Ver. 1.-77ze duty of witnessing in public for God. The terms used seem to include the narrow and the wider spheres in which our witness for God may be, and Bhould be, made. The Prayer-book Version brings out this point. "Secretly, among the faithful, and in the congregation." It is a point with the psalmists that God's praise can be no private thing merely, no personal indulgence or enjoyment only. If a man feels thankful to God, if a man recognizes his indebtedness to God, if a man is impre~sed with the greatness of God or the goodness of Goil, be lies under the solemn obligation to say so to somebody. If he is a sincere man, he feels the impulse to say so to somebody. He will even want to speak of these things to everybody whom he can reach. The sentences or the fortieth psalm may be taken as characteristic of the psalmists, and there is something guileful in the man who is unable or unwilling to recognize this duty of publicly witnessing for God. "I have not bi,] thy ri~hteous- ness within my heart: my talk bath been of thy truth, and of thy salvation. I have not kept back thy loving mercy and truth from the great congregation." I. EACH MAN BAB A PUBLIC SPHERE OF HIS OWN. A circle outside himself, of which he is himself the centre. Every man, in his own particular public sphere, is bound to make his witness for God. It is the same thing to say that every man must come into relationship with others outside himself; and tbrse relations constitute his first public sphere. It may be a friendship. It may be the marital relation. It may ~ a family. It may be a business or social circle. If a man is for God, he must be active and voiceful for God in those first spheres. 11lustrate by the stone thrown into a pond: it influences the waters that touch the shores only through influencing the little circle or waters just where it fell, nnd so on and on, through ever-widening circles. (1) Personal influence, (2) family influence, (3) social influence, must be used for the convincement of the claims and goodness of God. II. EAOH lllAN BAB A PLACE IN THE GENERAL PUnLIO SPHERE. The congregation is made up of iadividuals, and the enthusiasm of each goes to make the enthusiasm of the whole. 'l'he congregation is no mere mass of receptivity. That mistaken notion spoils much of public worship. The congregation, ns an aggregate of individuals, should make common witness, by praise, thanksgiving, and testimony. But the testimony that is healthy, and inspiring to others, is testimony for God and concerning God; not that weak and enervating thing, testimony concerning individual feelings and expcriences.-R. T.
Ver. 2.-Good will towirds God guiding the search/or God. "Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." "The pleasure in God's works is in germ the best incentive to thoughtful search, and in fuller mea~ure its sufficient reward." In regard to man's search for God, it may be properly said that what he finds depends on what he seeks, and the spirit in which he seeks. Thie, indeed, is true even of scientific research. A man must know what he is looking for, or he will find nothing intelligent in the revelations of telescope or microscope. A man writes, "I have searched the heavens for God during fifty long years, and have never found him yet." He did not believe there wns a God, and so he never would find him. Let a man want to find God, nnd hie search will be fully responded to. God is revealed, God reveals himself, to morn! moo:ls, and not to mere intellectual research. Soule find God, not eyes or mindij, 4.() TH:!!: BOOK OF l'SA.LMS. [rl=I. ext. 1-10, ------------------------------------ !. Goo's WORKS ARE BEYOND THE REACH OF WISE INTELLECTS. Men by their science can find out things, and account for the forms of things. But they cannot explain the J?e&nings of things, or the relations of things. Nothing in the world is more uncertam a1:1d untrustwort~y than wise men's theorizings. The most humiliating book could be written on the • History of Exploded and \Vorn-out Theories.' Illustrate by referring to "certain cruel and loathsome practices of the animal world-as for example, those of apes, dogs, frogs, the barbarity of the cat to the mouse, the thefts of the eagle from the fish-hawk, the rapture of nests by stronger birds who turn out their original tenants to die of cold and slow starvation, the enslaving of the black ants by the red, and sundry other habits which shock our sense of justice or of decency." The intellect of man, without guidance from the sense of God, bas never found the meaning of such things. The key to them is· hid from the wise, who in fact blind themselves by refusing to carry to the consideration of such things those truths con- cerning God which are "spiritually discerned." Naturo in only an open secret to the God-fearing man. II. Goo's WORKS ARE WITHIN THE REACH OF LOVING HEARTS. These only aro prepared !o think kind t~ings, l?ving things! trustful things. When we have right apprehensions of the mfimtely wise and gracious Doer, such apprehensions as enable us to set our love upon him, we simply refuse to accept explanations of nature-mysteries that are dishonourable to him. They cannot be true. We pass them by. '!'here is something better to be "sought out." Our good will toward God will keep us from resting content with anything that is unworthy of him; and we search on, assured that mystery will yield at last to love.-R. T.