are not merely comfortable provisions, or business successes, but their selection for high and holy trusts and responsible services. , . II. Goo'~ FAMILY MERCIES APPEAR AS DIVINE OOBREOTIONB. This is very strikingly illustrated m the record of the" house of Aaron." We may even say that the visitations of Divine love in judgment were frequent and severe, as may be illustrated in the deaths of Na~ab and Abihu; the limitation of Aaron's own life; the shifting of the priostly orde,r m later years, etc. They who read their life-stories aright-their family life- stones-never hesitate to praiso God most of all for the mercy in discipliue that was hard to bear. III. Goo's FAMILY MERCIES" APPEAR AS DIVINE DELIVERANCES. Family life has its perils, its disasters, its wilfulnesses, and its mistakes. These variously affect the heads of the family as well as the members. Every family story is made up of sick- nesses, sorrows, follies, and sins, and God's mercies come into the family life at every po1?t of need as redemption, as deliverance. This the psalmists constantly recognize. This we too recoguize who fully believe that God is m our family life. He is ever delivering the family from its bad self, from untoward circumstances, and from active foes. IV. Goo's FAMILY MERCIES APPEAR AS STRENGTHENING FOB SERVICE. In the case of the " house of Aaron " we have unusually solemn service ; but that is only typical of the service which every family has to render, and which it never can render well save as it realizes the strengthening and sustaining mercy of God. Under priestly burdens a man may say, "0 Lord, I am oppressed; undertake thou for me," But that is precisely what every man should say in the bearing of his own burden. V. Goo's FAMILY MERCIES APPEAR AS BELPINGtl OF ONE ANOTHER. The clinging together and mutual helpfulness of family lif~ are ui,ually traced as due to family dispositions, paternal or maternal characteristics. It is altogether a higher and more inspiring view to see in family brotherliness the signs of the Divine mercy.- R. T. Ver. 4.-Personal experience of Divine mercies. "Let them now that fear the Lord say, that his mercy endureth for ever." The term" fear the Lord" suggests personal apprehensions of God, personal dealings with God, and personal relations with him. It is ioconceivable that there ca11 have been these close personal associations with God without their having left a deep impression of the abundance, adaptation, and continu- ance of the Divine mercy, No man can look over his life, and trace God's manner of dealing with him, without being disposed to say, "To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses;" "Also unto thee belongcth mercy, fur thou renderest to every man according to his works." What impressions of the Divine mercies come to us out of our personal experience ? I. THE MERCY OF Goo HAS TAKEN SHAPE AS A DIVINE PATIENCE. That may well be put first, for, when the heart is tender, it is that comes to us most affectingly. When anything like a fitting sense of our own wilfulness and waywardness comes upon our hearts, it is the marvel, over which we never tire of brooding, that God has been so patient with us. Never offended with us, as our fellow-men have easily been; never "dealing with us after our sins, nor rewarding us according to our iniq?itiea," It is not only that he has quietly waited, it is that ~e _has so gently bor~~ with u~. Divine patience is never to be thought of as a mere s1ttrng down and wa1trng. It 1s best suggested by a mother's ways with a sickly babe; or the doctor's ways with an irritable, fractious patient. There be many to whom God's mercy always appears as his patience and long-suffering, aud they praise him for that. IL THE MERCY OF Goo HAS TAKEN BHAPE AS A DIVINE omoIPLINE. This is the thought that comes to us a.s life advances, and the events of the past gain their true perspective. At the time things seemed to be afflictions, calami~y, needless st~ain, and we fretted ourselves weary in trying to find why such hard t~rng~ were put into, our lot. Distance from them increases, and we find they look qwte differently. Thrngs are related which we thought had nothing to do with each other. We see how our cultured power came out of our stern experi~nces ; a!ld th~n we se? t~a~ God's mercy is the way in which he has ma.de the hard things of bfe tram and d1sc1plme characters meet for the heavenly spheree.-R. T, PS, CXVIII, 1-29.] THE BOOK OF PSALM& 97
Vere. 6, 6.-God's power in a hwman life. The figure in ver. 5 is very slrikina and suggestive. The Hebrew is, "I called upon the Lord from the straitness;" or, "i•rom f the narrow gorge I called _upo1;1 Jab, an~ ah answered me_in the open plain." It is not necessary to fix any h1stoncal assoc1at1ons to the psalm 1n order to see the point of such a figure. It does but poetically represent a common experience. Continually in human life we come upon times of straitness ; our way is hedged up; it is as if we were in a narrow gorge, full of fears lest the overhanging rocks should fall on us and seeing no way out. Who has not thus felt hemmed in? " All these things are aa~ins\ us." Human wisdom, energy, and persistency alike are baffled and beaten back. ":, We cannot do the things that we would." Every one and everything seems to be against us. And at such times we easily think hard things of our fellow-men, and think that they are actively against us, when they are only indifferent. What can the psalmist say of such times? I. FROM THE NARROW GORGE HE CALLED UPON Goo. That at least we can always do. No circumstances of human life need ever prevent the soul's uplook, or silence the soul's cry. Bunyan pictures his pilgrim in sore straitness, picking his perilous way through the Valley of the Shadow. Weapons are of no use there. Human care and skill and watching are of small avail there. But thero is one thing the pilgrim can do, and that one thing is everything-he can pray ; he can "call upon the Lord." I? is well to 6..x that truth of fact, and to illustrate it ful~y. There is no perplexity, worry, disaster, or depression can ever come to any man, and desti'oy his power to pray. Oppress and alarm a man how you may, in any narrow gorge of life, he can always pray. Nothing can overwhelm a man while he can cull upon God. JI. IN THE OPEN PLAIN HE HAD THE RESPONSE OF Goo. The figure is kept up. The pilgrim-soul, with the uplifted eyes, presses forward through the darkness or the mist, which permits him to see but one step at a time; and then suddenly the dawn breaks or the mist lifts, and he is filled with a joyous surprise. He is in the gorge no longer ; behold, it is the " open plain;" there is plenty of spaco all around, and the restful blue sky up above, and a clear way before his feet ; God has heard his call ; he is on his side. Neither man nor things can hurt him now. And such is the experience of all the snints.-R. T.