each blade from its own root.' Not a bird falls to the earth without our heavenly Father. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord" (Ps. cxxxix. 3, 9, 10). 2. By his Woi·d. (2 Tim. iii. 15; Ps. cxix. 105.) What is a lamp for? 'l'o give light. How do I know that light is light? Simply by its shining. Light is its own evidence. If a lamp cannot be kindled, or, being kindled, refuses to burn, no argument will persuade you that it is a good lamp. If it bums bright and steady, shedding a clear light on the page you read, the work you handle, the path you walk in, no argument will persuade you that it is not a good lamp. So with God's Word. Men may dispute as they please about inspiration, pile up mountains of criticism, publish every few years a ne,v work that is to finally dispose of the Bible; they cannot stop the light from shining. This main fact remains solid, unanswerable, that a life guided by this light rises to a level, gains a purity, strength, beauty, hopeful courage, and calm settled peace not otherwise attainable. The light, observe, not of mere precept. Pagan teachers-Buddha., Confucius, Seneca, and I know not how many, have given noble and lofty precepts, enabling men to say, with the old Roman poet, "I see and approve what is good, though I practise what is bad." But only from the Dible shines, along with precept, the light of pardcn and the light of promise (1 John ii. 12, 25). Against the sceptics' learning and logic the plain Christian sets his experience. If you could fiud a grey-ha.ired Christian saying, "I have framed my life according to the Bible, and I wish I had not; I have lived a life of prayer to God, and trust in Jesus as my Saviour, and obedience to his Word, and if I could begin again, I would be wiser,"- then you would at least have something to set against the lives ruined by despising the Bible, and flinging faith and prayer away. Ilut the testimony is the other way (Pss. cxix. 165; xix. 11; 2 Tirn. iv. 6-8). 3. By his Spirit. (John xiv. 13; Rom. viii. 14.) The Bible itself affords no countenance to the idea that life can be rightly guided by the written Word alone, severed from the living presence and personal teaching of the Holy Spirit. For three plain reasons. A rightly guided life means: (1) A life of faith in Christ; and this is the Holy Spirit's gift and work (Matt. xvi. 17). (2) A life of prayer; and the Holy Spirit is at once the Answer to prayer and the Inspirer of prayer (Luke xi. 13; Jude 20). (3) The true meaning of Scripture is hidden from an unspiritual mind (1 Cor. ii. 14). II. WHAT 1B THE FORCE OF THE PLEA HERE URGEI>-"For thy Name's sake"? If one may venture to put it so plainly, it is putting God on his honour to fulfil his promises. The "Na.me" of God stands for all that he has made known to us of himself. Especially it includes his words of promise, because here his faithfulness stands pledged. Not that God promises to grant every request, wise or foolish, right or wrong. ( Wbo would dare to pray?) But he does promise to attend to our prayer- to give good things to those who ask. He has filled the Bible with encouragements and commands to pray, and with examples of prayer answered. As our Lord Jesus is himself the full Revelation of the Father, so he authorizes us to pray in his Name (John xiv. 13, 14). CoKcLUBION. Of all prayers there is none we need to offer more earnestly, more constantly. 1. Without God's guidance we shall miss our way. A life at the mercy of passion, expediency, fashion, fancy, is like a rudderless ship. Especially in trouble and temptation. The traveller iu fair, calm weather may think the mountain-track is plain enough without a guide; but the snowstorm comes on, and he is lost. 2. If God be not your Guide, you will have some other. Conformity to the world is practical suLmissiou to the enemy of souls (Eph. ii. 2, 3. "He who bows not to him has bowed to me," Byron's •Cain'). Like a ship that has taken on board a false pilot, who steers her on the quicksand, 3. Life is a ;'ourney t-0 be talcen but once. The wrong path cannot be retraced. Ver. 15.-God's sovereign will. "My times are in thy hand." "The stream cannot rise higher than its source." If this bo true in the spiritual as in the material world, then tho feelings, desires, trust, which rise eo mightily to God fn this psalm, and throughout the Book of Psalms, must have their fountain in God. The. Psalter is the mouthpiece of the Dible, uttering the testimony of experience, not fictitious, but real, liviug, personal expedence-if such ever was; the genuine outcome of human heo.rls i yet ll'ithal superhuman, Divine; the breath of God's own Spirit (Hom. viii. 2G). Ps. xxxr. 1-24.] THE BOOK OF PSALM:9. 231
J. liEnE IB THF: RECOGNITION OF A DIVINE OUID!NCE AND I'URPOSE IN EACII ONE'S LIFE. "My times;" q.d. the daily circumstance3, and whole plan and arrange- ment of my life; the number of its days and years, birth and death, seasons of joy and sorrow, strength and weakness, prosperity and adversity (Eccles. iii. 1-8). Scripture is full of examples of this special training. Abraham, Joseph, John the Baptist (a life seemingly broken otr prematurely), St. Paul. In each child of God there is a character to be formed, fruit ripened, an end attained. IL PERll'E_ar TRUST IN Goo's WISDOM, POWER, LOVE. These words, " my" and " thy," express conscious personal relation to God. Personal trust forms the most sacred relation between man and man-the basis and cement of human society. It is the glory of the Bible, distinguishing its teaching from all human systems, that it rests religion on this persono.1 trust. We are saved by faith. We walk by faith. We love God because we.trust him and believe his Word (1 John iv. 16, 19). Because the psalmist can say, "I trusted," etc. (ver. 14), he fears not to say, "My times are in thy hand;" and to add vers. 19, 20, 24. Note that from this psalm (ver. 5) our Saviour drew his dying prayer. III. DUTIFUL SUBMISSION TO Goo's SOVEREIGN WILL. If God did not rule all things, he could rule nothing. Each life-yours, mine-with all its vicissitudes, has its place in his great plan. "No man _liveth to himself." The calm happiness and triumph of faith is not merely submission to God's will when manifest, but willingness that he shall choose (Phil. i. 20-25; iv. 5-7, 11-13). Sometimes we are tempted to shrink from this full surrender, from he.If-unconscious fear that trial may be good for us, which God is too faithful and wise to spare us; ns we might dread to call in the most skilful surgeon, lest he should say the dise11Sed limb must come off. CoNcLUSION. The text has a special application to (l) the young; (2) those in the full activity of mid-life; (3) those who have reached old age.