Ver. 16.-Providential guidance. "Which led his people." The addition," through the wilderness," is significant and suggestive, because a wilderness is distinctly a p:,thless region, in which mere human skill is baffled. And it reminds us that Isr_ael was provided for aud guided for thirty-eight long years in such a region. Surely Israel ought to have said, "God's providence is mine inheritance." b it a gain or a loss that we have ceased to recognize or to speak much of God's providence 1 It was o. very real thing to our fathers; it is not very real to us. At least, this might appear to be the fact.. We are, however, disposed to argue that the truth and fact are as truly preserved and valued as ever they were, only they have gained a new setting and new shaping. I. 'l'HE IDEA OF PROVIDENCE FITTED THE OLDER CONCEPTION OF GoD. It belongs to the apprehension of God as Creator, Sustainer, Ruler. He is Lord of the whole world of thincrs1 and is thouuht of as controlliag all things in the interest of his own special people."' He is the U;iversal Provider, and our fathers delighted in stories of remark- able providential interpositions, guidances, anrl arrangements. And still no man can read his own life, or watch the lives of others, without being impressed with the wonder-working ways o.f Divine providence, which make the "unexpected" the thing that happens. Constao tly in lifo we find things are brought round for us which we cou.l<l in no way have D .ast.ered or arranged. There's a divinity that shapes our ends, llough-hew them how we will." II. Tim NEWER ooNCEPTION OF GoD GLORIFIES 1us rnovIDENCE, Chdst has brought l'!t oxxxvr. 1-26.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 295 -------------------------------, - - to men a comprehensive name for God. It includes the very essence of every previous conception and name, but pats man into a new and more directly personal and affec• tionate relation with God. He is our Father. And his providence is his fatherly care of our every interest. Has a child any such providence as his father is to him ? And yet a child never thinks of, or :ipeaks of, his father as providence. And in the measure in which we can enter into the idea of God as O'll,r Father, we shall find that we lose out of use the terlll "providence," but keep all the reality of it, and indeed glorify it, as we lose the impersonal and therefore cold element, and see it to be the wisdom and power and activity of our Father, which is beautified and sanctified by hid love for us Ms sons.-Il. 'l'. Vers. 21, 22.-Fulfilment of race-misaions. "And gave their land for an heritage." The Amorites had their race-mission; when it was fulfilled they had to pass away, and their land had to be occupied by another race, which also had its peculiar mission. It has been pointed out that no absolutely original and independent race ever existed on the face of the earth. No race has a simple beginning, and no race can unfold without streams of life pouring into it from outside and modifying its character. This may be strictly true, but nevertheless the fact remains that distinct races of men can be discerned in actual existence, as well as in the records of ancient history. Explain it how we may, qualify the statement how we may, it remains the fact that God has been pleased to separate humanity into races; and this division is even more important than that into nations. Families and races are Divine divisions; nations are purely huruan arrangements, which God may be pleased to use, but cannot be said directly to arrange. Races are differentiated with a Divine purpose, an,\ each race should be regarded as entrusted with a Divine mission. It is well to bear in mind that by God everything is done or borne with a view to the ultimate well-being of humanity. God always has the whole in view, and deals with every part in the interests of the whole. 'l'he lsraelitish race attracts great attention, but it was not the only race placed under Divine commission. What we so clearly see was true of it-was true of every other race, and its mission was but an illustrative mission. The better we understllUd the peculiarities of the races that have had their day and ceased to be, and the more fully we understand God's educative purposes for humanity, the more clearly shall we apprehend that every race has had some imperilled truth to prf.serve, and some active witness to make. God has commissioned them all, and worked by means of them all, just as truly as by the Hebrew race; and every race is immortal till its work is done; then it passes and gives place to the new race with the new mission.-R. T. Ver. 23.-The Divine dealing with tlie humiliated. "Who remembereJ us in our low estate.n This closing portion of the psalm proves its associatic1n with the restor~d exiles. 'l'hat loog time in Babylon was ever thought of and spoken of as the great time of national humiliation. Never before had the national life been broken up, the national capital been in the hands of the enemy, ap.J laid in ruins, or tbo temple, as the centre of the religious life of the nation, de~troyed. Humiliation expresses precisely the experience through which the nation had been called to pass. But a coudition of huwiliation never puts either a man or a nation out of the Divine reg1ml. Such conditious belong to the Divine discipline, and that means the immediate an,l direct Divine interest. And this the psalmist recognizes. God had remembered his people in their low estate; and how practical that remembrance was is seen in the fact that, in due time, he redeemed his people from out of the hands of the enemies that humiliated them. I. THE DIVINE DEAi.ING WITH TOE IIUMILIATED MAY DE AN ENDURAN0E. Ho moy let it continue. He may seem to hold aloof, anJ to restrain himself. But endurance is altogether different from lost interest or forsakiug. Endurance means knowle,lge, watchfulness, and sympathy. It is only "biding h:s time," potiently waiting until the best time has come, and so supremely seekin,: the highest well-being of the humiliated, that no limitation of the Mtern discipline can be permitted. There a.re conditions of life-religio11s life-in which God can only carry out his purposes of grace by our humiliation. It is the ma1 vel of his love that he will even do a. thorough work of humiliation. Z!JG THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [PS. CXXXVII, 1-9,
II. THE DIVINE DEALING WITH THE HUMILIATED IS SULtE TO PASS INTO A REDEMPTION, God's endurings have no stamp of permanency. They are only agencies working with a view to some issue. And God's final issues are always redemptions. God's people cnnnot be humiliated for ever in any 13abylonian slavery. Man mo.y humiliate his fellow, and never loosen the humiliation. The overruling God never does. There is always something good and gracious towards which the humiliation is movincr, 0 Sooner or later, the humiliated will be redeemed.-R. T.
EXPOSITION.