» R. F. Horton,
PSALM XXXIV. 8 105
at peace with Him ? That is what God's goodness leads to. If you have not seen the sunshine streaming down that lane, the sun has never shone for you. If you have never heard that in the patter of the rain, it has yet to fall a new way for you. If the sweetest voice you ever heard on earth never sounds in that strain, there is a music in it yet for you. If your father's wisdom, your teacher's help, your friend's love have not pointed out this track, there is a meaning in them hitherto missed by you. Oh, never say you have known the goodness of God as it can be known, as He would have it known, if it does not sometimes make you bow your head in your prayer and stop speechless, and nearly break your heart. Speak not of God's goodness if it has not cast you at the feet of Christ ; if it has not made you feel after and find the hem of His garment, and hold on for dear life.^
4. The test must be applied under certain conditions, if the result is to prove satisfactory. Look at verses 13 and 14 of this psalm. Does a man want that taste of God ? Then " Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good ; seek peace, and pursue it." The tongue that is to taste God must be true, the lips into which that food is to pass must be pure, and the life must be a life that is compatible with so high a companionship and so intimate a communion. "Oh, then," you say, "it is impossible to me; for my lips are unclean, and my tongue is untrue ; what you say is possible for the good is not possible for me, the bad." But read on to verse 18 — " The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." So it appears that there are two conditions for this tasting of God. The one is that you shall be perfectly pure in heart and speech, and then you can taste Him ; but if you are not pure, if you are defiled with sin, then you shall be contrite and broken-hearted, and your God will come that you may taste Him. It is not His intention that any should go unfed at the banquet which He has laid for the children of men.
"[j A very popular picture of Watts which usually holds the spectator spellbound is taken from the Arthurian Epic. Riding through the forest, with its tangled vegetation graphically painted, Sir Galahad has suddenly caught a glimpse of the mystic Sangreal, which was concealed from all ordinary vision.
1 R. W, Barbour, Thoughts, 30.
io6 THE GOODNESS OF GOD
The times
Grew to such evil that the holy cup
Was cauglit away to Heaven, and disappear'd.
The knights of King Arthur had gone in search of this hidden treasure. At the same time and in the same place, one could see it and another could not. The knights had the vision of the Grail in proportion to their purity. To some of them who saw it, it appeared veiled with a luminous cloud. But Sir Galahad, the knight of pure heart and unselfish living, who lost liiniself to save himself, beheld the glorious thing itself, clear and distinct. It is at this supreme moment when the heavenly vision appears to him that he is painted by the artist. He dismounts from his white horse, and stands bareheaded with fascinated eyes gazing upon the glorious vision revealed to him in the luminous sky through a break in the trees, and lighting up his face and armour. . . . The inner meaning of the subject will come to us as the view of the Grail came to Sir Galahad, when our eye is single and our heart is pure, suddenly and unexpectedly ; and we shall find that the idea which underlies the whole picture, and makes it lovely with a loveliness far surpassing that of hue and form so vividly de- lineated, is an intensely modern one, and as applicable to our day as to the far-off times of King Arthur.^
II.
The Discoveey of the Goodness of God.
1. The soul that tastes makes a great discovery ; it finds that God is good. It is a stupendous act of courage by which the soul of man pushes through the tangled jungle of natural powers that stop his progress and embarrass him; and thrusts himself through; and emerges into the open spaces under a clear sky; and finds himself face to face with God. Those powers have had him as their own. He has been their creature, their captive prey. He has been carried to and fro by feeling, instincts, desires, appetites, interests, ambitions. So he has grown. So it has always been. Passions, fears, hates, joys, loves — these welled up from unknown sources ; these made him their puppet. Whither they impelled he went. They were strong in their grip. They were terribly, horribly real.
1 Hugh Macmillau, The Life- Work of 0. F. Waits, 175.
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