Jehovah revealed himself, and he cried out with exultation while he pictured in fond imagination its sacred services, and solemn rites, as he had seen them in bygone times. Because they are thy tabernacles, “O Lord of hosts," therefore are they so dear to thy people. Thy pavilion is the centre of the camp, around which all thy creatures gather, and towards which their eyes are turned, as armies look to the tent of the king. Thou rulest all the companies of creatures with such goodness, that all their hosts rejoice in thy dwelling-place, and the bands of thy saints especially hail thee with joyful loyalty as Jehovah of hosts.

2. "My soul longeth,"-it pines, and faints to meet with the saints in the Lord's house. The desire was deep and insatiable-the very soul of the man was yearning for his God. "Yea, even fainteth;" as though it could not long hold out, but was exhausted with delay. He had a holy lovesickness upon him, and was wasted with an inward consumption because he was debarred the worship of the Lord in the appointed place. "For the courts of the Lord." To stand once again in those areas which were dedicated to holy adoration was the soul-longing of the psalmist. True subjects love the courts of their king. "My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." It was God himself that he pined for, the only living and true God. His whole nature entered into his longing. Even the clay-cold flesh grew warm through the intense action of his fervent spirit. Seldom, indeed, does the flesh incline in the right direction, but in the matter of Sabbath services our weary body sometimes comes to the assistance of our longing heart, for it desires the physical rest as much as the soul desires the spiritual repose. The psalmist declared that he could not remain silent in his desires, but began to cry out for God and his house; he wept, he sighed, he pleaded for the privilege. Some need to be whipped to church, while here is David crying for it. He needed no clatter of bells from the belfry to ring him in, he carried his bell in his own bosom: holy appetite is a better call to worship than a full chime.

3. "Yea, the sparrow hath found an house." He envied the sparrows which lived around the house of God, and picked up the stray crumbs in the courts thereof; he only wished that he, too, could frequent the solemn assemblies and bear away a little of the heavenly food. "And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young." He envied also the swallows whose nests were built under the eaves of the priests' houses, who there found a place for their young, as well as for themselves. We rejoice not only in our personal religious opportunities, but in the great blessing of taking our children with us to the sanctuary. The church of God is a house for us and a nest for our little ones. "Even thine altars, O Lord of hosts." To the very altars these free birds drew near, none could restrain them nor would have wished to do so, and David wished to come and go as freely as they did. Mark how he repeats the blessed name of Jehovah of Hosts; he found in it a sweetness which helped him to bear his inward hunger. Probably David himself was with the host, and, therefore, he dwelt with emphasis upon the title which taught him that the Lord was in the tented field as well as within the holy curtains. "My King, and my God." Here he utters his loyalty from afar. If he may not tread the courts, yet he loves the King. If in exile, he is not a rebel. When we cannot occupy a seat in God's house, he shall have a seat in our memories and a throne in our hearts. The double "my" is very precious; he lays hold upon his God with both his hands, as one resolved not to let him go till the favour requested be at length accorded.

4. "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house." Those he esteems to be highly favoured who are constantly engaged in divine worship-the canons residentiary, yea, the pew-openers, the menials who sweep and dust. To come and go is refreshing, but to abide in the place of prayer must be heaven below. To he the guests of God, enjoying the hospitalities of heaven, set apart for holy work, screened from a noisy world, and familiar with sacred things-why this is surely the choicest heritage a son of man can possess. They will be still praising

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thee." So near to God, their very life must be adoration. Surely their hearts and tongues never cease from magnifying the Lord. We fear David here drew rather a picture of what should be than of what is; for those occupied daily with the offices needful for public worship are not always among the most devout; on the contrary, "the nearer the church the further from God." Yet in a spiritual sense this is most true, for those children of God who in spirit abide ever in his house, are also ever full of the praises of God. Communion is the mother of adoration. They fail to praise the Lord who wander far from him, but those who dwell in him are always magnifying him.

"Selah." In such an occupation as this we might be content to remain for It is worth while to pause and meditate upon the prospect of dwelling with God and praising him throughout eternity.

ever.

5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.

6 Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.

7. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

8. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

5. "Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee." Having spoken of the blessedness of those who reside in the house of God, he now speaks of those who are favoured to visit it at appointed seasons, going upon pilgrimage with their devout brethren: he is not, however, indiscriminate in his eulogy, but speaks only of those who heartily attend to the sacred festivals. The blessedness of sacred worship belongs not to half-hearted, listless worshippers, but to those who throw all their energies into it. Neither prayer, nor praise, nor the hearing of the word will be pleasant or profitable to persons who have left their hearts behind them. A company of pilgrims who had left their hearts at home would be no better than a caravan of carcasses, quite unfit to blend with living saints in adoring the living God. In whose heart are the ways of them," or far better, in whose heart are thy ways." Those who love the ways of God are blessed. When we have God's ways in our hearts, and our heart in his ways, we are what and where we should be, and hence we shall enjoy the divine approval.

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6. "Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well." Traversing joyfully the road to the great assembly, the happy pilgrims found refreshment even in the dreariest part of the road. As around a well men meet and converse cheerfully, being refreshed after their journey, so even in the vale of tears, or any other dreary glen, the pilgrims to the skies find sweet solace in brotherly communion and in anticipation of the general assembly above, with its joys unspeakable. Probably there is here a local allusion, which will never now be deciphered, but the general meaning is clear enough. There are joys of pilgrimage which make men forget the discomforts of the road. "The rain also filleth the pools." God gives to his people the supplies they need while traversing the roads which he points out for them. Where there were no natural supplies from below, the pilgrims found an abundant compensation in waters from above, and so also shall all the sacramental host of God's elect. Ways, which otherwise would have been deserted from want of accommodation, were made into highways abundantly furnished for the travellers' wants, because the great annual pilgrimages led in that direction; even so, Christian converse and the joy of united worship make many duties easy and delightful which else had been difficult and painful.

7. "They go from strength to strength." So far from being wearied they

gather strength as they proceed. Each individual becomes happier, each company becomes more numerous, each holy song more sweet and full. We grow as we advance if heaven be our goal. If we spend our strength in God's ways we shall find it increase. "Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." This was the end of the pilgrims' march, the centre where all met, the delight of all hearts. Not merely to be in the assembly, but to appear before God was the object of each devout Israelite. Would to God it were the sincere desire of all who in these days mingle in our religious gatherings. Unless we realise the presence of God we have done nothing; the mere gathering together is nothing worth.

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8. "O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer." Give me to go up to thy house, or if I may not do so, yet let my cry be heard. Thou listenest to the united supplications of thy saints, but do not shut out my solitary petition, unworthy though I be. “Give ear, O God of Jacob." Though Jehovah of hosts, thou art also the covenant God of solitary pleaders like Jacob; regard thou, then, my plaintive supplication. I wrestle here alone with thee, while the company of thy people have gone on before me to happier scenes, and I beseech thee bless me; for I am resolved to hold thee till thou speak the word of grace into my soul. The repetition of the request for an answer to his prayer denotes his eagerness for a blessing. What a mercy it is that if we cannot gather with the saints, we can still speak to their Master.

“Selah."—A pause was needed after a cry so vehement, a prayer so earnest. 9 Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.

10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

II For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

12 O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. 9. "Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed." Here we have the nation's prayer for David; and the believer's prayer for the Son of David. Let but the Lord look upon our Lord Jesus, and we shall be shielded from all harm; let him behold the face of his Anointed, and we shall be able to behold his face with joy. We also are anointed by the Lord's grace, and our desire is that he will look upon us with an eye of love in Christ Jesus. Our best prayers when we are in the best place are for our glorious King, and for the enjoyment of his father's smile.

10. "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand." Of course the psalmist means a thousand days spent elsewhere. Under the most favourable circumstances in which earth's pleasures can be enjoyed, they are not comparable by so much as one in a thousand to the delights of the service of God. To feel his love, to rejoice in the person of the anointed Saviour, to survey the promises and feel the power of the Holy Ghost in applying precious truth to the soul, is a joy which worldlings cannot understand, but which true believers are ravished with. Even a glimpse at the love of God is better than ages spent in the pleasures of sense. "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." The lowest station in connection with the Lord's house is better than the highest position among the godless. Only to wait at his threshold and peep within, so as to see Jesus, is bliss. To bear burdens and open doors for the Lord is more honour than to reign among the wicked. Every man has his choice, and this is ours. God's worst is better than the devil's best. God's doorstep is a happier rest than downy couches within the pavilions of royal sinners, though we might lie there

for a lifetime of luxury. Note how he calls the tabernacle "the house of my God; " there's were the sweetness lies: if Jehovah be our God, his house, his altars, his doorstep, all become precious to us. We know by experience that where Jesus is within, the outside of the house is better than the noblest chambers where the Son of God is not to be found.

11. "For the Lord God is a sun and shield." Pilgrims need both as the weather may be, for the cold would smite them were it not for the sun, and foes are apt to waylay the sacred caravan, and would haply destroy it if it were without a shield. Heavenly pilgrims are not left uncomforted or unprotected. The pilgrim nation found both sun and shield in that fiery cloudy pillar which was the symbol of Jehovah's presence, and the Christian still finds both light and shelter in the Lord his God. A sun for happy days and a shield for dangerous ones. A sun above, a shield around. A light to show the way and a shield to ward off its perils. Blessed are they who journey with such a convoy; the sunny and the shady side of life are alike happy to them. “The Lord will give grace and glory." Both in due time, both as needed, both to the full, both with absolute certainty. The Lord has both grace and glory in infinite abundance; Jesus is the fulness of both, and, as his chosen people, we shall receive both as a free gift from the God of our salvation. What more can the Lord give, or we receive, or desire. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Grace makes us walk uprightly and this secures every covenant blessing to us. What a wide promise! Some apparent good may be withheld, but no real good, no, not one. “All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." God has all good, there is no good apart from him, and there is no good which he either needs to keep back or will on any account refuse us, if we are but ready to receive it. We must be upright and neither lean to this or that form of evil: and this uprightness must be practical,- -we must walk in truth and holiness, then shall we be heirs of all things, and as we come of age all things shall be in our actual possession; and, meanwhile, according to our capacity for receiving shall be the ineasure of the divine bestowal. This is true, not of a favoured few, but of all the saints for evermore.

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12. "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee." Here is the key of the Psalm. The worship is that of faith, and the blessedness is peculiar to believers. No formal worshipper can enter into this secret. A man must know the Lord by the life of real faith, or he can have no true rejoicing in the Lord's worship, his house, his Son, or his ways. Dear reader, how fares it with thy soul?

I

Our Faith in the Cross.

A PAPER READ AT THE COLLEGE CONFERENCE, 1873,

BY PASTOR G. D. EVANS.

HAVE chosen the subject before us from the conviction that in these days of latent and lambent scepticism, nothing is of greater importance to the minister of the gospel than the maintenance of a faith, unsullied by the breath of controversy, in the central fact of God's great revelation to man. The outlook of the Christian church is not so reassuring as we could wish. We are "not able to see afar off," if we do not discover vast agitating influences at work upon the sea of human thought which lies around us. The state of the atmosphere forebodes a storm of such violence that the vessel whose tacklings are loosed, and whose cords are weak, will meet it only to be torn in pieces by its fury. Rationalism, which is but a more modern and respectable name for scepticism, has made great strides during the last few years.

Ancient errors have been reproduced in modern forms, perhaps under some such attractive title as "New Phases of Old Truths." But it requires not a cunning eye to detect the wrinkles of age upon their brows, although the subtle arts of the Madame Rachels of theology have been used to produce the appearance of winsome and jaunty youth. The habiliment may have changed, the buckskin of the past has been renounced for the broadcloth of the present, but it is a mistake to suppose that the man is new because his face is painted, or his clothes are of a more modern texture.

You will not require any proof of the fact that I have asserted. Even should your ministry be exercised in one of those more self-denying but more isolated spheres, where you may be precluded from entering the fields of literature, in which so much rank vegetation grows, the scent of their poison is upon the breeze; and if one-tenth of the rumours that stir the atmosphere be true, there is enough to cause those who are wedded to that which has obtained the somewhat pretentious but significant name of" the old orthodox faith," to weep if they do not tremble. That much of error which is printed bears a very small proportion to that which is spoken, and it is the spoken error brought before the people with all the tricks of oratory, and all the sanctions of a sacred office, that first quickens the doubting spirit, whose appetite must then be satisfied with a literature which sceptical writers are only too ready to supply. The errors of which we speak spring, I believe, from one centre, a want of distinctness in the faith that is exercised in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course the naked blasphemy of Matthew Arnold-who has lately found his native light and sweetness blighted and turned sour by the excessive amount of electricity with which the atmosphere has been charged-does not find its way into many Christian pulpits. It would not do to jeer at the cross, even from that Coward's Castle, to which so many millions look from Sunday to Sunday for the word which shall inspire them to service and sacrifice. But it is from an avowedly Christian pulpit that we hear the uncertain sound about substitution and the vicarious work of our Lord. The endeavour to put truth in new forms to please the ear, has led to a temptation to dilute the truth itself, and in the constant dilution of the attenuated mixture, the particles of truth are very difficult to discover. The danger has begun in giving up the form of sound words, it has resulted in the renunciation of the sound words themselves.

In what relation do we stand, then, to the controversies of the day? We may as well review our position. Has philosophy shed a richer light upon that spectacle which angels saw with wonder, and the sun refused to look upon for awe? Have we found it necessary to yield the substitutionary work of Christ, as a citadel that has been won by our opponents, only that they may raze it to the ground and leave its ruins to witness to the folly of those who fought with so much tenacity for its preservation? Is the theology of the Puritans worn so threadbare that we dare not expose it to the gaze of men? Has the learning of the present day produced a system superior to that which exalts Faith upon a throne and places Reason at her footstool? Have we become too wise to bow our intellects to the sublime reasoning of the Apostle Paul? We can give an emphatic "nay" to all these