home. Relationship to God as "our Father" makes his hoase our home, a.ad our brothers' home. II. HOME IS A PLA0E OF SEOURlTY. It is our sanctuary. There we feel not only that none will harm us, but that none ever want to harm us. We even feel that nothing can harm us if we only a.re safe at home. And nothing ever can harm the soul that is in the shelter of the " everlasting arms." III. HOME IB A PLA0E OF PERSONAL INTERESTS. Ea.eh one is concerned in the best welfare of ea.eh of the others. It is full of mutual love-service. N otbing is paid for, save by responsive love and service. So God may be thought of as personally concerned, personally interested, in a.II for whom he finds a. home. IV. HoME IS A PLACE OF BEST. For those wearied and worn by toil or by trouble. So we sing, "Oh rest in the Lord ! " V. HoME IS A PLA0E OF REFUGE. To which the traveller gladly returns from the fatigue and peril of the way. To which the erring child, the prodigal, turns in the penitent hour. So God is the Home of the sinful soul, ever the Father,-R. T. Ver. 2.-The past, present, and future eternity of God. "There is somefoing in the psalm that is wonderfully striking and solemn, acquainting us with the profoundeso depths of the Divine nature" (Ewald). In contrast with the ever-passing, ever- changing generations, God'.is the Abiding, Never-changing One. Independent of all things that exist, God is before a.II, and is the absolute Crea.tor and Controller of a.II. The mountains have ever been man's best image of the stable and permanent, yet he is helped to conceive of God a.s before the mountains, more stable than the mountains, more enduring than the mountains. "From everlasting to everlasting " is, poetically, " from hidden time to hidden." There a.re time-measures which we can use. There are eternity-measures of which we can only think; they a.re now beyond our mental grasp. The eternity-measures a.lone can be properly applied to God.. Two things a.re the subjects of meditation in the first two verses of this pea.Im-the Divine independ- ence, and the Divine relations. God is the Absolute Bein~-the "I am." God is in gracious, voluntary, relations-the "God of .A.bra.ham, of Isaac, and of Ja.cob.'' Beyond us as the subject suggested may be, it does us good to try our minds with it, and fill our souls with the wonder and the glory of it. I. Goo WAS BEFORE ALL, THINGS. Philosophers try to persuade themselves that matter is eternal; or they fix upon the atom, or upon water, as the essential primary thing. They a.re always driven ha.ck behind their conclusions, and urged to say whence comes the a.tom or the moisture. There is no consistent thinking that does not bring us to the conclusion that there was some self-existent, immaterial Being, who was the absolute originator of all material existence, and still exists in complete and conscious independence of everything he has ma.de. He is beyond and above all the chances and changes of his own handiwork. II. Goo Is IN ALL THINGS. Separable from them, but voluntarily interested in them. The life and light of all this wondrous world we see. The poetical faculty discerns his presence. Hnma.n experience attests his practical working. The religious sentiment opens the eyes, and makes the recognition of God easy. When we say all things, we mean absolutely all, not merely those which we are pleased to call religious. ' III. Goo WILL BE AFTER ALL THINGS. This can but appeal to faith. To us the time is inconceivable when things will .no longer exist. Conceive the time when material things exist no longer, you must think of God as still the One Being. In the One who never passes, never changes, we may put the perfect trust.-R. T.
Ve:. 5.-The lesson of the grass. "And fade away suddenly as the grass." The strength of this poetical figure can only be fully recognized by those who know the peculiarities of grass in tho hot Eastern countries. "In the East one night's rain works a change a.s if by magic. The field a.t evening was brown, parched, arid as a desert ; in the morning it is green with the blades of grass. The scorching hot wind blows upon it, and again before evening it is withered." I. A LESSON FROM THE FRAILTY OF THE GRASS. It is little more th:m a blade. Compare with plant, shrub, or tree. .A. delicate trembling thing. It comes too sti.l- 264 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [PS. XO. 1-17,
denly, and grows t-Oo quickly, to give us any impression of strength. So the apostle reminds us th11t "all flesh" is as frail as gl'ass. We are here to-day, tremble to-day and 11re gone to-morrow. "Surely every man's life is but a vanity." ' II. .A LESSON FBOM THE PERILS OF THE GRASS. From insect, from flood, from drought, from wind, from the scythe of the mower. So are the perils that attend human life many and varied. Hereditary tendencies, diseases, results of vice, unhealthy situations and occupation, accidents. Well did the hymn-writer say- " Strange that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long." .A considerable proportion of a population die in infancy or in youth; a vast proportion die of preventible disease; an alarming proportion die of Divine juduments un sinful indulgeoce; and a considerable proportion die through the uncertai~ty that attaches to the working of man-made machinery. "In the midst of life we are in death." "Be ye also ready ; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." III. .A LESSON FROM THE BRIEF LIFE OF THE GRASS. Growing up in the morning and withered by night, it bas but its little day in which to do its work. There can ~ no wasting of the few moments, the" little while," which represent the human life of even the longest-Jived. The brevity of our life puts supreme importance into the passing moment. "Now is the accepted time." IV. A LESSON FROM THE MISSION OF THE GRASS. Frail as it is, brief as is its life, the grass has its work; and it has but to be faithful to the mea.sure of power it ha.s, and the length of time it abides. It has a mission to the soil, to the atmosphere, to the cattle, and to man. So we ha.ve our mission; it is precise t-0 our powers; it is limited to the time of our sojourn. And, however little, it fits into the great plan of God for the well-being of the race.-R. T. '