^ Might I follow the bent of my own mind, my pen, such as it is, should be wholly employed in setting forth the infinite love of God to mankind in Christ Jesus, and in endeavouring to draw all men to the belief and acknowledgment of it. The one great mercy of God, which makes the one, only happiness of all
1 N. M. Waters.
PSALM cxxxix. 5 149
mankind, so justly deserves all our thoughts and meditations, so highly enlightens and improves every mind that is attentive to it, so removes all the evils of this present world, so sweetens every state of life, and so inflames the heart with the love of every Divine and human virtue, that he is no small loser whose mind is either by writing or reading detained from the view and contemplation of it.^
II.
God's Individual Care of Man.
" Thou hast beset me." Even words may fall into bad com- pany. Because of its association many a noble word is misjudged, " Beset " is such a word. We speak of the " besetments " of life. We pray about the " sin which doth so easily beset us." Job was beset with calamities. A traveller from Oriental lands tells us that at Cairo he was beset with dogs and beggars. A young man goes wrong, and through his tears of shame he tells how for months he has been literally beset with temptations. "Beset" we associate with evil. That is the ordinary use of the word. But that is not the Psalmist's use. It is the glory of the Scriptures that they are always finding gold where men see only clay. The Psalmist takes this word out of man's vocabulary and gives it a heavenly meaning. " Beset " is a strong word and it shall not belong to evil. The writer snatches it out of its evil surroundings and makes it spell out for evermore the love of God. " Thou hast beset me behind and before." He is talking about God. It is a startling statement. It is like the old prophet and his servant. So long we have been pursued by evil. Every day we have seen the Syrians coming up against us. Every morning we have seen them closer, having moved up in the night. We are beset by them. That is the testimony of the generations. And now on this morning our eyes are opened, and, lo ! the hills are " full of horses and chariots of fire." Like the young man we cry : " They that be with us are more than they that be with them." " We are besieged by goodness." God has beset us !
^ When I was a very little boy I knew my father loved me. I took it as a matter of course ; but I did not see that he had me ^William Law, An Earnest and Serious Answer.
I50 THE ENCOMPASSING GOD
in mind very much. When I was very little I thought houses and clothes and food and money were a matter of course, and I did not know anybody worked very hard to provide them for me. It takes a child quite a while to know that these ever-present necessaries are not free for the using like air for breathing, but that they cost somebody a great deal of sweat and anxiety. When I grew older I knew of course that father did it all — the home and food and clothes and money ; but I did not know how much he did it for me. I saw but little of him, I heard him talk only a little. He was away and so busy and all wrapped up in his farm and mill and cattle and horses. That was his business and care. I was just incidental. Then I grew up to adult life and I saw it all as it was. He did not think about anything but his children. His mind was only a little on his farm. It was on his home. He did not care for his business except as it ministered to his family. His business was fatherhood ; his farm was only the incident. He was laying his plans ahead. If the children were hungry, there was bread. If winter came, there -were clothes. When they were old enough, there was a teacher ready for them. When temptation came to do wrong, there was also close at hand an enticement to do good. Once he was sick, and he thought, and we all thought, he was going to die. I heard him talking to mother and grandfather, laying out all his business plans, and I heard him say over and over : " That money is not to be touched beforehand. It is there to take Nancy to college." He even spoke of the after years and said : " When the girls marry, I want them to have so and so." Child that I was, I began to realize that father carried us all on his heart, and that in his plans he thought not only of the present, but took in all the future years. He really with his care and foresight "beset me behind and before." 1
1. " Thou hast beset me behind." God stands between us and our enemies in the rear. He defends us from the hostility of our own past. He does not cut us away from our yesterdays. Con- sequences are not annihilated; their operations are changed. They are transformed from destructives into constructives. The sword becomes a ploughshare; the implement of destruction becomes an agent of moral and spiritual culture. The Lord "besets me behind," and the sins of yesterday no longer send their poisoned swords into my life. They are changed into the ministers of a finer culture, nourishing godly sorrow, and humility,