I. ALL AROUND UB WE MAY BEE THE END OF PERFECTIO"ITB, The story of the ages is the story of well-conceived ideals in social and national lifo that were never realized. The story of individual iives that had only self-centred aims is this wail," My purposes are broken off." It is even a large truth that no life ever was lived that realized its ideal, reached its perfection, or accomplished its purposes. And this must be so because perfecUon is fol' the race, not for the individual, who has never more than a piece of the whole entrusted to him. And because, by man's very nature, he cannot rest satisfied with things, only with character, which finds expression in things, and is always below a possible attainment, while God is the supreme character. II. IF WE CANNOT GET PERFECTION, WE MAY WORK TOWARDS IT. To do this we must get out of the human sphere into the Divine sphere. :Man fails to reach his own perfoction because it is so small. God's Word is large, broad, and towards its perfection man may move through all eternity, and get ennobled as he moves.-R. T. Ver. 97.-The inspfration of obedience. "Oh bow love I thy Law!" There are tliree possible inspirations of the obedient life; the psalmist presents the true and efficient one. J. WE MAY OBEY BECAUSE WE MUST: THEDE IS THE OBEDIENCE OF FEAR. Preachers seek to help men with this inspiration when they declare the '' terrors of the Lord," testify of a coming judgment, and cry, "Prepare to meet thy God." And presumably there arc persons to whom fear is an effective inspiration. All we need say is that they are not the nobler members of our race. A person amenable to the influence of fear is either uneducated, untrained, or un-self-trained. As science destroys superstition, so knowledge and self-knowledge and Divine knowledge destroy fear. Fear God, and you need fear nothing else. It is not yet worthily seen that Christianity has something with which it intends, absolutely and entirely, to replace fear. JI. WE MAY OBEY BECAUSE WE OUCJHT: THERE IS THE OBEDIENCE OF DUTY. This is an altogether higher kind of inspiration. In it wo still recognize o. power abovo us; but it is now a power personally related to us and interested in us-a power with which we are in sympathy, and whose authority to rule us we recognize. No man is his true self until he says, "I am not independent. I nm under authority. There is something that I ought to be. It is the will of a Personal Divine Being, in whose image I have been made." The sense of duty has been the inspiration of the noblest things in every sphere of human life--in the family, the business, and the nation. Duty has often inspired heroism. Poets hnve sung its praise so much that it would hardly be unreasonable to regard it as man's highest inspiration. And yet we must see that its power is altogether surpassed. III. WE MAY OBEY BECAUSE WE WISH TO: THERE IS THE ODEDIEN0E OF LOVE. "Oh how love I thy Law I" It is sometimes said that this is the Law "getting into a man," and becoming himself, so that when he obeys be simply expresses himself. And this is true. Even duty keeps law outside us; it remains something which we must confo1m ourselves to. Love brings law in, makes it one with us, and so becomes an actual force of obedienco in us. The inspiration of lovo is our best selves carrying our conduct into righteousness.-R. T.
Ver. 100.-Human teache1·s and the Bible itself. "I understand more than the aged, because I have kept thy precepts." 'l'bis is no mere boasting, no invidious com- parison, It is the recognition of the fact that the man who is taught of God knows what no human teacher can teach. Thll h11mnn teacher bas a limited range; the Divine Teacher tramcends it. But the Wonl of God, the Scriptures of tho Divine revelations, are the agencies God uses for imparting the higher knowledge. It is necessary to say that what God teaches is not a mere advance on what man tenches. It is other than man teaches. Mnn deals with the surface of things; God deals with the inmost of things. Man keeps within the agency of limited human language ; God can teach through spiritual sensibilities. It is true that he uses the writtou W 01·d ; but it is not true that be confines himself to the formality of the Word, He tenches through the spiritual feeling which the Word excites. 'l'bere is much macle of a com- prehensive, nll-ro11nd education, but it is not enough insisted on that this must include the Divine teaching. 160 THE IlOOK OF PSALMS. [rs. CXIX. 1-176.