IV.

"'Wilt thou leave me thus,' I cried,'Whelm'd beneath the rolling tide?'Ah! return and love me still;See me subject to Thy will;Frown with wrath, or smile with grace,Only let me see Thy face!Evil I have none to fear,All is good, ifThouart near.King, and Lord, whom I adore,Shall I see Thy face no more?"—Madame Guyon."There is a persecution sharper than that of the axe. There is an iron that goes into the heart deeper than the knife. Cruel sneers, and sarcasms, and pitiless judgments, and cold-hearted calumnies—these are persecution.""My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verse 3.IV.THE TAUNT.We are called, in this chapter, to contemplate a new experience—David in tears! These, his tears, brought sin to his remembrance. As, in looking through the powerful lens of a microscope, the apparently pellucid drop of water is found to be the swarming haunt of noxious things,—fierce animalculæ devouring one another; so the tears of the Exile formed a spiritual lens, enabling him to see into the depths of his own soul, and disclosing, with microscopic power, transgressions that had long been consigned to oblivion.Ten years of regal prosperity had elapsed since the prophet Nathan, the minister of retribution, stood before him, in his Cedar Palace, with heavy tidings regarding himself and his house. Time may have dimmed the impressions of that meeting. He may have vainly imagined, too, that ithad modified the Divine displeasure. Now that his head was white with sixty winters, he may have thought that God would exempt him from further merited chastisement, and suffer him to go down to his grave in peace. But the day of reckoning, which the Divine patience had long deferred, had now come. He was called to see the first gleamings of that sword which the anointed prophet had told him would "never depart from his house." (2 Sam. xii. 10.) The voice of long averted judgment is at last heard amid the thickets and caves of Gilead,—"These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." (Ps. l. 21.) Nature, in her august solitudes, echoed the verdict! The waters murmured it—the winds chanted it—the forest wailed it—the thunders rolled it—and the tears of the lonely Exile himself wept it,—"Be sure your sin will find you out!" As he sat by the willows of Jordan, with his crownless head and aching heart, he could say, in the words of an older Psalmist, "We are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled. Thou has set our iniquitiesbefore Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance." (Ps. xc. 7, 8.)How apt are we to entertain the thought that God will wink at sin; that He will not be rigidly faithful to His denunciations—unswervingly true to His word. Time's oblivion-power succeeds in erasing much from the tablets ofourmemories. We measure the Infinite by the standard of the finite, and imagine something of the same kind regarding the Great Heart-Searcher. Sin, moreover, seldom is, in this world,instantaneouslyfollowed with punishment; "sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily;" and the long-suffering patience and forbearance of the Almighty is presumptuously construed by perverse natures into alteration or fickleness in the Divine purpose. But "God is not a man that He should lie!" Even in this our present probation state, (oftener than we suppose,) the time arrives for solemn retribution; when He makes bare His arm to demonstrate by what an inseparable law in His moral government He has connectedsinwithsuffering.A new missile pierces this panting, wounded Hart on the mountains of Israel.Oneof those whohurled the Javelin is specially mentioned in the sacred narrative. His poisoned dart must have been rankling in David's soul when he penned this Psalm.When the King was descending the eastern slopes ofOlivet, on his way to the Valley of Jordan, Shimei a Benjamite of Bahurim, of the house of Saul, came out against him, "and," we read, "cursed still as he came. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of King David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial: the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. And as David and his men went by the way, Shimei went along on the hill's side over against him, and cursed him as he went, and threw stones at him, and cast dust." (2 Sam. xvi 5-8, 13.) Besides this son of Gera, there were many obsequious flatterers and sycophants at Jerusalem—men once hiscringing adherents, loud with their hosannahs in the time of his prosperity—who had now turned against him in his adversity, and become the partisans of the usurper. They exulted over his downfall, and followed him to the place of exile with the taunting cry, "Where is now thy God?" "Mine enemies," said he, "speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying,Godhath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him." (Ps. lxxi. 10, 11.)There is no trial keener, no anguish of soul intenser than this. Let not any talk of taunt and ridicule being a trivial and insignificant thing—unworthy of thought. Let not any say that the believer, entrenched in a lordly castle—the very fortress of God—should be above the shafts hurled from the bow of envy, or the venomous arrows from the tongue of the scoffer. It is oftenbecausethe taunt is contemptible that it is hardest to bear. The sting of the adder rouses into fury the lordly lion. The tiniest insect blanches the colour of the loveliest flower, and causes it to hang its pining head. Sorrow is in itself difficult of endurance, but bitter is the aggravation when others are ready tomake a jest of our sorrows.No wateris bad enough to the fainting pilgrim, but worse is it when he is mocked by the mirage or bitter pool.All the more poignant, too, were these taunts in the case of David, because too well did he know that such reproaches were merited,—that he himself had furnished his enemies with the gall and the wormwood that had been mingled in his cup. The dark, foul blots of his past life, he had too good reason to fear, were now emboldening them to blaspheme. He had for years been "the Sweet Singer of Israel;"—his future destiny was the Psalmist of the universal Church. His sublime appeals, and fervent prayers, and holy musings, were to support, and console, and sustain till the end of time. Millions on millions, on beds of pain, and in hours of solitude and times of bereavement, were to have their faith elevated, their hopes revived, their love warmed and strengthened by listening to the harp of the Minstrel King. And now, as his faith begins to languish, now as a temporary wave of temptation sweeps him from his footing on the Rock, and the "Beloved of God" wanders an exile and outcast,—a shout is raised by those who were strangers to allhis sublime sources of consolation—"Where is now thy God?Where is He whom thou hast sung of as the help of the godly, the refuge of the distressed? Where, uncrowned one! is the answer to thy prayers? Where is He of whom thou didst boast as being known in all thy Zion palaces as a refuge? Thou hast taught others and taught thyself to believe a lie. O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou fallen!"For the moment, this crushing sarcasm can be answered by nothing but a flood of anguished tears. He was below the wave; and though he was soon to know that below that wave there was an Arm lower still, yet for the present he was dumb under the averment. There was no light in the cloud. He was unable to lay hold of a former comforting experience—"Thouhast known my soul in adversities." (Ps. xxxi. 7.)Oh, how jealous we should be of anything that would reduce us so low as this, and give a handle to the adversary! Beware of religious inconsistency.Onefatal step, one unguardedwordmay undo a lifetime of hallowed influence. One scar on the character, one blot on the page of the living epistleis indelible. It may be washed away, indeed, by the blood of sprinkling, so that nothing of it will remain against you in the book of God; but the eye and memory of the world, keen to watch and treasure the inconsistencies of God's people, will not so easily forgive or forget! The Hart laid itself open to the toils of the huntsman. It was hit by the archers. One fierce dart of temptation sped with unerring aim. It has left the track of blood behind it in the glades of the forest—the unbelieving world hounds in remorseless pursuit, and the taunting cry will follow to the grave!Are there any who feel that the experience of David is their own,—who either by reason of religious inconsistency or religious declension have laid themselves open to the upbraiding question, "Where is thy God?"—Perhapsreligious declensionis the more common of the two. You are not, as we have surmised in a previous chapter, what once you were. You have not the same love of the Saviour as once you had—the same confidence in His dealings—the same trust in His faithfulness—the same zeal for His glory. Affliction, when it comes, does not lead you, as once it did, to cheerful acquiescence—to thecherishing of a meek, unmurmuring submissive spirit under God's sovereign will and discipline, but rather to a hasty, misgiving frame—fretting and repining when you should be prostrate at the mercy-seat, saying, "The will of the Lord be done!"Not in scorn, but in sober seriousness, in Christian affection and fidelity, we ask, "Where is now thy God?" "Yedidrun well; who hath hindered you?" What is the guilty cause, the lurking evil, that has dragged you imperceptibly down from weakness to weakness, and has left you a poor, baffled thing, with the finger of irreligious scorn pointed at you, and whose truthfulness is echoed back from the lonely voids of your desolate heart? Return, O backsliding children! Remain no longer as you are, at this guilty distance from that God who, amid all the fitfulness of your love toHim, remains unaltered and unalterable in His love toyou. Be not absorbed in tears, ringing your hands in moping melancholy—abandoning yourself to unavailing remorse and despair. The past may be bad enough! You may have done foul dishonour to your God. By some sad and fatal inconsistency, you may have given occasion to the ungodly to pointat you the finger of scorn. The fair alabaster pillar may be stained with some crimson transgression. Or if there be no special blot to which they can point, there may be a lamentable spiritual deterioration in your daily walk. They may have observed your love to God waxing cold—your love of the world waxing strong. They may have heard you murmur at your Lord's dealings, question His faithfulness, and refuse to hear and to bear the rod—manifesting tempers, or indulging in pursuits sadly and strangely unlike what would be sanctioned by the example of your Divine Redeemer. Up! and with determined energy resolve henceforth to repair the breach,—henceforth to make a new start in the heavenly life. The shrill trumpet sounds—"Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life!" We cannot say, like the King of Nineveh, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent?"Hehas never turned!Youhave turned from Him, not He fromyou. "Where is now thy God?" He is the same as ever He was;—boundless in His compassion—true to His covenant—faithful to His promises; "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever!"Reader! if He be afflicting you as He did David;—if with an exile spirit you be roaming some moral wilderness, the flowers of earth faded on your path, and the bleak winds of desolation and calamity sweeping and sighing around, let these times of affliction lead to deep searchings of heart. Let your tears be as the dewdrops of the morning on the tender leaves, causing you to bend in lowly sorrow and self-abasement, only to be raised again, refreshed, to inhale new fragrance in the summer sun. If, like the weeping woman of Galilee, you are saying, through blinding tears, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him," —if, like the Spouse in the Canticles, you are going about the city in search of your Beloved;—seeking Him, He will be found of you. The watchmen may smite you—repel you—tear off your veil—and load you with reproaches;—but "fear not! ye seek Jesus who was crucified!" He will meet you as He did the desponding Magdalene, and, listening like her to His own tones of ineffable love, you will cast yourself at His feet, and exclaim, "Rabboni—Master!"V.THE TAUNT."He wounds, and hides the hand that gave the blow;He flies, He reappears, and wounds again;Was ever heart that loved thee treated so?Yet I adore Thee, though it seem in vain."—Cowper."Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."—Ps.lxix. 7, 8, 20."My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verse 3.V.THE TAUNT.The Great Accuser of the brethren in a variety of ways attempts to insinuate the same dark doubts in the minds of believers, which we have spoken of in the preceding pages. He tries to shake their confidence in God,—in the veracity of His word, and the faithfulness of His dealings. He would lead them to discover in His providential dispensations what is inconsistent with His revealed character and will. In seasons particularly of outward calamity and trouble, when the body is racked with pain, its nerves unstrung, or its affections blighted and wounded—when the mind is oppressed and harassed, the soul in darkness—the Prince of this world, who times his assaults with such consummate skill, not unfrequently gains in such seasons a temporary triumph. The shadow of a cold scepticism passes over the soul. It is silent under the cry, "Where is thy God?"Have any of you ever known this acutest anguish of the human spirit,—those appalling moments of doubt, when for a moment the whole citadel of truth seems to rock to its foundations,—when the soul becomes a dungeon with grated bars, or in which the light of heaven is transmitted through distorted glass, and the finger of unbelief is pointed inwards, with the old sneer, "Where is the God you were wont to boast of in your day of prosperity? Where is there evidence that one prayer you ever offered has been heard—one blessing you ever supplicated been granted—one evil you ever deprecated been averted or removed? Where one evidence of His hand in your allotments in life? These heavens have never broken silence! Hundreds of years have elapsed since His voice was last heard. Moreover, you have only some old parchment leaves written by converted Pharisees and Galilean fishermen to tell that Deity ever gave audible utterances out of the thick darkness. May not His verybeingbe after all a fiction, a delusion—His Bible a worn-out figment which superstition and priestcraft have successfully palmed upon the world? Or if you do believe in a God and in a written revelation, have you not good reason, atall events, to infer from His adverse dealings that He cares nothing foryou. He has proved Himself deaf to your cries. Where is the mercy in such an affliction as yours? He has crossed your every scheme, blasted your fairest gourds. His appointments are surely arbitrary. He takes useful lives, and leaves useless ones. He takes the wheat, and leaves the chaff. The chairs he empties are those of the kind and good, the loving and beloved. He leaves the wicked, and proud, and selfish, and profligate. Can there be a God on the earth? Where is the justice and judgment which are 'the habitation of His throne'—where the 'mercy and the truth' that are said to 'go before His face?'"Such, you may say, are awful imaginations—too awful to speak of. But such there are! It is the horror of great darkness—spirits from the abyss sent to trouble the pools of ungodly thought, and stir them from their depths.Ye who are thus assaulted, do you ever think, in the midst of these horrible insinuations, ofOnewho had to bear the same? Think of that challenge which wrung a spotless human soul in the hour of its deepest anguish—"He trusted on the Lord that Hewould deliver him: let Him deliver him, seeing he delighted in Him." (Ps. xxii. 8.) It was the same taunt inHiscase as in yours! It was the cruel, poignant sneer, that He had, during all his lifetime of confiding filial love, been trusting to a falsehood,—that if God had really been His Father and He His Son, ten thousands of legions of angels would have been down now by the side of His cross to unbind His cords and set the Victim free!Let the merciful, the wondrous forbearance of Christ be a lesson to ourselves in the endurance of the taunts of a scornful world and of the Father of lies. How easily might He have resented and answered the challenge by a descent from the cross, by having the pierced feet and hands set free,—the crown of thorns replaced by a diadem of glory, scattering the scoffing crew like chaff before the whirlwind! But in meek, majestic silence the Lamb of God suffers Himself to be bound, the Victim gives no struggle. Let them scoff on! He will save others, Himself he will not save! Nor did all their scoffing, their taunts and ridicule, tend for a solitary moment to shake His confidence in His heavenly Father. These fell like spent spray on the Rock of Ages. Whenthe cup of trembling was in His hands, sinking humanity for the moment seemed to stagger. He breathed the prayer, "Let it pass from me." But immediately He added the condition of unswervingfilial trust, "Nevertheless, O my Father, not asIwill, but asThou wilt." Even in the crisis of all, when He was mourning the eclipse of that Father's countenance—in that last gasp of superhuman agony, He proclaims, in answer to the taunts of earth and hell, His unshaken trust, "My God, my God!"Comforting surely to the reviled, the ridiculed, and persecuted, that, severe and poignant as their sorrow is, they are undergoing only what their Lord and Master, in an inconceivably more awful form, experienced before them! Yes! think how He had to encounter the ingratitude of faithless, the treachery of trusted friends. The limbs He healed brought no succour—the tongues He unloosed lisped no accents of compassion—the eyes He unsealed gave no looks of love. Those lips that spake as never man spake, dropping wherever they went balm-words of mercy, now in vain make the appeal to the scoffing crowd, "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me!"Oh, when in deeper than the water-floods of Gilead, this woundedHartof Heaven lay panting and bleeding under the curse,—when arrow after arrow was poured upon Him from the shafts of men, and the bitter cry resounded in His dying ears,Where is thy God?—how did He answer? what was His response? Listen to the apostle's sublime comment on that scene of blended love and suffering—"Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, Hethreatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously."As the face, the hidden face of God, beamed upon the Son of His love in the midst of that apparent desolation, so will it be, children of affliction and sorrow! with you. Others may see in your tears nothing but an indication of the desertion of God,—the visitations of His wrath and judgment. But believe it, these very experiences of trouble and calamity, of bereavement or death, are all meted out and apportioned for you in love—drop by drop, tear by tear. Seek to see God's hand in all that befalls you. Try, even in the most adverse providences, to rise above second causes. Be it with you as with David in his conduct towards Shimei. When theinsulting Benjamite was hurling these cruel taunts against the exiled King and the sorrowing Father,—when his incensed soldiers, burning with indignation, were on the point of drawing their swords and inflicting summary vengeance on the scoffer—"Why should this dead dog," said Abishai, "curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head"—David's reply is, "Nay! I hear not that man's voice—I see not that man's face—my eye is above the human instrument, on the God who sent him—'Let him curse on, for the Lord hath bidden him.'" (2 Sam xvi. 11.)Trust God in the dark. Ah! it is easy for us to follow Him and to trust Him in sunshine. It is easy to follow our Leader as Israel did the pillar-cloud, when a glorious pathway was opened up for them through the tongue of the Red Sea—when they pitched under shady palms and gushing fountains, and heaven rained down bread on the hungry camp. But it is not so easy to follow when fountains fail and the pillar ceases to guide, and all outward and visible supports are withdrawn. Butthenis the time for faith to rise to the ascendant;—when the world is loud with its atheist sneer,THENis the time to manifest a simple, child-like trust; and, amid baffling dispensations and frowning providences, to exclaim, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!"Yes—"troubled, we areNOTdistressed;perplexed, we areNOTindespair;persecuted, we areNOTforsaken;cast down, we areNOTdestroyed." WeAREready, scoffing world! to answer the question,Where is thy God?Child of Sickness!bound down for years on that lonely pillow!—the night-lamp thy companion—disease wasting thy cheeks and furrowing thy brow—weary days and nights appointed thee—tell me,Where is thy God?He is here, is the reply; His presence takes loneliness from my chamber and sadness from my countenance. His promises are a pillow for my aching head,—they point me onwards to that better land where "the inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick!"Child of Poverty!Where is thy God?Can He visit this rude dwelling? Can God's promises be hung on these broken rafters? Can the light of His word illumine that cheerless hearth and sustain that bent figure shivering over its mouldering ashes?Yes! He is here. The lips of Truth that uttered the beatitude, "Blessed be ye poor," have not spoken in vain. Bound down by chill penury—forsaken and forgotten in old age—no footstep of mercy heard on my gloomy threshold—no lip of man to drop the kindly word—no hand of succour to replenish the empty cupboard—that God above has not deserted me. He has led me to seek and lay up my treasure in a home where want cannot enter, and where the beggar's hovel is transformed into the kingly mansion!Bereaved One!Where is thy God?Where is the arm of Omnipotence thou wast wont to lean upon? HasHeforgotten to be gracious? Has He mocked thy prayers, by trampling in the dust thy dearest and best, and left thee to pine and agonise in the bitterness of thy swept heart and home? Nay, He ishere! He has swept down my fondest idol, but it was in order that He himself might occupy the vacant seat. I know Him too well to question the faithfulness of His word, and the fidelity of His dealings. I have never known what a God He was, till this hour of bitter trial overtook me! There was a "need be" in every tear—every death-bed—every grave!Dying Man!the billows are around thee—the world is receding—the herald symptoms of approaching dissolution are gathering fast around thy pillow—the soul is pluming its wings for the immortal flight; ere memory begins to fade, and the mind becomes a waste,—ere the names of friends, when mentioned, will only be answered by a dull, vacant look, and then the hush of awful silence,—tell me, ere the last lingering ray of consciousness and thought has vanished,Where is thy God?He is here! I feel the everlasting arms underneath and round about me. Heart and flesh are failing. The mists of death are dimming my eyes to the things below, but they are opening on the magnificent vistas of eternity.YonderHe is! seated amid armies of angels. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God!" "This God shall be my God for ever and ever!"VI.Sabbath Memories."Dear is the Sabbath morn to me,When village bells awake the day,And with their holy minstrelsyCall me from earthly cares away."And dear to me the winged hour,Spent in thy hallow'd courts, O Lord,To feel devotion's soothing power,And catch the manna of Thy Word."And dear to me the loud 'Amen,'That echoes through the blest abode—That swells, and sinks, and swells again,Dies on the ear—but lives to God."Oft when the world, with iron hand,Has bound me in its six days' chain,This bursts them, like a strong man's band,And bade my spirit live again.""And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and shew me both it, and his habitation."—2 Sam.xv. 25."When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day."—Verse 4.VI.SABBATH MEMORIES.We always commiserate those who have seen better days. Poverty, indeed, under any form, appeals with irresistible power to the sympathies of our better nature. The most heartless and indifferent cannot refuse the tribute of pity to the ragged beggar shivering on the street, or seated in his hovel by the ashes of a spent fire, brooding over a wretched past, with the grim spectral forms of want hovering over a miserable future.Sad, however, as the condition of such may be, habit, in one sense, may have become to that squalid pauper a second nature. He may never have known a more prosperous state. He may have been inured from his earliest years to buffet life's wintry storm. Chill penury may have rocked his cradle, and ever since sung her rude lullaby over his pallet of straw. Far more is to be pitied the case of those who have sunk from comfort into indigence, around whoseearly home no bleak winds of adversity ever blew, who were once pillowed in the lap of plenty if not of luxury, but who, by some sudden wave of calamity, have become wrecks on life's desert shore. If there be one being on God's earth more to be pitied than another, it is the mother of a once joyous home, turned adrift, in the hour of her widowhood, with her ragged children;—forced to sing, from door to door, to escape the jaws of hungry famine,—ill disguising, under her heap of squalid rags or her trembling notes of sorrow and despair, the story of brighter days.Similar is the commiseration we extend (let the shores of this Refuge Island of ours bear testimony) to the hapless patriot or the fallen monarch. These may have been hurled from positions of influence or pinnacles of glory more by their crimes than by their misfortunes. The revolutionary wave that swept them from their country or their thrones may have been a just retribution for misrule; but it is their hour of adversity! They have seen better and more auspicious times. Pity for the fallen knocks, and never knocks in vain, at the heart of a great nation's sympathies.Such was David's position at this time: Denied the sympathy of others, his own soul is filled with recollections of a far different past. The monarch of Israel, the beloved of God, the idol of his people; now a fugitive from his capital—his palace sacked—his crown dishonoured—wandering in ignoble exile—a wreck of vanished glory!But it is not these features of his humiliating fall on which his mind mainly dwells. It is not the thought of his sceptre wrested from his grasp—his army in mutiny—his royal residence a den of traitors—that fills his soul with most poignant sorrow. He is an exile from the House of God! The joy of his old Sabbaths is for the time suspended and forfeited. No more is the sound of silver trumpets heard summoning the tribes to the new moons and solemn feast-days! No more does he behold, in thought, the slopes of Olivet studded with pilgrim tents or made vocal with "songs in the night!" No more does he see the triumphant procession wending up the hill of Zion—timbrel and pipe and lute and voice celebrating in glad accord the high praises of God;—"the singers in front, and the players on instruments behind,"—he himself, harp in hand, (thetrue father of his people,) leading the jubilant chorus, and Jehovah commanding upon all "the blessing, even life for evermore!"How changed! To this Sabbath-loving and Sabbath-keeping King nothing but the memory of these remained. "When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day."Jerusalem was the pride and glory of the Jew. Wherever he went, he turned to it as to his best and fondest home. The windows of Daniel's chamber were "opentowards Jerusalem." With his eye in the direction of the holy city, "he kneeled upon his knees three times a-day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." (Dan. vi. 10.) Jonah was in the strangest of prisons. "The depths closed round about him, the weeds were wrapped about his head, and the earth with its iron bars." From "the belly of hell" he sent up his cry to God. "I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look againtoward thyHOLY TEMPLE." (Jonah ii. 2.) Captive Israel are seated, in mute despondency, bythe willowed banks of the streams of Babylon. The Euphrates (an ocean river compared with the tiny streams of Palestine) rolled past them. The city of the hundred gates rose, like a dream of giant glory, before their view, with its colossal walls, and towers, and hanging gardens. Yet what were they in the eyes of these exile spectators?Shadowsof greatness in comparison with the city and temple of their fathers amid the hills of Judah! When their oppressors demanded of them a Hebrew melody, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion," they answered, through hot tears of sorrowful remembrance, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Ps. cxxxvii. 4.) So it was with David now. As a bird taken from its home in the forest and placed in a cage, refuses to warble a joyous note—beats its plumage against the enclosing bars, and struggles to get free,—so he seems to long for wings that he may flee away to the hallowed eaves of the sanctuary, and be at rest!He himself, indeed, uses a similar figure. He tells us, in another Psalm, written on this same occasion, that so blessed did he feel those to be who enjoyed the privilege of "dwelling in God's house," and soardent was his longing to participate in their joy, that he half-envied the swallows who constructed their nests upon its roof. (Ps. lxxxiv.) He was not without his solaces in this season of reverse and calamity. He had many faithful adherents still clinging to him in his adversity. The best and bravest chieftains from the tribes on the other side of the Jordan supplied his drooping followers with the produce of their rich pasture lands. "Shobi of Ammon, and Machir of Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite"—these brought, besides camp utensils, "wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentiles, and parched pulse, and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness." (2 Sam. xvii. 27-29.) Glorious, too, was Nature's temple around him. Its pillars the mountains—the rocks its altar—the balmy air its incense—the range of Lebanon, rising like a holy of holies, with its reverend curtain of mist and cloud, and snowy Hermon towering in solemn grandeur above all, as the very throne of God! Yet what were these compared withJerusalem, the place of sacrifice, theresting-place of the Shekinah-glory, the city of solemnities, "whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord?" (Ps. cxxii. 4.) This wounded Hart pants for the water-brooks of Zion; Nature's outer sanctuary had no glory to him, "by reason of the glory that excelleth." The God who dwelleth between the cherubim had "chosen Zion, and desired it for His habitation," saying, "This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it." (Ps. cxxxii. 13, 14.) With the windows of his soul, like Daniel, thrown "opentowards Jerusalem," and his inner eye wistfully straining to its sunny heights, his ear catching the cadence of its festive throng, he seems to say, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." (Ps. cxxxvii. 5, 6.)Do we prize the blessing of our Sabbaths and our sanctuaries? can we say, with somewhat of the emphasis of this expatriated King—"Onething have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days ofmy life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple?" Alas! when we are living in the enjoyment of blessings, too true it is that we have seldom a vivid sense of their value. He who is born in a free country, to whom slavery and oppression are strange words, seldom realises the priceless boon of liberty. But let him suddenly be made the victim of tyrant thraldom; let him feel the irons loading his body, or the worse than material shackles fettering liberty of thought and action, and how will the strains of freedom fall like heavenly music on his ear! When we are in the enjoyment of health and strength, how little do we prize the boon. But let us be laid on a bed of languishing; let the sick lamp flicker for weeks by the sleepless pillow; let the frame be so shattered that even the light tread of loving footsteps across the room quickens the beat of the throbbing brow. In waking visions of these lonely night-watches, how does the day of elastic vigour and unbroken health rise before us! how do we reproach ourselves that the boon was so long ungratefully forgotten and unworthily requited! A parent little knows the strength of the tie which bindshim to his child during the brief loan of a loved existence. He gets habituated to the winning ways, and loving words, and constant companionship. He comes to regard that little life as part of himself. He does not fully realise the blessing, because he has never dreamt of the possibility of its removal. But when the startling blow comes,—when death, in an unexpected moment, has severed the tie,—when his eye lights on the empty chair or the unused toy,—when the joyous footfall and artless prattling are heard no more,—then comes he to gauge all the depth and intensity of his affection, and to feel how tenderly (too tenderly!) that idol was enshrined in his heart of hearts!So it is with religious privileges. In such a land as our own, in which, from our earliest infancy, we have been accustomed to a hallowed Sabbath, an open sanctuary, an unclasped and unforbidden Bible, we do not fully estimate the priceless value of the spiritual blessings bequeathed to us, because never have we felt the loss or the want of them. But go to some land of heathenism, where the exiled child of a British Christian home finds neither minister nor House of God. Go to the thousands who have betakenthemselves to a voluntary exile amid American forests or Australian pastures. Or go to the lands of apostate Christendom, where the Bible is a sealed book, and religious liberty is an empty name; where souls thirsting for the living stream are compelled to drink from some adulterated cistern. Alas! many in such circumstances are content to sink into a listless indifference; cold and lukewarm at home, they are too ready to lapse into the chill of spiritual death abroad. But there are others who have not so readily obliterated the holiest records of the past. Ask many tired and jaded emigrants, conscious of nobler aspirations than this world can meet, what recollections, more hallowed than others, linger on their spirits? They will tell you it is the memory of the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath sanctuary; when, at the summons of the village bell, mountain and glen and hamlet poured forth their multitudes to the house of God; seated wherein, the burdens and anxieties, the cares and disquietudes of the work-day world were hushed and set aside, and in listening to the words of everlasting life, sorrows were soothed, faith was revived, and hope brightened. "O God," their cry is, "our flesh longeth for Thee in adry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see Thy power and Thy glory, so as we have seen Thee in the sanctuary."[21]Let us seek to prize our means of grace while we have them. In a country which is the reputed palladium of liberty;—where the greatest of all liberty, the liberty of the truth, has been purchased by the blood of our fathers,—the time, we trust, with God's help, may never come when these bulwarks will be overthrown—when our sanctuaries will be closed—our Bibles proscribed—our Sabbaths blotted from the statute-book—and bigotry, in league with rampant infidelity, again forge the chain and rear the dungeon. But remember, that protracted sickness or disease may at any time overtake us, and debar us from the precious blessings of thepublicsanctuary. Yes! I say thepublicsanctuary. God's appointed ordinances can never be superseded or rendered obsolete by human substitutes. Some may urge that books now-a-days are better than any preaching;—that the press is more potent and eloquent than any living voice. But church or pulpit is not a thing of man's device.It is a divine institute. The speaker is anambassadorin his Master's name, charged with a vast mission from the court of high heaven, and the House of God is the appointed audience-chamber. God does not, indeed, (nay, far from it,) forsake "the dwellings of Jacob." The lowliest cottage-home may become aBethel, with a ladder of love set between earth and heaven, traversed by ministering angels! The secluded sick-chamber may become aPatmos, bright with manifestations of the Redeemer's presence and grace! But, nevertheless, "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary." The promise remains, "I will make my people joyful in myhouse of prayer." It is the solemn "trysting-place"—the pledged ground of covenant intercommunion. "ThereI will meet with thee, and commune with thee from off my mercy-seat!" "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion!" "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!"[22]Reader, let me ask, How stands it with you? Are you conscious of a reverential regard and attachment to God's holy place? Does the return of the Sabbath awake in your heart the old melody of thissweet singer of Israel,—"This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it?"[23]Do you go to the solemn assembly, not to hear themessengerbut themessage;—not to pay homage to a piece of dust, (the vilest and most degraded form of idolatry,) but feeling yourself a beggar in the sight of God, with a soul to save, and an eternity to provide for? Do you approach it as theplace of prayer, over which the cloud hovers laden with spiritual blessings? Do you go to it as "the house of God," seeking fellowship and communion with the Father of spirits; desiring that all its services—its devotions, and praises, and exhortations—may become hallowed magnets, drawing you nearer and binding you closer to the mercy-seat? Oh, let not the boon of Sabbath privileges degenerate into an empty form, the mere pageant of custom. Let the Sabbath hours be sacredly kept. Let their lessons be sacredly treasured. Let their close find you a Sabbath-day's journey nearer heaven. Let their hallowed fragrance follow you through the week. Let them be landmarks in the pilgrimage; towering behind you the further you go—like Alp piled on Alp, flushedwith roseate light, guiding and cheering you when low down in the valleys of trial and sorrow, and when called to descend the last and gloomiest Valley of all.David is mourning, in the words which have given rise to these thoughts, over his altered Sabbath joys. It may be there are some reading these pages, who, though they know nothing like him of literal exile and banishment from the sanctuary, may yet be able painfully to participate in his feelings! They are seated, Sabbath after Sabbath, in their pews; their Bibles are in their hands—the living words of the preacher are sounding in their ears; but their experience may be best interpreted by the language of the Christian poet:—

"'Wilt thou leave me thus,' I cried,'Whelm'd beneath the rolling tide?'Ah! return and love me still;See me subject to Thy will;Frown with wrath, or smile with grace,Only let me see Thy face!Evil I have none to fear,All is good, ifThouart near.King, and Lord, whom I adore,Shall I see Thy face no more?"—Madame Guyon.

"'Wilt thou leave me thus,' I cried,'Whelm'd beneath the rolling tide?'Ah! return and love me still;See me subject to Thy will;Frown with wrath, or smile with grace,Only let me see Thy face!Evil I have none to fear,All is good, ifThouart near.King, and Lord, whom I adore,Shall I see Thy face no more?"—Madame Guyon.

"'Wilt thou leave me thus,' I cried,

'Whelm'd beneath the rolling tide?'

Ah! return and love me still;

See me subject to Thy will;

Frown with wrath, or smile with grace,

Only let me see Thy face!

Evil I have none to fear,

All is good, ifThouart near.

King, and Lord, whom I adore,

Shall I see Thy face no more?"

—Madame Guyon.

"There is a persecution sharper than that of the axe. There is an iron that goes into the heart deeper than the knife. Cruel sneers, and sarcasms, and pitiless judgments, and cold-hearted calumnies—these are persecution.""My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verse 3.

"There is a persecution sharper than that of the axe. There is an iron that goes into the heart deeper than the knife. Cruel sneers, and sarcasms, and pitiless judgments, and cold-hearted calumnies—these are persecution."

"My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verse 3.

We are called, in this chapter, to contemplate a new experience—David in tears! These, his tears, brought sin to his remembrance. As, in looking through the powerful lens of a microscope, the apparently pellucid drop of water is found to be the swarming haunt of noxious things,—fierce animalculæ devouring one another; so the tears of the Exile formed a spiritual lens, enabling him to see into the depths of his own soul, and disclosing, with microscopic power, transgressions that had long been consigned to oblivion.

Ten years of regal prosperity had elapsed since the prophet Nathan, the minister of retribution, stood before him, in his Cedar Palace, with heavy tidings regarding himself and his house. Time may have dimmed the impressions of that meeting. He may have vainly imagined, too, that ithad modified the Divine displeasure. Now that his head was white with sixty winters, he may have thought that God would exempt him from further merited chastisement, and suffer him to go down to his grave in peace. But the day of reckoning, which the Divine patience had long deferred, had now come. He was called to see the first gleamings of that sword which the anointed prophet had told him would "never depart from his house." (2 Sam. xii. 10.) The voice of long averted judgment is at last heard amid the thickets and caves of Gilead,—"These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." (Ps. l. 21.) Nature, in her august solitudes, echoed the verdict! The waters murmured it—the winds chanted it—the forest wailed it—the thunders rolled it—and the tears of the lonely Exile himself wept it,—"Be sure your sin will find you out!" As he sat by the willows of Jordan, with his crownless head and aching heart, he could say, in the words of an older Psalmist, "We are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled. Thou has set our iniquitiesbefore Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance." (Ps. xc. 7, 8.)

How apt are we to entertain the thought that God will wink at sin; that He will not be rigidly faithful to His denunciations—unswervingly true to His word. Time's oblivion-power succeeds in erasing much from the tablets ofourmemories. We measure the Infinite by the standard of the finite, and imagine something of the same kind regarding the Great Heart-Searcher. Sin, moreover, seldom is, in this world,instantaneouslyfollowed with punishment; "sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily;" and the long-suffering patience and forbearance of the Almighty is presumptuously construed by perverse natures into alteration or fickleness in the Divine purpose. But "God is not a man that He should lie!" Even in this our present probation state, (oftener than we suppose,) the time arrives for solemn retribution; when He makes bare His arm to demonstrate by what an inseparable law in His moral government He has connectedsinwithsuffering.

A new missile pierces this panting, wounded Hart on the mountains of Israel.Oneof those whohurled the Javelin is specially mentioned in the sacred narrative. His poisoned dart must have been rankling in David's soul when he penned this Psalm.

When the King was descending the eastern slopes ofOlivet, on his way to the Valley of Jordan, Shimei a Benjamite of Bahurim, of the house of Saul, came out against him, "and," we read, "cursed still as he came. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of King David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial: the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. And as David and his men went by the way, Shimei went along on the hill's side over against him, and cursed him as he went, and threw stones at him, and cast dust." (2 Sam. xvi 5-8, 13.) Besides this son of Gera, there were many obsequious flatterers and sycophants at Jerusalem—men once hiscringing adherents, loud with their hosannahs in the time of his prosperity—who had now turned against him in his adversity, and become the partisans of the usurper. They exulted over his downfall, and followed him to the place of exile with the taunting cry, "Where is now thy God?" "Mine enemies," said he, "speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying,Godhath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him." (Ps. lxxi. 10, 11.)

There is no trial keener, no anguish of soul intenser than this. Let not any talk of taunt and ridicule being a trivial and insignificant thing—unworthy of thought. Let not any say that the believer, entrenched in a lordly castle—the very fortress of God—should be above the shafts hurled from the bow of envy, or the venomous arrows from the tongue of the scoffer. It is oftenbecausethe taunt is contemptible that it is hardest to bear. The sting of the adder rouses into fury the lordly lion. The tiniest insect blanches the colour of the loveliest flower, and causes it to hang its pining head. Sorrow is in itself difficult of endurance, but bitter is the aggravation when others are ready tomake a jest of our sorrows.No wateris bad enough to the fainting pilgrim, but worse is it when he is mocked by the mirage or bitter pool.

All the more poignant, too, were these taunts in the case of David, because too well did he know that such reproaches were merited,—that he himself had furnished his enemies with the gall and the wormwood that had been mingled in his cup. The dark, foul blots of his past life, he had too good reason to fear, were now emboldening them to blaspheme. He had for years been "the Sweet Singer of Israel;"—his future destiny was the Psalmist of the universal Church. His sublime appeals, and fervent prayers, and holy musings, were to support, and console, and sustain till the end of time. Millions on millions, on beds of pain, and in hours of solitude and times of bereavement, were to have their faith elevated, their hopes revived, their love warmed and strengthened by listening to the harp of the Minstrel King. And now, as his faith begins to languish, now as a temporary wave of temptation sweeps him from his footing on the Rock, and the "Beloved of God" wanders an exile and outcast,—a shout is raised by those who were strangers to allhis sublime sources of consolation—"Where is now thy God?Where is He whom thou hast sung of as the help of the godly, the refuge of the distressed? Where, uncrowned one! is the answer to thy prayers? Where is He of whom thou didst boast as being known in all thy Zion palaces as a refuge? Thou hast taught others and taught thyself to believe a lie. O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou fallen!"

For the moment, this crushing sarcasm can be answered by nothing but a flood of anguished tears. He was below the wave; and though he was soon to know that below that wave there was an Arm lower still, yet for the present he was dumb under the averment. There was no light in the cloud. He was unable to lay hold of a former comforting experience—"Thouhast known my soul in adversities." (Ps. xxxi. 7.)

Oh, how jealous we should be of anything that would reduce us so low as this, and give a handle to the adversary! Beware of religious inconsistency.Onefatal step, one unguardedwordmay undo a lifetime of hallowed influence. One scar on the character, one blot on the page of the living epistleis indelible. It may be washed away, indeed, by the blood of sprinkling, so that nothing of it will remain against you in the book of God; but the eye and memory of the world, keen to watch and treasure the inconsistencies of God's people, will not so easily forgive or forget! The Hart laid itself open to the toils of the huntsman. It was hit by the archers. One fierce dart of temptation sped with unerring aim. It has left the track of blood behind it in the glades of the forest—the unbelieving world hounds in remorseless pursuit, and the taunting cry will follow to the grave!

Are there any who feel that the experience of David is their own,—who either by reason of religious inconsistency or religious declension have laid themselves open to the upbraiding question, "Where is thy God?"—Perhapsreligious declensionis the more common of the two. You are not, as we have surmised in a previous chapter, what once you were. You have not the same love of the Saviour as once you had—the same confidence in His dealings—the same trust in His faithfulness—the same zeal for His glory. Affliction, when it comes, does not lead you, as once it did, to cheerful acquiescence—to thecherishing of a meek, unmurmuring submissive spirit under God's sovereign will and discipline, but rather to a hasty, misgiving frame—fretting and repining when you should be prostrate at the mercy-seat, saying, "The will of the Lord be done!"

Not in scorn, but in sober seriousness, in Christian affection and fidelity, we ask, "Where is now thy God?" "Yedidrun well; who hath hindered you?" What is the guilty cause, the lurking evil, that has dragged you imperceptibly down from weakness to weakness, and has left you a poor, baffled thing, with the finger of irreligious scorn pointed at you, and whose truthfulness is echoed back from the lonely voids of your desolate heart? Return, O backsliding children! Remain no longer as you are, at this guilty distance from that God who, amid all the fitfulness of your love toHim, remains unaltered and unalterable in His love toyou. Be not absorbed in tears, ringing your hands in moping melancholy—abandoning yourself to unavailing remorse and despair. The past may be bad enough! You may have done foul dishonour to your God. By some sad and fatal inconsistency, you may have given occasion to the ungodly to pointat you the finger of scorn. The fair alabaster pillar may be stained with some crimson transgression. Or if there be no special blot to which they can point, there may be a lamentable spiritual deterioration in your daily walk. They may have observed your love to God waxing cold—your love of the world waxing strong. They may have heard you murmur at your Lord's dealings, question His faithfulness, and refuse to hear and to bear the rod—manifesting tempers, or indulging in pursuits sadly and strangely unlike what would be sanctioned by the example of your Divine Redeemer. Up! and with determined energy resolve henceforth to repair the breach,—henceforth to make a new start in the heavenly life. The shrill trumpet sounds—"Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life!" We cannot say, like the King of Nineveh, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent?"Hehas never turned!Youhave turned from Him, not He fromyou. "Where is now thy God?" He is the same as ever He was;—boundless in His compassion—true to His covenant—faithful to His promises; "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever!"

Reader! if He be afflicting you as He did David;—if with an exile spirit you be roaming some moral wilderness, the flowers of earth faded on your path, and the bleak winds of desolation and calamity sweeping and sighing around, let these times of affliction lead to deep searchings of heart. Let your tears be as the dewdrops of the morning on the tender leaves, causing you to bend in lowly sorrow and self-abasement, only to be raised again, refreshed, to inhale new fragrance in the summer sun. If, like the weeping woman of Galilee, you are saying, through blinding tears, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him," —if, like the Spouse in the Canticles, you are going about the city in search of your Beloved;—seeking Him, He will be found of you. The watchmen may smite you—repel you—tear off your veil—and load you with reproaches;—but "fear not! ye seek Jesus who was crucified!" He will meet you as He did the desponding Magdalene, and, listening like her to His own tones of ineffable love, you will cast yourself at His feet, and exclaim, "Rabboni—Master!"

"He wounds, and hides the hand that gave the blow;He flies, He reappears, and wounds again;Was ever heart that loved thee treated so?Yet I adore Thee, though it seem in vain."—Cowper.

"He wounds, and hides the hand that gave the blow;He flies, He reappears, and wounds again;Was ever heart that loved thee treated so?Yet I adore Thee, though it seem in vain."—Cowper.

"He wounds, and hides the hand that gave the blow;

He flies, He reappears, and wounds again;

Was ever heart that loved thee treated so?

Yet I adore Thee, though it seem in vain."

—Cowper.

"Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."—Ps.lxix. 7, 8, 20."My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verse 3.

"Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."—Ps.lxix. 7, 8, 20.

"My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verse 3.

The Great Accuser of the brethren in a variety of ways attempts to insinuate the same dark doubts in the minds of believers, which we have spoken of in the preceding pages. He tries to shake their confidence in God,—in the veracity of His word, and the faithfulness of His dealings. He would lead them to discover in His providential dispensations what is inconsistent with His revealed character and will. In seasons particularly of outward calamity and trouble, when the body is racked with pain, its nerves unstrung, or its affections blighted and wounded—when the mind is oppressed and harassed, the soul in darkness—the Prince of this world, who times his assaults with such consummate skill, not unfrequently gains in such seasons a temporary triumph. The shadow of a cold scepticism passes over the soul. It is silent under the cry, "Where is thy God?"

Have any of you ever known this acutest anguish of the human spirit,—those appalling moments of doubt, when for a moment the whole citadel of truth seems to rock to its foundations,—when the soul becomes a dungeon with grated bars, or in which the light of heaven is transmitted through distorted glass, and the finger of unbelief is pointed inwards, with the old sneer, "Where is the God you were wont to boast of in your day of prosperity? Where is there evidence that one prayer you ever offered has been heard—one blessing you ever supplicated been granted—one evil you ever deprecated been averted or removed? Where one evidence of His hand in your allotments in life? These heavens have never broken silence! Hundreds of years have elapsed since His voice was last heard. Moreover, you have only some old parchment leaves written by converted Pharisees and Galilean fishermen to tell that Deity ever gave audible utterances out of the thick darkness. May not His verybeingbe after all a fiction, a delusion—His Bible a worn-out figment which superstition and priestcraft have successfully palmed upon the world? Or if you do believe in a God and in a written revelation, have you not good reason, atall events, to infer from His adverse dealings that He cares nothing foryou. He has proved Himself deaf to your cries. Where is the mercy in such an affliction as yours? He has crossed your every scheme, blasted your fairest gourds. His appointments are surely arbitrary. He takes useful lives, and leaves useless ones. He takes the wheat, and leaves the chaff. The chairs he empties are those of the kind and good, the loving and beloved. He leaves the wicked, and proud, and selfish, and profligate. Can there be a God on the earth? Where is the justice and judgment which are 'the habitation of His throne'—where the 'mercy and the truth' that are said to 'go before His face?'"

Such, you may say, are awful imaginations—too awful to speak of. But such there are! It is the horror of great darkness—spirits from the abyss sent to trouble the pools of ungodly thought, and stir them from their depths.

Ye who are thus assaulted, do you ever think, in the midst of these horrible insinuations, ofOnewho had to bear the same? Think of that challenge which wrung a spotless human soul in the hour of its deepest anguish—"He trusted on the Lord that Hewould deliver him: let Him deliver him, seeing he delighted in Him." (Ps. xxii. 8.) It was the same taunt inHiscase as in yours! It was the cruel, poignant sneer, that He had, during all his lifetime of confiding filial love, been trusting to a falsehood,—that if God had really been His Father and He His Son, ten thousands of legions of angels would have been down now by the side of His cross to unbind His cords and set the Victim free!

Let the merciful, the wondrous forbearance of Christ be a lesson to ourselves in the endurance of the taunts of a scornful world and of the Father of lies. How easily might He have resented and answered the challenge by a descent from the cross, by having the pierced feet and hands set free,—the crown of thorns replaced by a diadem of glory, scattering the scoffing crew like chaff before the whirlwind! But in meek, majestic silence the Lamb of God suffers Himself to be bound, the Victim gives no struggle. Let them scoff on! He will save others, Himself he will not save! Nor did all their scoffing, their taunts and ridicule, tend for a solitary moment to shake His confidence in His heavenly Father. These fell like spent spray on the Rock of Ages. Whenthe cup of trembling was in His hands, sinking humanity for the moment seemed to stagger. He breathed the prayer, "Let it pass from me." But immediately He added the condition of unswervingfilial trust, "Nevertheless, O my Father, not asIwill, but asThou wilt." Even in the crisis of all, when He was mourning the eclipse of that Father's countenance—in that last gasp of superhuman agony, He proclaims, in answer to the taunts of earth and hell, His unshaken trust, "My God, my God!"

Comforting surely to the reviled, the ridiculed, and persecuted, that, severe and poignant as their sorrow is, they are undergoing only what their Lord and Master, in an inconceivably more awful form, experienced before them! Yes! think how He had to encounter the ingratitude of faithless, the treachery of trusted friends. The limbs He healed brought no succour—the tongues He unloosed lisped no accents of compassion—the eyes He unsealed gave no looks of love. Those lips that spake as never man spake, dropping wherever they went balm-words of mercy, now in vain make the appeal to the scoffing crowd, "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me!"Oh, when in deeper than the water-floods of Gilead, this woundedHartof Heaven lay panting and bleeding under the curse,—when arrow after arrow was poured upon Him from the shafts of men, and the bitter cry resounded in His dying ears,Where is thy God?—how did He answer? what was His response? Listen to the apostle's sublime comment on that scene of blended love and suffering—"Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, Hethreatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously."

As the face, the hidden face of God, beamed upon the Son of His love in the midst of that apparent desolation, so will it be, children of affliction and sorrow! with you. Others may see in your tears nothing but an indication of the desertion of God,—the visitations of His wrath and judgment. But believe it, these very experiences of trouble and calamity, of bereavement or death, are all meted out and apportioned for you in love—drop by drop, tear by tear. Seek to see God's hand in all that befalls you. Try, even in the most adverse providences, to rise above second causes. Be it with you as with David in his conduct towards Shimei. When theinsulting Benjamite was hurling these cruel taunts against the exiled King and the sorrowing Father,—when his incensed soldiers, burning with indignation, were on the point of drawing their swords and inflicting summary vengeance on the scoffer—"Why should this dead dog," said Abishai, "curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head"—David's reply is, "Nay! I hear not that man's voice—I see not that man's face—my eye is above the human instrument, on the God who sent him—'Let him curse on, for the Lord hath bidden him.'" (2 Sam xvi. 11.)

Trust God in the dark. Ah! it is easy for us to follow Him and to trust Him in sunshine. It is easy to follow our Leader as Israel did the pillar-cloud, when a glorious pathway was opened up for them through the tongue of the Red Sea—when they pitched under shady palms and gushing fountains, and heaven rained down bread on the hungry camp. But it is not so easy to follow when fountains fail and the pillar ceases to guide, and all outward and visible supports are withdrawn. Butthenis the time for faith to rise to the ascendant;—when the world is loud with its atheist sneer,THENis the time to manifest a simple, child-like trust; and, amid baffling dispensations and frowning providences, to exclaim, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!"

Yes—"troubled, we areNOTdistressed;perplexed, we areNOTindespair;persecuted, we areNOTforsaken;cast down, we areNOTdestroyed." WeAREready, scoffing world! to answer the question,Where is thy God?

Child of Sickness!bound down for years on that lonely pillow!—the night-lamp thy companion—disease wasting thy cheeks and furrowing thy brow—weary days and nights appointed thee—tell me,Where is thy God?He is here, is the reply; His presence takes loneliness from my chamber and sadness from my countenance. His promises are a pillow for my aching head,—they point me onwards to that better land where "the inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick!"

Child of Poverty!Where is thy God?Can He visit this rude dwelling? Can God's promises be hung on these broken rafters? Can the light of His word illumine that cheerless hearth and sustain that bent figure shivering over its mouldering ashes?Yes! He is here. The lips of Truth that uttered the beatitude, "Blessed be ye poor," have not spoken in vain. Bound down by chill penury—forsaken and forgotten in old age—no footstep of mercy heard on my gloomy threshold—no lip of man to drop the kindly word—no hand of succour to replenish the empty cupboard—that God above has not deserted me. He has led me to seek and lay up my treasure in a home where want cannot enter, and where the beggar's hovel is transformed into the kingly mansion!

Bereaved One!Where is thy God?Where is the arm of Omnipotence thou wast wont to lean upon? HasHeforgotten to be gracious? Has He mocked thy prayers, by trampling in the dust thy dearest and best, and left thee to pine and agonise in the bitterness of thy swept heart and home? Nay, He ishere! He has swept down my fondest idol, but it was in order that He himself might occupy the vacant seat. I know Him too well to question the faithfulness of His word, and the fidelity of His dealings. I have never known what a God He was, till this hour of bitter trial overtook me! There was a "need be" in every tear—every death-bed—every grave!

Dying Man!the billows are around thee—the world is receding—the herald symptoms of approaching dissolution are gathering fast around thy pillow—the soul is pluming its wings for the immortal flight; ere memory begins to fade, and the mind becomes a waste,—ere the names of friends, when mentioned, will only be answered by a dull, vacant look, and then the hush of awful silence,—tell me, ere the last lingering ray of consciousness and thought has vanished,Where is thy God?

He is here! I feel the everlasting arms underneath and round about me. Heart and flesh are failing. The mists of death are dimming my eyes to the things below, but they are opening on the magnificent vistas of eternity.YonderHe is! seated amid armies of angels. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God!" "This God shall be my God for ever and ever!"

"Dear is the Sabbath morn to me,When village bells awake the day,And with their holy minstrelsyCall me from earthly cares away."And dear to me the winged hour,Spent in thy hallow'd courts, O Lord,To feel devotion's soothing power,And catch the manna of Thy Word."And dear to me the loud 'Amen,'That echoes through the blest abode—That swells, and sinks, and swells again,Dies on the ear—but lives to God."Oft when the world, with iron hand,Has bound me in its six days' chain,This bursts them, like a strong man's band,And bade my spirit live again."

"Dear is the Sabbath morn to me,When village bells awake the day,And with their holy minstrelsyCall me from earthly cares away."And dear to me the winged hour,Spent in thy hallow'd courts, O Lord,To feel devotion's soothing power,And catch the manna of Thy Word."And dear to me the loud 'Amen,'That echoes through the blest abode—That swells, and sinks, and swells again,Dies on the ear—but lives to God."Oft when the world, with iron hand,Has bound me in its six days' chain,This bursts them, like a strong man's band,And bade my spirit live again."

"Dear is the Sabbath morn to me,When village bells awake the day,And with their holy minstrelsyCall me from earthly cares away.

"Dear is the Sabbath morn to me,

When village bells awake the day,

And with their holy minstrelsy

Call me from earthly cares away.

"And dear to me the winged hour,Spent in thy hallow'd courts, O Lord,To feel devotion's soothing power,And catch the manna of Thy Word.

"And dear to me the winged hour,

Spent in thy hallow'd courts, O Lord,

To feel devotion's soothing power,

And catch the manna of Thy Word.

"And dear to me the loud 'Amen,'That echoes through the blest abode—That swells, and sinks, and swells again,Dies on the ear—but lives to God.

"And dear to me the loud 'Amen,'

That echoes through the blest abode—

That swells, and sinks, and swells again,

Dies on the ear—but lives to God.

"Oft when the world, with iron hand,Has bound me in its six days' chain,This bursts them, like a strong man's band,And bade my spirit live again."

"Oft when the world, with iron hand,

Has bound me in its six days' chain,

This bursts them, like a strong man's band,

And bade my spirit live again."

"And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and shew me both it, and his habitation."—2 Sam.xv. 25."When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day."—Verse 4.

"And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and shew me both it, and his habitation."—2 Sam.xv. 25.

"When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day."—Verse 4.

We always commiserate those who have seen better days. Poverty, indeed, under any form, appeals with irresistible power to the sympathies of our better nature. The most heartless and indifferent cannot refuse the tribute of pity to the ragged beggar shivering on the street, or seated in his hovel by the ashes of a spent fire, brooding over a wretched past, with the grim spectral forms of want hovering over a miserable future.

Sad, however, as the condition of such may be, habit, in one sense, may have become to that squalid pauper a second nature. He may never have known a more prosperous state. He may have been inured from his earliest years to buffet life's wintry storm. Chill penury may have rocked his cradle, and ever since sung her rude lullaby over his pallet of straw. Far more is to be pitied the case of those who have sunk from comfort into indigence, around whoseearly home no bleak winds of adversity ever blew, who were once pillowed in the lap of plenty if not of luxury, but who, by some sudden wave of calamity, have become wrecks on life's desert shore. If there be one being on God's earth more to be pitied than another, it is the mother of a once joyous home, turned adrift, in the hour of her widowhood, with her ragged children;—forced to sing, from door to door, to escape the jaws of hungry famine,—ill disguising, under her heap of squalid rags or her trembling notes of sorrow and despair, the story of brighter days.

Similar is the commiseration we extend (let the shores of this Refuge Island of ours bear testimony) to the hapless patriot or the fallen monarch. These may have been hurled from positions of influence or pinnacles of glory more by their crimes than by their misfortunes. The revolutionary wave that swept them from their country or their thrones may have been a just retribution for misrule; but it is their hour of adversity! They have seen better and more auspicious times. Pity for the fallen knocks, and never knocks in vain, at the heart of a great nation's sympathies.

Such was David's position at this time: Denied the sympathy of others, his own soul is filled with recollections of a far different past. The monarch of Israel, the beloved of God, the idol of his people; now a fugitive from his capital—his palace sacked—his crown dishonoured—wandering in ignoble exile—a wreck of vanished glory!

But it is not these features of his humiliating fall on which his mind mainly dwells. It is not the thought of his sceptre wrested from his grasp—his army in mutiny—his royal residence a den of traitors—that fills his soul with most poignant sorrow. He is an exile from the House of God! The joy of his old Sabbaths is for the time suspended and forfeited. No more is the sound of silver trumpets heard summoning the tribes to the new moons and solemn feast-days! No more does he behold, in thought, the slopes of Olivet studded with pilgrim tents or made vocal with "songs in the night!" No more does he see the triumphant procession wending up the hill of Zion—timbrel and pipe and lute and voice celebrating in glad accord the high praises of God;—"the singers in front, and the players on instruments behind,"—he himself, harp in hand, (thetrue father of his people,) leading the jubilant chorus, and Jehovah commanding upon all "the blessing, even life for evermore!"

How changed! To this Sabbath-loving and Sabbath-keeping King nothing but the memory of these remained. "When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day."

Jerusalem was the pride and glory of the Jew. Wherever he went, he turned to it as to his best and fondest home. The windows of Daniel's chamber were "opentowards Jerusalem." With his eye in the direction of the holy city, "he kneeled upon his knees three times a-day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." (Dan. vi. 10.) Jonah was in the strangest of prisons. "The depths closed round about him, the weeds were wrapped about his head, and the earth with its iron bars." From "the belly of hell" he sent up his cry to God. "I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look againtoward thyHOLY TEMPLE." (Jonah ii. 2.) Captive Israel are seated, in mute despondency, bythe willowed banks of the streams of Babylon. The Euphrates (an ocean river compared with the tiny streams of Palestine) rolled past them. The city of the hundred gates rose, like a dream of giant glory, before their view, with its colossal walls, and towers, and hanging gardens. Yet what were they in the eyes of these exile spectators?Shadowsof greatness in comparison with the city and temple of their fathers amid the hills of Judah! When their oppressors demanded of them a Hebrew melody, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion," they answered, through hot tears of sorrowful remembrance, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Ps. cxxxvii. 4.) So it was with David now. As a bird taken from its home in the forest and placed in a cage, refuses to warble a joyous note—beats its plumage against the enclosing bars, and struggles to get free,—so he seems to long for wings that he may flee away to the hallowed eaves of the sanctuary, and be at rest!

He himself, indeed, uses a similar figure. He tells us, in another Psalm, written on this same occasion, that so blessed did he feel those to be who enjoyed the privilege of "dwelling in God's house," and soardent was his longing to participate in their joy, that he half-envied the swallows who constructed their nests upon its roof. (Ps. lxxxiv.) He was not without his solaces in this season of reverse and calamity. He had many faithful adherents still clinging to him in his adversity. The best and bravest chieftains from the tribes on the other side of the Jordan supplied his drooping followers with the produce of their rich pasture lands. "Shobi of Ammon, and Machir of Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite"—these brought, besides camp utensils, "wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentiles, and parched pulse, and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness." (2 Sam. xvii. 27-29.) Glorious, too, was Nature's temple around him. Its pillars the mountains—the rocks its altar—the balmy air its incense—the range of Lebanon, rising like a holy of holies, with its reverend curtain of mist and cloud, and snowy Hermon towering in solemn grandeur above all, as the very throne of God! Yet what were these compared withJerusalem, the place of sacrifice, theresting-place of the Shekinah-glory, the city of solemnities, "whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord?" (Ps. cxxii. 4.) This wounded Hart pants for the water-brooks of Zion; Nature's outer sanctuary had no glory to him, "by reason of the glory that excelleth." The God who dwelleth between the cherubim had "chosen Zion, and desired it for His habitation," saying, "This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it." (Ps. cxxxii. 13, 14.) With the windows of his soul, like Daniel, thrown "opentowards Jerusalem," and his inner eye wistfully straining to its sunny heights, his ear catching the cadence of its festive throng, he seems to say, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." (Ps. cxxxvii. 5, 6.)

Do we prize the blessing of our Sabbaths and our sanctuaries? can we say, with somewhat of the emphasis of this expatriated King—"Onething have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days ofmy life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple?" Alas! when we are living in the enjoyment of blessings, too true it is that we have seldom a vivid sense of their value. He who is born in a free country, to whom slavery and oppression are strange words, seldom realises the priceless boon of liberty. But let him suddenly be made the victim of tyrant thraldom; let him feel the irons loading his body, or the worse than material shackles fettering liberty of thought and action, and how will the strains of freedom fall like heavenly music on his ear! When we are in the enjoyment of health and strength, how little do we prize the boon. But let us be laid on a bed of languishing; let the sick lamp flicker for weeks by the sleepless pillow; let the frame be so shattered that even the light tread of loving footsteps across the room quickens the beat of the throbbing brow. In waking visions of these lonely night-watches, how does the day of elastic vigour and unbroken health rise before us! how do we reproach ourselves that the boon was so long ungratefully forgotten and unworthily requited! A parent little knows the strength of the tie which bindshim to his child during the brief loan of a loved existence. He gets habituated to the winning ways, and loving words, and constant companionship. He comes to regard that little life as part of himself. He does not fully realise the blessing, because he has never dreamt of the possibility of its removal. But when the startling blow comes,—when death, in an unexpected moment, has severed the tie,—when his eye lights on the empty chair or the unused toy,—when the joyous footfall and artless prattling are heard no more,—then comes he to gauge all the depth and intensity of his affection, and to feel how tenderly (too tenderly!) that idol was enshrined in his heart of hearts!

So it is with religious privileges. In such a land as our own, in which, from our earliest infancy, we have been accustomed to a hallowed Sabbath, an open sanctuary, an unclasped and unforbidden Bible, we do not fully estimate the priceless value of the spiritual blessings bequeathed to us, because never have we felt the loss or the want of them. But go to some land of heathenism, where the exiled child of a British Christian home finds neither minister nor House of God. Go to the thousands who have betakenthemselves to a voluntary exile amid American forests or Australian pastures. Or go to the lands of apostate Christendom, where the Bible is a sealed book, and religious liberty is an empty name; where souls thirsting for the living stream are compelled to drink from some adulterated cistern. Alas! many in such circumstances are content to sink into a listless indifference; cold and lukewarm at home, they are too ready to lapse into the chill of spiritual death abroad. But there are others who have not so readily obliterated the holiest records of the past. Ask many tired and jaded emigrants, conscious of nobler aspirations than this world can meet, what recollections, more hallowed than others, linger on their spirits? They will tell you it is the memory of the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath sanctuary; when, at the summons of the village bell, mountain and glen and hamlet poured forth their multitudes to the house of God; seated wherein, the burdens and anxieties, the cares and disquietudes of the work-day world were hushed and set aside, and in listening to the words of everlasting life, sorrows were soothed, faith was revived, and hope brightened. "O God," their cry is, "our flesh longeth for Thee in adry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see Thy power and Thy glory, so as we have seen Thee in the sanctuary."[21]

Let us seek to prize our means of grace while we have them. In a country which is the reputed palladium of liberty;—where the greatest of all liberty, the liberty of the truth, has been purchased by the blood of our fathers,—the time, we trust, with God's help, may never come when these bulwarks will be overthrown—when our sanctuaries will be closed—our Bibles proscribed—our Sabbaths blotted from the statute-book—and bigotry, in league with rampant infidelity, again forge the chain and rear the dungeon. But remember, that protracted sickness or disease may at any time overtake us, and debar us from the precious blessings of thepublicsanctuary. Yes! I say thepublicsanctuary. God's appointed ordinances can never be superseded or rendered obsolete by human substitutes. Some may urge that books now-a-days are better than any preaching;—that the press is more potent and eloquent than any living voice. But church or pulpit is not a thing of man's device.It is a divine institute. The speaker is anambassadorin his Master's name, charged with a vast mission from the court of high heaven, and the House of God is the appointed audience-chamber. God does not, indeed, (nay, far from it,) forsake "the dwellings of Jacob." The lowliest cottage-home may become aBethel, with a ladder of love set between earth and heaven, traversed by ministering angels! The secluded sick-chamber may become aPatmos, bright with manifestations of the Redeemer's presence and grace! But, nevertheless, "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary." The promise remains, "I will make my people joyful in myhouse of prayer." It is the solemn "trysting-place"—the pledged ground of covenant intercommunion. "ThereI will meet with thee, and commune with thee from off my mercy-seat!" "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion!" "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!"[22]

Reader, let me ask, How stands it with you? Are you conscious of a reverential regard and attachment to God's holy place? Does the return of the Sabbath awake in your heart the old melody of thissweet singer of Israel,—"This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it?"[23]Do you go to the solemn assembly, not to hear themessengerbut themessage;—not to pay homage to a piece of dust, (the vilest and most degraded form of idolatry,) but feeling yourself a beggar in the sight of God, with a soul to save, and an eternity to provide for? Do you approach it as theplace of prayer, over which the cloud hovers laden with spiritual blessings? Do you go to it as "the house of God," seeking fellowship and communion with the Father of spirits; desiring that all its services—its devotions, and praises, and exhortations—may become hallowed magnets, drawing you nearer and binding you closer to the mercy-seat? Oh, let not the boon of Sabbath privileges degenerate into an empty form, the mere pageant of custom. Let the Sabbath hours be sacredly kept. Let their lessons be sacredly treasured. Let their close find you a Sabbath-day's journey nearer heaven. Let their hallowed fragrance follow you through the week. Let them be landmarks in the pilgrimage; towering behind you the further you go—like Alp piled on Alp, flushedwith roseate light, guiding and cheering you when low down in the valleys of trial and sorrow, and when called to descend the last and gloomiest Valley of all.

David is mourning, in the words which have given rise to these thoughts, over his altered Sabbath joys. It may be there are some reading these pages, who, though they know nothing like him of literal exile and banishment from the sanctuary, may yet be able painfully to participate in his feelings! They are seated, Sabbath after Sabbath, in their pews; their Bibles are in their hands—the living words of the preacher are sounding in their ears; but their experience may be best interpreted by the language of the Christian poet:—

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