men's hope. "We are saved by hope." To quicken the love and pursuit of believers. To deliver from the fear of death. All this our hope does.-8. C. Ver. 1.-Personal relations with God made a plea. "0 Lord God of my salvation." '.l'his ha_s _been c~lled "the saddest of all the psalms." But it represents mental rather than spmtual distress. It belongs to ~uch au age as that of Solomon and classes with the Psalms of Asapb, the Book of Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Job. ' It is a pSl\lm of Heman the ~e; but his wisdom is spoiled by the pessimistic view he takes of his circumstances and surroundings. The man who believes in God does not see clearly unless he sees hopefully. '.l'hini:s never can be "going to the bad" if God is in them. Dr. S. Cox calls this psalm, "Heman's Elegy," and he carefully marks its distinguish- ing feature, and this helpfully aids the pulpit treatment of it. "Its sadness is that of one wbo bas wearied himself by much study of a large and varied experience, who bas thought of all things till all things have grown doubtful to him, till be finds the trail of tbe serpent in all the fairest scenes of human life, till he doubts his very doubts. It is the intellectual sadness of one who, in long brooding over the wrongs and sorrows of time, the frailty of man, the limitations of human thought, the vanity of the ends which men commonly pursue, the cravings which importune a satisfaction which they never find, the mystery by which our being is encompassed, the impenetrability of a future which nevertheless we must try to penetrate, bas lost touch with the warm and breathing activities of human life, and has sunk towards a pessimistic despair of the life which now is on the one ha.nd, and, on the other, into a prying and credulous cunos11y as to the conditions of the life which is to come. And that, happily, is a misery which is comparatively rare." The point proposed for illustration is the way in which a personal anchorage of the soul in God may keep it steady under all kinds of soul-distress, and even the distress arising from mental perplexity. I. Oun PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH GOD HAY BE RECOGNIZED AND FELT. Illustrate from the expression," My God," in Ps. xxti. 1, as repeated by the Lord Jesus when on the cross. See experience of Bible sa.ints. JL THE PERSONAL RELATION BRINGS A SENSE OF SECURITY, BECAUSE IT IS BASED ON Gon's RELATION To us. We feel, him to be our God only because he is graciously pleased to be our God. "We love him because be first loved us." III. Tm SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION WITH Gon STEADIES us All{ID THE CHANGING SCENES OF LIFE. IV. THE SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION WITH GoD KEEPS OUR MIND WHEN WBESTLil!TG WITH DIFFICULTIES. V. THE SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION WITH GoD GIVES UB AN UNFAILING PLEA Illl' SEEKING DIVIl>."'E HELP.-R. T. Ver. 2.-Thefear that 'f"T'ayer will not be answered. With what historical conditions may we fairly associate and illustrate this psalm? Suggest-Uzziah smitten with leprosy. Jeremiah cast into the dungeon. Hezekiah bumbled by sickness. Job crushed by accumulated suffering-~. Probably the case of Job provides the most effective and varied illustration. When it pleases God to delay the answer, or to send the answer in unexpected forms, it is our common temptation to think that be does not mean to answer. The plaint of the psalmist is that he "had cried unto· God day and night," and nothing seemed to have come of bis crying. Happily this only drives hi111 the more earnestly to seek an answer. "Oh let my prayer come into thy presence I" Spurgeon says, "His distress had not blown out the sparks of his prayer, but quickened them into a greater ardency, till they burned perpetually, like a furnace at full blast." I. FEAR THAT PBAYEB WILL NOT BE ANSWERED MAY BE REASONABLE. There may be good ground for the fear in the character of the prayer itself. 1. Its tone may indicate that we are not greatly interested in it ourselves. We cannot expect God to Le if we are not 2. The prayer may have in it no note of submission. God cannot be~a prayer tl,e; does not express the cherished feeling, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt." Delay c,fteu means God's waiting until we are in right moods. 3, There may be in prayer a dictating to God the time and the way in which he shall answer. If so, and his delay excites fears, those fears are most reasonable. ll. F.EAB THAT PRAYER WILL NOT BE ANSWERED MAY DE UNREASONABLE, That is I'S, LXXXVIII, 1-18.] THI!', BOOK OF PSALMS. 235
God's we.ye with us, though somewhat strange, may really give no occasion for such fears. 1. Delay is not refusal. We know that our delay in responding to requests is not refusal, and we are grieved if it is so taken. But in our case, too often, delayed nnswer means neglect, which may be more cruel than refusal. It is full of graciou~ nssurance that, with God, delay no more means neglect than it means refusal. 2. Delay mny be answer. At least, it may be if we can see that the moral answers God sen<lB nre always more important than the matei:ial. Delay sets us upon thoucrht, self- soarching, clearing or ourselves, anrl makes us at once simpler minded Ina rnor" earnest; and that is God's first soul-auswer to our prayer. 3. Delay prepares fur answer. It may be God's time for looking round, so that the answer may be a better one than he could have sent at once. Ill. FEAR THAT PRAYER WILL NOT BE ANSWERED MAY BE UNWORTilY, It will be if in it there is any cherished doubt of God's power, or wisdom, or willingness to bless us.-R. 'l'.