Here are we dark and weak, yet are we not Excluded from Thy glorious family;
Pain to Thy children is a transient lot; We suifer, that from sin we may be free.
» A. C. Price,
PSALM XXXII. I, 2 81
Angels and men, the prophet and the child, These all are what they are by gift of Thine ;
No break or gulf is there ; the undetiled Are tenderly made one by birth divine.
If but a letter of the all-perfect name,
If but a mark of the celestial pen, Distinguish us, we will, despising shame.
Abjuring self, live boldly among men.
Named after God ! a little like to Him,
In whom the entireness of the name divine
Brightly involved was once by woes made dim, But now unfolded shines, yet more to shine.^ 1 T. T. Ljuch, Hie Rivulet, 202.
PS. XXV.-CXIX.
The Guiding Eye.
Literature.
Botirdillon (F.), Handfuls, 24.
Brown (J. Baldwin), TTie Sunday Afternoon, 278.
Hackett (W. S.), The Land of Your Sojournings, 3T.
Knight (G. H.), Abiding Help for Changing Days, 27.
Matheson (G.), Words by the Wayside, 16.
Meyer (F. B.), Christian Living, 78.
Stone (C. E.), Children's Sunday Afternoons, 186.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xiii. (1876), No.
989. Voysey (C), Sermons, ii. (1879), No. 1. Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., xii. 96 (H. G. Youard). Literary Churchman, xx. (1874) 95. Sunday Magazine, 1880, p. 140 (R. H. Smith).
The Guiding Eye.
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go : I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee. — Ps. xxxii. 8.
It was at the end of a long and bitter trial that this promise was given to the Psalmist. It was by passing through doubt, per- plexity, and despair that he was taught at last to find his way by the light of God. He had tried long and desperately to be his own guide, to trace out a path for himself through life, and it was after many wanderings, and many shameful falls, and much misery, that he was forced to confess that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps, and that his only way of safety is to give himself up to One who will guide him better than he can guide himself. Feeling his ignorance, and perplexed at times by uncertainty as to his duty, he besought the Lord to teach and to guide him ; and the Lord heard him and answered him, bringing strength to his weakness, light into his darkness, and showing him the way in which he should walk.
^ The beautiful suggestiveness of the Authorized Version, "I will guide thee with mine eye," need not be wholly lost, though the Revised Version shows that the Hebrew does not mean that " a look is enough." It means that with a Divine word of counsel in the ear, and the eye of Providence watching from above, the traveller in the pathway of life will be safe.^
I.
Our Need of Guidance.
1. We need guidance because we may deliberately reject God. There are those who may be called the unbridled : the men who care for no restraint ; whose whole life is a challenge, " Who is the Lord, that we should serve him ? " The Psalms are full of
1 W. T. Davison. 8s
S6 THE GUIDING EYE
the description of them. They escape the eye and the hand of God to all appearance. But do they indeed escape ? The mere men of the world are the worst of slaves ; and of all men they are the most limited, checked, compelled, by the hand of God. A hard bar meets them at every turn, a check at every breath. God rules them though it be with a rod of iron. Blind to the glance of His eye, they must writhe under the pressm-e of His hand.
^ The pupil spoke : " You said once that the tramcar comes to a standstill if it loses connexion with the aerial wire. I know that very well. Would that my friends who are atheists and pagans knew what a relief it is to find the connexion again. It is like diving in crystal-clear sea-water after perspiring in the heat of the dog-days on a dusty high-road. The heart grows light ; the systematic ill-luck ceases ; one has some success, one's undertakings prosper, one can sleep at night, and neurasthenia ceases. I remember how, after a night of debauchery, the most beautiful landscape at sunrise looked ghastly; while after a night of quiet sleep the same scene looked paradisal. When we gain the certainty, and the belief founded on certainty, that life is con- tinued on the other side, then we find it easier on this one, and do not hunt after trifles till we are weary. Then we discover the divine lightheartedness of which Goethe speaks, which finds ex- pression in a certain contempt of honours and distinction, pro- motion and money. We become more insensible to blows and abuse. Everything goes more softly and smoothly. However dark the surroundings may be, we become self-luminous, so to speak, and carry the little pocket-lamp hope with us." ^
2. There are those whose hearts are divided between God and the world, and who need constraint to keep them in the right way. Some things are already settled • in their minds on the subject of the duties and the issues of life. They know already that there is no blessing that is really worth anything but God's. They would weep bitterly, and feel that life was utterly impoverished, if God's presence were gone from it, and they were just left to make the best of a world that they love too well. But they will not risk too much in seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. One eye is always on the world, if the other is on God. They have their comforts, their luxuries, their