Ver. 9.-" The fountain of life." This short but sublime psalm opens in a minor key. With a few powerful strokes the psalmist paints the blindness, untruthfulness, blasphemous presumption of an ungodly life-a life void of godly fear, and of that hatred of evil without which there is no true love of goodness. '!'hen as with a sudden recoil from this hateful spectacle, the psalmist turns to God, pouring forth a noble strain of praise. He contemplates God's mercy, truth, justice, bountiful providence, and loving-kindness to his children (ver. 9). May be looked at as the crowning point of this hymn of worship, at which praise tnrns to prayer. J. Goo 18 THE SOLE 0IIIGlliAL PossESSOn OF LIFE-UNDERIVED, SELF-SUSTAINED, ETERNAL. "The Father bath life in himself" (John v. 26). "God draws existence from his own store. We possess but a borrowed existence; being is not native to us . .Ae in our turn, one by one, we shall pass out of this life, and the world will go on its way without us; so, if God willed, we might pass out of being, and the universe wou!J. not miss us" (Saurin). But God" inhabiteth eternity" (Isa. !vii. 15). This truth, the foundation of religion, is sublimely set forth in the Old Testament, especially in contrast with the vanity of idols; and is shadowed forth in the personal name by which God entered into covenant with his people (Exod. iii. 14; vi. 3; comp. Isa. xiii i. 10--- 13; xliv. 6; so in the New Testament, John xvii. 3; Rev. iv. 9, 10). II. Goo 18 THE .AUTHOR AND SUSTAINER OF LIFE. The variety, beauty, activity, fruitfulness, joy, of the lire of all living creatures are eo many streams, whose inex- haustible fountain is in him (.Acts xvii. 25, 28). From the gigantic trees of California and .Australia, four hundred or five hundred feet in height, to the all but invisible moss on Arctic snows; from the eagle, soaring above the mountain peaks, the elephant in his massive strength, the whale plunging deep in ocean, to those creatures revealed by our strongest lenses, tens of thousands of which find ample space in a few drops of water ;-all draw life and being every moment from him. The least is as carefully desigaed and finished as the highest. Let us not forget how these two worlds of life-plants and animals-are balanced and made mutually dependent: the plant feeding on the air which the animal breathes out, and which to itself is poison, and giviag back that which the plant needs not, but which to the animal is the breath of life. Even death and decay are made to minister to life. The creatures appear and vanish, like waves on the great river of lire; but the river flows on, for its fountain is in God (Ps. civ. 27-31). Shall we imagine that this is true only of our small world, and that all the suns aud systems with which space teems are splendid u.eserts? Or is not Isa. xiv. 18 true of many and many another world as of our own? Ill. SPIRITUAL LIFE-MAN'S HICJHEST LIFE-LIKE BODILY LIFE, HAS ITS FOUNT.AI~ IN Goo. He alone bestows and sustains it. We share with the lower creatures the life of sensation and conscious activity. Hut we have also (whether we heed it or not) a higher life, or capacity of life-the life of personal character, which may be cultivated and perfected in personal communion with God. Each oae lias in him germs of good anu. of happiness; germs, too, of evil and misery, for whose full development this life does not afford room. Each human spiiit, a world in itself, bas in it material for heaven or bell. '!'his is so, whether we like to thiak so or no. More than this, Scrip- ture reveals (what we could never have discovered, reasonable as it is) thnt the Spirit of God, personally bestowed and dwelling in us, creates and sustains this higher life (John iii. 6). 'l'he most vigorous life-bright intellect, intense emotion, strenuous will, fruitful activity-if der,titute of living communion with God, and devoid of his Spirit, is pronounced in Scripture but a living death (Eph. ii. 1, 4, 5; 1 John v. 12). LESSONS. 1. Worship. If we could rise to the height of theso words, fathom their depth, read their full meaning, our souls would be bowed, yot uplifted in adoration- filled with the glorious sense of the majesty, the mystery, the infinite greatness nnd goodness of God (1 Tim. i. 17; vi, 15, 16). 2. Submission. He with whom is the fountain of life must determine how and how long the stream shall flow. Our lives beloncr to him. When he withdraws lifo he is not t1tkin~ away what we have any right ~r claim to-only wbe.t is his (Heb. ix. 27). Ilut the Lord Jesus holds the key (Rev, i. 18). 3. Faith in Jesus. O1.lrist is tho Possessor and Dispenser of Bl!iritual 278 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [PB, XXXVI, 1-12.
lire (~ohn v. 26). Al~ the streams of both physical and spiritual life flow through him (Col. _1. 15, 16; Jo~m 1. 3). He came to give life (John x. 10). But II man might dio of thirst at the brmk of II full-flowing fountain, if he would not drink. So with infinite pathos, our Saviour says," Ye will not come" (John v. 40). But all ~ho will aro freely bidden (John vii. 37-39; Rev, xx.ii, 17).