.\n\nAlthough this Psalm, in bold and striking figure, presents a faithful\nminiature picture of the Believer's life, we must regard it as\ndepicting an extraordinary experience at a peculiar passage of David's\nhistory, and which has its counterpart still in that of many of God's\nchildren.\n\nThe writer of the Psalm was evidently undergoing \"spiritual\ndepression\"--what is sometimes spoken of as \"spiritual desertion,\"--that\nsorrow, awful in its reality--too deep for utterance--deeper than the\nyawning chasm made by family bereavement--the sorrow of all sorrows,\nthe loss of God in the soul!\n\nThere is much caution needed in speaking of this. There are causes\nwhich lead to spiritual depression which are purely physical, arising\nfrom a diseased body, an overstrung mind--a succession of calamities\nweakening and impairing the nervous system. We know how susceptible\nare the body and mind together, of being affected by external\ninfluences. \"We are,\" says an able analyser of human emotions,\n\"fearfully and wonderfully made. Of that constitution which in our\nignorance we call union of soul and body, we know little respecting\nwhat is cause, and what effect. We would fain believe that the mind\nhas power over the body; but it is just as true that the body rules\nthe mind. Causes apparently the most trivial--a heated room, want of\nexercise--a sunless day, a northern aspect--will make all the\ndifference between happiness and unhappiness; between faith and doubt;\nbetween courage and indecision. To our fancy there is something\nhumiliating in being thus at the mercy of our animal organism. We\nwould fain find nobler causes for our emotions.\"[13] Yes--many of\nthose sighs and tears, and morbid, depressed feelings, which\nChristians speak of as the result of spiritual darkness and the\ndesertion of God, are merely the result of physical derangement, the\npenalty often for the violation of the laws of health. The atmosphere\nwe breathe is enough to account for them. They come and go--rise and\nfall with the mercury in the tube. These are cases, not for the\nspiritual, but for the bodily physician. Their cure is in attendance\nto the usual laws and prescriptions which regulate the healthy action\nof the bodily functions.\n\n  [13] Rev. Fred. Robertson's \"Sermons; Second Series,\" p. 85.\n\nThere is another class of causes which lead to spiritual depression\nwhich are partly physical and partly religious. There must necessarily\nbe depression where there is undue elation; where the soul-structure\nis built on fluctuating frames and feelings, and the religious life is\nmade more _subjective_ than _objective_.\n\nMany imagine, unless they are at all times in a glow of fervour--an\necstatic frame of feeling--all must be wrong with them.[14] Now, there\nis nothing more dangerous or deceptive than a life of mere feeling;\nand its _most_ dangerous phase is a life of religious emotional\nexcitement. It is in the last degree erroneous to consider all this\nglowing ecstasy of frame a necessary condition of healthy spiritual\nlife. Artificial excitement, in any shape, is perilous. Apart\naltogether from the moral and religious aspect of the question, the\ntendency of the ball-room and theatre, and a preference in reading for\nworks of fiction, is to make a man nauseate the plain, commonplace\nwork, the occurrences and themes of this every-day world. Feed him on\ndainties and forced meats, and he despises husks and plain fare.\nEqually true is this with regard to the life of the soul. It is not\nfed on luscious stimulants and ecstatic experiences. When it is so,\nthe result is every now and then a collapse; like a child building his\nmimic castle too high, the perpendicular and equilibrium are lost. It\ntotters and falls, and he has just to begin again. The dew distils,\nand hangs its spangled jewels on blade and flower, gently and in\nsilence. The rain comes down in tiny particles and soft showers, not\nin drenching water-floods. So the healthy Christian holds on the even\ntenor of his way, unaffected by the barometer of feeling. He knows\nthis is apt to be elevated and depressed by a thousand accidents over\nwhich he has no control. His life is fed, not from the fitful and\nuncertain streams issuing from the low ground of his own experience,\nbut from the snow-clad summits--the Alps of God. Were he thus\nsuffering himself to depend on the rills of his own feelings, his\nbrook would often be dry in summer--the season when he most needed it;\nwhereas the supply from the glacier-beds on which the sun shines, is\nfullest in these very times of drought.\n\n  [14] \"You will not be asked in the last Great Day whether you had\n  great enjoyment and much enlargement of soul here. Speak to that\n  vast multitude, which no man can number, now around the throne.\n  Ask them whether they came through much _consolation_ and joy in\n  the Lord. No! through much _tribulation_. Ask them whether they\n  were saved by their warmth of love to their Saviour. No! but they\n  had washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the\n  Lamb.\"--_Miss Plumptre's Letters._\n\nAdd to this, religion is shorn of its glory when it is dwarfed into a\nmere thing of sentiment and feeling. Its true grandeur and greatness\nis, when it incorporates itself with active duty, and fulfils its best\ndefinition as not a \"_being_\" but a \"_doing_.\" Of nothing, therefore,\ndo we require to be more jealous, than a guilty, unmanly, morbid\ndwelling on feelings and experiences. You remember Elijah, when he\nfled pusillanimous and panic-stricken from his work, and took to a\nhermit-cell amid the solitudes of Sinai. We find him seated in his\nlonely cave, his head drooping on his breast, sullen thought mantling\nhis brow, muttering his querulous soliloquy, \"I am left alone.\" The\nvoice of God hunts out the fugitive from duty. \"What doest thou here,\nElijah? Why in this cave, brooding in a coward spirit, unworthy of\nthee? Art thou to cease to work for _Me_, because the high day of\nexcitements on the heights of Carmel are over? Here is food to\nstrengthen thy body, and here is 'the still, small voice' of my love\nto strengthen thy soul. Go forth to active duty. Leave thy cave and\nthy cloak behind thee. Take thy pilgrim-staff and scrip, and with the\nconsciousness of a great work in hand, and a brief time to do it in,\narise, and onward to Horeb, the mount of God!\" (1 Kings xix.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut having thrown out these preliminary cautions, the question occurs:\n_Are_ there no cases of spiritual depression or desertion, arising\npurely from _spiritual_ causes?\n\nWe answer, Yes. The Bible recognises such Spiritual darkness--absence\nof all spiritual comfort and joy--is no figment of man's theological\ncreed. It is a sad and solemn verity--the experience, too, of God's\nown children. \"Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth\nthe voice of his servant, _that walketh in darkness, and hath no\nlight_?\" (Isa. l. 10.) \"Oh,\" says the afflicted patriarch of Uz, \"that\nI were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when\nhis candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through\ndarkness.\" (Job xxix. 2, 3.) \"In my prosperity,\" is the testimony of\nDavid, at a later period of his life, \"I said, I shall never be moved.\nLord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: _thou\ndidst hide thy face, and I was troubled_.\" (Ps. xxx. 5-7.) \"I will\nrise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways\nI will seek him whom my soul loveth: _I sought him, but I found him\nnot_.... My beloved had _withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul\nfailed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called\nhim, but he gave me no answer_.\" (Sol. Song iii. 2, v. 6.) Can we\nforget a more awful and impressive example? ONE soaring above the\nreach of all grovelling human experiences, but yet who tells us, in\nHis bitter Eloi cry, that even HE knew what it was to be God-deserted\nand forsaken!\n\nAre there any whose eyes trace these pages who have ever undergone\nsuch a season? or it may be are undergoing it now? I stop not to\ninquire as to the cause;--indulged sin, omitted or carelessly\nperformed duty, neglect of prayer, worldly conformity.[15] Are you\nfeelingly alive, painfully conscious that your love, like that of\nmany, has waxed cold;--are you mourning that you have not the nearness\nto the Mercy-seat that once you enjoyed,--not the love of your Bibles,\nand ordinances, and sacraments that you once had,--that a heavy cloud\nmantles your spiritual horizon,--God's countenance, not what once it\nwas, irradiated with a Father's smiles,--nor heaven what once it\nseemed, a second home?\n\n  [15] \"In the time of need He hides Himself often, and seems to\n  have forgotten me. Tears have thus been my meat, because of their\n  saying unto my soul, 'Where is now thy God?' But I am bound by all\n  the experienced freeness and riches of the Redeemer's grace to\n  say, that when He hides Himself from me, it is not because He has\n  forgotten _me_, but because I have been forgetting\n  Him.\"--_Hewitson._\n\n\"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, not comforted!\" do not\ndespond. In these very sighings and moanings of your downcast spirit,\nthere are elements for hope and comfort, not for despair. They are the\nevidences and indications that the spark, though feeble, is not\nquenched--that the pulse, though languid, still beats--that faith,\nthough like a grain of mustard-seed, is still germinating. \"O thou of\nlittle faith, wherefore dost thou doubt?\" It is that very _shadow_\nthat has now come athwart your soul, and which you so bitterly mourn,\nwhich tells of _sunshine_. As it is the shadow which enables us to\nread the hours on the dial, so is it in the spiritual life. It is\nbecause of these shadows on the soul's dial-face that we can infer the\nshining of a better Sun. \"The wicked have no bands in _their_\n(spiritual) death.\" Their life has been nothing but shadow; they\ncannot therefore mourn the loss of a sunshine they never felt or\nenjoyed. Well has it been said, \"When the refreshing dews of grace\nseem to be withheld, and we are ready to say, 'Our hope is lost, God\nhath forgotten to be gracious'--this is that furnace in which one that\nis not a child of God never was placed. For Satan takes good care not\nto disquiet his children. He has no fire for their souls on this side\neverlasting burnings; his fatal teaching ever is, Peace, peace!\"[16]\nBut what, desponding one, is, or ought to be, thy resort? Go! exile in\nspirit--go, like that royal mourner amid the oak-thickets of Gilead!\nBrood no more in unavailing sorrow and with burning tears. Thou\nmayest, like him, have much to depress thy spirit. Black and crimson\nsins may have left their indelible stain on the page of memory. In\naching heart-throbs, thou mayest be heaving forth the bitter\nconfession, \"_Mine_ iniquities have separated between me and my God.\"\nBut go like him! take down thy silent harp. Its strings may be\ncorroded with rust. They may tell the touching story of a sad\nestrangement. Go to the quiet solitude of thy chamber. Seek out the\nunfrequented path of prayer;--choked it may be with the weeds of\nforgetfulness and sloth. Cast thyself on thy bended knees; and, as the\nwounded deer bounds past thee (emblem of thine own bleeding heart),\nwake the echoes of thy spirit with the penitential cry, \"_As the hart\npanteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O\nGod!_\"\n\n  [16] Miss Plumtre's Letters.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF THE PSALM.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nThe Hart Panting.\n\n\n    \"Oh, would I were as free to rise\n      As leaves on autumn's whirlwind borne,\n    The arrowy light of sunset skies,\n      Or sound--or rays--or star of morn,\n    Which meets in heaven at twilight's close,\n      Or aught which soars uncheck'd and free,\n    Through earth and heaven, that I might lose\n      Myself in finding Thee!\"\n\n\"O mysterious Jesus, teach us Thy works and Thy plans. Let our hearts\npant after Thee as the hart after the water-brooks. Create a thirst\nwhich nothing shall satisfy but the fountain of eternal love. See the\nvelocity with which the needle flees to the magnet _when it gets\nwithin distance_; so shall we hasten to our Magnet--our Beloved--as we\napproach Him.\"--_Lady Powerscourt's Letters._\n\n\"As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after\nthee, O God.\"--_Verse 1._\n\n\nI.\n\nTHE HART PANTING.\n\nWe have pictured, in a preceding chapter, the uncrowned Monarch\nof Israel seated, pensive and sad, amid \"the willows by the\nwater-courses;\" or wandering forth, amid the deepening twilight-shadows,\nwith the roll of Jordan at his side, perhaps, like his great ancestor,\nto \"wrestle with God until the breaking of the day.\"\n\nWe have already adverted to the simple incident which arrested his\nattention. A breathless tenant of the forest bounded past him to\nquench its thirst in the neighbouring river. That unconscious child of\nnature furnishes the key-note of his song. Let us sit by the banks, as\nthe Exile takes down his harp, and thus sings--\"AS THE HART PANTETH\nAFTER THE WATER-BROOKS, SO PANTETH MY SOUL AFTER THEE, O GOD.\"\n\nGod is the only satisfying portion of the soul. Every theory of human\nhappiness is defective and incomplete which falls short of the\naspirations of our immortal natures. Born with capacities for the\ninfinite, man naturally spurns the finite. No satellite, with its\nborrowed light, will compensate for the loss of the sun. You may as\nwell expect the caged wild beast to be happier within the iron bars of\nhis den than roaming lord of the forest, as for the human spirit to be\ncontent with the present and the finite as a substitute for the\nimmortal and the infinite! The water-brooks alone could slake the\nthirst of that roe on the mountains of Gilead. You might have offered\nit choicest pastures. You might have bid it roam the sunniest glades\nof the forest, or repose under the majestic shadow of the monarch-oaks\nof Bashan; it would have spurned them all; and, with fleet foot, have\nbounded down the valley in search of the stream.\n\nSo with the soul. Nothing but the stream flowing from the Everlasting\nHills will satisfy it. You may tempt a man, as he is hurrying on his\nimmortal way, with the world's pastures,--you may hold out to him the\ngolden sheaves of riches,--you may detain him amid the sunny glades of\npleasure, or on the hill-tops of fame (and he is but too willing for\na while to linger)--but satisfy him they cannot! When his nobler\nnature acquires its rightful ascendancy he will spurn them all.\nBrushing each one in succession away, as the stag does the dewy drops\nof the morning, he will say--\"All are insufficient! I wish them not. I\nhave been mocked by their failure. I have found that each has a lie in\nits right hand;--it is a poor counterfeit--a shadowy figure of the\ntrue. I want the fountain of living waters--I want the Infinite of\nKnowledge, Goodness, Truth, Love!\" \"In the LORD put I my trust: why\nsay ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?\"[17]\n\n  [17] Psalm xi. 1.\n\nThe fact is, it is the very grandeur of the soul which leads it thus\nto pant after God. Small things satisfy a small capacity, but what is\nmade receptive of the vast and glorious can only be satisfied with\ngreat things. The mind of the child is satisfied with the toy or the\nbauble; the mind of the untutored savage with bits of painted glass or\ntinsel; but the man, the sage, the philosopher, desiderate higher\npossessions, purer knowledge, nobler themes of thought and objects of\nambition. Some insects are born for an hour, and are satisfied with\nit. A summer's afternoon is the duration of existence allotted to\nmyriads of tiny _ephemera_. In _their_ case, youth and age are crowded\ninto a few passing minutes. The descending sun witnesses their birth\nand death;--the lifetime of other animals would be to them an\nimmortality. The soul, being infinite and unlimited in its capacities,\nhas correspondingly high aspirations. Vain would be the attempt to\nfill up a yawning gulf by throwing into it a few grains of sand. But\nnot more vain or ineffectual than try to answer the deep yearnings of\nthe human spirit by the seen and the temporal.\n\nYes! on all the world's fountains, drink at them as you may, \"_thirst\nagain_\" is written. Of the world's mountains, climb them as you may,\nyou will never say, \"I have reached the coveted summit. It is enough.\"\nMen go sighing on, drinking their rivers of pleasure and climbing\ntheir mountains of vanity. They feel all the while some undefined,\ninarticulate, nameless longing after a satisfying good; but it is a\nmiserable travestie to say that it has been found, or can be found, in\nanything here. \"_Who will shew us any good?_\" will still be the cry of\nthe groping seeker till he has learned to say, \"_Lord, lift_ THOU\n_upon me the light of thy countenance._\"\n\nWe know how hard and difficult it is to convince of these sublime\nverities. The soul, even in its hours of trouble and deep conviction,\nis like a castaway from shipwreck, who sees from his raft-planks\nsomething cresting the waves. He imagines it an island! As he nears\nit, he fancies he sees purple flowers drooping over the solid rock,\nand the sea-birds nestling in the crevices. But it is only an\naggregate of withered leaves and rotten branches, which the receding\ntide has tossed together, the wayward freak of old ocean.\n\n          \"All are wanderers gone astray\n    Each in his own delusions; they are lost\n    In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd\n    And never won. Dream after dream ensues;\n    And still they dream that they shall still succeed,\n    And still are disappointed. Rings the world\n    With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind,\n    And add two-thirds of the remaining half,\n    And find the total of their hopes and fears\n    Dreams, empty dreams.\"[18]--_Cowper's Task._\n\n  [18] \"I was at the very zenith of earthly happiness. On returning\n  from the ball, I took a hasty review of the evening I had passed\n  as I lay sleepless upon my pillow. The glitter--the music--the\n  dance--the excitement--the attention--the pleasure--all passed\n  before me. But, oh! I felt a want I could not describe. I sighed,\n  and, throwing my arm over my head, whispered to myself these\n  expressive words, '_Is this all?_'\"--_Mrs Winslow, Life._\n\nLet him who would solve this great problem of Happiness go to that\nparable of nature--the hunted Stag seeking the water-brooks, the\nthirsty soul seeking its God. God is the _home_ of the soul, and he is\naway from home who pitches his tent and weaves his heart-affections\naround anything short of Him. Who has not heard of \"home-sickness\"--the\ndesolate feelings of the lonely stranger in a strange land? Let\naffection, and friendship, and pity do what they may to alleviate the\npang of distance and separation, though beaming faces be around, and\nhands of love and sympathy be extended, still will the heart (despite\nof all) be roaming the old hallowed haunts, climbing in thought the\nhills of childhood, gazing on the old village church with its festoons\nof ivy, seated under the aged elm, or listening to the music of the\npassing brook and the music of voices sweeter and lovelier than all!\nThe soul is that stranger, dwelling in the tents of Kedar, and panting\nfor Heaven and God. Its language is, \"I am _not_ at home, I am a\nstranger here.\" Manifold, too, are the voices in this the land of its\nexile, whispering, \"_Arise ye and depart, for this is_ NOT _your\nrest!_\"[19]\n\n  [19] Micah ii. 10.\n\nYou may have seen in our mountain glens, in the solemn twilight, birds\nwinging their way to their nests. There may be lovely bowers, gardens\nof fragrance and beauty, close by,--groves inviting to sweetest\nmelody, Nature's consecrated haunts of song. But they tempt them not.\nTheir nests--their _homes_--are in yonder distant rock, and thither\nthey speed their way! So with the soul. The painted glories of this\nworld will not satisfy it. There is no rest in these for its weary\nwing and wailing cry. It goes singing up and home to God. It has its\nnest in the crevices of the Rock of Ages. When detained in the nether\nvalley, often is the warbling note heard, \"Oh that I had wings like a\ndove! for then would I flee away, and be at rest.\" And when the flight\nhas been made from the finite to the infinite--from the lower valleys\nof sense to the hills of faith--from the creature to the Creator--from\nman to God,--as we see it folding its buoyant pinion and sinking into\nthe eternal clefts, we listen to the song, \"_Return unto thy rest, O\nmy soul_!\"\n\nReader! may this flight be yours. \"Seek ye the Lord while He may be\nfound!\" The creature may change, He cannot. The creature must die, He\nis eternal. \"_O God, thou art my God; early will I seek_ THEE: _my\nsoul thirsteth for_ THEE, _my flesh longeth for_ THEE _in a dry and\nthirsty land, where no water is.... Because Thy loving-kindness is\nbetter than life, my lips shall praise Thee._\" (Ps. lxiii.)\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nThe Hart Wounded.\n\n\n    \"I was a stricken deer, that left the herd\n    Long since. With many an arrow deep infix'd\n    My panting side was charged, when I withdrew,\n    To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.\n    There was I found by One who had Himself\n    Been hurt by th' archers. In His side He bore,\n    And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars.\n    With gentle force soliciting the darts,\n    He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live!\"\n\n    --_Cowper._\n\n\"It was in this extremity it occurred to her that, in the deficiency\nof all hope in creatures, there might be _hope and help in God_. Borne\ndown by the burdens of a hidden providence (a providence which she did\nnot then love, because she did not then understand it) she yielded to\nthe pressure that was upon her, and began to look to Him in whom alone\nthere is true assistance.\"--_Madame Guyon's Life_, p. 38.\n\n\"As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after\nthee, O God.\"--_Verse 1._\n\n\nII.\n\nThe Hart Wounded.\n\nAre we not warranted to infer that it was the _wounded_ stag which\nDavid now saw, or pictured he saw, seeking the brooks?--the hart hit\nby the archers, with blood-drops standing on its flanks, and its eye\nglazed with faintness, exhaustion, and death? But for these wounds it\nwould never have come to the Valley. It would have been nestling still\nup in its native heath--the thick furze and cover of the mountain\nheights of Gilead. But the shaft of the archer had sped with unerring\naim; and, with distended nostril and quivering limb, it hastens to\nallay the rage of its death-thirst.\n\nPicture of David, ay, and of many who have been driven to drink of\nthat \"river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God.\" They are\n_wounded_ spirits; the arrow festering in their souls, and drawing\ntheir life-blood. Faint, trembling, forlorn, weary, they have left\nthe world's high ground--the heights of vanity, and indifference, and\nself-righteousness, and sin--and have sought the lowly Valley of\nhumiliation.\n\nWhat are some of these arrows? There are arrows from the quiver of\nMAN, and arrows from the quiver of GOD.\n\nThe _arrows of man_ are often the cruellest of all. \"_Lo, the wicked\nbend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they\nmay privily shoot at the upright in heart._\" (Ps. xi. 2.) ENVY is an\narcher. His shaft is dipped in gall and wormwood. JEALOUSY is a\nbowman, whose barbed weapons cannot stand the prosperity of a rival.\nREVENGE has his quiver filled with keen points of steel, that burn to\nretaliate the real or imagined injury. MALICE is an archer that seeks\nhis prey in ambush. He lurks behind the rock. He inflicts his wanton\nmischief--irreparable injury--on the absent or innocent. CONTEMPT is a\nbowman of soaring aim. He looks down with haughty, supercilious scorn\non others. The teeth of such \"are spears and arrows, and their tongue\na sharp sword.\" (Ps. lvii. 4.) DECEIT.--He is, in these our days, a\nhuntsman of repute--a modern Nimrod--with gilded arrows in his\nquiver, and a bugle, boasting great things, slung at his girdle. He\nmakes his target the unsuspecting; decoys them, with siren look,\nwithin his toils, and leaves them, wounded and helpless, on \"the\nmountains of prey!\" \"_Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and\nfrom a deceitful tongue. What shall be given unto thee? or what shall\nbe done unto thee, thou false tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with\ncoals of juniper._\" (Ps. cxx. 2-4.)\n\nBut there are arrows also from the _quiver of_ GOD. \"_The arrows of\nthe Almighty_,\" says Job, \"_are within me, the poison whereof drinketh\nup my spirit._\" (Job vi. 4.) \"_He hath bent His bow,_\" says Jeremiah,\n\"_and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caus\u00e9d the arrows of His\nquiver to enter into my reins._\" (Lam. iii. 12, 13.) And who will not\nbreathe the prayer of the Gilead Exile at another time?--\"_Let me fall\ninto the hands of God, for great are_ HIS _mercies!_\" \"_Faithful are\nthe wounds of_ THIS _friend._\" (2 Sam. xxiv. 14; Prov. xxvii. 6.)\n\nWe need not stop to enumerate particularly these _arrows_. There is\nthe blanched arrow of _sickness_, the rusted arrow of _poverty_, the\nlacerating arrow of _bereavement_, stained and saturated with tears,\nand feathered from our own bosoms! There is the arrow, too, (though of\na different kind,) of God's own blessed _Word_, \"quick and powerful.\"\n\"_Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies._\" (Ps.\nxlv. 5.)\n\nYet, blessed be God, these are often arrows which wound only to heal;\nor rather, which, from the wounds they create, send the bleeding,\npanting, thirsting soul to seek the waters of comfort in God himself.\nSuffering one! be thankful for thy wounds. But for these shafts thou\nmightest have been, at this moment, sleeping on the mountain heights\nof self-righteousness, or worldliness, or sin, with no thought of thy\nsoul; the streams of salvation disowned; forsaking, and continuing to\nforsake, the \"Fountain of Living Waters.\"\n\nLet me ask, Has this been the result of thy woundings? Have they led\nthee from the \"broken (leaky) cistern\" to say, \"All my springs are in\nTHEE?\" Remember affliction, worldly calamity, bereavement, have a\ntwofold effect. It is a solemn alternative! They may drive thee\nnearer, they may drive thee farther from, thy God. They may drive\nthee down to the gushing stream, or farther up the cold, freezing\nmountain-side. The wounded hart of this Psalm, on receiving the sting\nof the arrow, might have plunged only deeper and deeper into the toils\nof the huntsmen, or the solitudes of the forest. It might have gone\nwith its pining eye, and broken heart, and bleeding wound, to bury\nitself amid the withered leaves.\n\nHow many there are whose afflictions seem to lead to this sad\nconsequence; who, when mercies and blessings are removed, abandon\nthemselves to sullen and morbid fretfulness; who, instead of bowing\nsubmissive to the hand that wounds and is able to heal, seem to feel\nas if they were denuded of their rights! Their language is the bitter\nreproach of Jonah--\"_I do well to be angry, even unto death_.\"\nMuffling themselves in hardened unbelief, their wretched solace is\nthat of despair--\"_It is better for me to die than to live_.\"\n\n\"_Blessed is the man that_ ENDURETH _temptation_,\" not who rushes away\nto pine, and bleed, and die;--or to feed still on husks and the\ngarbage of the wilderness, but who makes the nobler resolve, \"_I will\narise and go to my Father_.\" Blessed is the man whose cry, like that\nof the child, is answered by his heavenly Parent bending over the\ncradle of his sorrow;--who feels, as the Psalmist did, that his\ngracious Father and God is never so near him as in a time of trial.\n\"_When my spirit was overwhelmed,_ THEN THOU _knewest my path._\" The\nbird of the desert is said to bury its head in the sand on the\napproach of its foes, and to abandon itself to destruction; but\nblessed is the man who rather is like the bird of the grove, the first\ntwigs of whose nest have been ruthlessly pulled to pieces by the hand\nof violence. Hovering for a while over her pillaged home, she fills\nthe wood with her plaintive lament, then soars away from the haunt of\nthe destroyer to begin a fresh one, in a place of safety, on the top\nbranch of some cedar of God!\n\nSuch was the case with David on the occasion of this Psalm. He had\nread to him the most touching homily the world _could_ read on the\nprecarious tenure of earthly blessings. His sceptre, his crown, his\nfamily, were like the bubbles on that foaming stream on which he\ngazed, dancing their little moment on its surface, then gone, and gone\nfor ever. Is he to abandon himself to an ignoble despair? Is he to\nconclude that the Lord has made him a target on which to exhaust His\nquiver--that He has \"forgotten to be gracious?\" Is he to join\nmarauding chiefs beyond the Jordan, savage freebooters--become a\nmountain adventurer on these Gentile borders, and forget Zion and\nZion's God? No! the earthly crown may fade, but the homeless,\nuncrowned, unsceptred monarch has a better home and a better King\nabove; invisible walls and battlements, better than all the trenches\nand moats of an earthly fortress, encompass the wanderer. With his eye\non these, thus he weaves his warrior song--\"_I will say of the Lord,\nHe is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength,\nin whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my\nhigh tower_.\" (Ps. xviii. 2.)\n\nReader! let me ask you, in closing this chapter, are _you_ panting for\nGod?\n\nThis is not the way--this is not the history of _most_. They are\npanting, but _not_ for God! They are panting up the hill, like\nSisyphus, with their huge stone. _Ambition_ is panting up the hill--no\ntime to take a breath. _Pleasure_ is panting up the hill--pursuing her\nbutterfly existence--a phantom-chase--rushing from flower to flower,\nextracting all the luscious sweets she can. _Fame_ is panting up the\nhill, blowing her trumpet before her, eager to erect her own monument\non the coveted apex. _Mammon_ is pushing up the hill with his panting\nteam, to erect the temple of riches. Multitudes of hapless wayfarers\nin the same reckless scramble have tumbled into crevices, and are\ncrying for help. Mammon's wheels are locked,--his treasure-chests have\nfallen into the mire;--and yet, _on_ he goes, driving his jaded steeds\nover the poor, and weak, and helpless--ay, those that assisted him to\nload before he started at the mountain base. He must gain the top at\nall hazards as best he may; and he will be crowned a hero, too, and\nlauded for his feat!\n\nAh! strange that men should still be pursuing that phantom-chase. Or,\nrather, strange that they should live so immeasurably beneath the\ngrandeur of their own destiny; rasping the shallows when they should\nbe out in the deep sea; furling and warping the sails of immortality,\ninstead of having every available yard of canvas spread to the breeze\nof heaven.\n\nThese objects of earthly, perishable pursuit, _may_ do when the world\nis bright, the heart unwounded, the eye undimmed. These may do when\nthe sun shines unclouded in our firmament, when our fields are waving,\nwhen fortune is weaving her golden web, and the bark of existence with\nits white sails is holding its way through summer seas. These may do\nwhen the home circle is unbroken; when we miss no loved face, when we\nmark no silent voice, no vacant chair. _But_ when the muffled drum\ntakes the place of life's joyous music;--when our skies are robed in\nsackcloth, when Nature takes on its hue of ashen paleness; when every\nflower, seared and frost-bitten, seems to droop its head in sadness\nand sorrow, and hide its tears amid withered leaves and blighted\nstems, exuding only the fragrance of decay!--what _then_? The\nprophet's voice takes up the lesson--\"_The voice said, Cry; and he\nsaid, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man\nas the flower of the grass!_\" Poor trifler that thou art! to be so\nlong mocked and deceived by a dead and dying world; desolate,\nfriendless, hopeless, portionless; a vessel driven from its moorings,\nout unpiloted on a tempestuous sea! BUT there is a haven for the\ntempest-tossed. The Saviour thou hast long despised and rejected, is a\nprovided harbour for such as _thee_. \"_A_ MAN _shall be an\nhiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, as rivers of\nwater in a dry place, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land._\"\n(Isaiah xxxii. 2.)\n\nArt thou panting after the streams of salvation? The Shepherd who\nfeeds His flock by these \"still waters\" thus addresses thee--LET HIM\nTHAT IS ATHIRST, COME.\n\nATHIRST! who is not athirst? It is the attribute of universal\nhumanity! Who does not feel that this world is presenting us with\nmuddy streams and broken, leaky cisterns? Who does not feel, in their\nmoments of deep and calm reflection, when we are brought face to face\nwith the great enigma of existence, that the world is serving up faded\nflowers instead of those redolent with imperishable fragrance, and\nglowing with unfading bloom? _Friendless one!_--thou who art standing\nalone like a solitary tree in the forest whom the woodman's axe has\nspared--thy compeers cut down at thy side--COME! _Child of\ncalamity!_--the chill hand of penury laid on thine earthly\ncomforts--the widow's cruise fast failing, her staff of bread\ndiminishing--COME! _Child of bereavement!_--the pillars in thy\nheart-shrine crumbling to decay, thy head bowed like a bulrush--thou\nwho knowest that fortune may again replace and replenish her dismantled\nwalls, but that nothing can reanimate thy still marble, or refill the\nvacant niche in thy heart of hearts--COME! _Prodigal!_--wanderer from\nGod, exile from peace, roaming the forest-haunts of sin, plunging\ndeeper and deeper into their midnight of ruin and despair--has an\narrow, either from the quiver of man, or of God, wounded thy heart?\nArt thou, in thy agony, seeking rest and finding none,--having the\ngnawing feeling of dissatisfaction with all created things, and an\nundefined longing for a solace they cannot give? Yes! for _thee_, too,\nfor thy gaping, bleeding wound there is \"balm in Gilead, and a\nPhysician there.\" I repeat, Jesus this day stands by the glorious\nstreams of His own purchased salvation, and cries, saying--\"_If any\nman_ THIRST, _let him come unto me and drink_!\"\n\n\"Yea, Lord!\" be it yours to reply--\"Lord, I _come!_ thirsty, faint,\nforlorn, wounded, weary! I come, 'just as I am, without one plea.'\nThou art all I need, all I require, in sickness and health, in joy\nand in sorrow, in life and in death, in time and through eternity. The\nsnow-clad hills may cease to feed the brooks;--that sun may cease to\nshine, or nature grow weary of his loving beams;--that moon may cease\non her silver lyre, night by night, to discourse to the listening\nearth;--the birds may become mute at the voice of the morning;--flowers\nmay droop, instead of ringing their thousand bells at the jubilant\nstep of summer;--the gasping pilgrim may rush from the stream, and\nprefer the fiery furnace-glow of the desert sands,--but 'this God\nshall be my God for ever and ever;' and, even when death is sealing my\neyes, and the rush of darkness is coming over my spirit, even then\nwill I take up the old exile strain--the great sigh of weary\nhumanity--and blend its notes with the song of heaven--'AS THE HART\nPANTETH AFTER THE WATER-BROOKS, SO PANTETH MY SOUL AFTER THEE, O\nGOD.'\"\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe Living God.\n\n\n    \"Hear me! To Thee my soul in suppliance turneth;\n      Like the lorn pilgrim on the sands accursed.\n    For life's sweet waters, God! my spirit yearneth:\n      Give me to drink. I perish here of thirst.\"\n\n\"Oh, it is His own self I pant after. Fellowship--living, constant,\nintimate fellowship with Him, is the cry He often hears from the\ndesolate void of my unloving heart. How do I loathe the sin which\nmakes the atmosphere so misty--the clouds so thick and dark!\"--_Life\nof Adelaide Newton_, p. 246.\n\n\"My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and\nappear before God?\"--_Verse 2._\n\n\nIII.\n\nTHE LIVING GOD.\n\nIn the two former chapters, we listened to the first sigh of the\nexile--the first strain of his plaintive song. It was the groping and\nyearning of his soul after God, as the alone object of happiness.\n\nYou may have watched the efforts of the plant, tossed amid rack and\nweed in some dark cellar, to climb to the light. Like the captive in\nthe dungeon longing to cool his fevered brow in the air of heaven, its\nsickly leaves seem to struggle and gasp for breath. They grope, with\ntheir blanched colours, towards any chink or crevice or grated window,\nthrough which a broken beam is admitted. Or garden flowers choked amid\nrank luxuriance, or under the shade of tree or wall, how ambitious to\nassert their freedom, and pay homage to the parent sun, lifting their\npendant leaves or petals as a target for his golden arrows!\n\nThe soul, away from the great Sun of its being, frets and pines and\nmourns! Every affection droops in languor and sadness when that light\nis away. Its abortive efforts to obtain happiness in other and meaner\njoys, and its dissatisfaction with them, is itself a testimony to the\nstrength and loftiness of its aspiration--a manifesto of its real\ngrandeur! The human affections must be fastened on _something_! They\nare like the clinging ivy which creeps along the ground, and grasps\nstones, rocks, weeds, and unsightly ruins, if it can find nothing else\non which to fix its tendrils; but when it reaches the root of the\ntree, or base of the castle wall, it spurns its grovelling existence,\nand climbs its upward way till it hangs in graceful festoons from the\ntopmost branch or turret.\n\nWe are to contemplate, now, a second breathing of this exiled\nsupplicant--a new element in his God-ward aspiration.\n\n\"_My soul thirsteth for God,_ FOR THE LIVING GOD: _when shall I come\nand appear before God?_\"\n\nThis is no mere repetition of the former verse. It invests the\nbeliever's relationship to the object of his faith and hope with a new\nand more solemn interest.\n\nFor David's present condition and experience in the land of his\nexile--the feeling of utter isolation throbbing through the pulses of\nhis soul,--there were required some extraordinary and peculiar sources\nof comfort. The old conventional dogmas of theology, at such seasons,\nare insufficient. Who has not felt, in some great crisis of their\nspiritual being, similar to his, when all the hopes and joys of\nexistence rock and tremble to their foundations; when, by some sudden\nreverse of fortune, the pride of life becomes a shattered ruin; or, by\nsome appalling bereavement, the hope and solace of the future is\nblighted and withered like grass;--who has not been conscious of a\nlonging desire to know more of this infinite God, who holds the\nbalances of Life and Death in His hands, and who has come forth from\nthe inscrutable recesses of His own mysterious being, and touched us\nto the quick? What of His character, His attributes, His ways! There\nis a feeling, such as we never had before, to draw aside the veil\nwhich screens the Invisible. It may be faith in its feeblest form,\nawaking as from a dream; lisping the very alphabet of Divine truth,\nand asking, in broken and stammering accents, \"Does God _really\nlive?_--Is it, after all, Deity, or is it Chance, that is ruling the\nworld? Is this great Being near, or is He distant? Does He take\ncognizance of all events in this world; or are minute, trivial\noccurrences, contingent on the accidents of nature or the caprice of\nman? _Is He_ THE LIVING ONE?\" God, a distant abstraction shrouded in\nthe awful mystery of His own attributes, will not do;--we must realise\nHis presence; our cry, at such a time, is that of the old patriarch at\nthe brook Jabbok, or of his descendant at the brooks of Gilead--\"_Tell\nme thy_ NAME.\"[20] Is it merely _love_, or is it the loving ONE? Is it\n_omnipotence_, or is it the almighty ONE? Is it some mysterious,\nimpalpable principle, some property of matter or attribute of mind--or\nis it a _personal_ Jehovah, one capable of loving and of being loved?\nHave the lips of incarnate truth and wisdom deceived us by a mere\nfigure of speech, when, in the great Liturgy of the Church universal,\nin the prayer which is emphatically \"His own,\" He hath taught us, in\nits opening words, to say, \"Our FATHER which art in heaven, hallowed\nbe thy NAME!\"\n\n  [20] Gen. xxxii. 28.\n\nHow earnestly do the saints in former times, and especially in their\nseasons of trial, cleave to the thought of this _personal_ presence;\nin other words, a thirst for \"the _living God_!\"\n\nWhat was the solace of the patriarch Job, as he was stretched on his\nbed of sackcloth and ashes, when other friends had turned against him\nin bitter derision, and were loading him with their reproaches? It was\nthe realisation of a _living defender_ who would vindicate his\nintegrity,--\"_I know that my Redeemer liveth_.\" (Job xix. 25.)\n\nGod appeared to Moses in a burning bush. The symbol taught him\nencouraging truths;--that the Hebrew race, after all their experience\nof fiery trial, would come forth unscathed and unconsumed. But the\nshepherd-leader desired more than this: he craved the assurance of a\nLIVING GOD--an ever-present guardian, a pillar to guide by day, and a\ncolumn of defence by night. It was the truth that was borne to his ear\nfrom the desert's fiery oracle. There could be no grander watchword\nfor himself, or for the enslaved people,--\"_God said unto Moses,_ I AM\nTHAT I AM!\" No comment is subjoined;--nothing to diminish the glory of\nthat majestic utterance. The Almighty Speaker does not qualify it by\nadding, \"I am light, power, wisdom, glory;\" but He simply declares His\n_being and existence_--He unfolds Himself as \"_the living God_!\" It is\nenough!\n\nElijah is in his cave at Horeb. All nature is convulsed around him.\nThe rocks are rent with an earthquake. The sky is lurid with\nlightnings. Fragments of these awful precipices are torn and\ndislocated by the fury of the tempest, and go thundering down the\nValley. Nature testifies to the presence, and majesty, and power of\nher God: but He is not in any of these! \"The Lord is not there!\" The\nProphet waits for a further disclosure. He is not satisfied with\nseeing the skirts of God's garment. He must see the hand, and hear\n(though it be in gentle whispers) the voice of Him who sits behind the\nelements He has awoke from their sleep. Hence this formed the closing\nscene in that wild drama of the desert. \"_After the fire there came a\nstill small voice._\" _The Lord is there!_ He is proclaiming Himself\nthe prophet's God! with him in the depths of that howling wilderness,\nas He had been with him on the heights of Carmel. \"_And it was so,\nwhen Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and\nwent out, and stood in the entering in of the cave._\" (1 Kings xix.\n12, 13.)\n\nShall we go for illustration of the same truth to New Testament and\ngospel times?\n\nThe disciples are tossed with storm in the Sea of Tiberias. The voice\nof a _living_ Saviour proclaims His _name_. \"_It is I_ (lit. I AM);\n_be not afraid!_\" The assurance, in that night of gloom and tempest,\nlulls their trembling spirits to rest.\n\nJohn, in Patmos, beheld, in a vision of surpassing brightness, his\nLord arrayed in the lustres of exalted humanity. Overpowered by the\nglory which unexpectedly burst upon him, \"he fell at His feet as one\ndead.\" His misgivings are stilled; his confidence and hope restored,\nby the proclamation of a _living_ Saviour-God. \"_I am He that_ LIVETH\"\n(lit. THE LIVING ONE)--and a similar comforting symbol was given him\nin a subsequent vision, when he saw that same covenant angel\n\"ascending from the east, having the seal of the _Living_ God.\" (Rev.\ni. 18, and vii. 2.)\n\nThis was \"the _living_ Jehovah\" whom David now sought in the\nforest-depths of Gilead. He goes out to that solitude to meditate and\npray. But it is no dream of earthly conquest that occupies him.\nDeeper thoughts have taken possession of his soul than the loss of a\nkingdom and the forfeiture of a crown! A fiercer battle engrosses his\nspirit than any mortal conflict. \"Let me have God,\" he seems to say,\n\"as the strength of my heart and my portion for ever, and I heed not\nother portions besides.\" At another time that lover of nature would\nhave caught inspiration from the glories of the impressive sanctuary\naround. He would have sung of the water-brooks at his side, the trees\nbending in adoration, the rocky gorges through which Jordan fretted\nhis tortuous way, the everlasting hills of Hermon and Lebanon,--the\nsilent guardians of the scene,--\"the wild beasts of the forest\ncreeping forth\" and \"seeking their meat from God.\" But now he has but\none thought--one longing--\"THOU _art more glorious and excellent than\nthe mountains of prey_.\" (Ps. lxxvi. 4.) None was more dependent on\nthe realised consciousness of the Divine favour than he. His Psalms\nseem to utter the language of one who lived in God's presence, and to\nwhom the withdrawal of that endearing intercourse and communion would\nbe death indeed. His expressions, in these holy breathings of his\nsoul to the Father of spirits, seem like those of one loving friend to\nanother. God, the abstraction of the Philosopher, has no place in his\ncreed. He speaks of \"the Lord thinking upon him,\" \"putting his tears\ninto His bottle,\" \"guiding him with His eye,\" \"His right hand\nupholding him,\" he himself \"rejoicing under the shadow of His wings;\"\nand as if he almost beheld some visible, tangible form, such as Peter\ngazed upon when the question was put to him on the shore of\nGennesaret, \"Lovest thou me?\" we hear this warm, impulsive Peter of\nOld Testament times thus avowing his personal attachment--\"_I will\nlove thee, O Lord my strength;_\" \"_I love the Lord, because He hath\nheard my voice and my supplications;_\" \"_The Lord_ LIVETH_; and\nblessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted_.\"\n\nReader, do you know what it is thus to exult in God as a _living God_?\nNot to think of Him as some mysterious Essence, who, by an Almighty\nfiat, impressed on matter certain general laws, and, retiring into the\nsolitude of His own being, left these to work out their own processes.\nBut is there joy to you in the thought of God ever nigh, compassing\nyour path and your lying down? Do you know of ONE, brighter than the\nbrightest radiance of the visible sun, visiting your chamber with the\nfirst waking beam of the morning; an eye of infinite tenderness and\ncompassion following you throughout the day; a hand of infinite love\nguiding you, shielding you from danger, and guarding you from\ntemptation--the \"Keeper of Israel,\" who \"neither slumbers nor sleeps?\"\n\nAnd if gladdening it be, at all times, to hear the footsteps of this\nliving God, more especially gladdening is it, as, with the Exile-King\nof Israel, in the season of trial, to think of Him and to own Him, in\nthe midst of mysterious dealings, as One who personally loves you, and\nwho chastises you _because_ He loves you. The world, in their cold\nvocabulary, in the hour of adversity, speak of _Providence_, \"the wil\nof _Providence_,\" \"the strokes of _Providence_.\" PROVIDENCE! What is\nthat? Why dethrone a living God from the sovereignty of His own world?\nWhy substitute a cold, death-like abstraction in place of a living\nOne, an acting One, a controlling One, and (to as many as He loves) a\nrebuking One and a chastening One? Why forbid the angel of\nbereavement to drop from his wings the balmy fragrance, \"Thy Father\nhath done it?\" How it would take the sting from many a goading trial\nthus to see, as Job did, nothing but the hand of God--to see that hand\nbehind the gleaming swords of the Sabeans, the flash of the lightning,\nand the wings of the whirlwind--and to say like David, on the occasion\nof his mournful march to these very wilds of Gilead, \"_I was dumb, I\nopened not my mouth; because_ THOU _didst it_.\" (Psalm xxxix. 9.)\n\nThe thought of a living God forms the happiness of Heaven. It is the\njoy of Angels. It forms the essence and bliss of glorified Saints. The\nredeemed multitude, while on earth, \"_thirsted_\" for the living God,\nbut they had then only some feeble foretastes of His presence. They\nsipped only some tiny rills flowing from the Everlasting Fountain; now\nthey have reached the living spring; and the long-drawn sigh of the\nearthly valley is answered--\"When shall we come and _appear before\nGod_?\"\n\nAnd what this living God is to the Church above, He is also to the\nChurch below. In one sense we need Him more! The drooping, pining\nplant, battered down by rain, and hail, and tempest, stands more in\nneed of the fostering hand and genial sunbeam than the sturdy tree\nwhose roots are firmly moored in the soil, or sheltered from the sweep\nof the storm. Pilgrims in the Valley of Tears! seek to live more under\nthe habitual thought of God's presence. In dark passages of our\nearthly history we know how supporting it is to enjoy the sympathy of\nkindred _human_ friends. What must it be to have the consciousness of\nthe presence, and support, and nearness of the Being of all beings;\nwhen some cherished \"light of the dwelling\" is put out, to have a\nbetter light remaining, which sorrow cannot quench! All know the story\nof the little child who, in simple accents, quieted its own fears and\nthat of others in the midst of a storm. When the planks were creaking\nbeneath them--the hoarse voice of the thunder above mingling with that\nof the raging sea;--his tiny finger pointed to the calm visage of the\npilot, who was steering with brawny arm through the surge, \"_My\nfather_,\" said he, \"_is at the helm_!\" Would you weather the tempests\nof life, and sit calm and unmoved amid \"the noise of its many waters,\"\nlet your eye rest on a _living God_--a loving Father--a heavenly\nPilot. See Him guiding the Vessel of your temporal and eternal\ndestinies! Let Faith be heard raising her triumphant accents amid the\npauses of the storm--\"_O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto\nThee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea; when the waves thereof arise,\nThou stillest them._\" (Psalm lxxxix. 9.)\n\nAbove all, be it yours to enjoy what David knew imperfectly, the\nconscious nearness of a living SAVIOUR,--a Brother on the throne of\nHeaven--\"_Christ our life_\"--God in our nature--\"the man Christ\nJesus,\"--susceptible of every human sympathy--capable of entering,\nwith infinite tenderness, into every human want and woe--bending over\nus with His pitying eye--marking out for us our path--ordering our\nsorrows--filling or emptying our cup--providing our pastures, and\n\"making all things work together for our good!\" The words at this\nmoment are as true as when, eighteen hundred years ago, they came\nfresh from His lips in Patmos--\"I am _the living_ One!--Behold, I am\n_alive_ for evermore!\" (Rev. i. 18.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat is the great lesson from this meditation? Is it not to strive to\n_be like God_? What does \"thirsting\" for God mean, but a longing of\nthe soul after likeness and conformity to the Divine image? Let us\nnot lose the deep truth of the text under the material emblem. To\nthirst for God is to desire His fellowship; and we can only hold\nfellowship with a congenial mind. No man is ever found to covet the\ncompanionship of those whose tastes, likings, pursuits, are opposed to\nhis own. Place one whose character is scarred with dishonour and his\nlife with impurity, introduce him into the company of high-souled\nmen--spirits of sterling integrity and unblemished virtue, who would\nrecoil from the contaminating touch of vice, who would scorn a lie as\nthey would a poisoned dart--he _could_ not be happy; he would long to\nbreak away from associates and associations so utterly distasteful and\nuncongenial. No man can thirst after God who is not aiming after\nassimilation to His character. God is HOLY. He who thirsts for God\nmust be athirst for _holiness_--he must scorn impurity in all its\nforms, in thought, word, and deed. He who longs for the pure cistern\nmust turn with loathing from the muddy pools of earth and sin. Again,\nGod is LOVE. Love is pencilled by Him on every flower, and murmured in\nevery breeze. The world is resonant with chimes of love, and Calvary\nis love's crowning triumph and consummation. He who \"thirsts for God\"\n\"in him verily is the _love_ of God perfected.\" He must have the\nlineaments in outline, at least, of a loving nature. He must hate all\nthat is selfish, delight in all that is beneficent, and seek an\nelevating satisfaction in being the minister of love to others. \"_He\nthat dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him._\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd what shall be said to those who know nothing of this thirst for\nGod,--to whom all that is here written is but as an idle tale? You may\npant not for Him. You may have no spiritual thirst for Him--no longing\nfor His presence--no aspiration after His likeness. But still He is to\nyou, as to the believer, a LIVING God. Yes--scorner of His mercy!\nignore the truth as you may, the God to whom you are responsible,--the\nGod with whom you will yet have \"to do,\" _that_ God LIVES! His eye is\nupon you--His book is open--His pen is writing--the indelible page is\nfilling! You may see no trace of His footstep. You may hear no tones\nof His voice. His very mercy and forbearance may be misconstrued by\nyou, as if it indicated on His part indifference to His word and\nforgetfulness of your sin. You may lull yourselves into the atheist\ndream, that the world is governed by blind chance and fate, that His\nheaven and His hell are the forged names and nullities of credulity\nand superstition. As you see the eternal monuments of His power and\nglory on rock and mountain, you may affect to see in these only the\ndead hieroglyphics of the past--the obsolete tool-marks of the God of\nprimeval chaos, who welded into shape the formless mass, but having\ndone so, left it alone. The scaffolding is removed, the Architect has\ngone to uprear other worlds, and abandoned the completed globe to the\ncontrol of universal laws!\n\nNay--GOD LIVES! \"He is not far from any one of us.\" He is no Baal\ndivinity, \"asleep or taking a journey.\" The volume of every heart is\nlaid open to the eye of the great Heart-searcher, and vainly do you\nseek to elude His scrutiny. Terrible thought! this _living_ God\n_against_ you! _You_ living, and content to live His enemy! rushing\nagainst the bosses of His buckler! and if you were to die, it would be\nin the attitude of one _fighting against God_!\n\nNo longer scorn His grace or reject His warnings. He is living; but,\nblessed be His name, He is living and waiting to be gracious! You may\nbe as stranded vessels on the sands of despair; but the tide of His\nocean-love is able to set you floating on the waters. Repair, without\ndelay, to His mercy-seat. Cast yourselves on His free forgiveness.\nEvery attribute of His nature which you have now armed against you, is\nstretching out its hand of welcome and entreaty. Each is like a branch\nof the tree of life, inviting you to repose under its shadow. Each is\na rill from the everlasting fountain, inviting you to drink of the\nunfailing stream.\n\nSee that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. He who unlocked that\nfountain is even now standing by it, and saying, as He contrasts it\nwith all earth's polluted cisterns, \"_Whosoever drinketh of_ THIS\n_water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I\nshall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him\nshall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life_.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe Taunt.\n\n\n    \"'Wilt thou leave me thus,' I cried,\n    'Whelm'd beneath the rolling tide?'\n    Ah! return and love me still;\n    See me subject to Thy will;\n    Frown with wrath, or smile with grace,\n    Only let me see Thy face!\n    Evil I have none to fear,\n    All is good, if THOU art near.\n    King, and Lord, whom I adore,\n    Shall I see Thy face no more?\"\n\n    --_Madame Guyon._\n\n\"There is a persecution sharper than that of the axe. There is an iron\nthat goes into the heart deeper than the knife. Cruel sneers, and\nsarcasms, and pitiless judgments, and cold-hearted calumnies--these\nare persecution.\"\n\n\"My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say\nunto me, Where is thy God?\"--_Verse 3._\n\n\nIV.\n\nTHE TAUNT.\n\nWe are called, in this chapter, to contemplate a new experience--David\nin tears! These, his tears, brought sin to his remembrance. As, in\nlooking through the powerful lens of a microscope, the apparently\npellucid drop of water is found to be the swarming haunt of noxious\nthings,--fierce animalcul\u00e6 devouring one another; so the tears of the\nExile formed a spiritual lens, enabling him to see into the depths of\nhis own soul, and disclosing, with microscopic power, transgressions\nthat had long been consigned to oblivion.\n\nTen years of regal prosperity had elapsed since the prophet Nathan,\nthe minister of retribution, stood before him, in his Cedar Palace,\nwith heavy tidings regarding himself and his house. Time may have\ndimmed the impressions of that meeting. He may have vainly imagined,\ntoo, that it had modified the Divine displeasure. Now that his head\nwas white with sixty winters, he may have thought that God would\nexempt him from further merited chastisement, and suffer him to go\ndown to his grave in peace. But the day of reckoning, which the Divine\npatience had long deferred, had now come. He was called to see the\nfirst gleamings of that sword which the anointed prophet had told him\nwould \"never depart from his house.\" (2 Sam. xii. 10.) The voice of\nlong averted judgment is at last heard amid the thickets and caves of\nGilead,--\"_These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou\nthoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will\nreprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes_.\" (Ps. l. 21.)\nNature, in her august solitudes, echoed the verdict! The waters\nmurmured it--the winds chanted it--the forest wailed it--the thunders\nrolled it--and the tears of the lonely Exile himself wept it,--\"_Be\nsure your sin will find you out_!\" As he sat by the willows of Jordan,\nwith his crownless head and aching heart, he could say, in the words\nof an older Psalmist, \"_We are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy\nwrath are we troubled. Thou has set our iniquities before Thee, our\nsecret sins in the light of Thy countenance._\" (Ps. xc. 7, 8.)\n\nHow apt are we to entertain the thought that God will wink at sin;\nthat He will not be rigidly faithful to His denunciations--unswervingly\ntrue to His word. Time's oblivion-power succeeds in erasing much from\nthe tablets of _our_ memories. We measure the Infinite by the standard\nof the finite, and imagine something of the same kind regarding the\nGreat Heart-Searcher. Sin, moreover, seldom is, in this world,\n_instantaneously_ followed with punishment; \"sentence against an evil\nwork is not executed speedily;\" and the long-suffering patience and\nforbearance of the Almighty is presumptuously construed by perverse\nnatures into alteration or fickleness in the Divine purpose. But \"_God\nis not a man that He should lie_!\" Even in this our present probation\nstate, (oftener than we suppose,) the time arrives for solemn\nretribution; when He makes bare His arm to demonstrate by what an\ninseparable law in His moral government He has connected _sin_ with\n_suffering_.\n\nA new missile pierces this panting, wounded Hart on the mountains of\nIsrael. _One_ of those who hurled the Javelin is specially mentioned\nin the sacred narrative. His poisoned dart must have been rankling in\nDavid's soul when he penned this Psalm.\n\nWhen the King was descending the eastern slopes of _Olivet_, on his\nway to the Valley of Jordan, Shimei a Benjamite of Bahurim, of the\nhouse of Saul, came out against him, \"_and_,\" we read, \"_cursed still\nas he came. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of\nKing David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his\nright hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come\nout, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial: the Lord hath\nreturned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead\nthou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the\nhand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief,\nbecause thou art a bloody man. And as David and his men went by the\nway, Shimei went along on the hill's side over against him, and cursed\nhim as he went, and threw stones at him, and cast dust._\" (2 Sam. xvi\n5-8, 13.) Besides this son of Gera, there were many obsequious\nflatterers and sycophants at Jerusalem--men once his cringing\nadherents, loud with their hosannahs in the time of his\nprosperity--who had now turned against him in his adversity, and\nbecome the partisans of the usurper. They exulted over his downfall,\nand followed him to the place of exile with the taunting cry, \"Where\nis now thy God?\" \"_Mine enemies_,\" said he, \"_speak against me; and\nthey that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying,_ GOD\n_hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to\ndeliver him_.\" (Ps. lxxi. 10, 11.)\n\nThere is no trial keener, no anguish of soul intenser than this. Let\nnot any talk of taunt and ridicule being a trivial and insignificant\nthing--unworthy of thought. Let not any say that the believer,\nentrenched in a lordly castle--the very fortress of God--should be\nabove the shafts hurled from the bow of envy, or the venomous arrows\nfrom the tongue of the scoffer. It is often _because_ the taunt is\ncontemptible that it is hardest to bear. The sting of the adder rouses\ninto fury the lordly lion. The tiniest insect blanches the colour of\nthe loveliest flower, and causes it to hang its pining head. Sorrow is\nin itself difficult of endurance, but bitter is the aggravation when\nothers are ready to make a jest of our sorrows. _No water_ is bad\nenough to the fainting pilgrim, but worse is it when he is mocked by\nthe mirage or bitter pool.\n\nAll the more poignant, too, were these taunts in the case of David,\nbecause too well did he know that such reproaches were merited,--that\nhe himself had furnished his enemies with the gall and the wormwood\nthat had been mingled in his cup. The dark, foul blots of his past\nlife, he had too good reason to fear, were now emboldening them to\nblaspheme. He had for years been \"the Sweet Singer of Israel;\"--his\nfuture destiny was the Psalmist of the universal Church. His sublime\nappeals, and fervent prayers, and holy musings, were to support, and\nconsole, and sustain till the end of time. Millions on millions, on\nbeds of pain, and in hours of solitude and times of bereavement, were\nto have their faith elevated, their hopes revived, their love warmed\nand strengthened by listening to the harp of the Minstrel King. And\nnow, as his faith begins to languish, now as a temporary wave of\ntemptation sweeps him from his footing on the Rock, and the \"Beloved\nof God\" wanders an exile and outcast,--a shout is raised by those who\nwere strangers to all his sublime sources of consolation--\"_Where is\nnow thy God?_ Where is He whom thou hast sung of as the help of the\ngodly, the refuge of the distressed? Where, uncrowned one! is the\nanswer to thy prayers? Where is He of whom thou didst boast as being\nknown in all thy Zion palaces as a refuge? Thou hast taught others and\ntaught thyself to believe a lie. O Lucifer, son of the morning! how\nart thou fallen!\"\n\nFor the moment, this crushing sarcasm can be answered by nothing but a\nflood of anguished tears. He was below the wave; and though he was\nsoon to know that below that wave there was an Arm lower still, yet\nfor the present he was dumb under the averment. There was no light in\nthe cloud. He was unable to lay hold of a former comforting\nexperience--\"THOU _hast known my soul in adversities_.\" (Ps. xxxi. 7.)\n\nOh, how jealous we should be of anything that would reduce us so low\nas this, and give a handle to the adversary! Beware of religious\ninconsistency. _One_ fatal step, one unguarded _word_ may undo a\nlifetime of hallowed influence. One scar on the character, one blot on\nthe page of the living epistle is indelible. It may be washed away,\nindeed, by the blood of sprinkling, so that nothing of it will remain\nagainst you in the book of God; but the eye and memory of the world,\nkeen to watch and treasure the inconsistencies of God's people, will\nnot so easily forgive or forget! The Hart laid itself open to the\ntoils of the huntsman. It was hit by the archers. One fierce dart of\ntemptation sped with unerring aim. It has left the track of blood\nbehind it in the glades of the forest--the unbelieving world hounds in\nremorseless pursuit, and the taunting cry will follow to the grave!\n\nAre there any who feel that the experience of David is their own,--who\neither by reason of religious inconsistency or religious declension\nhave laid themselves open to the upbraiding question, \"_Where is thy\nGod?_\"--Perhaps _religious declension_ is the more common of the two.\nYou are not, as we have surmised in a previous chapter, what once you\nwere. You have not the same love of the Saviour as once you had--the\nsame confidence in His dealings--the same trust in His faithfulness--the\nsame zeal for His glory. Affliction, when it comes, does not lead you,\nas once it did, to cheerful acquiescence--to the cherishing of a\nmeek, unmurmuring submissive spirit under God's sovereign will and\ndiscipline, but rather to a hasty, misgiving frame--fretting and\nrepining when you should be prostrate at the mercy-seat, saying, \"_The\nwill of the Lord be done_!\"\n\nNot in scorn, but in sober seriousness, in Christian affection and\nfidelity, we ask, \"_Where is now thy God?_\" \"Ye _did_ run well; who\nhath hindered you?\" What is the guilty cause, the lurking evil, that\nhas dragged you imperceptibly down from weakness to weakness, and has\nleft you a poor, baffled thing, with the finger of irreligious scorn\npointed at you, and whose truthfulness is echoed back from the lonely\nvoids of your desolate heart? Return, O backsliding children! Remain\nno longer as you are, at this guilty distance from that God who, amid\nall the fitfulness of your love to _Him_, remains unaltered and\nunalterable in His love to _you_. Be not absorbed in tears, ringing\nyour hands in moping melancholy--abandoning yourself to unavailing\nremorse and despair. The past may be bad enough! You may have done\nfoul dishonour to your God. By some sad and fatal inconsistency, you\nmay have given occasion to the ungodly to point at you the finger of\nscorn. The fair alabaster pillar may be stained with some crimson\ntransgression. Or if there be no special blot to which they can point,\nthere may be a lamentable spiritual deterioration in your daily walk.\nThey may have observed your love to God waxing cold--your love of the\nworld waxing strong. They may have heard you murmur at your Lord's\ndealings, question His faithfulness, and refuse to hear and to bear\nthe rod--manifesting tempers, or indulging in pursuits sadly and\nstrangely unlike what would be sanctioned by the example of your\nDivine Redeemer. Up! and with determined energy resolve henceforth to\nrepair the breach,--henceforth to make a new start in the heavenly\nlife. The shrill trumpet sounds--\"_Awake, thou that sleepest, and\narise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life_!\" We cannot say,\nlike the King of Nineveh, \"_Who can tell if God will turn and\nrepent?_\" _He_ has never turned! _You_ have turned from Him, not He\nfrom _you_. \"_Where is now thy God?_\" He is the same as ever He\nwas;--boundless in His compassion--true to His covenant--faithful to\nHis promises; \"_the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever_!\"\n\nReader! if He be afflicting you as He did David;--if with an exile\nspirit you be roaming some moral wilderness, the flowers of earth\nfaded on your path, and the bleak winds of desolation and calamity\nsweeping and sighing around, let these times of affliction lead to\ndeep searchings of heart. Let your tears be as the dewdrops of the\nmorning on the tender leaves, causing you to bend in lowly sorrow and\nself-abasement, only to be raised again, refreshed, to inhale new\nfragrance in the summer sun. If, like the weeping woman of Galilee,\nyou are saying, through blinding tears, \"_They have taken away my\nLord, and I know not where they have laid Him_,\" --if, like the Spouse\nin the Canticles, you are going about the city in search of your\nBeloved;--seeking Him, He will be found of you. The watchmen may smite\nyou--repel you--tear off your veil--and load you with reproaches;--but\n\"_fear not! ye seek Jesus who was crucified!_\" He will meet you as He\ndid the desponding Magdalene, and, listening like her to His own tones\nof ineffable love, you will cast yourself at His feet, and exclaim,\n\"RABBONI--MASTER!\"\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nTHE TAUNT.\n\n\n  \"He wounds, and hides the hand that gave the blow;\n  He flies, He reappears, and wounds again;\n  Was ever heart that loved thee treated so?\n  Yet I adore Thee, though it seem in vain.\"\n\n  --_Cowper._\n\n\"Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my\nface. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my\nmother's children. Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of\nheaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and\nfor comforters, but I found none.\"--_Ps._ lxix. 7, 8, 20.\n\n\"My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say\nunto me, Where is thy God?\"--_Verse 3._\n\n\nV.\n\nTHE TAUNT.\n\nThe Great Accuser of the brethren in a variety of ways attempts to\ninsinuate the same dark doubts in the minds of believers, which we\nhave spoken of in the preceding pages. He tries to shake their\nconfidence in God,--in the veracity of His word, and the faithfulness\nof His dealings. He would lead them to discover in His providential\ndispensations what is inconsistent with His revealed character and\nwill. In seasons particularly of outward calamity and trouble, when\nthe body is racked with pain, its nerves unstrung, or its affections\nblighted and wounded--when the mind is oppressed and harassed, the\nsoul in darkness--the Prince of this world, who times his assaults\nwith such consummate skill, not unfrequently gains in such seasons a\ntemporary triumph. The shadow of a cold scepticism passes over the\nsoul. It is silent under the cry, \"_Where is thy God?_\"\n\nHave any of you ever known this acutest anguish of the human\nspirit,--those appalling moments of doubt, when for a moment the whole\ncitadel of truth seems to rock to its foundations,--when the soul\nbecomes a dungeon with grated bars, or in which the light of heaven is\ntransmitted through distorted glass, and the finger of unbelief is\npointed inwards, with the old sneer, \"Where is the God you were wont\nto boast of in your day of prosperity? Where is there evidence that\none prayer you ever offered has been heard--one blessing you ever\nsupplicated been granted--one evil you ever deprecated been averted or\nremoved? Where one evidence of His hand in your allotments in life?\nThese heavens have never broken silence! Hundreds of years have\nelapsed since His voice was last heard. Moreover, you have only some\nold parchment leaves written by converted Pharisees and Galilean\nfishermen to tell that Deity ever gave audible utterances out of the\nthick darkness. May not His very _being_ be after all a fiction, a\ndelusion--His Bible a worn-out figment which superstition and\npriestcraft have successfully palmed upon the world? Or if you do\nbelieve in a God and in a written revelation, have you not good\nreason, at all events, to infer from His adverse dealings that He\ncares nothing for _you_. He has proved Himself deaf to your cries.\nWhere is the mercy in such an affliction as yours? He has crossed your\nevery scheme, blasted your fairest gourds. His appointments are surely\narbitrary. He takes useful lives, and leaves useless ones. He takes\nthe wheat, and leaves the chaff. The chairs he empties are those of\nthe kind and good, the loving and beloved. He leaves the wicked, and\nproud, and selfish, and profligate. Can there be a God on the earth?\nWhere is the justice and judgment which are 'the habitation of His\nthrone'--where the 'mercy and the truth' that are said to 'go before\nHis face?'\"\n\nSuch, you may say, are awful imaginations--too awful to speak of. But\nsuch there are! It is the horror of great darkness--spirits from the\nabyss sent to trouble the pools of ungodly thought, and stir them from\ntheir depths.\n\nYe who are thus assaulted, do you ever think, in the midst of these\nhorrible insinuations, of ONE who had to bear the same? Think of that\nchallenge which wrung a spotless human soul in the hour of its deepest\nanguish--\"_He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver him: let Him\ndeliver him, seeing he delighted in Him_.\" (Ps. xxii. 8.) It was the\nsame taunt in _His_ case as in yours! It was the cruel, poignant\nsneer, that He had, during all his lifetime of confiding filial love,\nbeen trusting to a falsehood,--that if God had really been His Father\nand He His Son, ten thousands of legions of angels would have been\ndown now by the side of His cross to unbind His cords and set the\nVictim free!\n\nLet the merciful, the wondrous forbearance of Christ be a lesson to\nourselves in the endurance of the taunts of a scornful world and of\nthe Father of lies. How easily might He have resented and answered the\nchallenge by a descent from the cross, by having the pierced feet and\nhands set free,--the crown of thorns replaced by a diadem of glory,\nscattering the scoffing crew like chaff before the whirlwind! But in\nmeek, majestic silence the Lamb of God suffers Himself to be bound,\nthe Victim gives no struggle. Let them scoff on! He will save others,\nHimself he will not save! Nor did all their scoffing, their taunts and\nridicule, tend for a solitary moment to shake His confidence in His\nheavenly Father. These fell like spent spray on the Rock of Ages.\nWhen the cup of trembling was in His hands, sinking humanity for the\nmoment seemed to stagger. He breathed the prayer, \"_Let it pass from\nme_.\" But immediately He added the condition of unswerving _filial\ntrust, \"Nevertheless, O my Father, not as_ I _will, but as_ THOU\nWILT.\" Even in the crisis of all, when He was mourning the eclipse of\nthat Father's countenance--in that last gasp of superhuman agony, He\nproclaims, in answer to the taunts of earth and hell, His unshaken\ntrust, \"MY GOD, MY GOD!\"\n\nComforting surely to the reviled, the ridiculed, and persecuted, that,\nsevere and poignant as their sorrow is, they are undergoing only what\ntheir Lord and Master, in an inconceivably more awful form,\nexperienced before them! Yes! think how He had to encounter the\ningratitude of faithless, the treachery of trusted friends. The limbs\nHe healed brought no succour--the tongues He unloosed lisped no\naccents of compassion--the eyes He unsealed gave no looks of love.\nThose lips that spake as never man spake, dropping wherever they went\nbalm-words of mercy, now in vain make the appeal to the scoffing\ncrowd, \"_Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for\nthe hand of God hath touched me_!\" Oh, when in deeper than the\nwater-floods of Gilead, this wounded HART of Heaven lay panting and\nbleeding under the curse,--when arrow after arrow was poured upon Him\nfrom the shafts of men, and the bitter cry resounded in His dying\nears, _Where is thy God?_--how did He answer? what was His response?\nListen to the apostle's sublime comment on that scene of blended love\nand suffering--\"_Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He\nsuffered, He_ THREATENED NOT; BUT COMMITTED HIMSELF TO HIM THAT\nJUDGETH RIGHTEOUSLY.\"\n\nAs the face, the hidden face of God, beamed upon the Son of His love\nin the midst of that apparent desolation, so will it be, children of\naffliction and sorrow! with you. Others may see in your tears nothing\nbut an indication of the desertion of God,--the visitations of His\nwrath and judgment. But believe it, these very experiences of trouble\nand calamity, of bereavement or death, are all meted out and\napportioned for you in love--drop by drop, tear by tear. Seek to see\nGod's hand in all that befalls you. Try, even in the most adverse\nprovidences, to rise above second causes. Be it with you as with David\nin his conduct towards Shimei. When the insulting Benjamite was\nhurling these cruel taunts against the exiled King and the sorrowing\nFather,--when his incensed soldiers, burning with indignation, were on\nthe point of drawing their swords and inflicting summary vengeance on\nthe scoffer--\"_Why should this dead dog_,\" said Abishai, \"_curse my\nlord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his\nhead_\"--David's reply is, \"Nay! I hear not that man's voice--I see not\nthat man's face--my eye is above the human instrument, on the God who\nsent him--'_Let him curse on, for the Lord hath bidden him_.'\" (2 Sam\nxvi. 11.)\n\nTrust God in the dark. Ah! it is easy for us to follow Him and to\ntrust Him in sunshine. It is easy to follow our Leader as Israel did\nthe pillar-cloud, when a glorious pathway was opened up for them\nthrough the tongue of the Red Sea--when they pitched under shady palms\nand gushing fountains, and heaven rained down bread on the hungry\ncamp. But it is not so easy to follow when fountains fail and the\npillar ceases to guide, and all outward and visible supports are\nwithdrawn. But _then_ is the time for faith to rise to the\nascendant;--when the world is loud with its atheist sneer, THEN is\nthe time to manifest a simple, child-like trust; and, amid baffling\ndispensations and frowning providences, to exclaim, \"_Though He slay\nme, yet will I trust in Him_!\"\n\nYes--\"_troubled_, we are NOT distressed; _perplexed_, we are NOT in\n_despair_; _persecuted_, we are NOT _forsaken_; _cast down_, we are\nNOT _destroyed_.\" We ARE ready, scoffing world! to answer the\nquestion, _Where is thy God?_\n\nCHILD OF SICKNESS! bound down for years on that lonely pillow!--the\nnight-lamp thy companion--disease wasting thy cheeks and furrowing thy\nbrow--weary days and nights appointed thee--tell me, _Where is thy\nGod?_ He is here, is the reply; His presence takes loneliness from my\nchamber and sadness from my countenance. His promises are a pillow for\nmy aching head,--they point me onwards to that better land where \"the\ninhabitant shall no more say, I am sick!\"\n\nCHILD OF POVERTY! _Where is thy God?_ Can He visit this rude dwelling?\nCan God's promises be hung on these broken rafters? Can the light of\nHis word illumine that cheerless hearth and sustain that bent figure\nshivering over its mouldering ashes? Yes! He is here. The lips of\nTruth that uttered the beatitude, \"_Blessed be ye poor_,\" have not\nspoken in vain. Bound down by chill penury--forsaken and forgotten in\nold age--no footstep of mercy heard on my gloomy threshold--no lip of\nman to drop the kindly word--no hand of succour to replenish the empty\ncupboard--that God above has not deserted me. He has led me to seek\nand lay up my treasure in a home where want cannot enter, and where\nthe beggar's hovel is transformed into the kingly mansion!\n\nBEREAVED ONE! _Where is thy God?_ Where is the arm of Omnipotence thou\nwast wont to lean upon? Has _He_ forgotten to be gracious? Has He\nmocked thy prayers, by trampling in the dust thy dearest and best, and\nleft thee to pine and agonise in the bitterness of thy swept heart and\nhome? Nay, He is _here_! He has swept down my fondest idol, but it was\nin order that He himself might occupy the vacant seat. I know Him too\nwell to question the faithfulness of His word, and the fidelity of His\ndealings. I have never known what a God He was, till this hour of\nbitter trial overtook me! There was a \"need be\" in every tear--every\ndeath-bed--every grave!\n\nDYING MAN! the billows are around thee--the world is receding--the\nherald symptoms of approaching dissolution are gathering fast around\nthy pillow--the soul is pluming its wings for the immortal flight; ere\nmemory begins to fade, and the mind becomes a waste,--ere the names of\nfriends, when mentioned, will only be answered by a dull, vacant look,\nand then the hush of awful silence,--tell me, ere the last lingering\nray of consciousness and thought has vanished, _Where is thy God?_\n\nHe is here! I feel the everlasting arms underneath and round about me.\nHeart and flesh are failing. The mists of death are dimming my eyes to\nthe things below, but they are opening on the magnificent vistas of\neternity. YONDER He is! seated amid armies of angels. \"_My soul\nthirsteth for God, for the living God!_\" \"THIS GOD SHALL BE MY GOD FOR\nEVER AND EVER!\"\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nSabbath Memories.\n\n\n    \"Dear is the Sabbath morn to me,\n      When village bells awake the day,\n    And with their holy minstrelsy\n      Call me from earthly cares away.\n\n    \"And dear to me the winged hour,\n      Spent in thy hallow'd courts, O Lord,\n    To feel devotion's soothing power,\n      And catch the manna of Thy Word.\n\n    \"And dear to me the loud 'Amen,'\n      That echoes through the blest abode--\n    That swells, and sinks, and swells again,\n      Dies on the ear--but lives to God.\n\n    \"Oft when the world, with iron hand,\n      Has bound me in its six days' chain,\n    This bursts them, like a strong man's band,\n      And bade my spirit live again.\"\n\n\"And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the\ncity: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me\nagain, and shew me both it, and his habitation.\"--_2 Sam._ xv. 25.\n\n\"When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had\ngone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with\nthe voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept\nholy-day.\"--_Verse 4._\n\n\nVI.\n\nSABBATH MEMORIES.\n\nWe always commiserate those who have seen better days. Poverty,\nindeed, under any form, appeals with irresistible power to the\nsympathies of our better nature. The most heartless and indifferent\ncannot refuse the tribute of pity to the ragged beggar shivering on\nthe street, or seated in his hovel by the ashes of a spent fire,\nbrooding over a wretched past, with the grim spectral forms of want\nhovering over a miserable future.\n\nSad, however, as the condition of such may be, habit, in one sense,\nmay have become to that squalid pauper a second nature. He may never\nhave known a more prosperous state. He may have been inured from his\nearliest years to buffet life's wintry storm. Chill penury may have\nrocked his cradle, and ever since sung her rude lullaby over his\npallet of straw. Far more is to be pitied the case of those who have\nsunk from comfort into indigence, around whose early home no bleak\nwinds of adversity ever blew, who were once pillowed in the lap of\nplenty if not of luxury, but who, by some sudden wave of calamity,\nhave become wrecks on life's desert shore. If there be one being on\nGod's earth more to be pitied than another, it is the mother of a once\njoyous home, turned adrift, in the hour of her widowhood, with her\nragged children;--forced to sing, from door to door, to escape the\njaws of hungry famine,--ill disguising, under her heap of squalid rags\nor her trembling notes of sorrow and despair, the story of brighter\ndays.\n\nSimilar is the commiseration we extend (let the shores of this Refuge\nIsland of ours bear testimony) to the hapless patriot or the fallen\nmonarch. These may have been hurled from positions of influence or\npinnacles of glory more by their crimes than by their misfortunes. The\nrevolutionary wave that swept them from their country or their thrones\nmay have been a just retribution for misrule; but it is their hour of\nadversity! They have seen better and more auspicious times. Pity for\nthe fallen knocks, and never knocks in vain, at the heart of a great\nnation's sympathies.\n\nSuch was David's position at this time: Denied the sympathy of others,\nhis own soul is filled with recollections of a far different past. The\nmonarch of Israel, the beloved of God, the idol of his people; now a\nfugitive from his capital--his palace sacked--his crown\ndishonoured--wandering in ignoble exile--a wreck of vanished glory!\n\nBut it is not these features of his humiliating fall on which his mind\nmainly dwells. It is not the thought of his sceptre wrested from his\ngrasp--his army in mutiny--his royal residence a den of traitors--that\nfills his soul with most poignant sorrow. He is an exile from the\nHouse of God! The joy of his old Sabbaths is for the time suspended\nand forfeited. No more is the sound of silver trumpets heard summoning\nthe tribes to the new moons and solemn feast-days! No more does he\nbehold, in thought, the slopes of Olivet studded with pilgrim tents or\nmade vocal with \"songs in the night!\" No more does he see the\ntriumphant procession wending up the hill of Zion--timbrel and pipe\nand lute and voice celebrating in glad accord the high praises of\nGod;--\"the singers in front, and the players on instruments\nbehind,\"--he himself, harp in hand, (the true father of his people,)\nleading the jubilant chorus, and Jehovah commanding upon all \"the\nblessing, even life for evermore!\"\n\nHow changed! To this Sabbath-loving and Sabbath-keeping King nothing\nbut the memory of these remained. \"_When I remember these things, I\npour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with\nthem to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a\nmultitude that kept holy-day._\"\n\nJerusalem was the pride and glory of the Jew. Wherever he went, he\nturned to it as to his best and fondest home. The windows of Daniel's\nchamber were \"open _towards Jerusalem_.\" With his eye in the direction\nof the holy city, \"_he kneeled upon his knees three times a-day, and\nprayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime_.\" (Dan.\nvi. 10.) Jonah was in the strangest of prisons. \"The depths closed\nround about him, the weeds were wrapped about his head, and the earth\nwith its iron bars.\" From \"the belly of hell\" he sent up his cry to\nGod. \"I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again _toward thy_\nHOLY TEMPLE.\" (Jonah ii. 2.) Captive Israel are seated, in mute\ndespondency, by the willowed banks of the streams of Babylon. The\nEuphrates (an ocean river compared with the tiny streams of Palestine)\nrolled past them. The city of the hundred gates rose, like a dream of\ngiant glory, before their view, with its colossal walls, and towers,\nand hanging gardens. Yet what were they in the eyes of these exile\nspectators? _Shadows_ of greatness in comparison with the city and\ntemple of their fathers amid the hills of Judah! When their oppressors\ndemanded of them a Hebrew melody, saying, \"Sing us one of the songs of\nZion,\" they answered, through hot tears of sorrowful remembrance,\n\"_How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?_\" (Ps. cxxxvii.\n4.) So it was with David now. As a bird taken from its home in the\nforest and placed in a cage, refuses to warble a joyous note--beats\nits plumage against the enclosing bars, and struggles to get free,--so\nhe seems to long for wings that he may flee away to the hallowed eaves\nof the sanctuary, and be at rest!\n\nHe himself, indeed, uses a similar figure. He tells us, in another\nPsalm, written on this same occasion, that so blessed did he feel\nthose to be who enjoyed the privilege of \"dwelling in God's house,\"\nand so ardent was his longing to participate in their joy, that he\nhalf-envied the swallows who constructed their nests upon its roof.\n(Ps. lxxxiv.) He was not without his solaces in this season of reverse\nand calamity. He had many faithful adherents still clinging to him in\nhis adversity. The best and bravest chieftains from the tribes on the\nother side of the Jordan supplied his drooping followers with the\nproduce of their rich pasture lands. \"_Shobi of Ammon, and Machir of\nLo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite_\"--these brought, besides camp\nutensils, \"_wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans,\nand lentiles, and parched pulse, and honey, and butter, and sheep, and\ncheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to\neat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in\nthe wilderness._\" (2 Sam. xvii. 27-29.) Glorious, too, was Nature's\ntemple around him. Its pillars the mountains--the rocks its altar--the\nbalmy air its incense--the range of Lebanon, rising like a holy of\nholies, with its reverend curtain of mist and cloud, and snowy Hermon\ntowering in solemn grandeur above all, as the very throne of God! Yet\nwhat were these compared with JERUSALEM, the place of sacrifice, the\nresting-place of the Shekinah-glory, the city of solemnities,\n\"_whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony\nof Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord_?\" (Ps. cxxii. 4.)\nThis wounded Hart pants for the water-brooks of Zion; Nature's outer\nsanctuary had no glory to him, \"by reason of the glory that\nexcelleth.\" The God who dwelleth between the cherubim had \"_chosen\nZion, and desired it for His habitation_,\" saying, \"_This is my rest\nfor ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it_.\" (Ps. cxxxii. 13,\n14.) With the windows of his soul, like Daniel, thrown \"open _towards\nJerusalem_,\" and his inner eye wistfully straining to its sunny\nheights, his ear catching the cadence of its festive throng, he seems\nto say, \"_If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her\ncunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof\nof my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy._\" (Ps.\ncxxxvii. 5, 6.)\n\nDo we prize the blessing of our Sabbaths and our sanctuaries? can we\nsay, with somewhat of the emphasis of this expatriated King--\"ONE\n_thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may\ndwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the\nbeauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple?_\" Alas! when we are\nliving in the enjoyment of blessings, too true it is that we have\nseldom a vivid sense of their value. He who is born in a free country,\nto whom slavery and oppression are strange words, seldom realises the\npriceless boon of liberty. But let him suddenly be made the victim of\ntyrant thraldom; let him feel the irons loading his body, or the worse\nthan material shackles fettering liberty of thought and action, and\nhow will the strains of freedom fall like heavenly music on his ear!\nWhen we are in the enjoyment of health and strength, how little do we\nprize the boon. But let us be laid on a bed of languishing; let the\nsick lamp flicker for weeks by the sleepless pillow; let the frame be\nso shattered that even the light tread of loving footsteps across the\nroom quickens the beat of the throbbing brow. In waking visions of\nthese lonely night-watches, how does the day of elastic vigour and\nunbroken health rise before us! how do we reproach ourselves that the\nboon was so long ungratefully forgotten and unworthily requited! A\nparent little knows the strength of the tie which binds him to his\nchild during the brief loan of a loved existence. He gets habituated\nto the winning ways, and loving words, and constant companionship. He\ncomes to regard that little life as part of himself. He does not fully\nrealise the blessing, because he has never dreamt of the possibility\nof its removal. But when the startling blow comes,--when death, in an\nunexpected moment, has severed the tie,--when his eye lights on the\nempty chair or the unused toy,--when the joyous footfall and artless\nprattling are heard no more,--then comes he to gauge all the depth and\nintensity of his affection, and to feel how tenderly (too tenderly!)\nthat idol was enshrined in his heart of hearts!\n\nSo it is with religious privileges. In such a land as our own, in\nwhich, from our earliest infancy, we have been accustomed to a\nhallowed Sabbath, an open sanctuary, an unclasped and unforbidden\nBible, we do not fully estimate the priceless value of the spiritual\nblessings bequeathed to us, because never have we felt the loss or the\nwant of them. But go to some land of heathenism, where the exiled\nchild of a British Christian home finds neither minister nor House of\nGod. Go to the thousands who have betaken themselves to a voluntary\nexile amid American forests or Australian pastures. Or go to the lands\nof apostate Christendom, where the Bible is a sealed book, and\nreligious liberty is an empty name; where souls thirsting for the\nliving stream are compelled to drink from some adulterated cistern.\nAlas! many in such circumstances are content to sink into a listless\nindifference; cold and lukewarm at home, they are too ready to lapse\ninto the chill of spiritual death abroad. But there are others who\nhave not so readily obliterated the holiest records of the past. Ask\nmany tired and jaded emigrants, conscious of nobler aspirations than\nthis world can meet, what recollections, more hallowed than others,\nlinger on their spirits? They will tell you it is the memory of the\nSabbath rest and the Sabbath sanctuary; when, at the summons of the\nvillage bell, mountain and glen and hamlet poured forth their\nmultitudes to the house of God; seated wherein, the burdens and\nanxieties, the cares and disquietudes of the work-day world were\nhushed and set aside, and in listening to the words of everlasting\nlife, sorrows were soothed, faith was revived, and hope brightened.\n\"_O God_,\" their cry is, \"_our flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and\nthirsty land, where no water is; to see Thy power and Thy glory, so as\nwe have seen Thee in the sanctuary_.\"[21]\n\n  [21] Psalm lxiii. 1, 2.\n\nLet us seek to prize our means of grace while we have them. In a\ncountry which is the reputed palladium of liberty;--where the greatest\nof all liberty, the liberty of the truth, has been purchased by the\nblood of our fathers,--the time, we trust, with God's help, may never\ncome when these bulwarks will be overthrown--when our sanctuaries will\nbe closed--our Bibles proscribed--our Sabbaths blotted from the\nstatute-book--and bigotry, in league with rampant infidelity, again\nforge the chain and rear the dungeon. But remember, that protracted\nsickness or disease may at any time overtake us, and debar us from the\nprecious blessings of the _public_ sanctuary. Yes! I say the _public_\nsanctuary. God's appointed ordinances can never be superseded or\nrendered obsolete by human substitutes. Some may urge that books\nnow-a-days are better than any preaching;--that the press is more\npotent and eloquent than any living voice. But church or pulpit is not\na thing of man's device. It is a divine institute. The speaker is an\n_ambassador_ in his Master's name, charged with a vast mission from\nthe court of high heaven, and the House of God is the appointed\naudience-chamber. God does not, indeed, (nay, far from it,) forsake\n\"the dwellings of Jacob.\" The lowliest cottage-home may become a\n_Bethel_, with a ladder of love set between earth and heaven,\ntraversed by ministering angels! The secluded sick-chamber may become\na _Patmos_, bright with manifestations of the Redeemer's presence and\ngrace! But, nevertheless, \"_Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary_.\" The\npromise remains, \"I will make my people joyful in my _house of\nprayer_.\" It is the solemn \"trysting-place\"--the pledged ground of\ncovenant intercommunion. \"THERE _I will meet with thee, and commune\nwith thee from off my mercy-seat!\" \"The Lord loveth the gates of\nZion!\" \"How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O\nIsrael!_\"[22]\n\n  [22] Ex. xxv. 22; Psalm lxxxvii. 2; Numb. xxiv. 5.\n\nReader, let me ask, How stands it with you? Are you conscious of a\nreverential regard and attachment to God's holy place? Does the return\nof the Sabbath awake in your heart the old melody of this sweet\nsinger of Israel,--\"_This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will\nrejoice and be glad in it_?\"[23] Do you go to the solemn assembly, not\nto hear the _messenger_ but the _message_;--not to pay homage to a\npiece of dust, (the vilest and most degraded form of idolatry,) but\nfeeling yourself a beggar in the sight of God, with a soul to save,\nand an eternity to provide for? Do you approach it as the _place of\nprayer_, over which the cloud hovers laden with spiritual blessings?\nDo you go to it as \"_the house of God_,\" seeking fellowship and\ncommunion with the Father of spirits; desiring that all its\nservices--its devotions, and praises, and exhortations--may become\nhallowed magnets, drawing you nearer and binding you closer to the\nmercy-seat? Oh, let not the boon of Sabbath privileges degenerate into\nan empty form, the mere pageant of custom. Let the Sabbath hours be\nsacredly kept. Let their lessons be sacredly treasured. Let their\nclose find you a Sabbath-day's journey nearer heaven. Let their\nhallowed fragrance follow you through the week. Let them be landmarks\nin the pilgrimage; towering behind you the further you go--like Alp\npiled on Alp, flushed with roseate light, guiding and cheering you\nwhen low down in the valleys of trial and sorrow, and when called to\ndescend the last and gloomiest Valley of all.\n\n  [23] Psalm cxviii. 24.\n\nDavid is mourning, in the words which have given rise to these\nthoughts, over his altered Sabbath joys. It may be there are some\nreading these pages, who, though they know nothing like him of literal\nexile and banishment from the sanctuary, may yet be able painfully to\nparticipate in his feelings! They are seated, Sabbath after Sabbath,\nin their pews; their Bibles are in their hands--the living words of\nthe preacher are sounding in their ears; but their experience may be\nbest interpreted by the language of the Christian poet:--\n\n    \"Where is the blessedness I knew\n      When first I saw the Lord?\n    Where is the soul-refreshing view\n      Of Jesus and His Word?\n\n    \"How blest the hours I once enjoy'd!\n      How sweet their memory still!\n    But they have left an aching void\n      The world can never fill.\"\n\nMemory can travel back on Sabbaths and communion seasons when a\nsunshine of holy joy irradiated their spirits; when their Sabbath was\none hallowed Emmaus-journey;--they, during its sanctuary-hours,\ntravelling side by side with Jesus, and He causing their hearts, as He\ndid those of the disciples of old, to \"burn within them.\" They were\nwont to come and depart, saying, \"_This is none other than the house\nof God; this is the gate of heaven_.\" Now they feel that all is\nsorrowfully altered. They have comparatively no joy, as once they had,\nwhen the Sabbath morning dawns. When they seat themselves in church,\nthere is no fervour in their praises--no earnestness in their\nprayers--no childlike teachableness in hearing. There is more\ncriticising of the preacher than worshipping God. There is no living\nflame on the heart-altar; their befitting exclamation is that of the\nprophet, \"_My leanness! my leanness!_\" They are ready, in the\nbitterness of their spirits, to say, \"_When I remember these things,\nmy soul is poured out within me_.\"\n\nSad it is to have _no_ meat; but sad, too, when we _have_ food and\ncannot enjoy it! Sad it is, as exiles in a strange land, to have no\nSabbath-gates flung open to us, and no Sabbath-bells to welcome the\nday of God; but sadder still to have these solemn chimes within\nhearing;--to have our sanctuaries open, and faithful ministers\nproclaiming the words of eternal life, and yet to listen with the\nadder's ear;--to listen as the dead in our churchyards listen to the\ntears and laments of the living!\n\nWhat should be done in such a case as this? Trace the muddy and turgid\nstream to its source. Discover what earthly clouds are dimming the\nspiritual firmament, and hiding the shinings of the Divine\ncountenance. Sin, in some shape or other, must be the fruitful cause.\nIt may be some positive and persevered-in transgression; indulgence in\nwhich, shuts up the avenues of prayer, and denies all access to the\nmercy-seat. Or it may be some no less culpable sin of _omission_. That\nmercy-seat may have become unfrequented; the rank grass may be waving\nover its once beaten foot-road; the altar-fire languishing in the\ncloset, must necessarily languish in the sanctuary too. How can the\nHouse of God be now fragrant with blessing, if the life is spent in\nguilty estrangement from _Him_? Religion cannot be worn as a Sabbath\ngarment, if garments soiled with sin be worn throughout the week.\n\nSelf-exile from the joys of the sanctuary! return henceforth to God.\nIf it be positive sin which is marring former blessedness, cast out\nthe troubler in Israel. If it be duties omitted, or perfunctorily\ndischarged, return to former earnest-mindedness. Cultivate more filial\nnearness to the Hearer of prayer. Seek, on your bended knees, to\nobtain more tenderness of conscience regarding sin;--to have more\nlonging aspirations after the beauties of holiness.\n\nAnd _delay_ not the return. By doing so, the growing languor and\nlistlessness which is creeping over you, may settle into positive\ndisrelish of God's house. Imitate the example of the Spouse in the\nCanticles, who, in mourning over similar spiritual declension,\nresolves on an _instantaneous_ seeking of the forfeited presence of\nher Lord. \"_Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest,\nwhere thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as\none that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?_\"[24]\nGo with the words which this exile of Gilead employs in the sequel to\nthis Psalm, written on the same occasion--\"_O send out Thy light and\nThy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and\nto Thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my\nexceeding joy._\"[25]\n\n  [24] Sol. Song i. 7.\n\n  [25] Psalm xliii. 3, 4.\n\nYes! go, and prove what the God of the sanctuary can do in the\nfulfilment of His own promise. He seems now to be saying, \"Put me to\nthe test.\" \"_Prove me now herewith, if I will not open you the windows\nof heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room\nenough to receive it._\"[26] Every church is a _Peniel_, where God\nmeets His people, as He met the patriarch of old at the brook Jabbok.\nGo and see what may be effected by _one_ lowly, humble, seeking\nsoul--some wrestling Jacob, who, like \"a Prince,\" has \"power with God,\nand prevails!\" The lowliest tabernacle on earth is glorified as being\nthe _House of God_--the dwelling-place of Omnipotence and Love--the\nhallowed \"_home_,\" where a loving Father waits to dispense to His\nchildren the garnered riches of His grace! The time may come when the\nholy and beautiful sanctuary where we worship may become a heap of\nruins. The fire may lay it in ashes--the hand of man may raze it--the\nslower but surer hand of time may corrode its walls and crumble its\nsolid masonry stone by stone; but as sure as it is God's own appointed\ntreasure-house of spiritual mercies, may we not believe that there\nwill be deathless spirits who will be able to point to it in connexion\nwith imperishable memories,--\"buildings of God,\" \"eternal in the\nheavens,\" beyond the reach of human violence, and wasting elements,\nand corroding years? Does not the promise stand unrepealed in this\nBible;--let it ever be the inscription on our temples of\nworship,--\"_Of_ ZION _it shall be said, This and that man was born in\nher; and the Highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall\ncount, when He writeth up the people, that this man was born\nthere?_\"[27]\n\n  [26] Mal. iii. 10.\n\n  [27] Psalm lxxxvii. 5, 6.\n\nOh that ours may at last be the blessedness of that better Church\nabove, which knows no banishment, no exile, no languor, no\nweariness;--where \"the holy-day\" is an eternal Sabbath;--the festive\nthrong, \"a multitude which no man can number\"--the voice of joy and\npraise, \"everlasting songs;\"--where God's absence can never be\ndeplored;--where He who now tendeth His temple-lamps on earth, feeding\nthem day by day with the oil of His grace, removing the rust\nperpetually gathering over them by reason of their contact with sin,\nwill, with the plenitude of His own presence, supersede all earthly\nluminaries, and ordinances, and sanctuaries;--for \"_they need no\ncandle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light,\nand they shall reign for ever and ever_!\"\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nHope.\n\n\n    \"When the water-floods of grief\n      Round thy helpless head shall rise,\n    When there seemeth no relief,\n      Lift thy gaze to yonder skies;\n    There behold how radiantly\n      Beams the star of Hope divine!\n    Yesterday it shone for thee,\n      And to-day it still shall shine.\n    Ask no aid the world can give,\n      LOOKING UNTO JESUS, _live!_\"\n\n\"When I ask the question, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' I am\nashamed of the answer that must be returned. What if property, credit,\nhealth, friends and relatives were all lost; thou hast a Father, a\nfriend, an advocate, a comforter, a mansion, a treasure in\nheaven.\"--_Bishop Hall._\n\n\"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?\nhope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his\ncountenance.\"--_Verse 5._\n\n\nVII.\n\nHOPE.\n\nTake the wings from a bird, and it is the most helpless of animals.\nBring the eagle from his eyrie, and rob him of his plumage, and he who\nan hour before was soaring monarch of the sky, is more powerless than\nthe worm crawling at his side, or than the bleating lamb that trembled\nand cowered under his shadow.\n\nSuch was David now. The wounded bird of Paradise flutters in the dust.\nThe taunting cry everywhere assails him, \"_Where is thy God?_\" The\nfuture is a mournful blank, and the past is crowded with joyous and\nhappy memories, which only aggravate and intensify the sorrows of the\npresent.\n\nBut though soiled and mutilated, the wings of faith are not broken. He\nstruggles to rise from his fall. In the verse we are now to consider,\nhe plumes his pinions for a new flight. We found him a short time\nbefore, making his tears a microscopic lens, looking through them into\nthe depths of his own sorrowing and sinning heart. So long as he does\nso, there is ground for nothing but misgiving and despair. But he\nreverses the lens. He converts the microscope into a telescope. In\nself-oblivion, he turns the prospect-glass away from his own troubles\nand sorrows, his fitful frames and feelings, his days alike of\nsunshine and shade, to Him who is above all mutation and vicissitude.\nIn this position, with his eye God-wards, he begins to interrogate his\nown spirit as to the unreasonableness of its depression. He addresses\na bold remonstrance to guilty unbelief. In the preceding verse, he\nalluded to the dense multitude--the many thousands of Israel--he was\nwont to lead in person to the feasts of Zion. Now he is alone with one\nauditor--that auditor is HIMSELF. \"_Why art thou cast down_, O MY\nSOUL?\"\n\nAnd what is his antidote? What is the balm and balsam he applies to\nhis wounded spirit? \"_Hope thou in God!_\"\n\nHOPE! Who is insensible to the music of that word? What bosom has not\nkindled under its utterance? Poetry has sung of it; music has warbled\nit; oratory has lavished on it its bewitching strains. Pagan\nmythology, in her vain but beautiful dreams, said that when all other\ndivinities fled from the world, _Hope_, with her elastic step and\nradiant countenance and lustrous attire, lingered behind. HOPE! well\nmay we personify thee, lighting up thy altar-fires in this dark world,\nand dropping a live coal into many desolate hearts; gladdening the\nsick-chamber with visions of returning health; illuminating with rays,\nbrighter than the sunbeam, the captive's cell; crowding the broken\nslumbers of the soldier by his bivouac-fire, with pictures of his\nsunny home, and his own joyous return. HOPE! drying the tear on the\ncheek of woe! As the black clouds of sorrow break and fall to the\nearth, arching the descending drops with thine own beauteous rainbow!\nAy, more, standing with thy lamp in thy hand by the gloomy realms of\nHades, kindling thy torch at Nature's funeral pile, and opening vistas\nthrough the gates of glory!\n\nIf Hope, even with reference to present and finite things, be an\nemotion so joyous,--if uninspired poetry can sing so sweetly of its\ndelights, what must be the _believer's_ hope, the hope which has God\nfor its object, and heaven its consummation? How sweet that strain\nmust have sounded from the lips of the exile Psalmist amid these glens\nof Gilead! A moment before, his sky is dark and troubled, but blue\nopenings begin once more to tremble through the clouds. The mists have\nbeen hanging dense and thick, hiding out the water-brooks. But now the\nsun shines. They rise and circle in wreaths of fantastic vapour,\ndisclosing to the wounded Hart \"the springs in the valleys which run\namong the hills; which give drink to every beast in the field, and\nwhere the wild asses quench their thirst.\" The wilderness has become\nonce more \"a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.\"\nRebuking his unworthy tears, Faith once more takes down her harp, and\nthus wakes its melodies,--\"_I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait,\nand in His word do I_ HOPE.\" \"_Let Israel_ HOPE _in the Lord._\"[28]\n\n  [28] Psalm cxxx. 5, 7.\n\nAnd is it not well for us from time to time to open the gates of our\nown souls, and hold a similar consistory?--to make solemn inquisition\nwith our hearts in their seasons of trouble and disquietude?\n\n\"_Why art thou cast down?_\" Is it outward trial that assails thee?\nHas calamity abridged thy earthly comforts? Have the golden heaps thou\nmayest have been a lifetime in amassing, dissolved like a\nsnow-wreath;--the waxen wings of capricious fortune, when thou wast\nsoaring highest, melting like those of fabled Icarus of old, and\nbringing thee helpless to the ground? Or is it sickness that has\ndulled thine eye, paralysed thy limb, and ploughed its furrows on thy\ncheek; shutting out from thee the din of a busy world, and chaining\nthee down to a couch of languishing? Or is it the treachery of thy\ntrusted friend that has wounded thee; blighting thine affections,\ncrushing thy hopes, dashing thy cup of earthly bliss to the ground? Or\nis it bereavement that has made gaps in thy loved circle; torn away\nthe fixtures which gave thy dwelling and life itself all its gladness\nand joy?\n\n\"HOPE _thou in_ GOD.\" The creature has perished. God is imperishable!\nThou mayest be saying in the bitterness of thy spirit, \"_All these\nthings are against me_;\" there may be no gleam of light in the\ntempest, no apparent reason for the dark dispensation; you feel it is\nwith stammering lips and a misgiving heart you give utterance to the\nreluctant word, \"Thy will be done.\" But, \"_My soul, wait thou only\nupon God_;\" (or, as Calvin translates this, \"_Be silent_ before God;\")\n\"_for my expectation is from Him_.\"[29] \"_Commit also thy way unto the\nLord, and He shall bring it to pass._\"[30] Here is the province of\nfaith,--_implicit trust_ in dark dealings. God brings His people into\nstraits; sends often what is baffling and unaccountable, to lead them\ndevoutly to say, \"_Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him_.\" Oh,\nbeautiful is it thus to see HOPE sitting, like the sea-bird, calmly on\nthe crested wave! While others (strangers to the peace of the gospel)\nare beating their breasts in tumultuous grief, indulging in wild\nparoxysms of rebellious sorrow,--beautiful is it to see the smitten\none prostrate at the feet of the great CHASTENER, saying through\ntear-drops of resignation, \"_Even so, Father; for so it seems good in\nThy sight!_\" Believe it, in the apparently rough voice of thy God,\nthere is, as in the case of Joseph to his brethren, tones of\ndissembled love, disguised utterances of affection--\"_Although thou\nsayest thou canst not see Him, yet judgment is before Him; therefore\ntrust thou in Him._\"[31]\n\n  [29] Psalm lxii. 5.\n\n  [30] Psalm xxxvii. 5.\n\n  [31] Job xxxv. 14.\n\nBesides, this lofty grace of Hope requires stern discipline to bring\nit into exercise, and to develop its noble proportions. It is the\nchild of tribulation. The apostle thus traces its pedigree--\"_Tribulation\nworketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience,_\nHOPE.\"[32] As there can be no rainbow in the natural heavens without\nthe cloud, so Hope cannot span the moral firmament, with its triumphal\narch, without the clouds of tribulation. As the mother eagle is said,\nwhen other expedients fail, to put a thorn in the side of her nest to\nurge her young brood to fly, so tribulation is the thorn which drives\nHope to the wing.\n\n  [32] Rom. v. 3, 4.\n\n\"_And thou shalt yet praise Him._\" \"YET!\" We cannot venture to scan or\nmeasure that word. It may be after many bitter tears of sorrow;--it\nmay be after many struggles with a murmuring heart;--many storms may\nstill sweep--many hours of pining sickness may be endured--many a\nrough and thorny path may have to be trodden--the harp may be muffled\nin sadness to the last; but, \"_at evening-time it shall be light_.\"\nThere is a season infallibly coming when the fettered tongue shall be\nloosed--the lingering cloud dispelled--and faith's triumph complete;\nwhen, with regard to the very dispensation on earth which caused you\nso much perplexity, you will be able triumphantly to say, \"_I know_\"\n(yea, I SEE) \"_that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in\nfaithfulness hast afflicted me_.\"[33]\n\n  [33] Psalm cxix. 75.\n\nBut your depression may proceed from a different cause. It may not be\nouter trial, but inward sources of disquietude which are causing\ndespondency and doubt. It may be thoughts regarding your _spiritual_\ncondition. Latent corruption in a partially renewed and sanctified\nheart,--the power of remaining sin robbing you of your peace; at times\nleading you to question whether you have any real interest in Gospel\nblessings and Gospel hopes--whether you have not long ago quenched the\nstrivings of the Holy Spirit by your impenitence and unbelief--whether\nyour hopes of heaven may not after all be a shadowy delusive dream.\n\"_Why art thou cast down, O my soul?_\" Who, I ask, is teaching you to\nbreathe out these penitential sighings after a happiness to which at\npresent you feel you are a stranger? Who is it that is teaching you\nthus to interrogate yourself about the erring past? It is not\n_Nature's_ work. If there be within you one true breathing after\nrepentance and return, that secret aspiration is the work of that\nSpirit who, although He will not always strive, is hereby shewing you\nthat He _is_ striving still with _you_! Think of all that God hath\ndone for you in the past, and is still willing to do. After the gift\nof His Son,--after such an expenditure of wrath and suffering on the\nhead of a guiltless Surety, and all this that a way of reconciliation\nmight be opened up,--think how dishonouring it would be to distrust\neither His ability or His willingness to save you. Having bestowed\nthis greatest boon, He will \"with Him also _freely_ give you _all\nthings_.\" Turn away from self,--sinful self, righteous self, condemned\nself,--and direct your believing regards to Him who is \"_the_ HOPE _of\nIsrael and the Saviour thereof_.\" Keep your eye steadily fixed on the\ninfinite grandeur of His finished work and righteousness. Look to\nJesus and believe! Look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as you look to\nHim, hoist your sails, and buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not\nremain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in\ninactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and\ntoss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbour. The\nreligious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of\nfaith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy\ntide-mud, as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! with\nyour canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him who rules the raging\nof the waters. The safety of the timid bird is to be on the wing, if\nits haunt be near the ground,--if it fly low, it exposes itself to the\nfowler's net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low ground of\nfeeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand\nmeshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. \"_But surely\nin vain the net is spread in the sight of_ THAT WHICH HATH A\nWING\"[34]--(marginal reading.) \"_They that wait (or hope) in the Lord\nshall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as\neagles._\"[35]\n\n  [34] Prov. i. 17.\n\n  [35] Isaiah xl. 31.\n\nHOPE strengthens and invigorates her pinions the higher she soars.\nShe gathers courage from the past, and looks with eagle eye to the\nfuture. \"_I know_,\" says Paul, \"_in whom I have believed_,\" (hoped, or\ntrusted,) \"_and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have\ncommitted unto Him_.\" \"_I will hope continually_,\" says David, \"_and\nwill yet praise Thee more and more_.\"[36] Again, using a kindred\nemblem--the bird in the tempest rushing for shelter under the mother's\nwing--\"_Thou hast_ BEEN _my help,_ THEREFORE _in the shadow of Thy\nwings will I rejoice_.\"[37]\n\n  [36] Psalm lxxi. 14.\n\n  [37] Psalm lxiii. 7.\n\nCan such be said of the world's hopes? Does experience lead to repose\nin _them_ with similar implicit confidence? _Hope_--the hope of\nearthly good, and earthly joy, and earthly happiness--is often (too\noften) the mirage of life; the bubble on the stream, tinted with\nevanescent glory, a flash of prismatic beauty, and then _gone_!\nMultitudes flock to this enchantress in her cave, and though mocked\nand duped, and mocked and duped again, still they haunt her oracle,\nand kiss her magic wand. She has built for them again and again air\ncastles--turret on turret, buttress on buttress, gilded dome and\nglittering minaret, and these have melted like frost-work. But yet\nthese Babel builders, with the same avidity as ever, return to the\nwork, and again the fantastic battlements are piled high in mid air!\n\nWe do not condemn these noble aspirations and struggles of this noble\nemotion;--far from it. What would the world be without Hope? It is the\noil which keeps its vast machinery in play; it is the secret of all\nsuccess--the incentive to all enterprise. Annihilate hope, and you\nblot out a sun from the firmament. Annihilate hope, and the husbandman\nwould forsake his furrow, the physician his patient, the merchant his\ntraffic; the student would quench his midnight lamp; science would at\nthis hour have been lisping its alphabet, and art and philosophy would\nhave been in their infancy.\n\nBut this we say, that if so much is perilled on a peradventure;--if\n_hope_--the _ignis fatuus_ of earth--be so greedily pursued,--why the\ncold and careless indifference regarding \"the hope which maketh not\nashamed\"--the hope which is beyond the possibility of disappointment;\npromises which never fail; words which rest on a firmer and surer\nbasis than the foundations of earth and the pillars of heaven? Shall\nthe disappointed hewer still go on patching the shivered and broken\n_earthly_ cistern? Shall the man of science, undeterred by successive\nfailures, pursue his unwearied analysis? Shall the merchant remain\nunbaffled by adverse markets that have drained his coffers, or\nsuccessive storms that have stranded his vessels and wrecked his\ncargo? Shall the fragments of a brave army re-muster at the bugle\ncall, and, amid dying comrades around and a shower of iron hail in\nfront, return with undaunted hearts to the charge? Shall pining\ncaptives in a beleaguered garrison, pressed by famine, decimated by\ndisease, outnumbered by force--shall these light their beacon-fires of\n_hope_, and sit to the last by their smouldering ashes, struggling on,\neither till calm endurance win its recompence, or until hope and life\nexpire together? And shall the spiritual builder, or merchant, or\nsoldier, be left alone coward and faint-hearted, and give way to\nunworthy distrust, or pusillanimous despair; and that, too, when the\nguarantees of _their_ hope are so amazing? Listen to them! What words\ncould be stronger? what pledges more inviolable? \"IN HOPE _of eternal\nlife, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world\nbegan._\"[38] \"_Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the\nheirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an\noath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God\nto lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge\nto lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an\nanchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into\nthat within the veil._\"[39]\n\n  [38] Titus i. 2.\n\n  [39] Heb. vi. 17-20.\n\nOh, beautiful figure! Hope casts its anchor into the Rock of Ages\nwithin the veil. The ship may be tossing in the surging sea below, but\na chain of everlasting love and grace links it to the throne of God.\n\nI love to walk through the Bible, and gaze on its many delineations of\n_Hope_. It is a picture-gallery of this noble grace! As the great\npainters of the middle ages clung to favourite subjects, so HOPE seems\never to meet us in some form or other, as we tread this long corridor\nof inspired portraits.\n\nHere is the earliest. A picture hung in a framework of sorrow. Its\nsubject is two drooping exiles going with tears out of Eden. But, lo!\na tinge of light gleams in the dark sky, and the angel of _Hope_\ndrops in their ears healing words of comfort.\n\nHere is another. An ark is tossed in a raging deluge. The heavens are\nblack above. Neither sun nor stars appear. All around is a waste\nwilderness of waters. But, lo! by the window of the ark a weary bird\nis seen fluttering, and bearing in its mouth an olive branch of\n_Hope_!\n\nHere, again, is a picture called \"_The Father of the Faithful_.\" Its\nsubject is a solitary pilgrim, one of the world's gray patriarchs. He\nis treading along amid some wild pastoral hills, all ignorant of his\ndestiny; but he has a staff in his hand--it is the staff of _Hope_!\n\nHere is another. It is an Arabian Emir, once a Prince of the East,\nsitting amid ashes, the victim of a loathsome disease; and worse than\nall, of Satanic power. But _Hope_ tunes his lips to sing, \"_I know\nthat my Redeemer liveth_.\"\n\nHere is a vast exodus of six hundred thousand slaves from a land of\nbondage, separated by an inhospitable desert from the land of their\nfathers; but _Hope_ silvers the edges of their pillar of cloud, and\ngleams by night in their pillar of fire.\n\nHere is another picture, of exiled patriots seated by the waters of\nBabylon. They have hung their harps on the willows. They refuse to\nsing the Lord's song in that strange land. But HOPE is represented\nrestoring the broken strings; and with their eyes suffused with tears,\nyet glistening with joyous visions, thus they pour out their plaintive\nprayer--\"_Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the\nsouth._\"[40]\n\n  [40] Psalm cxxvi. 4.\n\nTime would fail to traverse these halls and walls of ancient memory.\nHOPE, in every diversified form and attitude, is portrayed in the\nhistory of the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship\nof prophets, the noble army of martyrs,--ay, sustaining too, in the\nmidst of His sufferings and sorrows, the very bosom of the Son of\nGod--for was it not _hope_ (\"the joy that was set before Him\") that\nmade Him \"endure the cross, despising the shame?\"[41]\n\n  [41] Heb. xii. 2.\n\nAnd what _Hope_ has proved in the history of the Church collectively,\nit is in the life of every individual believer. By nature he is a\n\"prisoner,\" but \"a prisoner of hope.\"[42] The gospel is a \"gospel of\nhope.\" Its message is called \"_the good hope through grace_.\"[43]\nThe God of the gospel is called \"_the God of Hope_.\"[44] The \"helmet\nof salvation\" is the helmet of \"_hope_.\"[45] The \"anchor of the soul\"\nis the anchor of \"_hope_.\"[46] The believer \"_rejoices in hope_,\"[47]\nand \"_abounds in hope_.\"[48] _Christ is in him_ \"_the hope of\nglory_.\"[49] HOPE peoples to him the battlements of heaven with\nsainted ones in the spirit-land. He \"sorrows not as others, who have\nno HOPE.\"[50] When death comes, _Hope_ smoothes his dying pillow,\nwipes the damps from his brow, and seals his eyes. \"_Now, Lord, what\nwait I for? my HOPE is in Thee._\"[51] _Hope_ stands with her torch\nover his grave, and in the prospect of the dust returning to its dust,\nhe says, \"_My flesh shall rest in hope._\"[52] _Hope_ is one of three\nguardian graces that conduct him to the heavenly gate. Now abideth\nthese three, \"Faith, HOPE, and Love,\" and if it be added, \"_the\ngreatest of these is Love_,\" it is because Hope and her companion\nfinish their mission at the celestial portal! They proceed no further,\nthey go back to the world, to the wrestlers in the earthly conflict.\nFaith returns to her drooping hearts, to undo heavy burdens, and to\nlet the oppressed go free. _Hope_ goes to her dungeon vaults, her beds\nof sickness, her chambers of bereavement and sorrow. To take Faith or\nHope to heaven, would be to take the Physician to the sound man, or to\noffer crutches to the strong, or to help to light the meridian sun\nwith a tiny candle; _Faith_ is then changed to sight, and Hope to full\nfruition. LOVE alone holds on her infinite mission. _Faith_ and _Hope_\nare her two soaring pinions. She drops them as she enters the gates of\nglory. The watcher puts out his beacon when the sun floods the\nocean--the miner puts out his lamp when he ascends to the earth.\n_Hope's_ taper light is unneeded in that world where \"the sun shall no\nmore go down, neither for brightness shall the moon withdraw itself,\nbut where the Lord our God shall be an everlasting light, and the days\nof our mourning shall be ended.\"\n\n  [42] Zech. ix. 12.\n\n  [43] 2 Thess. ii. 16.\n\n  [44] Rom. xv. 13.\n\n  [45] 1 Thess. v. 8.\n\n  [46] Heb. vi. 19.\n\n  [47] Rom xii. 12.\n\n  [48] Rom. xv. 13.\n\n  [49] Col. i. 27.\n\n  [50] 1 Thess. iv. 13.\n\n  [51] Ps. xxxix. 7.\n\n  [52] Ps. xvi. 9.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nThe Hill Mizar.\n\n\n    \"All scenes alike engaging prove\n    To souls impress'd with sacred love!\n    Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;\n    In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.\n\n    \"To me remains nor place nor time;\n    My country is in every clime;\n    I can be calm and free from care\n    On any shore, since God is there.\n\n    \"While place we seek, or place we shun,\n    The soul finds happiness in none;\n    But, with a God to guide our way,\n    'Tis equal joy to go or stay.\n\n    \"Could I be cast where thou art not,\n    That were indeed a dreadful lot;\n    But regions none remote I call,\n    Secure of finding God in all.\"\n\n    --_Cowper._\n\n\"It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the\ndealings of God with their souls. It was Paul's accustomed manner, and\nthat when tried for his life, even to open before his judges the\nmanner of his conversion. He would think of that day and that hour in\nthe which he did first meet with grace, for he found it support onto\nhim. There was nothing to David like Goliath's sword. The very sight\nand remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh,\nthe remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my\ngreat fears for perishing for ever. They bring afresh into my mind the\nremembrance of mercy and help--my great support from heaven, and the\ngreat grace that God extendeth to such a wretch as I.\"--_John Bunyan._\n\n\"O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember\nthee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill\nMizar.\"--_Verse 6._\n\n\nVIII.\n\nTHE HILL MIZAR.\n\nIn the preceding verse, we found the Psalmist chiding his soul for the\nunreasonableness of its depression--calling upon it to exercise hope\nand trust in God, under the assurance that he would \"yet praise Him\nfor the help of His countenance.\"\n\nBut \"_what will ye see in the Shulamite_?\" Another experience\ntestifies afresh, \"_As it were the company of two armies._\"[53] HOPE\nhas no sooner risen to the surface than despondency returns. The\nstruggling believer threatens to sink. The wave is again beat back.\nHis soul is again \"cast down!\" But one word--an old monosyllable of\ncomfort--is borne on the refluent billow, \"O MY GOD!\" This \"strong\nswimmer in his agony\" seizes hold of that never-failing support, the\nfaithfulness of a covenant-keeping Jehovah. With this he breasts the\nopposing tide, and will assuredly at last reach the shore. The very\ntribulations that are casting him down,--threatening to submerge\nhim,--are only nerving his spirit for bolder feats; leading him to\nvalue more the everlasting arms that are lower and deeper than the\ndarkest wave.\n\n  [53] Sol. Song vi. 13.\n\nWe have heard of a bell, set in a lighthouse, rung by the sweep of the\nwinds and the dash of the billows. In the calm, stormless sea, it hung\nmute and motionless; but when the tempest was let loose and the ocean\nfretted, the benighted seaman was warned by its chimes; and beating\nhearts ashore, in the fisherman's lonely hut, listened to its ominous\nmusic. We read in the previous verse, of the lighthouse of FAITH,\nbuilt on the rock of HOPE. God has placed bells there. But it needs\nthe storms of adversity to blow ere they are heard. In the calm of\nuninterrupted prosperity, they are silent and still. But the hurricane\narises. The sea of life is swept with tempest, and, amid the thick\ndarkness, they ring the peal of heavenly confidence, \"MY GOD, MY GOD!\"\n\n_My God!_ What a heritage of comfort do these words contain--in all\ntime of our tribulation--in all time of our wealth--in the hour of\ndeath, and at the day of judgment! They describe the great Being who\nfills heaven with His glory, as the covenant portion and heritage of\nbelievers. His attributes are embarked on their side; His holiness and\nrighteousness, and justice and truth, are the immutable guarantees and\nguardians of their everlasting well-being. Hear His own gracious\npromise--\"_I will bring the third part through the fire, and will\nrefine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried:\nthey shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my\npeople: and they shall say, The Lord is my God._\"[54] Moreover, He is\nthe only possession which is theirs _absolutely_. All else they have,\nis in the shape of a loan, which they receive as stewards. Their time,\ntheir talents, their possessions, their friends, are only _leased_ by\nthem from the Great Proprietor of life and being. But they _can_ say\nunreservedly, \"_The Lord is my portion._\" \"_God, even our_ OWN _God,\nshall bless us._\" Ay, and we are told, \"_God is not ashamed to be\ncalled_ THEIR GOD.\"[55] \"The _name_ of the Lord\" is thus \"a strong\ntower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.\"[56] That salvation\npurchased by Jesus,--the amazing method by which every attribute of\nthe Divine nature has been magnified, and every requirement of the\nDivine law has been met,--is \"for walls and bulwarks.\" The believer\nnot only can lay hold on higher blessings--\"the good hope through\ngrace,\" \"glory, honour, immortality, eternal life,\"--but even with\nregard to the circumstantials of the present, the appointments and\nallotments in the house of his pilgrimage, he can feel that they are\nso regulated and overruled as best to promote his spiritual interests;\nand that \"all things\" (yes, \"ALL things\") are \"working together for\nhis good.\" Take then, desponding one! the opening words of David's\nlamentation. They quiet all apprehensions. This all-gracious Being who\ngave His own Son for thee, must have some wise reason in such\ndiscipline. Oh, confide all thy perplexities, and _this_ perplexity,\ninto His hands, saying, \"_I am oppressed, undertake_ THOU _for me!_\"\nWho can forget that it was this same monosyllable of comfort that\ncheered a greater Sufferer at a more awful hour? The two most\nmemorable spots in His midnight of agony,--Gethsemane and Calvary, the\nGarden and the Cross,--have this solitary gleam of sunshine breaking\nthrough the darkness, \"O MY FATHER!\" \"MY GOD, MY GOD!\"\n\n  [54] Zech. xiii. 9.\n\n  [55] Heb. xi. 16.\n\n  [56] Prov. xviii. 10.\n\nLet us now proceed to the main feature in this verse. We have already\nnoted how the exiled King had tried to reason his soul out of its\ndepression by the exercise of HOPE--by looking beyond the shadows of\nthe present to a brighter _future_. But the torch flickered and\nlanguished in his hand. He adopts a new expedient. Instead of looking\nto the _future_, he resolves to take a _retrospective_ survey; he\ndirects his eye to the _past_. As often at eventide, when the lower\nvalleys are in shadow, the mountain-tops are gilded with the radiance\nof the setting sun; so from the Valley of Humiliation, where he now\nwas, he looks back on the lofty memorials of God's faithfulness. He\n\"_lifts his eyes unto the_ HILLS, _from whence cometh his help_.\" \"_O\nmy God, I will remember_ THEE!\" \"This is _my_ infirmity,\" he seems to\nsay, when he thinks of the weakness of his faith, and the fitfulness\nof his frames and feelings: \"but I will remember the years of the\nright hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord;\nsurely I will remember _Thy_ wonders of old.\"[57] With this key he\nproceeds again to open the door of HOPE. And as he treads the valley\nof Achor, he \"sings there as in the days of his youth.\"[58]\n\n  [57] Psalm lxxvii. 10, 11.\n\n  [58] Hosea ii. 15.\n\nIn connexion with this remembrance of his God, David alludes to some\nwell-known places in his Kingdom--\"_The land of Jordan, and the\nHermonites, and the hill Mizar._\"\n\nWhat means he by this reference? His language may admit of a twofold\ninterpretation.\n\n1. He may possibly refer to his present sojourn in the region beyond\nJordan, with the Hermon range in sight; and which had this\npeculiarity, that it was beyond the old boundary-line of the Land of\nPromise, making him for the time, \"an alien from the commonwealth of\nIsrael.\"\n\nWe know from a passage in Joshua (chap. xxii.) how sacredly the\ndivision between the covenant people and the neighbouring tribes was\npreserved. The latter were denominated a \"_possession unclean_;\" the\nformer, \"_the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's\ntabernacle is_.\" How bitter must it have been to a patriotic heart\nlike that of the Psalmist, thus to be cut off (even though for a brief\nseason) from all participation in national and sanctuary\nblessings,--to stand outside the land trodden by the footsteps of\nangels, consecrated by the ashes of patriarchs, and over which hovered\nthe shadowing wings of Jehovah!\n\nBut he exults in the persuasion that Israel's God is not confined to\nlands or to sanctuaries. \"_I will remember Thee_,\" says the banished\nmonarch. \"Though wandering here beyond the region Thou hast blest with\nThy favour, I will not cease still to call Thee and claim Thee as my\nGod, and to recount all the manifold tokens of Thy mercy, even though\nit be from the 'land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill\nMizar.' My foes may drive me from my home,--they may strip me of my\nregal glories,--they may make me the butt of scorn, the mark for their\narrows;--but they cannot banish me from the better portion and\nheritage I have in Thy blessed self!\"\n\nIf we should ever be in circumstances when, like David, we are denuded\nof the means of grace--shut out from the public ministrations of the\nsanctuary,--or, what is more common, placed in a disadvantageous\nposition for spiritual advancement;--when our situation as regards the\nworld, the family, business, pursuits, companions, society, is such\nas to prove detrimental to the interests of our souls,--let us still\n\"_remember God_!\" Let the loss of means, and privileges, and\nopportunities, and congenial intercourse, draw us nearer the Source of\nall knowledge, and peace, and true joy. If the starlight be wanting,\nlet us prize the sunlight more. If the streams fail, let us go direct\nto the fountainhead.\n\nYes, and God can make His people independent of all outward\ncircumstances. In the court of an Ethiopian Queen there was a\nbelieving Treasurer. In the household of Nero there were illustrious\nsaints. Down in the depths of the briny ocean, imprisoned in the\nstrangest of tombs, a disobedient prophet \"remembered God,\" and his\nprayer was heard. Joseph was torn away from the land of his birth, and\nthe home where his piety had been nurtured, but in Egypt \"_the Lord\nwas with Joseph_.\" \"At my first answer,\" says the apostle of the\nGentiles, \"no _man_ stood with me, but all _men_ forsook me....\nNotwithstanding, THE LORD stood by me, and strengthened me.\"\nComforting thought! that the true Sanctuary, of which all earthly ones\nare the shadowy type, is ever near: God himself, the refuge and\ndwelling-place of His people to all generations, and who, wherever we\nare, can turn the place of forlorn exile--our \"land of Jordan, the\nHermonites, the hill Mizar\"--into scenes bright with manifestations of\nHis covenant love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n2. But the references to these several localities may admit of a\ndifferent interpretation. David may be reverting to some memorable\nepochs in his past history--some green spots in the waste of memory,\nwhere he enjoyed peculiar tokens of God's grace and presence.\n\nWe spoke in last chapter of _Hope's_ picture-gallery. _Memory_ has\none, stranger still--filled with landscapes of imperishable interest!\nWho has not such a gallery in his own soul? Let Memory withdraw her\nfolding-doors--and what do we see? The old homes of cherished infancy\nmay be the first to crowd the walls and arrest the eye;--scenes of\nlife's bright morning, the sun tipping with his rising beam the dim\nmountain-heights of the future! In the foreground, there is the\nmurmuring brook by which we wandered, and the umbrageous tree under\nwhich we sat;--countenances glowing with smiles are haunting every\nwalk and greeting us at every turn--the ringing laugh of childhood at\nsome--venerable forms bending at others.\n\nBut more hallowed remembrances crowd the canvas. Ebenezers and\nBethel-stones appear conspicuous in the distance--mute and silent\nmemorials, amid the gray mists of the past, which read a lesson of\nencouragement and comfort in a desponding and sorrowful present.\n\nDavid thus trod the corridors of memory. When the future was dark and\nlouring, he surveys picture by picture, scene by scene, along the\nchequered gallery of his eventful life! With Jordan at his feet, the\nHermon range in the distance, and some _Mizar_--some \"_little hill_\"\n(as the word means)--rising conspicuous in view, he dwells on various\nsignal instances of God's goodness and mercy in connexion with these\nlocalities--\"I will remember Thee\" (as it may be rendered) \"_regarding\nthe land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar_.\"[59]\n\n  [59] \"It is said by those who have visited those parts, that one\n  remarkable effect produced is the changed aspect of the hills of\n  Judah and Ephraim. Their monotonous character is lost; and the\n  range, when seen as a whole, is in the highest degree diversified\n  and impressive. And the wide openings in the western hills, as\n  they ascend from the Jordan valley, give such extensive glimpses\n  into the heart of the country, that not merely the general range,\n  but particular localities can be discovered with ease.... From the\n  castle of Rubad, north of the Jabbok, are distinctly visible\n  Lebanon, the Sea of Galilee, Esdraelon in its full extent, Carmel,\n  the Mediterranean, and the whole range of Judah and Ephraim. 'It\n  is the finest view,' to use the words of another traveller, 'that\n  I ever saw in any part of the world.'\"--_Stanley's Sinai and\n  Palestine_, p. 318.\n\nWe know the other names to which he here adverts, but what is this\n\"HILL MIZAR?\" The answer can only be conjectural. It may be some small\nmountain eminence among the hills of Judah associated with the\nexperiences of his earlier days. May not memory possibly have\ntravelled back to the old home and valleys of Bethlehem, and lighted\nperchance on the green slope where the youthful champion measured his\nprowess with the lion and the bear. As the soldier reverts with lively\ninterest to his first battle-field, so may not the young Shepherd-Hero\nhave loved to dwell on this Mizar hill, where the God he served gave\nhim the earnest of more momentous triumphs?\n\nOr, to make one other surmise, may it more likely refer to \"_the\nlittle hill_\" he most loved,--the home of his thoughts, the earthly\ncentre of his affections, the glory of his kingdom, the joy of the\nwhole earth--\"_Mount Zion_, on the sides of the north, the city of the\ngreat King?\"[60] We find Zion spoken of by him emphatically as \"a\n_little hill_.\" In one of the sublimest of all his Psalms, he\nrepresents the other loftier mountains of Palestine,--Bashan with its\nforests of oak, Carmel with its groves of terebinth, Lebanon with its\ncedar-clad summits,--as looking with envy at the tiny eminence amid\nthe wilds of Judah which God had chosen as the place of His sanctuary:\n\"_Why look ye with envy, ye high hills? this is the hill where God\ndesireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever._\"[61]\nIs the hypothesis a forced or unlikely one, that, in this his season\nof sore depression and sorrow, he loved to linger on manifold\nexperiences of God's faithfulness associated with _Zion_,--its\ntabernacle, its festivals, its joyous multitudes--his own palace, that\ncrowned its rocky heights, where his harp was oft attuned and his\npsalms composed and sung, and in which midnight found him rising and\ngiving \"thanks to God because of His righteous judgments?\" In the mind\nof the Sweet Singer of Israel, might not \"glorious things\" have been\nthought as well as \"spoken of thee, O city of God?\"\n\n  [60] Psalm xlviii. 2.\n\n  [61] Psalm lxviii. 16.\n\nBut, after all, we need not limit the interpretation to any special\nlocality. The speaker's past history, from the hour when he was taken\nfrom the sheepfolds till now, was crowded with Mizars--hill-tops\ngleaming in the rays of morning. The valley of Elah, the wood of Ziph,\nthe forest of Hareth, the streets of Ziklag,[62] the caves of Adullam\nand Engedi,--all would recall some special memorial of God's\ndelivering hand. He resolves to take the goodness and mercy vouchsafed\nin the past, as pledges that He would still be faithful who had\npromised to \"David His servant,\" \"My faithfulness and my mercy shall\nbe with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.\"[63] \"Thou who\n_hast_ delivered my soul from death, wilt not thou deliver my feet\nfrom falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the\nliving?\"[64]\n\n  [62] 1 Sam. xxx. 6.\n\n  [63] Psalm lxxxix. 24.\n\n  [64] Psalm lvi. 13.\n\nThe saints of God, in every age, have delighted to dwell on these\nmemorable spots and experiences in their past pilgrimage. _Abraham_\nhad _his_ \"hill Mizar\" between Bethel and Hai. \"_There,_\" we read,\n\"_he builded an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord._\"[65] On\nhis return from Egypt he retraced his steps to the _same_ locality.\nWhy? Because it was doubly hallowed to him now, with these former\nexperiences of God's presence and love. It is specially noted that \"he\nwent on his journeys from the south _even to Bethel_, unto the place\nwhere his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;\n_unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first_:\nand THERE he called on the name of the Lord.\"[66]\n\n_Jacob's_ \"Mizar\" would doubtless be his ladder-steps at Bethel, where\nthe fugitive wanderer was gladdened with a vision of angels, and the\nvoice of a reconciled God. _Moses_ would think of _his_ \"Mizar\" either\nin connexion with the burning bush or the cleft of the rock, or the\nMount of Prayer at Rephidim. _Isaiah's_ \"Mizar\" would be the vision of\nthe Seraphim, when his faithlessness was rebuked, and confidence in\nGod restored. _Jeremiah_ tells us specially of _his_--some memorable\nspot where he had a peculiar manifestation of God's presence and\ngrace. \"_The Lord hath appeared of_ OLD _unto me, saying, Yea, I have\nloved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness\nhave I drawn thee._\"[67]\n\n  [65] Gen. xii. 8.\n\n  [66] Gen. xiii. 1-4.\n\n  [67] Jer. xxxi. 3.\n\nOr shall we look to the New Testament? The _Roman Centurion_ would\nremember as his Mizar-height, the spot at Capernaum where mingled\nOmnipotence and Love uttered the healing word. The _Magdalene_ would\nremember as hers, the Pharisee's banquet-hall, where she bathed the\nfeet of her Lord with a flood of penitential tears. The _Maniac of\nGadara_ would recall as his, the heights around Tiberias, where the\ndemon-throng were expelled, and where he sat calm and peaceful at the\nfeet of the Great Restorer. The _Woman of Samaria_ would remember as\nhers, the well of Sychar, where her Pilgrim Lord led her from the\nearthly to the eternal fountain. _Peter_ would remember as his, the\nearly morn, and the solitary figure on Gennesaret's shore. The\n_Sisters of Lazarus_, go where they might, would recall as their\nhallowed memorial-spot, the home and the graveyard of _Bethany_. _Paul\nof Tarsus_ would ever remember as his, the burning plain near\nDamascus, where a light, brighter than the mid-day sun, brought him\nhelpless to the ground, and a voice of mingled severity and gentleness\nchanged the persecutor into a believer--the lion into a lamb. _John_,\nthe beloved disciple, as he trod the solitary isle of his banishment,\nor with the trembling footsteps of age lingered in his last home at\nEphesus--John would recall as the most sacred and hallowed \"_Mizar_\"\nof all, the gentle bosom on which he leant at supper!\n\nAnd who among us have not their \"Mizars\" still? It has often been said\nthat, next to the Bible, there is no book so instructive as that\nvolume which all God's people carry about with them--the volume of\ntheir own experience.\n\n_That_ is my earliest and fondest \"Mizar,\" says one, the mother's knee\nwhere I first lisped my Saviour's name, and heard of His love. Mine,\nsays another, is that never-to-be-forgotten sermon, when God's\nmessenger reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to\ncome; when conviction was first flashed on my torpid mind, and peace\nbrought to my troubled soul! Mine, is another's testimony, is that bed\nof sickness on which I awoke from the long life-dream of\nindifference, and gave heed for the first time to the things which\nbelong to my peace. Mine, says another, is that chamber--that closet\nof devotion--(alas! too long and guiltily neglected) hallowed and\nassociated with a renewed consecration to God, and with manifold\ntokens of His grace and goodness. That hour of resisted temptation,\nsays another, is the \"Mizar\" on whose summit my stone of gratitude is\nraised;--when I was trembling on the edge of some precipice, and God's\nhand interposed and plucked me as a brand from the burning. That awful\nbereavement is mine, says still another, which tore up my affections\nby the root, and led me to seek in God, the heritage and portion which\nno creature-blessing could bestow. It seemed at the time to bode\nnothing but anger, but I see it now the appointed herald of mercy sent\nto open up everlasting consolations. That solemn death-bed is mine,\nsays another, when I saw for the first time the reality of gospel hope\nin the departing Christian, the sweet smile of a foretasted heaven\nplaying upon the lips, as if the response to the angel-summons, \"Come\nup hither!\"\n\nIt is well for all of us, and especially in our seasons of depression\nand sorrow, thus to retraverse life, and let our eyes fall on these\nMizar-hills of God's faithfulness. In seasons of spiritual depression,\nwhen apt in our sinful despondency to distrust His mercy, and question\nour own personal interest in the covenant;--when tempted to say with\nGideon, \"If the Lord be with us, why has all this befallen us?\"--how\nencouraging to look back, through the present lowering cloud, on\nformer instances and memorials of Jehovah's favour, when we had the\nassured sense of His presence; and with an eye resting on these\nMizar-hills on which He \"appeared of old to us,\" disappointing our\nfears, and more than realizing our fondest hopes,--to remember, for\nour comfort, that having \"loved us at the beginning,\" He will love us\n\"even to the end!\" If we can rest on one indubitable token of His\nmercy in the past, let it be to us a Covenant-keepsake, a sweet and\nprecious token and pledge, that, \"though for a small moment He may\nhave forsaken us,\" yet that \"with great mercy He will gather us,\" and\nthat \"with everlasting kindness He will have mercy upon us.\"[68]\n\n  [68] Isa. liv. 8.\n\nWhy not thus seek, in the noblest sense of the word, to rise above\nour trials, and perplexities, and sorrows, by taking the bright side\nof things. There are two windows in every soul. The one looks out on a\ndreary prospect,--lowering clouds, barren wilds, bleak, sullen hills,\npathways overgrown with rank and noxious weeds. The other opens on\nwhat is bright and beauteous,--sunny slopes, verdant meadows, luscious\nflowers, the song of birds. Many there are who sit always at the\nformer--gazing on the dark side of things, nursing their sorrows,\nbrooding over their trials. They can see nothing but Sinai and\nHoreb--the trail of serpents and the lair of wild beasts. Others, with\na truer gospel-spirit, love, with hopeful countenance, to watch the\nbreaking of the sunbeam in the darkened sky. Like Paul, they seat\nthemselves at the bright lattice, saying, \"_Rejoice in the Lord alway,\nand again I say, rejoice._\" Both look on identically the same\nlandscape. But the one descry only dull heaths and moors draped in\nsombre hue. The others see these glorified with sunlight. The one gaze\non nothing but inky skies and drenching torrents. The others behold\nthe bow of heaven arching the sky, and the rain-drops glittering like\njewels on leaf, and grass, and flower. The one can descry only \"Hill\nDifficulties\" and \"Doubting Castles.\" The others love to gaze on\nHermons and Mizars, on \"the Palace of the Beautiful,\"--the land of\nBeulah;--and, bounding the prospect, the towers and streets of the\nCelestial City. They are ready to acknowledge that, however many may\nhave been their tribulations, their mercies are greater and more\nmanifold still;--that however many the shadowy valleys, the bright\nspots outnumber the dreary.\n\nAre any who read these pages cast down by reason of trouble, and\nperplexity, and sorrow? Is God's hand lying heavily upon you--are you\nin darkness, and in the deeps? Seek to lift the eye of faith to _Him_.\nSeasons of trial must either bring us nearer _to_ Him, or drive us\nfurther _from_ Him. It is an old saying, \"Affliction never leaves us\nas it finds us.\" It either leads us to \"_remember_ God,\" or to banish\nand _forget_ Him. How many there are (and how sad is their case) who,\nwhen Providence seems to frown,--when their hearts are smitten like\ngrass, their cherished hopes blighted, their gourds withered,--are\nled, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, \"My soul is cast down\nwithin me. _therefore_, I will pine away in disconsolate sorrow. I\nwill rush to ruin and despair. My lot is hard, my punishment is\ngreater than I can bear;--all that made life happiness to me has\nperished;--THEREFORE, I will harden my heart. I do well to be angry,\neven unto death. Existence has no charm for me. I long to die--my only\nrest will be the quiet of the grave!\"\n\nSorrowing one! be yours a nobler philosophy. Look back from these\nvalleys of death and tribulation, to the gleaming summits of yonder\ndistant _Mizar hills_! Mark, in the past, the tokens and memorials of\nunmistakeable covenant love. \"Call to remembrance your song\" in former\nnights. Wounded Hart! on the hills of Gilead, forget not thy former\npastures. Go! stricken and smitten, with the tears in thine eyes,\nbathe thy panting sides in the cooling \"water-brooks.\" When the\ndisturbers of thy peace have gone, and when hushed again is thy forest\nhome, return to \"_the mountain of myrrh and the hill of\nfrankincense_.\" Go, minstrel monarch of Judah, weeping exile! seat\nthyself on some rocky summit on these ridges of Hermon, and, surveying\nmountain height on mountain height, in the land of covenant\npromise,--each associated with some hallowed memory,--take down thy\nharp, and sing one of thine own songs of Zion. \"_Thou who hast shewed\nme great and sore troubles shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me\nup again from the depths of the earth!_\"[69]\n\n  [69] Psalm lxxi. 20.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nThe Climax.\n\n\n    \"God of my life, to Thee I call,\n    Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;\n    When the great water-floods prevail,\n    Leave not my trembling heart to fail!\"\n\n\"There is but a step from the third heavens to the thorn in the\nflesh.\"--_Winslow._\n\n\"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts: all thy\nwaves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his\nloving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be\nwith me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.\"--_Verses 7, 8._\n\n\nIX.\n\nTHE CLIMAX.\n\nThe storm-struggle in the soul of the Psalmist is now at its height.\nIn the previous verse, he had penetrated through the mists of unbelief\nthat were surrounding him, and rested his eye on the Mizar hills of\nthe Divine faithfulness in a brighter past. But the sunshine-glimpse\nwas momentary. It has again passed away. His sky is anew\ndarkened--rain-clouds sweep the horizon--\"_Deep calleth unto deep at\nthe noise of thy water-spouts._\" Amid the environing floods he\nexclaims, \"_All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!_\"\n\nThe figure is a bold and striking one. Some have thought it has\nreference to the sudden rush of water-torrents from the heights of\nLebanon and Hermon;--that it was suggested by the roaring cataracts at\nhis feet--Jordan with its swollen and winding rapids--the faithful\npicture of the deep-worn channels in his own spirit--fretted and\nfurrowed with the rush of overwhelming sorrow.\n\nBut the word rendered \"_deep_,\" is, in the original Hebrew, more\napplicable to the floods of the _ocean_ than to the rapids of a river;\nand the image, in this sense, is bolder and more expressive still.[70]\nBillow calls on billow to sweep over the soul of the sufferer. They\nlift their crested heads, and with hoarse voice summon one another to\nthe assault. \"Let us be confederate!\" say they. \"Let us rouse the\nspirit of the storm! Let the windows of heaven be opened! Let the\nfountains of the great deep be broken up, that we may shake this man's\nconfidence in his God, and plunder faith of her expected triumph! Ye\nangry tempests, driving sleet and battering hail! come and aid us. Ye\nforked lightnings, gleaming swords of the sky! leap from your cloudy\nscabbards. Old ocean! be stirred from your lowest depths. Let every\nwave be fretted to madness, that with one united effort we may effect\nhis discomfiture and leave him a wreck on the waters!\"\n\n  [70] From the uplands where he now was, in the recesses between\n  the mountains of Gilead, David could catch here and there a\n  glimpse of the \"Great Sea.\"\n\nThey obey the summons. Already chafed and buffeted, they return with\nfresh violence to the shock. Affliction on affliction, temptation on\ntemptation, roll on this lonely, surf-beaten cliff. Outward\ncalamities--inward troubles; his subjects in revolt--his friends\ntreacherous; his own son and favourite child heading the insurrection;\nhe himself an exile, haunted with the thought of past sins that were\nnow exacting terrible retribution;--and worse than all temporal\ncalamities, the countenance of his God averted. Affliction seemed as\nif it could go no further--\"ALL _thy waves and thy billows have gone\nover me!_\"\n\nWe believe there are periods in the history of most of God's people\ncorresponding to the awful experience recorded in this verse. Few\nthere are who cannot point to some sad and memorable epochs alike in\ntheir natural and spiritual being,--some solemn and critical\ncrisis-hours, in which they have been subjected to special and\npeculiar trials;--encompassed with the thunders and lightnings of\nSinai--the trumpet sounding long and loud:--or, to revert to the\nsimile of the Psalm, when the moorings of life have been torn away,\nand they have been left to drift, on a starless, tempestuous ocean.\nOften, as with David, there may at such times be a combination of\ntrials,--sickness--bereavement--loss of worldly substance--estrangement\nof friends--blighting of fair hopes. Then, following on these, and\nworse than all, hard thoughts of God. We see the wicked around\nprospering,--vice apparently pampered,--virtue apparently trodden\nunder foot,--many passing through life without an ache or trial--their\nhomes unrifled--their hearts unwounded--their every plan\nprospering--fortune smiling benignantly at every turn; while _we_ seem\nto have been a target for the arrows of misfortune,--tempted with\nJeremiah to say, \"_I am_ THE _man who have seen affliction by the rod\nof His wrath_.\"[71] And doubting a God of _providence_, the next step\nis to doubt a God of _grace_. We begin to question our interest in the\ncovenant,--to wonder whether, after all, our hopes of heaven have been\na delusion and a lie. God's mercy we imagine to be \"gone for ever.\" He\nseems as if He would be \"favourable no more.\" There is no comfort in\nprayer--no brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed\nbook;--the heavens have become as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so\nlong as we had merely _external_ trials, we could brave and buffet the\nsurrounding floods. So long as we had the Divine smile, like the bow\nin the cloud, resting upon us, we could gaze in calmness on the\nblackest sky;--yea, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding to us more of\nthe preciousness of the Saviour. But when we have the _cloud_ without\nthe _bow_,--when outer trials come to a soul in spiritual unrest and\ntrouble,--when we harbour the suspicion that the only Being who\n_could_ befriend in such an hour has Himself hidden His face,--when we\nhave neither this world nor the next to comfort us--smitten hopes for\ntime and despairing hopes for eternity!--this is the woe of woes--the\n\"horror of great darkness,\"--\"_deep calleth unto deep_.\" We can say,\nwith a more terrible emphasis far than the smitten patriarch, \"_I_ AM\n_bereaved_!\"\n\n  [71] Lam. iii. 1.\n\nThe Psalmist had now reached this extremity. It is the turning point\nof his present experience. He has two alternatives before him:--either\nto suffer unbelief to triumph, to distrust God, abandon the conflict,\nand sink as lead in the surging waters; or to gather up once more his\nspiritual resources, breast the waves, and manfully buffet the storm.\n\nIt is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future age:--when\nthe storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and\nfootsteps of his God are heard on the waves: \"_And about the fourth\nwatch of the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea._\"\n\"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all\nhis troubles!\"[72]\n\n  [72] Psalm xxxiv. 6.\n\nAnd what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these topmost\nwaves? It is _discerning the hand and appointment of God in all his\nafflictions_! He speaks of \"_Thy_ waves and _Thy_ billows.\" These\nfloods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. \"_The Lord\nsitteth upon the water-floods._\"[73] While, in one sense, it\naggravated his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements--the\nexpressions of the Divine displeasure at sin--yet how unspeakable the\nconsolation that every billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence.\n\"_The floods_,\" he can say, \"_have lifted up, the floods have lifted\nup their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is\nmightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves\nof the sea._\"[74] \"_O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto\nthee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise,\nthou stillest them._\"[75]\n\n  [73] Psalm xxix. 10.\n\n  [74] Psalm xciii. 3, 4.\n\n  [75] Psalm lxxxix. 8, 9.\n\nBut he could go further than this. He could triumph in the assurance\nof God's returning favour;--that behind these troubled elements there\nwas seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the\nlowering mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of\nfaith to descry sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows.\nSoon he knew the whole landscape would be flooded with glory. The\nsailor does not discredit the existence of the beacon or lighthouse,\nor alter the direction of his vessel, because the fog prevents these\nbeing seen. Nay rather, he strains his eyes more keenly through the\nmurky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a cloud or\nclouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the\nsunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its\nhead, or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It\nkeeps still gazing upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing that the\nclouds will soon roll past, and that it will ere long again be bathed\nin the grateful beams! So it was with David. He felt that the\ncountenance of his God, though hidden, was not eclipsed. This pining\nflower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the anguish of\nunbelief, when \"the Sun of his soul\" is for the moment obscured. He\nknew that there would yet arise \"light in the darkness.\" Amid the roll\nof the billows--the moaning of the blast--he listens to celestial\nmusic. Its key-note is \"_the loving-kindness_\" of his _God_. While the\nheavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of\nfaith above the war of the storm, and thus sings:--\"_Yet the Lord will\ncommand his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song\nshall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life!_\"\n\n\"YET _the Lord_!\" The believer, even in his deepest and darkest season\nof trouble, has always _this_ alternative word--\"YET _the Lord will_!\"\nI am sunk in sore trial--\"_Yet_ the Lord\" will be faithful to His\npromises! I have been bereaved of those near and dear to me--\"_Yet_\nthe Lord\" will be to me a name better than that of son or daughter! I\nhave been laid for long years on this couch of suffering--\"_Yet_ the\nLord\" has converted this lonely sick-chamber into the vestibule of\nheaven. I have been tossed and harassed with countless spiritual\ntemptations--\"_Yet_ the Lord\" will not suffer these temptations to go\nfurther than I am able to bear. I am soon to walk through the dark\nvalley--\"_Yet_\" will \"I fear no evil, for _Thou_ art with me!\"\n\nThe Psalmist's assurance of deliverance was indeed the test of no\nmeagre faith. We know well, how apt we are to be influenced and\naffected by present circumstances. When all is bright, and genial, and\nprosperous,--amid a happy home and kind friends,--in the midst of\nrobust health and flourishing worldly schemes, the buoyant heart is\nfull of elasticity. The joy _without_, imparts an _inner_ sunshine. A\nman is happy and hopeful in spite of himself. But if all at once he is\nplunged into a vortex of trouble,--if clouds gather and thicken\naround,--the mind not only becomes the prey of its own trials, but it\npeoples the future with numberless imaginary evils, and its very\nremaining joys and blessings become tinged and sicklied over with the\npredominating sadness! It could as little be expected, on natural\nprinciples, that the heart could in such circumstances be hopeful and\nrejoicing, as to expect that the outer landscape of nature would glow\nand sparkle with beauty, if the clouds of heaven obscured the great\nfountain of light.\n\nBut faith, strong in God's word, can triumph over natural obstacles.\nIt did so in the case of this afflicted exile. He remembered how his\nGod had vouchsafed past deliverances, even when he least expected\nthem;--\"_They looked unto_ HIM _and were lightened_\"[76] [literally,\n\"their countenances were made bright.\"] He feels assured that the same\nloving-kindness will be \"commanded\" still. He sees God's covenant\nfaithfulness resting calmly and beautifully, like the rainbow-tints in\nthe spray of the cataract! \"_Who is among you that feareth the Lord,\nthat obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and\nhath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon\nhis God._\"[77]\n\n  [76] Psalm xxxiv. 5.\n\n  [77] Isaiah l. 10.\n\nThis experience we have been considering is that of Christ's people\nonly. But there is an experience sadder still: that of those who are\nliving \"without God,\" and therefore \"without hope;\"--the billows\nheaving, and yet they knowing not of them;--\"deep calling to deep,\"\nyet they ignorant alike of their guilt and danger! There is nothing\nmore sad or touching in the midst of a storm,--when the vessel is\nreeling on the waves, and little expectation of safety is left,--than\nto see, amidst the settled gloom of despair, the little child playing\non the deck, all unaware of what is impending;--or, at a time of\nheart-rending bereavement, when every face of the household is muffled\nin sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous laugh and\nplayful prattle of unconscious infancy. Ah! of how many is this the\nposition with regard to eternity;--living heedless of their\ndanger--the waves of destruction ready to close over them! Sadder far,\nsurely, is _their_ case, than all the troubles and trials of God's\nmost afflicted people. _Their_ waves and billows are crested with\nhope--\"songs in the night\" come floating along the darkened surges;\nbut the future to the others has _no_ ray of hope, _no_ midnight star,\n_no_ divine song! There is a time coming when, in a more awful sense,\nthe cry will be heard, \"Deep calleth unto deep: all Thy waves and Thy\nbillows have gone over me!\" But there will be no after-strain--no\njoyous anthem of anticipated deliverance--\"Yet the Lord will command\nHis loving-kindness!\" In vain will the cry ascend, \"My heart is\noverwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.\"\n\nBut, blessed be God, that cry may ascend _now_--that Rock may be fled\nto as a shelter _now_. Sinner! these waves swept over the Rock of\nAges, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these crevices,\nyou will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop\nof the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of\nwrath--the deluge of fire--shall roll over this earth, safe in these\neverlasting clefts, you may utter the challenge, \"_Who shall separate\nme from the love of Christ?_\"\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nLessons.\n\n\n    \"When darkness long has veil'd my mind,\n      And smiling day once more appears,\n    Then, my Redeemer, then I find,\n      The folly of my doubts and fears:\n    Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,\n      And blush that I should ever be\n    Thus prone to act so base a part\n      Or harbour one hard thought of Thee!\"\n\n\"Here deep calls to deep. Yet in the midst of those deeps faith is not\ndrowned. You see it lifts its head above water.\"--_Bishop Hall._\n\n\"We perceive the Psalmist full of perplexed thought, and that betwixt\nstrong desires and griefs, and yet in the midst of them intermixing\nstrains of hope with his sad complaints.... What is the whole thread\nof our life but a chequered twist, black and white, of delights and\ndangers interwoven? And the happiest passing of it is, constantly to\nenjoy and to observe the experiences of God's goodness, and to praise\nHim for them.\"--_Archbishop Leighton_, 1649.\n\n\"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water-spouts: all thy\nwaves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his\nloving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be\nwith me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.\"--_Verses 7, 8._\n\n\nX.\n\nLESSONS.\n\nIn the previous chapter we spoke of the two verses which form the\nturning-point in the Psalm,--the climax of the conflict therein so\nstrikingly described between belief and unbelief. We referred to the\nboldness and expressiveness of the figure: the troubles of the\nbeliever, like the billows of the ocean calling on one another to\nunite their strength that they might effect his overthrow, but faith\nrising triumphant above them all. At times, when all human comfort\ngives way, God himself appears. \"_The voice of the Lord is upon the\nwaters._\"[78] _He_ not only \"commands His loving-kindness in the\nday-time,\" but \"_in_ THE NIGHT _His song is with us_.\" Our heavenly\nParent comes in earth's darkest, most tempestuous hours, sits by our\nside, sings His night-song--His own lullaby--\"PEACE, BE STILL!\" \"_So\ngiveth He His beloved sleep!_\"[79] God's \"songs\" sound always\nsweetest \"_by night_\"--the deep, dark night of affliction. The\nnightingale's notes are nothing by day--they would be lost in the\nchorus of other birds; but when these have retired to their nests, she\nprolongs her tuneful descant, and serenades, with her warblings, the\nsilent earth. The world can only give _its_ song _by day_. It can\nspeak only in the sunshine of prosperity. But \"God our Maker giveth\n_songs in the night_!\"[80] His promises, like the nightingale, sound\nmost joyously, and, like the glow-worm, shine most brightly, in _the\ndark_!\n\n  [78] Psalm xxix. 3.\n\n  [79] Psalm cxxvii. 2.\n\n  [80] Job xxxv. 10.\n\nLet us pause ere proceeding with the sequel of the Psalm, and ponder\nthe great lesson to be derived from this experience of David.\n\nIt is, _to_ TRUST GOD _in the darkest, gloomiest night of earthly\ntrial_! To wait His own time, and to say, when the billows are\nhighest, \"_Yet the Lord will_\"--\n\nThis is one great end and design of trial, to exercise the grace of\n_patience_. There is nothing God loves better than _a waiting soul_.\n\"_The Lord is good to them that wait for Him._\"[81] \"_I waited_\n_patiently_,\" says David, in another Psalm, (or, as it is literally,\n\"I waited, waited,\") \"_for the Lord_, and He inclined unto me, and\nheard my cry.\"[82] \"_I know thy works_,\" says Jesus, speaking of old,\nin the language of commendation, to His church at Ephesus: \"_how thou\nhast_ BORNE, _and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured,\nand hast not_ FAINTED.\"[83] How often has our way _appeared_ to be\nhedged up with thorns,--as if there were no possibility of egress! In\nsailing among some of our own Highland lakes and inland seas, where\nthe mountains, in a thousand fantastic forms, rise abrupt from the\nshore, we frequently seem to be landlocked, and able to get no\nfarther. Yet the vessel pursues its serpentine course; and as we\ndouble the first jutting promontory, the lake again expands; the same\nwaters appear beyond, gleaming like a mirror of molten gold. We find\nwhat we imagined to be an impassable barrier, is only a strait,\nopening into new combinations of mountain majesty and beauty. So is it\nin the Voyage of life. Often, in its fitful turnings and windings, do\nwe seem to be arrested in our way;--\"Hill Difficulties\" rising before\nus, and appearing to impede our vessel's course;--but as faith steers\nonwards, impediments vanish, new vistas and experiences of\nloving-kindness open up. Where we expected to be stopped by walls of\nfrowning rock and barren mountains, lo! limpid waves are seen laving\nthe shore, and joyful cascades are heard singing their way to the\nsilver strand!\n\n  [81] Lam iii. 45.\n\n  [82] Psalm xl. 1.\n\n  [83] Rev. ii. 3.\n\nAnd not only does God thus \"command His loving-kindness\" in\ndisappointing our fears, but \"in the night His song shall be with us.\"\nHe will turn the very midnights of our sorrow into occasions of\ngrateful praise! Yes! if not now, we shall come yet to see the \"needs\nbe\" of every trial. We have only a partial view here of God's\ndealings--His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand\nout in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of\nEternity!\n\nGo, in the reign of Israel's greatest King, to the heights of the\nforest of Lebanon. See that noble Cedar, the pride of its compeers, an\nold wrestler with the northern blasts of Palestine! Summer loves to\nsmile upon it--night spangles its feathery foliage with\ndew-drops--the birds nestle on its branches--the wild deer slumber\nunder its shadow--the weary pilgrim, or wandering shepherd, repose\nunder its curtaining boughs from the mid-day heat or from the furious\nstorm; but all at once it is marked out to fall,--the old denizen of\nthat primeval forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke! As\nwe see the unsparing axe making its first gash on its gnarled\ntrunk--then the noble limbs stripped of their branches--and at last\nthe proud \"Tree of God\" coming with a crash to the ground; we exclaim\nagainst the wanton destruction--the demolition of this noblest of\npillars in the temple of nature,--and we are tempted to cry with the\nprophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem--invoking\ninanimate things to resent the affront--\"_Howl, fir-tree, for the\ncedar has fallen!_\" But wait a little!--follow that gigantic trunk as\nthe workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side,--thence conveyed\nin monster rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean,--and last\nof all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of\nGod;--and then, as you see its destination,--gazing down on the very\nHoly of Holies, set in the diadem of the Great King;--say, can you\ngrudge that the crown of Lebanon was despoiled, in order that this\njewel might have so noble a setting? That cedar stood as a stately\nbeam and pillar in _nature's_ temple, but the glory of the latter\nhouse was greater than the glory of the former. How many of our souls\nare like these cedars of God! His axes of trial have stripped and\nbared them,--we see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious; but\nHe has a noble end and object in view--to set them as everlasting\npillars and rafters in His heavenly temple, to make them \"a crown of\nglory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our\nGod!\"\n\nOr take another illustration. Go to one of our graving-docks, where\nthe weather-beaten vessel has been weeks or months in the carpenter's\nhands. Her started timbers are replaced, her shattered keel renewed,\nthe temporary props and scaffoldings have been removed, and with her\ngay streamers afloat, and her crew on deck, she stands ready and\nequipped for sea. What is needed? Nothing but the opening of the\nsluices, to reunite her to her old watery element. She lies a\nhelpless, decrepit thing, till these dock-gates be opened, and the\nbuoyant waves rush to clasp her anew in their embrace. It is done!\nBut at first all is noise, and wrath, and tumult. These gurgling\nwaters, discoloured with mud and sediment, convert the noble granite\nbasin into an inky, turgid whirlpool. Ere long, however, the strife\nceases; the great wooden wall raises itself like a child that has been\nawoke in its cradle by the voice of the storm--the waters gradually\ncalm and subside;--higher and still higher is the vessel lifted, till,\namid the cheers of the crew, she passes by the opened gates, and, with\nevery sail spread to the breeze, is off to new voyages in her\nocean-home.\n\nChild of trial! \"vessel of mercy!\" your God sees meet at times to\nbring you into the graving-dock, that He may put His tools upon you,\nand refit and prepare you for the great voyage of immortality. When He\nopens the sluices of trial, you may see no mercy in His dealings. It\nmay be \"deep calling to deep\"--the roar and heaving of antagonist\nwaters; they may at first, too, stir up nothing but the dregs and\nsediment of sin,--expose the muddy pools, the deep corruptions of the\nheart. But be still! He will yet vindicate the rectitude and wisdom of\nHis own procedure. Ere long, these surging waves will settle\npeacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy\nsurface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season\nof trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to\nbrave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the\nhaven where you would be!\n\nIt is _hard discipline_--the undowny pillow, the trench-work and\nmidnight vigils--which makes the better soldier. The type of strength\nin the kingdom of inanimate nature is not the sickly plant of the\nhot-house, or the tree or bush choked in the dark jungle; but the pine\nrocked by Alpine or Norwegian tempests, or the oak mooring its roots\nin the rifted rock! David would neither have been the King nor the\nSaint he was, but for the caves of Adullam and Engedi, the rocks of\nthe wild goats, the forest exile of Hermon and Gilead. He had to thank\n_affliction_ for his best spiritual graces. The redeemed in glory are\nready to tell the same. \"We would never have been here but for these\nstorms of 'great tribulation.' But for the loss of that child--that\nworldly calamity--that protracted sickness--that cutting\ndisappointment--that wounding of my heart's affection--that\nannihilation of earthly pride and ambition--that 'deep calling to\ndeep'--I would not now have been wearing this crown!\" Trials have been\nwell compared to the winds God employs to fill our sails and fetch us\nhome to the harbour of everlasting peace![84]\n\n  [84] See \"Life Thoughts.\" The author has been more than once\n  indebted, in this volume, to this suggestive little book.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne word of caution ere we close this chapter. From all we have\nsaid--of \"deeps\" and \"floods,\" storms and water-spouts, and midnight\ndarkness--are any to leave these pages with the feeling that Religion\nis a gloomy, repulsive thing;--that the believer's life is one of\ndarkness and despair;--that better far is the world's gaiety and\nfolly--the merry laugh of its light-hearted votaries--than a life of\nsadness like this? Mistake us not! We repeat what we have already\nsaid. The experience we have been now considering is, in many\nrespects, peculiar; one of those dark passages which stand alone in\nthe diary of the spiritual life. _Religion gloomy!_ Who says so? Shall\nwe take St Paul as our oracle? What is his testimony? In all his\nletters he tries to crowd as much as he can into little space. In one\nof these, he has room for only two injunctions. But instead of giving\ntwo that are different, he prefers to repeat the _one_. It is the\nemphatic tautology, \"_Rejoice in the Lord alway: and_ AGAIN _I say_,\nREJOICE.\"[85] Or shall we seek a different tribunal? Go gather\ntogether all the philosophers of antiquity--Plato, Socrates,\nAristotle. Bring together the wise men of Greece--the philosophers of\nAlexandria--the sages of Rome. Ask if their combined and collected\nwisdom ever solved the doubts of one awakened soul, as have done these\nleaves of this Holy Book? Which of them ever dried the tear of\nwidowhood as these? Which of them ever smoothed the cheek of the\nfatherless as these? Which of them ever lighted the torch of hope and\npeace at the dying bed as these, and flashed upon the departing soul\nvisions of unearthly joy? O pagan darkness! where was _thy_ song in\nthe night? In the region and shadow of death, where did _thy_ light\narise?\n\n  [85] Phil. iv. 4.\n\nBut WE have a \"more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take\nheed, as unto a light shining in a dark place.\" The Christian is\n_the_ man who alone can wear the sunny countenance. The peace of God,\nkeeping the heart within, cannot fail to be mirrored in the look and\nlife without! And if (as often is the case) he has his appointed\nseasons of trial--the sea of life swept with storms of great\ntribulation--it is with him as with yonder ocean. To the eye of the\nyoung voyager, gazing on its mountain billows, it would seem as if its\nlowest caverns were stirred, and the world were rocking to its\nfoundations; while, after all, it is only a surface-heaving! There are\ndeeps, unfathomed deeps, of calm rest and peace, down in that ocean's\nundisturbed recesses.\n\nBeliever in Jesus! with all thy trials, thou art a happy man. Go on\nthy way rejoicing. Tribulation may fret and ruffle the calm of thy\nouter life, but nothing can touch the deeps of thy nobler being.\nTroubles may rise, and \"terrors may frown,\" and \"days of darkness\" may\nfall around thee, but \"_Thou wilt keep him, O God_, IN PERFECT PEACE\n_whose mind is stayed on_ THEE!\"\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nFaith and Prayer.\n\n\n    \"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,\n    Let me hide myself in Thee!\"\n\n\"The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to\nSatan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore\nit is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with\nhimself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of\nhis sorrow.\"--_Calvin on the Psalms._\n\n\"I will say unto God my rock, Why has thou forgotten me? why go I\nmourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my\nbones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where\nis thy God?\"--_Verses 9, 10._\n\n\nXI.\n\nFAITH AND PRAYER.\n\nTouching was that scene which occurred three thousand years ago on the\nborders of Palestine: aged Naomi, in returning to the land of her own\nkindred from her sojurn in Moab, pausing to take a last farewell of\nher two loving daughters-in-law! One of these refuses to part from\nher. Strong may be the inducement to Ruth to return to the home of her\nchildhood, and, above all, to the spot where hallowed dust reposes\n(the buried treasure of her young affections). But ties stronger than\ndeath link her soul to the one who had shared for ten years her joys\nand sorrows. With impassioned tears, she announces her determination!\nHer resolve may entail upon her manifold sacrifices. She may be going\nto an alien people--to a home of penury--to bleak and barren wilds,\ncompared with her own fertile vales. But she is ready for any toil,\nany self-denial, if only permitted to retain the companionship of\nthat living, loving heart, which had been to her all that earthly\ntenderness could be.\n\nSuch, if we may compare an earthly with a heavenly affection, were the\nfeelings of the banished King of Judah, at this time towards his God.\nAll the temptations that have been assailing him have not repressed\nthe ardour of his faith, or diminished the fervour of his love.\nUnbelief had done its best to sever the holy bond which linked him to\nhis Heavenly Friend; but, like the tender-hearted Moabitess from whom\nhe sprung, he will submit to any privation rather than be parted from\nHim whose favour is life. \"Entreat me not to leave Thee,\" is the\nspirit at least of his fervid aspiration; \"nor to return from\nfollowing after Thee. Where Thou goest I will go, and where Thou\ndwellest I will dwell; and death itself shall not separate between\nThee and me.\" As Peter, in a future age, rushed to the feet of that\nSaviour he had again and again wounded, so these many waters (the\n\"deep calling to deep\") cannot quench the Psalmist's love, nor many\nfloods drown it. The voice of malignant taunt and scorn, \"Where is now\nthy God?\" might have driven others to despair; but it only rouses him\nup, in the midnight of his struggle, to the exercise of new spiritual\ngraces. \"I shall not,\" he seems to say, \"surrender my holy trust; I\nknow the graciousness of the God with whom I have to deal. Nothing\nwill tempt me to abandon my interest in the covenant. I shall take a\nnew weapon from the Divine armoury; with it I shall seek to decide the\nconflict. No gibes of the scoffer, no rebellious son, no crafty\nAhithophel, can rob me of the privilege of PRAYER.\" \"_I will say unto\nGod my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of\nthe oppression of the enemy?_\"\n\nIt is, then, a combined exercise of _faith_, and _prayer_, on the part\nof David, we are now called to consider. Out of weakness he is made\nstrong, waxes valiant in fight, and turns to flight the armies of the\naliens.\n\nLet us advert to each in their order.\n\nFAITH regards God here under a twofold aspect.\n\n1. _It looks to Him as an_ IMMUTABLE GOD.\n\nAmid the fitfulness of his own feelings, this was the Psalmist's\nconsolation--\"_God my_ ROCK!\" What a source of comfort is there here\nin the _immutability_ of Jehovah. All else around us is unstable.\nExternal nature bears on every page of its volume the traces of\nmutation. Earth has the folds already on its vesture--the wrinkles of\nage on its brow. The ocean murmurs of change, as its billows chafe on\naltered landmarks. Human friendships and human associations are all\nfluctuating. So are our habits, and tastes, and employments. The old\nman looking back from some hoary pinnacle on the past, almost\nquestions his personal identity; and these emptied chairs!--these\nfaces, once glowing at our firesides, now greeting our gaze only in\nmute and silent portraits on the wall! \"Here we have no continuing\ncity,\" is the oracle of all time.\n\n\"_But_ THOU _art the same, and Thy years shall have no end._\"[86]\n\"Heaven and earth may pass away,\" but there is no change, and _can_ be\nnone, in an all-perfect God! \"The wheel turns round, but the axle is\nimmutable.\" The clouds which obscure the sun do not descend from\nheaven--they are exhaled from earth. It is the soul's own darkening\nvapours, generated by unbelief and sin, which at times taint and\nobscure the moral atmosphere. Behind every such murky haze He shines\nbrightly as ever. \"_Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the\neverlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth,\nfainteth not, neither is weary?_\"[87] \"Young sailors,\" says\nRutherford, \"imagine the shore and land moving, while it is they\nthemselves all the while. So we often think that God is changing, when\nthe change is all with ourselves!\"\n\n  [86] Psalm cii. 27.\n\n  [87] Isaiah x. 28.\n\n2. _Faith regards this immutable God as a God in covenant._\n\n\"MY _Rock_!\" Believer! you have the same immovable ground of\nconfidence! Look to YOUR God in Christ, who has made with you \"_an\neverlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure_!\" He, \"_willing\nmore abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of\nHis counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in\nwhich it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong\nconsolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set_\n_before us_.\"[88] The torch may flicker in your hand, the flame may be\nthe sport of every passing gust of temptation and trial, but He who\nlighted it will not suffer it to be quenched. \"_Simon, Simon, Satan\nhath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat: but I have\nprayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._\"[89] The Great Adversary\nmay attempt to rob you of your peace, but that peace is imperishably\nsecured. He must first destroy THE ROCK, before he can touch one\ntrembling soul that has fled there for refuge! He must first uncrown\nChrist, before he can touch one jewel in the purchased diadems of His\npeople! Your life is \"hid with Christ in God;\" because He lives, \"ye\nshall live also!\" God himself must become mutable, and cease _to be\nGod_, ere your eternal safety can be imperilled or impaired. \"If we\nperish,\" says Luther, \"Christ perisheth with us.\"\n\n  [88] Heb. vi. 17, 18.\n\n  [89] Luke xxii. 31.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us turn now to the Psalmist's PRAYER.\n\nIf _Faith_ be called the eye, _Prayer_ may be called the wings of the\nsoul. No sooner does Faith descry God his \"ROCK,\" than forthwith\nPrayer spreads out her pinions for flight. In the close of the\npreceding verse, (when in the extremity of his agony,) David had\nannounced his determination to betake himself to supplication--\"_In\nthe night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my\nlife._\" He follows up his resolution now with material for petition.\nHe puts on record a solemn and beautiful liturgy--\"_I will say unto\nGod my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of\nthe oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies\nreproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_\"\n\nHow wonderfully does God thus overrule His darkest dispensations for\nthe exercise and discipline of His people's spiritual graces! In their\noverflowing prosperity they are apt to forget Him. He sends them\nafflictions. Trial elicits faith--faith drives to prayer--prayer\nobtains the spiritual blessing! It was the sense of want and\nwretchedness which drove the prodigal to cry, \"Father, I have sinned!\"\nIt was the \"buffeting\" thorn which sent Paul thrice to his knees in\nthe agony of supplication, and brought down on his soul a rich\nheritage of spiritual blessing. It was these surging waves--the \"deep\ncalling to deep\"--which elicited the cry from this sinking castaway,\n\"_My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the_ ROCK _that is higher than\nI!_\" \"BEHOLD HE PRAYETH!\" That announcement seems in a moment to turn\nthe tide of battle, and change the storm into a calm. Well has a\nChristian poet written:--\n\n    \"Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;\n    Weak, and govern'd by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:\n    Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters;\n    Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world.\"\n\nThe struggle till now may have seemed doubtful; \"_but they that_ WAIT\n_upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with\nwings as eagles_.\"[90] It is said, the beautiful plumage of the Bird\nof Paradise not only impedes its flight when flying against the wind,\nbut often in the ineffectual effort it is brought helpless and\nexhausted to the ground--its golden hues soiled and ruffled. When,\nhowever, a gentle breeze springs up, it spreads out its feathers in a\nfan-like shape, and is borne joyously along! So with the believer.\nWhen he is called to do battle with unbelief, the wings of faith are\noften soiled, and mutilated, and broken; he falls a helpless thing to\nthe earth. But when God's own south wind blows, he spreads out his\nglorious plumage, and, rising on the pinions of prayer, is borne\nonwards and upwards to the region of heavenly peace and joy!\n\n  [90] Isaiah xl. 31.\n\nThere are one or two characteristics in David's prayer worthy of note,\nwith which we shall sum up this chapter.\n\n1. Observe his INSTANT _resort to the \"God of his life!\"_\n\nNo sooner does the thought of prayer suggest itself, than he proceeds\nto the sacred exercise. Like the prodigal, not only does he say, \"_I\nwill arise and go_,\" but the next record in his history is, \"_And he\narose, and came to his Father_.\"[91] Oh, how much spiritual benefit we\nmiss by procrastination! The cloud of blessing floats over our heads,\nbut we fail to stretch forth the electric rod of prayer to fetch it\ndown! We determine on embarking, but, by guilty delay, we allow the\nvessel to weigh anchor, and we are left behind. Many an afflictive\ndispensation thus loses its sanctifying design. When the heart is\ncrushed and broken, the heavenly voice sounds startling and solemn!\nWhat a season, if timeously improved, for enrichment at the\nmercy-seat! When \"things present\" are disenchanted of their\nspell,--when time is brought to hold its relative insignificance to\neternity, what a season for the self-emptied one, to go to the\nall-fulness of Jesus, and receive from Him every needful supply! But,\nalas! we often know not \"the day of our merciful visitation.\" The\nheart, when the hammer might be falling on it, and welding it to the\nDivine will, is too often suffered to cool. Solemn impressions are\nallowed to wear away,--the blessing is lost by guilty postponement.\nDavid might now have been so absorbed in his trials, as to have lost\nthe opportunity of prayer. He might have invented some vain excuses\nfor procrastination, and missed the blessing; just as the disciples,\nby their sluggish indifference and guilty slumber, drew down the\nthrice-repeated rebuke from injured Goodness, \"_Could ye not watch\nwith me one hour?_\" But the golden moment is not suffered by him thus\nto pass. No sooner does he get a glimpse of the path of prayer, than\nhe proceeds to tread it. The very fact of the fire being so low, is\nthe most powerful reason for stirring it. Her Lord being lost, is the\nstrongest argument for the Spouse seeking Him without delay;--\"_I will\nrise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways\nI will seek Him whom my soul loveth._\"[92]\n\n  [91] Luke xv. 20.\n\n  [92] Sol. Song iii. 2.\n\n2. Observe David's _importunity_. He waxes into a holy boldness. He\nseeks to know from \"the God of his life\" the reasons of this apparent\ndesertion--\"'_Why hast Thou forgotten me?_' I cannot see or\nunderstand, as Thy covenant servant, the reason of all this\ndepression--why, with all those promises of Thine, these hands should\nbe hanging down, and these knees be so feeble.\"\n\nThe mother does not cast off her sick or feeble child. Its very\nweakness and weariness is an additional argument for her care and\nlove, and draws her heart closer than ever to the bed of the tiny\nsufferer! David knew well that God, who had ever dealt with him \"as\none whom his mother comforteth,\" would not (unless for some wise\nreason) leave him to despondency. Looking to this immutable\nCovenant-Jehovah, and lifting his voice high above the water-floods,\nhe thus, in impassioned prayer, pleads \"the causes of his soul:\"--\"_In\nThee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me\nin Thy righteousness. Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver me speedily:\nbe Thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For Thou\nart my rock and my fortress; therefore for Thy name's sake lead me,\nand guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for\nme: for Thou art my strength. Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou\nhast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth._\"[93]\n\n  [93] Psalm xxxi. 1-5.\n\n3. The Psalmist _takes his_ SPECIAL TROUBLE _to God, and makes it the\nsubject of prayer_. He names in the Divine presence the cause of his\ndeepest perplexity. \"_As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies\nreproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_\"[94]\n\n  [94] Verse 10.\n\n\"Generalities,\" says a good man, \"are the death of prayer.\" The\nloftiest privilege the believer can enjoy is the confidential\nunburdening of his wants into the ear of a _Father_. Just as a child\ncan freely unbosom to a parent what he can do to no one else, so are\nwe permitted to tell into the ear of our Father in heaven whatever may\nbe the heart-sorrow with which a stranger (often a friend) dare not\nintermeddle. See the _speciality_ in the Psalmist's confession of his\nsin. It is not the _general_ acknowledgment of a sinner. It is rather\nan humbled penitent carrying _one_ deep crimson-stain to the\nmercy-seat; bringing _it_, and _it alone_, as if for the moment he had\nto deal respecting _it_ only with the great Heart-searcher. \"MY _sin_\nis ever before me.\" \"I have done _this_ evil in Thy sight.\" \"Wash me\nfrom _mine iniquity_, and cleanse me from _my sin_.\" \"I said, I will\nconfess _my transgressions_, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of _my\nsin_.\"[95]\n\n  [95] Psalms li. and xxxii.\n\nLet us not think that we can ever have comfort in merging individual\nsins in a _general_ confession. This is the great and pre-eminent\nadvantage of secret closet-prayer. Social prayer and public prayer are\neminently means of securing the Divine blessing; but it is in the\nquiet of the chamber, when no eye and ear are on us but that of \"our\nFather that seeth in secret,\" that we can bring our secret burdens to\nHis altar,--crucify our secret sins, acknowledge the peculiar sources\nof our weakness and temptation, and get special grace to help us in\nour times of need.\n\nBut we may here ask, Have we any assurance that the prayers of David,\nat this critical emergency, were indeed answered? Or,(as we are often\ntempted in seasons of guilty unbelief to argue regarding our prayers\nstill,) did they ascend unheard and unresponded to?--did the cries of\nthe supplicant die away in empty echoes amid these glens of Gilead? We\nhave his own testimony, in a magnificent ode of his old age,[96] one\nof the last, and one of the noblest his lips ever sung, that Jehovah\n_had_ heard him in the day of his trouble. It is a Psalm, as we are\ntold in the title, written by him on his return to his capital, when\nvictory had crowned his arms, and his kingdom was once more in peace.\nThe aged Minstrel takes in it a retrospective survey of his eventful\npilgrimage. Many a Mizar-hill in the long vista rises conspicuously\ninto view. He climbs in thought their steeps, and erects his\nEbenezer! As his flight and sojourn beyond Jordan formed the latest\noccurrence in that chequered life, we may well believe that in\nuttering these inspired numbers, the remembrance of his memorable\nsoul-struggle there must have been especially present to his mind. Let\nus listen to his own words: \"_The sorrows of death compassed me, and_\nTHE FLOODS OF UNGODLY MEN _made me afraid.... In my distress I called\nupon the Lord, and cried unto_ MY GOD: HE HEARD _my voice out of His\ntemple, and_ MY CRY CAME BEFORE HIM, EVEN INTO HIS EARS.\" In the\nsublimest poetical figures of all his Psalms, Jehovah is further\nrepresented in this hymn of thanksgiving as hastening with rapid\nflight, in august symbols of majesty, to the relief and succour of His\nservant--\"bowing the heavens\"--\"the darkness under His feet\"--\"riding\nupon a cherub\"--\"flying upon the wings of the wind\"--\"sending out His\narrows, and scattering His foes\"--\"shooting out lightnings\"--and\n\"discomfiting them.\" And with the writer's mind still resting on the\nsame emblems which he uses in his Exile-Psalm,--the \"deep calling to\ndeep\"--the \"noise of the water-spouts\"--the \"waves and billows,\"--he\ninterweaves other references and experiences with this unequivocal\ntestimony to God his \"_Rock_,\" as the HEARER OF PRAYER,--\"_He sent\nfrom above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.... Who is God\nsave the Lord? or who is a_ ROCK _save our God?... The Lord liveth;\nand blessed be my_ ROCK; _and let the God of my salvation be\nexalted!_\"[97]\n\n  [96] Psalm xviii.\n\n  [97] Psalm xviii. 16, 31, 46.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nReader! let me ask, in conclusion, do _you_ know in your experience\nthe combined triumphs of _faith and prayer_--these two heavenly spies\nthat fetch back Eschol-clusters of blessing to the true Israel of God?\nDo you know what it is, in the hour of adversity, to repair to \"the\n_Rock_ of your strength?\" Do you believe in His willingness to hear,\nand in His power to save? How sad the case of those who, in their\nseasons of trial, have no refuge to which they can betake themselves,\nbut some fluctuating, perishing, earthly one;--who, when they lose the\nworld, lose their all! The miser plundered of his gold, cleaving to\nthe empty coffers;--the pleasure-hunter seeking to drain the empty\nchalice, or to extract honey out of the empty comb;--the bereaved\ngrasping with broken hearts their withered gourd, and refusing to be\ncomforted! The worldling is like the bird building its nest on the\ntopmost bough of the tree. There it weaves its wicker dwelling, and\nfeels as if nothing can invade its security and peace. By and by the\nwoodman comes,--lays down his axe by the root. The chips fly off\napace. The pine rocks and shivers; in a few moments it lies prone on\nthe forest-sward. The tiny bird hovers over its dismantled home--the\nscene of desolation and havoc--and then goes screaming through the\nwood with the tale of her woes! The Christian, again, is like the\nsea-fowl, building its nest in the niches of the ocean cliff, which\nbids defiance at once to the axe and the hand of the plunderer. Far\nbelow, the waves are lifting their crested tops, and eddying pools are\nboiling in fury. The tempest may be sighing overhead, and the wild\nshriek of danger and death rising from some helpless bark that is\nborne like a weed on the maddened waters. But the spent spray can only\ntouch these rocky heights,--no more; and the curlew, sitting with\nfolded wings on her young, can look calm and undismayed on the\nelemental war. \"What is the best grounds of a philosopher's\nconstancy,\" says Bishop Hall, \"but as moving sands, in comparison of\nthe Rock that we may build upon!\"\n\nYes! build in the clefts of that immoveable Rock, and you are safe.\nSafe in Christ, you can contemplate undismayed all the tossings and\nheavings of life's fretful sea! So long as the Psalmist looked to God,\nhe was all secure. When he looked to _himself_, he was all\ndespondency. Peter, when his eye was on his Lord, walked boldly on the\nlimpid waves of Gennesaret; when he diverted _it on himself_, and\nthought on the dangers around him, and the unstable element beneath\nhim, \"he began to sink!\"\n\nBeliever! is your heart overwhelmed? Are you undergoing a similar\nexperience with the Psalmist? Your friends (perhaps your nearest and\nbest) misunderstanding your trial, unable to probe the severity of\nyour wound, mocking your tears with unsympathising reflections and\ncruel jests--\"a sword in your bones!\" Turn your season of sorrow into\na season of prayer. Look up to the God-man Mediator, the tender\nKinsman within the veil! _He knoweth_ your frame. When He sees your\nfrail bark struggling in the storm, and hears the cry of prayer\nrising from your lips, He will say, as He said of old, \"I KNOW _their\nsorrows_, and I will go down to deliver them! O wounded Hart! panting\nafter the water-brooks, I was once wounded for _thee_. O smitten soul!\nseamed and scarred with the lightning and tempest, see how I myself,\nthe Rock of Ages, was smitten and afflicted!\" Ay, and thou canst say\ntoo, \"_God_ MY _Rock_!\" Thou canst individually repose in that\nsheltering Refuge, as if it were intended for thee alone. The loving\neye of that Saviour is upon thee, as if thou wert alone the object of\nHis gaze,--as if no other struggling castaway breasted the billows but\nthyself!\n\nBlessed security, who would not prize it! Blessed shelter, who would\nnot repair to it! Oh that the Psalmist's creed and resolution might be\nours--\"_I will say of the Lord, He is_ MY ROCK _and_ MY _Fortress,\nand_ MY _Deliverer._\"--\"_O come let us sing unto the Lord: let us make\na joyful noise to the_ ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!\"\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nThe Quiet Haven.\n\n\n    \"Ah, if our souls but poise and swing,\n    Like the compass in its brazen ring,\n      Ever level and ever true,\n    To the toil and the task we have to do;\n    We shall sail securely, and safely reach\n    The heavenly Isle, on whose shining beach\n    The sights we love and the sounds we hear\n    Will be those of joy, and not of fear.\"\n\n\"David utters again strains of hope; not that faint and common hope of\npossibility or probability, that after stormy days it may be better\nwith him, but a certain hope that shall never make ashamed; such a\nHope as springs from Faith, yea, in effect, is one with it.... Faith\nrests upon the goodness and truth of Him that hath promised; and Hope,\nraising itself upon Faith so established, stands up, and looks out to\nthe future accomplishment of the promise.\"--_Leighton._\n\n\"In that day, the light shall not be clear nor dark: ... but it shall\ncome to pass that at evening time it shall be light.\"--_Zech._ xiv. 6,\n7.\n\n\"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within\nme? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of\nmy countenance, and my God.\"--_Verse 11._\n\n\nXII.\n\nTHE QUIET HAVEN.\n\nWe have now reached the close of this instructive Psalm--the last\nentry in the experience of the Royal Exile. Here is the grand summing\nup--\"the conclusion of the whole matter.\" The curtain falls over the\nscene of conflict, leaving the believer triumphant. As he began with\nprayer, he now ends with praise; as he began with weeping, he now ends\nwith rejoicing; as he began mourning over the loss of his God, he ends\nexulting in Him as \"_the health of his countenance_.\" We are reminded\nof the Great Apostle reaching, by successive steps in his high\nargument, new altitudes of faith and hope,--beginning with \"_no\ncondemnation_,\" till he ends with \"_no separation_,\"--mounting with\nloftier sweep and bolder pinion, till, far above the mists and clouds\nof the lower valley, he can utter the challenge, \"_Who shall separate\nme from the love of Christ?_\"[98]\n\n  [98] Romans viii.\n\nJoyful is it when a protracted war, which has been draining a\nnation's resources and rifling its homes, is drawing to a close,--when\nan army, amid hostile tribes, and the more fatal ravages of a hostile\nclimate, has succeeded in trampling out the ashes of rebellion, and is\nreturning triumphant from hard-contested fields of valour. Joyful is\nit when a noble vessel, that has for long been wrestling with the\nstorm, enters at last the desired haven,--when the voyagers, who for\nhours of anxiety and terror have been hanging with bated breath\nbetween life and death, can now pass the gladdening watchword from\nmouth to mouth--\"Thank God, we are safe!\" Joyful, too, when the tried\nbeliever, as described in this Psalm,--\"_persecuted, but not forsaken;\ncast down, but not destroyed,_\"--has surmounted wave after wave, that\nhas been threatening to sweep him from his footing on the Rock, and is\nmade \"more than conqueror through Him that loved him!\" The wounded\nHart we found in the opening verse bounding through the forest glades,\nhit by the archers, with glazed eye and panting sides, has now reached\nthe coveted Water-brooks;--the fainting soul is now drinking at the\ngreat fountainhead of consolation and joy. We have elsewhere an\nappropriate inspired comment on the whole Psalm, with its successive\nexperiences: \"_Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord\ndelivereth him out of them all._\"[99]\n\n  [99] Psalm xxxiv. 19.\n\nThis concluding verse is so far a repetition of the fifth; and yet, as\nwe cursorily noted in the introductory chapter, there is an important\ndifference between them, to which we may again for a moment advert. In\nthe former, it is on the part of the speaker the language of faith in\nthe midst of despondency, expressing assurance that something _will_\nbe his, which he has not yet attained: \"_Hope thou in God; for I\nshall_ YET _praise Him for the help of His countenance_.\" In the\nlatter, he summons his soul to the exercise of the same hope and\nconfidence; but he now can exult in the realised possession of God's\nfavour and love--\"WHO IS _the health of my countenance_.\" Nay, more,\nin the fifth verse he stops with the words, \"_my countenance_;\" but in\nthe closing verse, he adds the expression of appropriating faith and\ntriumphant assurance. It is the Key-stone of the arch. Two little\nwords, which, like the ciphers following the unit, give an augmented\nvalue to all that goes before!--\"MY GOD!\" The two last divine\nexpedients to which he had resorted (faith and prayer) have not been\nin vain. They have loaded the cloud of mercy, and it bursts upon the\nsuppliant in a shower of blessing!\n\nThe 22d Psalm has been referred by commentators to this same period of\nexile among the mountains of Gilead. There is much to confirm this\nsupposition in the general tone of the Psalm, as well as in its\nincidental references. There is the same deep, anguished depression of\nspirit,--words, indeed, denoting such an intensity of sorrow, that,\nthough primarily applicable to David, we must look for their true\nexponent in the case of a Greater Sufferer. The challenge, \"_Where is\nthy God?_\" of the 42d, seems echoed back in the 22d by the mournful\nappeal, \"_My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?_\"\n\nBut in the latter, as in the former, (ere it closes,) light breaks\nthrough the thick darkness. By a similar exercise of faith and prayer,\nthe Royal Mourner triumphs. \"_Deliver my soul_,\" says he, \"_from the\nsword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's\nmouth._\" (Ver. 20, 21.) The prayer is heard while he is yet speaking!\nAt this point of the Psalm, the language all at once passes from\ncomplaint into exultation--from prayer into praise; and the voice of\nvictory rises higher and higher, till it reaches the close. God has\ntaken off his sackcloth, and girded him with gladness. He already\nanticipates the happy time when again he shall be the leader of the\nfestal throng on the heights of Zion. \"_Thou hast heard me_,\" is his\nopening burst of triumph, \"_from the horns of the unicorns. I will\ndeclare Thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation\nwill I praise Thee.... My praise shall be of Thee in the great\ncongregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear Him_.\"[100]\n\n  [100] Psalm xxii. 21, 22, 25.\n\nNay, further; what Psalm succeeds the 22d? Is it mere accidental\narrangement which has given the beautiful 23d (the best known and\nloved of all David's Psalms) the immediate sequence? Is it a mere\ndevout imagination which leads us to regard it (from the place it\noccupies in the Psalter) as the next his hand penned and his lips\nsung, after these plaintive elegies? This Song of the chosen flock is\nnot, as many think, the Psalm of his boyhood, written in the days of\nhis innocence, with his shepherd's crook and harp, in the Valleys of\nBethlehem. The imagery of the Psalm _may_ indeed have been taken from\nthis sunny season of his youth. But, as it has been suggested,[101]\nthe emblem may as likely have been borrowed from seeing a flock of\nsheep in these grassy regions reposing by \"green pastures\" and \"still\nwaters\"--or, at other times, wending their way out of some \"dark\nvalley;\"--one, perhaps a timid wanderer, clenched in the arms of the\nshepherd, on his way with it back to the fold!\n\n  [101] See these references to the 22d and 23d Psalms well stated\n  in Blaikie's \"David, King of Israel,\" pp. 322, 323.\n\nWe have witnessed, after a day of gloomy fog and rain and thunder, the\ndense curtain that overhung the landscape rolling away.--The clouds\nbreak, gleaming vistas appear through their golden linings; and the\nrays of the long-imprisoned sun shine down upon ten thousand sparkling\npearls on grass and flower. The choristers of wood and grove had till\nthen been silent; but now are they seen brushing the rain-drops from\nthe branches, and filling the air with their music, and all nature is\nglad again. So it is with the Great Singer of Israel; so long as God's\nface is withdrawn, his wings are folded--his melody hushed--his harp\nunstrung. But when the thunder-cloud has passed,--when, as the clear\nshining after rain, the longed-for countenance again breaks\nforth,--when, in answer to those prayers that were mightier than the\narmies of Joab close by, his enemies are dispersed, and the way again\nopen to a peaceful return to his capital,--may we not imagine the\ntriumphant conqueror--strong in the Lord, and in the power of His\nmight--making the Gilead valleys resound with the hymn of\npraise?--\"_The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to\nlie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still\nwaters!_\"[102] As he thought of all the trying discipline to which he\nhad been subjected to test his faith, drive him to prayer, and lead\nhim to thirst more ardently for \"the living God,\" he could say in the\nretrospect, what he was unable to do at the time--\"_He restoreth my\nsoul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's\nsake._\"[103] That path was a rugged one--that trial a severe\none--when he was found setting out barefoot, and dim with tears,\nacross Mount Olivet, compelled to take refuge beyond Jordan amid the\nwilds of Bashan. But he acknowledges now that these were \"_paths of\nrighteousness_.\" They were well and wisely ordered,--the hand of his\nGod had appointed them. He can repeat with greater assurance his\nforbearing retort to the curses of Shimei--\"LET HIM CURSE ON, FOR THE\nLORD HATH BIDDEN HIM.\" Moreover, all this wilderness-experience not\nonly sustained him in the present--it nerved him for the future. God's\nrenewed faithfulness in this trying hour was a pledge for all time to\ncome. He had added another Mizar-hill to former memorials of the\nDivine goodness. With the prospect, at his advanced age, of the last\nand terminating trial of his pilgrimage, (the descent to the deepest\nand gloomiest ravine of all,) he could, with his eye on the guiding\nShepherd, exclaim--\"_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the\nshadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod\nand Thy staff they comfort me._\"[104] Even temporal mercies had been\nlargely and bountifully supplied him in the place of his exile. The\npowerful chiefs of the Transjordanic tribes, as we previously\nobserved,--\"Shobi of Ammon, and Machir, and Barzillai of\nManasseh,\"--brought the rich produce of their fields and pastures for\nthe supply of himself and his army. He could say--\"_Thou hast prepared\na table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my\nhead with oil; my cup runneth over._\"[105] And now, with the prospect\nbefore him of a joyful return to his throne, and the still more joyous\nprospect of being a worshipper in God's house on earth,--the type of\nthe better Temple in the skies,--he can sing, as the closing strain of\nhis exile--\"_Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my\nlife; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever._\"[106]\n\n  [102] Psalm xxiii. 1, 2.\n\n  [103] Psalm xxiii. 3.\n\n  [104] Psalm xxiii. 4.\n\n  [105] Psalm xxiii. 5.\n\n  [106] Psalm xxiii. 6.\n\nReader! is this your experience? Is this the result of your temporal\nafflictions, the end of your spiritual conflicts,--to lead you to the\nsame Shepherd of Israel, and to exult in Him as \"the health of your\ncountenance, and your God?\" Elimelech, of old, was compelled by famine\nto leave Bethlehem, but his name signified, \"_My God is King!_\" When\nwe are pressed with straits, and troubles, and perplexities, let _us_\nmake that name our strong tower! \"MY GOD IS KING\" is a glorious motto.\nIs it the heavings and convulsions of the world's nations--\"kings of\nthe earth setting themselves, and rulers taking counsel together,\"\nfrom motives of personal ambition, or political jealousy, or lust of\nconquest? Write upon all their schemes, ELIMELECH--\"_My God is King!_\"\nIs it the apparently mysterious discipline through which some may be\npassing--bereavements threatening your dwelling, or the hand of death\nalready on your loved ones? Write on the darkened threshold,\nELIMELECH--\"_My God is King!_\" Is it the prospect of your own death\nthat is filling you with apprehension? Remember in whose hands, under\nwhose sovereign control, that messenger is. Go to the vacant Sepulchre\nat Golgotha, and read that writing and superscription which the\n\"Abolisher of death\" has left for the comfort of all His people:--\"_I\nhave the keys of the grave and of death_.\" Christian! even here, in\nthese gloomy regions, \"_thy God is King!_\"\n\nHow blessed thus to be able, both in temporal and spiritual things,\nto lie in the arms of His mercy, saying, \"Undertake Thou for us!\"--to\nfeel that every thread in the web of life is woven by the Great\nArtificer,--that not one movement in these swiftly-darting shuttles is\nchance; but all is by _His_ direction, and all is to result in good!\nIn having Himself as our portion, we are independent of every\nother;--we have the pledge of all other blessings. \"Let the moveables\ngo, the inheritance is ours!\" Let the streams fail, we have the\ninexhaustible fountain! \"Drop millions of gold,\" says good Bishop\nHopkins, \"boundless revenues, ample territories, crowns and sceptres,\nand a poor contemptible worm lays his _One God_ against them\nall.\"[107] \"_Our_ all,\" says Lady Powerscourt, \"is but two mites (soul\nand body). _His_ all--Heaven, Earth, Eternity, Himself.\" We have said\nin a previous chapter that the loftiest archangel can tell of no\nmightier prerogative than looking up to the Great Being before whom he\ncasts his crown, and saying, \"My God!\" WE can utter them in a sense\nhigher than he. He is OUR God _in Christ_. The words to us are written\n(which to the unredeemed angels they are not) in the blood of\natonement! Imagine, for a moment, a conversation between a bright\nangel in heaven and a ransomed sinner from earth. The angel can point\nto a past eternity; he can tell of a glorious pedigree; he can point\nup to his Almighty Maker, and say, \"He has been _my God_ for ages and\nages past. I have been kept, supported, gladdened by His amazing\nmercy, long before the birth of time or your world!\" \"True,\" we may\nimagine the redeemed and glorified sinner to reply,--\"but I can tell\nof something more wondrous still. He is _my God in covenant_! Thou art\nHis by _creation_, but I am His also by _adoption_, _filiation_,\n_sonship_. Though grace has kept thee through these countless ages,\nduring which thou hast cast thy crown at His feet, what is the grace\nmanifested to _thee_, in comparison with the grace manifested to _me_?\nGrace made thee holy, and kept thee holy; but grace found me on the\nbrink of despair, plucked me as a brand from the burning, brought me\nfrom the depths of woe and degradation, to a throne and a crown!\n_Thy_ God hath loved thee. _My_ God hath 'loved _me_' and GIVEN\nHIMSELF _for me_!\"\n\n  [107] \"Were it not for this word of possession, the devil might\n  say the Creed to as good purpose as we. He believes there is a God\n  and Christ, but that which torments him is this--he can say '_my_'\n  to never an article of faith.\"--_Sibbs._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now we close our meditations on this beautiful and instructive\nPsalm:--a Psalm which, even since we have begun to write on it, we\nhave seen clung to as a treasured solace in hours of sickness;--its\nsublime utterances soothing the departing soul, just as it was pluming\nits wings for flight to the spirit-world! Reader! in any future dark\nand troubled passages in your life, you may well with comfort turn to\nthis _diary_ of an old and tried saint, remembering that it records\nthe experiences of \"the man after God's own heart.\" Tracing _his_\nfootsteps and tear-drops along \"the sands of time,\" you shall cease to\n\"think it strange concerning the fiery trials that may be trying you,\nas though some strange thing happened.\" You will find that \"the same\nafflictions are accomplished in you,\" which have been \"accomplished\"\nin the case of God's most favoured servants in every age of the\nChurch. Do not expect now the _un_clouded day. That is not for earth,\nbut for heaven. God indeed, had He seen meet, might have ordained that\nyour pathway was to be without cloud or darkness, trial or tear;--no\npoisoned darts, no taunts, no contumely, no cross, no \"deep calling to\ndeep,\"--nothing but calm seas unfretted by a ripple, sunny slopes and\nverdant valleys, and bright Mizar-hills of love and faithfulness! But\nto keep you humble,--to teach you your dependence on Himself,--to make\nyour present existence a state of discipline and probation, He has\nordered it otherwise. Your journey as travellers is through mist and\ncloud-land;--your voyage as seamen through alternate calm and\nstorm.[108] And much of that discipline, too, is mysterious. You\ncannot discern its \"why\" and \"wherefore.\" To employ a former symbol,\nyou are now like the vessel building in the dock-yard. The unskilled\nand uninitiated can _hear_ nothing but clanging hammers;--they can see\nnothing but unshapely timbers and glare of torches. It is a scene of\ndin and noise, dust and confusion. But all will at last be\nacknowledged as needed portions in the spiritual workmanship;--when\nthe soul, released from its earthly fastenings, is launched on the\nsummer seas of eternity--\n\n    \"Give to the winds thy fears,\n      Hope and be undismay'd.\n    God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,\n      God shall lift up thy head:\n    Through waves, and clouds, and storms,\n      He gently clears the way;\n    Wait thou His time--so shall this night\n      Soon end in joyous day.\"[109]\n\n  [108] \"Sometimes I can rejoice in the Mount with my Redeemer.\n  Sometimes I lie in the Valley, dead, barren, unprofitable.... I am\n  frequently wounded in the battle. Blessed be God that the\n  Physician, the Castle, and the Fortress, are ever at\n  hand.\"--_Bickersteth's Life._\n\n  [109] \"David might have gone a thousand times to the tabernacle\n  and never found a thousandth part of the blessing he found in this\n  wilderness. It was in the absence of all that was dear to him as\n  man, he found his special solace in God.\"--_Harington Evans._\n\nAbove all, let this Psalm teach you that your _spiritual_ interests\nare in safe keeping. No wounded Hart seeking the water-brooks ever\nsought them in vain. When drooping, downcast, disconsolate yourself,\nremember \"God is faithful.\" \"He cannot deny Himself.\" \"_He satisfieth\nthe longing soul with goodness._\" None is \"able to pluck you out of\nHis hand.\" There may be fluctuations--ebbings and flowings--in the\ntides of the soul; but \"_He that hath begun a good work in you, will\ncarry it on until the day of the Lord Jesus._\" You may reach the\nheavenly fold with bleating cries,--with torn fleece and bleeding\nfeet;--but you _will_ reach it, if you have learned to sing, \"_The\nLord is my shepherd!_\" You may reach the water-brooks with languid eye\nand panting sides;--but you _will_ reach them, if you can truthfully\nsay, \"_My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God!_\" You may begin\nyour song in the minor-key, but if \"MY GOD\" be its key-note, you will\nfinish it with the angels and among ministering seraphim!\n\nGo then, Christians! and, as you see what FAITH, and HOPE, and PRAYER\ndid for the Exile of Gilead, try what they can and _will_ do for\n_you_. With all your varied trials, with all your manifold sorrowful\nexperiences, who, after all (this Psalm seems to say) so favoured as\n_you_? Who possess your present exalted privileges?--who your\nelevating hopes?--the consciousness, even in your trials, that each\nbillow is wafting you nearer the haven of eternal rest? \"_These see\nthe works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth,\nand raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They\nmount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul\nis melted because of trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their\ntrouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the\nstorm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad\nbecause they be quiet_; SO HE BRINGETH THEM UNTO THEIR DESIRED HAVEN!\"\n\n    \"Soul, then know thy full salvation,\n      Rise o'er sin, and fear, and care,\n    Joy to find in every station\n      Something still to do or bear.\n    Think what Spirit dwells within thee,\n      Think what Father's smiles are thine,\n    Think that Jesus died to save thee--\n      Child of heaven! canst thou repine?\n\n    \"Haste thee on from grace to glory--\n      Arm'd by FAITH and wing'd by PRAYER;\n    Heaven's eternal days before thee,\n      God's own hand shall guide thee there!\n    Soon shall close thy earthly mission,\n      Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days;\n    HOPE shall change to glad fruition,\n      FAITH to sight, and PRAYER to praise!\"\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\nBALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.\n\n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR.\n\n\nMEMORIES OF GENNESARET.\n\nPost 8vo, 6s. 6d. cloth. Seventh Edition.\n\n\nMEMORIES OF BETHANY.\n\nCrown 8vo, 3s. 6d. cloth. Twelfth Thousand.\n\n\nSTORY OF BETHLEHEM.\n\nWith Illustrations by THOMAS.\n\nCrown 8vo, 5s. cloth antique, gilt edges.\n\nFifth Thousand.\n\n\nFOOTSTEPS OF ST PAUL.\n\nCrown 8vo, 5s. cloth. Fourteenth Thousand.\n\n\nALTAR STONES;\n\nORIGINAL HYMNS FOR PLAIN READERS.\n\n6d. sewed, 8d. cloth.\n\n\nTHE BOW IN THE CLOUD;\n\nOR, WORDS OF COMFORT FOR HOURS OF SORROW.\n\nRoyal 32mo, 8d. sewed, 1s. cloth. Twenty-fifth Thousand.\n\n\nA VOLUME OF FAMILY PRAYERS.\n\nCrown 8vo, 3s. 6d. cloth. Sixth Edition.\n\n\nTHE MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES.\n\nIn one vol., 1s. 6d. cloth, royal 32mo. Separately, 8d. sewed, 1s.\ncloth; also in large type, crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. cloth. Hundredth\nThousand.\n\n\nEVENING INCENSE.\n\nA Companion to \"Morning Watches.\"\n\nRoyal 32mo, 8d. sewed, 1s. cloth.\n\n\nTHE MIND AND WORDS OF JESUS.\n\nIn one vol., 1s. 6d. cloth, royal 32mo. Separately, 8d. sewed, 1s.\ncloth.\n\n\nMORNING WATCHES AND EVENING INCENSE.\n\nBound together, 32mo, 1s. 6d. cloth.\n\n\nTHE FIRST BEREAVEMENT;\n\nOR, WORDS ADDRESSED TO A MOURNER ON THE OCCASION OF A FIRST TRIAL.\n\n4d. sewed, 6d. cloth.\n\n\nTHE SOLDIER'S TEXT-BOOK;\n\nOR, CONFIDENCE IN THE TIME OF WAR.\n\n64mo, 3d. sewed, 6d. cloth.\n\n\nWELLS OF BACA;\n\nOR, SOLACES OF THE CHRISTIAN MOURNER: AND OTHER THOUGHTS ON\nBEREAVEMENT.\n\n18mo, 1s cloth. Tenth Edition.\n\n\nTHE CHILD'S BOOK OF DIVINITY;\n\nOR, GRANDMAMMA'S STORIES ABOUT BIBLE DOCTRINES.\n\n18mo, 1s. cloth.\n\n\nTHE WOODCUTTER OF LEBANON.\n\nFcap., 2s. 6d. cloth.\n\n\nTHE EXILES OF LUCERNA;\n\nOR, THE SUFFERINGS OF THE WALDENSES DURING THE PERSECUTION OF 1686.\n\nFcap., 2s. 6d. cloth.\n\n\nTHE ROCK OF CASTELLO.\n\nSquare 16mo.\n\n\nLONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.","title":"The Hart and the Water-Brooks: a practical exposition of the forty-second Psalm.","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":44201}