2. The text might be correctly paraphrased, " Delight in the Lord, and then thou mayest trust thy desires ; they will be the forerunners of blessings, the beginning of their own realization." " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Delight thyself in the Lord, and thou wilt desire strongly only what is in harmony with His will, and best for thyself. All thy wishes will be brought into subjection to His will, and thou wilt crave only those things which He is ready and anxious to bestow upon thee.
^ There are many beautiful psalms in the Psalter, but I am disposed to think that this psalm is the most beautiful of them all. There is a strain of old experience in it, of ripe and mellow
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wisdom, of thoughtful and tranquil affection, which at once stirs and calms our hearts, I can never read it but it calls up before me the figure of a venerable and kindly old man, who has seen much and endured much, but has at last won for himself a sacred tranquillity and peace which no change and no alarm can disturb ; who, now that he is old, does not forget either that he has been young or what his hot, eager youth was like ; and who, in the calm evening of his days, draws upon the accumulated stores of his knowledge and experience for the benefit of those in whom the fires of youth still burn hotly, and tries to save them from many a conflict, and many a defeat, by teaching them the secret of peace.^
^ There is a passage in Wordsworth's Prelude which expresses both the craving and its satisfaction, with all the poet's high serious- ness and moving simplicity. He had risen, in his unrest of mind, before the dawn. In the grey light of the morning, he brooded over his life and its meaning. As the sun rose and flooded meadow and stream and the far-off shining sea with light, and as the birds awoke to song and the labourer came forth with quiet and honest content to his work in the field, all the stillness and charm of the scene fell upon him with refreshing and renewing power.
Ah ! need I say, dear Friend ! that to the brim My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me ; bond unknown to nie Was 'riven, that I should be, else sinning greatly A dedicated Spirit. On I walked In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.*
I.
Practising the Presence of God.
1. Delighting in God means, to begin with, realizing the presence of God. If men will not sometimes think of God, He will become merely a name to them. If they glance toward Him only now and again, and with an unobservant and undesiring eye. He will become strange and shadowy, and will remain un- known. We do not become sure of God by mustering up the arguments for His being and His purpose in the world. No
» S. Cox, The Bird's Nest, 238.
' W. M. Clow, The Secret of the Lord, 219.
PSALM XXXVII. 4 157
heart ever stood up in a passionate conviction of God's presence because it had been told that His footprints were marked upon the rocks. No mind was ever driven by the logic of history to assent with a deep persuasion to the personal providence of the Almighty. These things have their place and their power. They are byways of evidence in which a believing heart will sometimes walk. But the only certainty which can satisfy the mind and stir the heart is an ethical and a religious, a moral and a spiritua' consciousness of God. Faith is an opening of the eyes that we may see. It is in prayer that we rise most swiftly and most convincingly into tliis faith which sees. It is in prayer that we have the sure consciousness of God. Even although a man may kneel with a haze over his mind and a chill upon his spirit, he will not kneel in vain.
^ In the beginning of Brother Lawrence's noviciate, he tspeuL the hours appointed for private prayer in thinking of God, so as to convince his mind of, and to impress deeply upon his heart, the Divine existence, rather by devout sentiments than by studied reasonings and elaborate meditations. By this short and sure method, he exercised himself in the knowledge and love of God, resolving to use his utmost endeavour to live in a con- tinual sense of His Presence, and, if possible, never to forget Him more. When he had thus in prayer filled his mind full with great sentiments of that Infinite Being, he went to his work appointed in the kitchen (for he was cook to the Society). When he began his business, he said to God, with a filial trust in Him : " 0 my God, since Thou art with me, and I must now, in obedience to Thy commands, apply my mind to these outward things, I beseech Thee to grant me grace to continue in Thy presence ; and to this end, do Thou prosper me with Thy assistance, receive all my works, and possess all my affections." . . . When he had finished, he examined himself how he had discharged his duty : if he found well, he returned thanks to God ; if otherwise, he asked pardon; and, without being discouraged, he set his mind right again and continued his exercise of the Presence of God, as if he had never deviated from it. " Thus," said he, " by rising after my falls, and by frequently renewed acts of faith, and love, I am come to a state, wherein it would be as difficult for me not to think of God as it was at first to accustom myself to it."