The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 2 — Section 109

is acfrve, fashioning woes in the near future, and presenting all the issues that are unfolding ns disast.rous. It would be a lesson never to be forgotten by any man, if he could be told the fears be fashioned in the night seasons tl1at never came to pass. II. MANY PEOPI,E, WHEN THEY LIE A\V AKE, THINK OVER THEIR BINS. And that is even a more hopeless occupation. A man wants light in which to see his sins truly. Brooding over the "things we have done which we should not hne done, and the things left undone which we should have done," is sure to become morbid work. Souls do even get a kind of dreadful satisfaction in making themselves out to be as wicked as possible. And night estimates of sin are very seldom true ones. Desides, this going over of past sins is absolutely wrong, for it is dishonouring Gud by the untrustfulness which will not fully receive the truth, that all those sins are pardoned and put for ever away. If God no longer" remembers" them, it must be wrong for us to do so. III. WISE PEOPLE, WHEN THEY LIE AWAKE, SET THEIR THOUGHTS ON GOD, And that is the proper and hopeful occupation. 1. Even our circumstances seem to gain new shapings, settings, and relations, and become altogether more hopeful, when we can associate God with them. 2. Even our sins can be calmly reviewed, when we can see bow God has dealt with them, and what he has done for us through sanctifying to us our very experience of them.-R. T. Ver. 6.-The cheer of hallowe,d memories. "I call to remembrance my song in the night." This expression recalls the appeal of Elihu (Job xxxv. 10), "But none saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night?" But the mood oftbe psalmist here is peculiar. To him the memories of past joys do but iutensHy present distress. "'When I remember how near God once was, the present seems more bitter, and the thought brings increase of sadness." Some, however, render this clause, "I will give my mind to my song in the night; I will muse with my heart while my spirit makes search;" and nnderstand the psalmist to mean, that he resolves to compose the present poem that very night. L ALL MEN HAVE PRECIOUS AND CHERISHED MEMORIES. However sad and anxious and burdened later life may become, every man's early lif~hildhood, youth, young manhood-is more or less pleasant to look back on. Partly because of what it actually was, partly because of the sunshine which the spirit of youth put on it, and partly because memory keeps the pleasant, and easily drops the painful. Then there are memories of events that have happened. And, for the Christian man, memories of special times of Divine guidance, rescue, restoration. And for many, dearest memories of sanctified human love. The term, "song in the night," suggests special memories of ways in which our hearts were kept trustful and cheerful, even in times of darkest trouble and most painful distress. With the waves and billows going over us, we yet could sing in our souls, "Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness •.. in the night bis song shall be with me." I!. THE PLEASANTNESS OB PAINFULNESS OF OUR MF.MORIES DEPENDS ON OUR OWN CONDITIONS OF 111.lND AND FEELING. The memories never change. They are always full of God and of his grace. We change our relation to them, and make them depr_ess- ing or inspiriting according to our moods. According to bodily states, anuoua circumstances, or mental and spiritual conditions, we read our past. So the cause for anxiety is that "singleness," clearness of vision, .which enables ui! to see ~he past as it was, and read aright its relation to the present. So often when memories depress us, we need to see that the fault lies in our way of recalling them; and we should say, •• This is my infirmity." fil lF OUB H.EKOBIEB TELL US WE WEBE ONOE GLAD IN GOD, THEY REMIND US THAT WE MAY \VIBELY BE GLAD IN Goo STILL. For "he is the same yesterday, to-day, aad for ever." No matter what may seem to be the present, it is the sphere of the same Divine love and care.-R. •r. Ver. 8.-Possible ezhaustion of God's mercies. So fully was the thought of God woven into the whole life and relations of a pious Jew, that to him the unbearable distress was the lost sense of God's presence and interest. We have two l!t~iking instances of this. The supreme point of David's distress, when fleeing from his son Atsalom, !Ay in this-hia enemies taunted him with the lost favour of God, saying, PB, LXXVII, 1-20.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 11'.)