^ The twofold subject of this Psalm is one which in all ages has served (with variations according to the nature of the religion
^ E. C. S. Gibson, The Old Testament and its Messages, 128. ^ J. J, Stewart Perowne, The Psalms, i. 86.
PSALM XIX. 7-9 323
of the thinker) as the theme of pious meditation. Those eternal " Lieder ohne Worte," the music of the spheres, have ever sung to the thoughtful heart the glory of the Creator. Plato declares that the wondrous order of the heavens is a proof of God's existence. Hafiz enlarges on the same topic, telling us how even the sweet scent and beauteous hue of the tiniest floweret that decks the field is but an efflux of the perfections of the Divinity. St. Paul shows how the heathen were not left without a witness of God, either in the external world or in their own conscience. Kant is said to have remarked that the two things which most forcibly impressed him with a feeling of the sublime were the starry heavens above him and the moral sense within him. And Lord Bacon, in the very spirit of this Psalm, writes, "I have delighted in the brightness of Thy temple. Thy creatures have been my books ; but Thy Scriptures much more. I have sought Thee in the courts, fields, and gardens; I have found Thee in Thy temples." 1
I.
The Scope of God's Law.
1. The Psalmist opens his eyes and sees in all nature the manifestation of law, of regularity, of reason. His eyesight, turning its native simplicity upon the scene before him, is quite enough to reveal to him this rude secret which it is the whole duty of science to elucidate, this august rhythm, so firm and so tireless, in which the endless succession of day and night proceeds. This it is that overpowers him, " Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge " — each arrives at its turn without disorder, without accident, or chance, or perplexity. There is about it all, as the mighty drama discloses itself, the calmness, the majesty, of rational knowledge. As far as imagina- tion can go, still the same reasonable law holds good, still those ordained successions proceed, still all move along allotted path- ways, still the evidence of conscious thought meets the searching gaze, still it is as if the round earth everywhere were trembling on the verge of speech. This language of theirs which is heard in the silence reaches unto the very ends of the world. And so, too, with this leaping sun, this bridegroom, which travels with such steady precision, with such unfaltering certainty, along the ^ Jennings and Lowe, The Psalms, 76.
324 THE PERFECT LAW
course set before him. He also never comes to the close of his mission, he also is universal in his range. His going forth is from the uttermost part of the heaven, and liis circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof — universal law acting in silence, with absolute security of rhythm.
That is the vision which overawes the Psalmist ; and is not that the very essence of our scientific presentation of Nature ? Law acting in silence, that is Nature as science discloses it. Silently, in dumb show, world within world of intricate law work out their allotted transformations. We look upon the strange and busy process, as in and out, with sure accuracy, all ply their business. Most amazing ! But it is dumb, some say, as they gaze ; it tells nothing, it works, works in a silence that is as death; there is no voice, neither any to answer ; it offers no interpretation of itself, it suggests no language and responds to no thought ; it is dumb mechanism beating out an aimless task. No, we cry with the Psalmist, silent it may be, but this perfect law, this undeviating order, this calm precision, this infinite regularity of succession, this steady certainty of movement, this unbroken universality, these disciplined forces, this rhythmic harmony, this balance, this precaution, this response of day to day and night to night, that is intelligence, that is reason, that is consciousness, that is speech ! No one can face it in its wholeness, part answering to part, and each to all, without becoming aware of its mystic eloquence. It all speaks, speaks as it works, speaks without a language, speaks without a sound. Eeason answers to reason as deep to deep. There may be no speech or language in these dumb motions, but for all that, voices are heard among them, their sound goes out unto all the lands, and their words unto the ends of the world.
^ It is noticeable that the very period in which science has given such astounding development to our astronomical know- ledge should also have been marked by a poetical development which, through the genius of Wordsworth, restored to us that primitive vision of nature with a purity, an austerity, and a vitality which has never been paralleled since the Psalms were written. Through him we see again the earth and sky as the Psalmist saw them. We see them not as under the conceits of a rhetorical emotion which can afford to disregard science only because its purpose is so superficial and trifling. That is pre-