hear mutterings after the loud thunder-peal~. There is gradually more earnest prayer for him$elf, less concern about his enemy, and a fuller confidence that God will answer his prayer, and, in his own wise way, bless the good and shame the evil. It is his praying on that has wrought this change of mood. He has prayed himself into a better mind, by the very saying out so freely all the bitter things he had thought and felt. I. PRAYER CHANGES OUR MOODS BY EXHAUSTING THE BAD MOODS. Here is a most singular thing. Saying out all our bad feelings to a fellow-man would only intensify t.he badness. We should excite ourselves even to plan revengeful things. But if we say out all our bad feelings to God, we find they get exhausted. Somehow, in his presence, we cannot keep them up. We soon come to the end, and the very Divine silence seems to be waiting until we have mid it all; and presently we feel as if there was nothing more we could say. Another mood must come, as tears come when passion has expended itself. So prayer helps by finding us the opportunity for safely saying out all that is in our hearts. II. PRAYER HELPS us BY ENCOURAGING NEW .AND BETTEB MOODS. Gradually, as we pray on, the sense of God's presence makes us feel kinder. We cease to want our enemy punished, we want ourselves vindicated; and then presently we feel as if we could just leave our enemy in the hands of God. The Judge of all the earth will surely do the right. At last we find ourselves filled with pity for them; it comes to us, as we pray, that it is far sadder to be a wrong-doer than to be a. wronged one; the injurer is much more to be pitied than the injured. So mood after mood changing for the better, we come at last to the Christian mood, and do &.s the Lord Jesus did, and as St. Stephen did-pray for our enemies. In all the strain-times of life we may prove the soothing, correcti!:lg, and comforting power of prayer.-R. T. Vers. 1-31.-This is a psalm of the most awful imprecations, in which the writer unrestrainedly pours forth the fiercest hatred of his enemy, and pleads with God to load him with the most dreadful curses. He justifies his vindictive spirit by pleading that his enemy had fought against him without a cause; had rewarded hie good with evil, and his love with hatred. He says he will give himself unto prayer; but the words which follow breathe a spirit such as we wonder that a man dare utter before God-the God of mercy. The best commentary on the whole psalm would be II sermon on Matt. v. 43-46, and another on Rom. xii. 17-21.-S.
EXPOSITION. clines so strongly to the sceptical school, PSALM ex. grants that "it may perhaps refer to the Acco1mnm to the recent criticism, which ideal or Messianic King himself," though calls ilself "advanced," this psalm is the he thinks it "equally possible to expfoiu composition of an unknown prophet, ad• it of some historical ruler." The style dressed to his earthly sovereign, communi- and language are generally allowed to be cating to him certaiu Divine ntterances, or Davidic, and many, even of tbo "advanced" oracles (vers. I, 5), of great weight and critics, refer the composition to his time. strangeness, and promising him complete Ewald suggested thut God or Nathan might victory over all his enemies. The king is havo been the author. Recently, Conon supposed by some to be David; by others, Gore has embraced the sceptical view, and e. Davidic monarch; by othero, again, a has suggested that our Lord either did not :r.faccabee prince or king. According to its know who was the author, or did not mean "tille," it is" a P,alm of David;" according to touch the quostion of the authorship to our Lord's comment upon it (Matt. xxii. (' Dampton Lectures,' pp. 19G-200). Dut 43--45; Mark xii.35-37; Lukexx.41-44), the expressions, "David colleth hiw Lord," it ill e.n address of David to tho Messiah; " David himself saith in the Dook of according to every Christian commentator Psalms, The Lord soid unto my Lord," fur fifteen centuries, it is Messianic and are difficult to explain away. Devidic. Even Professor Cheyne, who in- There seern to bo no suflloient grounds PS, OX, 1-7.] THE DOOK OF PSALMS.