> N. M. Waters.
PSALM cxxxix. 5 151
and meekness and self-mistrust. The failures and indiscretions of yesterday are no longer creatures of moral impoverishment and despair. He " besets me behind," and they become the teachers of a quiet wisdom and well-proportioned thought.
^ When you reflect that your evil thoughts and dispositions as well as acts all lie naked and open before the Eye of God, even though they may have escaped the view of man, is this a subject of satisfaction, or of dissatisfaction ? Would you have it other- wise if you could, and hide them from Him also ? The Christian hates sin, and finding that neither his own nor any other human eye can effectually track it out in him, while he knows it to be the true and only curse and pest of the universe, must rejoice to think that there is One from whom it cannot lie hid — One who will weigh his own case, which he may feel to be to him unfathomable, in the scales of perfect justice and boundless mercy.^
2. " And before." God comes between us and the enemy that troubles us from to-morrow, the foe that lies ambushed in futurity and disturbs the peace of to-day. And so He deals with our fears and anxieties, and repeats the miracle of transformation, and changes them from swords into ploughshares. He changes de- structive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness. He converts a lacerating fretfulness into an energetic contentment. He trans- forms an abject fear into a holy reverence. He takes the terror out of to-morrow, and enables us to live and labour in a fruitful calm.
When thunders roll And lightnings slash the sky, God of the Elements Stand by.
When warring worlds Make men in thousands die, God of the Battle-field Stand by.
When terrors lurk And hearts in anguish cry, God of humanity Stand by.
* Letters on Church and Religion of W, E. Gladstone, ii. 159.
152 THE ENCOMPASSING GOD
When storm blasts rage And lives in peril lie, God of the Universe Stand by.
When life ebbs low
And death is drawing nigh,
God of Eternity
Stand by.i
3. "And laid thine hand upon me." When God lays His hand upon us, it means manifold blessing.
(1) His hand is a restraining hand. — One of the hardest tasks of parental love is to correct, to restrain. For is it not strange that a child who comes into life so pure from God should hold within it the possible germ of future wrong ! The father, watch- ing with proper pride the wonderful growth of thought and passion and will, is fearful of the day when first his child will follow evil. So long as that day is a day delayed, laughter and joy fill the home. But, in a moment, the germ of evil starts into life. It grows from less to more, until one day rebellion oversweeps the prentice soul, and the glamour of heaven is gone. A passion of anger shakes the child to the very founda- tion of its being. It is the first good-bye to innocence. Then come correction and punishment and restraint. A father's strong arms hold the little body in check, as in the grip of an iron vice. The very touch of love in such a moment irritates. For anger maddens every souL But there the father sits, in stern silence, holding his child in restraint, until he has gained the mastery. And when the passion has spent itself, then come floods of tears from the poor little penitent soul as he lays his conquered head upon his father's breast.
^ The great American orator Daniel Webster, being asked what was his greatest thought, ^replied, " The greatest thought that ever entered my mind was that of my personal responsibility to a personal God." In a famous speech he expanded the thought : " There is no evil that we cannot either face or flee from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the
* L. Leigh, The White Gate and Other Poems, 40.
PSALM cxxxix. 5 153
sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say that darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close, and, in that sense of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God has given us grace to perform it."
If you would see the same principle in life, open your Shake- speare; imagine yourself on Bosworth field, before the tents of Eichard and of Eichmond; hear the ghosts as they rise and speak. At the door of Eichard's tent —
Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow !
Think, how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth
At Tewksbury: despair, therefore, and die!
At Eichmond's tent —
Be cheerful, Eichmond; for the wronged souls Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf: King Henry's issue, Eichmond, comforts thee.