certain prospect caused him to be " uUerly consumed with terrors; " and even at his ~est ~o wo.s "desf.ise~" of the Lord ( ve~s. 19, 20). Thus Asaph's envy was turne<l mto pity, as well 1t might be. 3. He realized ehe love of God. He gained this by honest confession or the sin of which God had convicted him (vers. 21, 22). Also by calli □" to ·mind the love which God had shown him (ver. 23); the care exercise,! over him~ and ~he ~ure prospect of blessedness set before him. Thus there came a great rush of love Ill hie heart toward God (ver. 25); and the settled persuasion both of the misery of being far _from God (ver. 27), and of the blessedness of drawing near to him (ver. 28). Thus the mist and darkness cleared away, as, on the mount of communion with God they ever will.-S. 0, ' Ver. 2.-Narrow escapes. "The victorious general, in the hour of triumph, has not unfrequently reason to remember how nearly, through oversight or miscalculation, be had lost the day. A little more pressure on this wing or that, a trifling prolongation of the struggle, e. few minutes' further delay in the arrival of reinforcements, and his proud banner had been dragged in the dust. The pilot, steering his barque safely into port, sometimes knows how, through lack of seamanship, he nearly made ship• wreck. And the succe8sful merchant remembers crises in his history when he foun«! himself on the brink of ruin-when the last straw only was wanting to precipitate the catastrophe." And like narrow escapes occur in tho spiritual life. I. NOTE SOME OF THEM. 1. The doubt and darkness of unbelief caused by brooding over the mysteries of providence (cf. Jer. xlviii. 11). 2. Terri"ble temptation, See Joseph in prison, Moses in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon, the martyrs. "The righteous scarcely a.re saved." 3. When brought very low, as the prodigal son was, by our own sin. Then the crisis is when we have to decide whether we will tnm back to God or go on in our sin. The prodigal went back to his father; Ephraim was joiaed to his idols, and, like Amon," sinned more and more." How many are in heaven now who once were all but lost ! David, Manasseh, Peter, the penitent thief, Mary Magdalene, and many more. II. WHAT SUCH INSTANCES TEACH us. 1. Never to despair of any one. God can save them. 2. Never to presume for ourselves. "Let him that thinketh he standeth," etc. 3. Great thankfulness, if we are kept. 4. Deep sympathy with those who fall. 5. Ever to alJide in Ohrist.-S. 0. Vera. 5, 6.-Much ease, much peril. That i11 the teaching of these verses, and of innumerable Scriptures besides (see Ps. Iv. 19; Jer. xlviii. 11). Thus- I. Goo IS EVER TEACHING us Tms TRUTH, 1. In his Word. See also Heb. xii., and the biographies of God's people in all ages. 'l'ha history of the Church as given in Scripture abundantly reveals God's merciful law of change. 2. By analogy. God suffers nothing to be without change. Even the rocks and hills, the solid globe, are all subject to change. 'l'he seasons alternate. Storm and tempest make pure the air which, as in the Swiss valleys, would otherwise become stagnant. The great sea is "troubled, that it can never be quiet." In plant-life, "except a corn of wheat fall into," etc. The processes of change are varied and ever acting in the entire vegetable world. And so in animal life. Not to experience change would be death. Aad it is so with the mind. No change there is idiocy. It must be stirred by the incoming of fresh truth, and the readjustment of old. In social life- " The old order ohangeth, giving place to new, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
In ecclesiastical life. What was the Reformation but the tempest that rushed through the valleys of the Church-life of that do.y, where the air had become so stagnant and corrupt that men could not live? And it is so in political and in moral life. Much peace is much peril. "Because men have no changes they fear not God." We cannot glide into the kingdom of God, nor, as the well-known hymn mistakenly teaches that wewo.y- "Sit and sing ourselves away To everle.sting bliss." 78 '11IE DOOR OF PSALMS. \PB, LXXIII, 1-28,