^ There is a tender awe in knowing that there is some One at your side guiding at every step, restraining here, leading on there. He knows the way better than the oldest Swiss guide knows the mountain trail. He has love's concern that all shall go well with you. There is a great peace for us in that, and with it a tender awe to think who He is, and that He is close up by your side. When you come to the splitting of the road into two, with a third path forking off from the others, there is peace in just holding steady and very quiet while you put out your hand and say, " Jesus, Master, guide here." And then to hear a Voice so soft that only in great quiet is it heard, softer than faintest breath on your cheek, or slightest touch on your arm, telling the way in fewest words or syllables — that makes the peace unspeakable.^
Not like the angel with drawn sword,
Neither with rod threat'ningly ; Leadst Thou, Lord, but fulfill'st Thy word,
" I will guide thee with Mine eye."
We see Thee not, but Thou seest us, Be where we may, Thou art nigh;
Whisp'ring, timid or valorous,
"I will guide thee with Mine eye."
Dark days come and our path is dark,
We know not to go or fly; From the sky falls, like trill of lark,
"I will guide thee with Mine eye."
Ah, Lord, we're wayward and we're weak, Our gladness changing to sad sigh:
0 keep Thou us as Thou dost speak, And guide us ever with Thine eye.'
* H. S. Holland, Personal Studies, 78.
' S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Personal Proilems, 154.
' A. B. Grosart, Songs of the Day and Night, 33.
The Goodness of God.
PS. XXV.-CXIX.
Literature.
Arnold (T.), Sermons, v. 163.
Ballard (F.), Does it Matter what a Man Believes .2 234.
Bosanquet (C), The Man after God's own Heart, 82.
Holland (H. S.), Vital Values, 36.
Simeon (C), Worls, v. 240.
Smith (Mrs. Pearsall), The God of all Comfort, 90.
Symonds (A, R.), Fifty Sermons, 280.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons to Children, 1. 57.
Voysey (C), Sermons, xv. (1892), No. 31.
Christian World Pidpit, Ixii. 145 (R. F. Horton).
Ex-^ository 2nd Ser., iv. 410 (S. Cox).
98
The Goodness of God.
O taste and see that the Lord is good :
Blessed is the man that trusteth in him.— Ps. xxxiv. 8.
1. No man who looks thoughtfully around him and within can fail to feel at times, as Plato felt, that he needs some wiser and more certain guidance than his own if he is ever to learn what God really is; that God Himself must speak to him and show Himself to him if he is to be sure that God is good, friendly, accessible. Even if we believe that God has spoken to us and shown Himself to us, that we have seen Him in Christ Jesus and found Him altogether good, yet at times, when the burden of all this unintelligible and self-contradictory world lies heavily upon us, or when our own life is darkened by some misery to which there seems neither relief nor end, we lose our assur- ance; we falter where we firmly trod: God seems to shroud Himself in some inaccessible heaven, to retire behind thick clouds we cauuot penetrate, to become doubtful to us once more, so that we can no longer see or say that He is good.
It is an unspeakable relief and comfort to hear any voice which assures us, in clear and cordial tones, that God is good, despite our doubts and fears, that the sun of His love is shining down on the, world, though it be hidden from us by the dark clouds that hang about our hearts. And if the voice be that of a man such as we are, yet better and wiser than we are, and wiser and better mainly because he has passed through many such experiences as those by which we are troubled and has found out what they mean — then surely he can give us not comfort only, but the very succour that we most need.
2, Now the author of this psalm stands in the front rank of those poets who have devoted themselves to the study of the ethical aspects and problems of human life, and he is able to
TOO THE GOODNESS OF GOD
interpret the inner world of character and motive and passion with a precision and a delicacy, a truth and a power never surpassed. Confessedly also, despite the grievous transgression he 80 bitterly rued, he was a man after God's own heart; a man whose goodness was not of the narrow, ascetic, forbidding type which repels men, but of that large, cordial, and manly type which is most winning and attractive. Nor can we well doubt that his experience was wider and more varied than ours, embraced more radical vicissitudes, swept a larger circle, covered more distant extremes. And not only did he run through the whole gamut of human experience, but at the very time he sung this psalm he was involved in those clouds of undeserved loss, pain, reproach, under which we too often lose our faith in the goodness of God. It would have been pardonable if, under stress of so hard and unmerited a fate, he had brooded over it till the goodness of God had become as doubtful to him as it often be- comes to us under the lesser strain of trials not to be compared with his. But it is from the thick darkness of his adversity that he comes forth, with manly and cheerful courage, to assure us that the Lord is good, and to dwell enjoyingly on the blessed- ness of the man who trusts in Him. Such a testimony, given by such a man at such a moment, may well touch and reassure our hearts. What are our powers of insight as compared with his ? or what our troubles as compared with his ? That, with his powers, he saw no reason to doubt the goodness of the Lord ; that, under his burden, he held fast his confidence in God — this should at least bring some little hope to our hearts when they are heavy and doubtful and sad. And if we believe that he was not only a poet, but an inspired poet, we have in his words a Divine revelation as well as the result of his own illuminated reason and far-reaching experience. It is God who speaks to us and assures us that He is good, and will do us good, however we doubt or distrust Him.