Vers. 4, 5.-The beautiful and sublime calling to devotion. There is a remarkable diversity in the psalms. Some express the struggling of earnest souls with the moral difficulties and mysteries of life (see Asaph's psalms). Some express the varieties of experience characterizing individual religious experience (see Ps. xiii.). The psalm nnw before us is one that expresses the influences of the v.iried aspects of nature upon 1.he culture of religiollB life a.nd feeling (see also Pss. xix., civ., cxlvii.). These poetical n:;ture-psa.lms a.re as true to humanity, as necessary and as helpful, as those whose influence seems more direct. Man's Bible is poetical. It should be, because the poetical is one of man's faculties. It is the side of his nature on which he is set in harmony with the suggestive in ma.teria.l creation. By the poetical faculty we need not mean the power of making poetry. It is the power to receive and respond to the impressions made on us by God's handiwork. Nothing quickens and nourishes the faculty as religion does. Faith and hope are nearly allied to imagina.ti?n; and they cannot fail to culture it. In this psalm it is evident that the beautiful and sublime in nature is impressing the psalmist, filling him with reverence, leading him to personal devotion, and inciting him to call upon others to share with him in worship. I. THE C,,&EAT THINGS OP NATURE IMPRESS ALL MEN. Many of us may seem to be under grave disadvantage, because we live in a crowded city, a man-made city, an unresthetic city. But even cities cannot wholly shut out the changing moods of nature, Smoke cannot hide the firmament, the sunshine, or the stars. Business cannot make us unmindful of the seasons, the winds, a.nd the rains. Men's buildings cannot alter the con- formation of the ground that makes the la.ndsca.pes. And the very disabilities of city people only ma.ke them more open to nature-influences when they can get a.way into the country. The beautiful and sublime will not always produce their due impression on W!. Poets are not always equally sensitive. So much depends on our circumstances and on our moods. And therefore how important is the spirit in w,hich we go into the country; the kind of society we seek there; and esfecially the quietness, the l~n~linees, we ga.in in which we may listen to nature's voice Crowded train~, cro:w~ed piers, crowded seaahores, crowded lodgings, too easily crowd men out of their spmtu- PB, XOV, 1-11,] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 315
o.lity. Can we recall times when nature has borne upon us with all its holiest force? At such times we were our real selves, our noblest selves; God touched us with hi~ nature-hand, and we felt the touch, Illustrate by the impressi0ns of moor, mountain, see.shore, sunset, or tempest, Upon David the voice of nature fell often and found an . exquisite ~ensiJiveness that was partly his dispositio~, and partly' his piety. Believe, then, m kmness between yourself and the grand ID creation; and !ear □ to expect that nature-messages will come to you. II, THE GREAT THINGS OF NATURE OALL TRUE-HF.ARTED MEN TO DEVOTION AND WORSHIP, To many men, warped and biassed by education and association, the great things of hills and seas and skies speak only of a higher pO'I.Der. If man is simple, true-hearted, they speak of the personal being of God. "The sea is his." The psalmist does not merely assert a fact; he asserts a man's feeling concerning the fa.et. We can have no reverence, no devotion, for the vague thing-a power. Reverence and devotion can only be felt m relation to a living being. So we must guard our faith in God, the living God. If open-hearted, nature makes us feel the kinness of man with creation in its daily dependence on God. " He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." Our minds, receiving impressions of glory from earth and sky, transfer them to God. If this his handiwork be so glorious and so gracious, what must he himself be? And if all things depend on him, bow should we bow before him, and worship? "Oh how I fear thee, living God!" But a further impression comes. That which fills us with reverence and worship is Gc,d's voice to humanity, and it reaches the whole brotherhood of men. So we become dissatisfied with lonely worship, and want to say, with the psalmist, "Come, let us worship and bow down." Search, then, and see what is the influence of the holiday-times of life upon us. Have they made us more reverent, more devout, more earnest in our religious life and service? Do they give us a worthier sense of the value of common worship; and fill us with a holier determination "not to forsake th11 assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is" ?-R. 'l',