> J. E. Gumming, The Blessed Life, 100.
PSALM cxxi. 8 57
ever-defending Presence. And there is nothing that can counter- act this movement towards spiritual pessimism, but "practising the presence of God."
In the little introductory poem to the Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, there is a line that expresses the feelings of a multi- tude of men and women : " I was ever commonplace." That was certainly never true of Eutherford, and it is never true of any man. And that feeling robs life of all its beauty and its strength. If we believe that we are commonplace, our work commonplace, and our destiny commonplace, then we will do our best not to belie our character. Therefore, our hopes are blasted, and our work becomes in very deed a cruel drudgery. Could we but con- vince ourselves that the Lord Himself is our Keeper ; could we but assure ourselves that we are linked to the eternal purpose of the Almighty, that nothing is commonplace in the outgoings and the incomings of our lives, then we should dream dreams and see visions. We should stand on our feet as the sons of God. We should be filled with the glowing hope of a new enthusiasm. Every duty would be an anvil on which we would forge another link for the chain of character, and every temptation another opportunity of adding something to our credit and the honour of our Lord. Even the very darkness of sorrow and pain would but bring out the stars of God's mercies.
^ You have heard of the man who, when he was dying, asked that they should inscribe upon his tombstone just one word, and that one word was not his name, his good deeds, or anything about him ; but over the anonymous corpse that lay beneath was to be the word "Kept." It was a stroke of genius. "Kept." That will do. If I live until I am ninety, and do well all that time, when I come to die, put me down in my grave, and only put that over the top of me, and I will be full content — " Kept." ^
2. God stands at the door morning and evening, like a sentinel, to keep us under friendly observation. The Hebrews attached a good deal of religious significance to the doorway. Even now the pious Jew hangs on his doorpost the mezuzah, a small metal cylinder, which contains a piece of parchment on which is inscribed the famous command in Deuteronomy : " Hear, 0 Israel : the liOrd our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God
* J. McNeill, Regent Square Pulpit, iii. 249.
58 GUARDIANSHIP IN DAILY LIFE
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children . . . and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." That command is still fulfilled. The Jew fixes the little case, with the parchment inside, on the upper part of the right-hand post of his door, and every time he goes in or comes out he touches it and he recites the words of this text.
^ It is said that the great conqueror, Alexander, was able, like Napoleon, to sleep amid the noise and tumult of battle. On a friend expressing surprise at the achievement, he replied, Parmenio watches ! But the Maker of Parmenio, the faithful sentinel, is our keeper ! How safe we are when we lie in the Bosom of God ! How safe when we walk with our hand in God's ! Walking or resting, waking or sleeping, we are safe, if the Lord is our Shepherd.^
3. The true Guardian is also the Good Shepherd. There are few of the psalms which the early Christians referred more frequently to Christ. On the lintel of an ancient house in the Hauran may be read the inscription : •* 0 Jesus Christ, be the shelter and defence of the home and of the whole family, and bless their incoming and outgoing." How may we also sing this psalm of Christ ? By remembering the new pledges He has given us that God's thoughts and God's heart are with us. By remember- ing the infinite degree which the cross has revealed, not only of the interest God takes in our life, but of the responsibility He Himself assumes for its eternal issues. The cross was no new thing. The cross was the putting of the love of God, of the blood of Christ, into the old fundamental pieties of the human heart, the realizing by Jesus in Himself of the dearest truths about God. Look up, then, and sing this psalm of Him. Can we lift our eyes to any of the hills without seeing His figure upon them ? Is there a human ideal, duty or hope with which Jesus is not inseparably and for ever identified ? Is there a human experi- ence— the struggle of the individual heart in temptation, the pity of the multitude, the warfare against the strongholds of wicked- ness— from which we can imagine Him absent? No; it is impossible for any high outline of morality or religion to break ' J. M. Scott, Some Favourite Psalms, 124.