worebipe "the God or heaven," and where worship of ancestors is the etrongest form of religion, Buddhism, dating only some five centuries B.c.-at first a system of atheistic morality-has been transformed into idolatry. The two most amazing proofs of Lhe all-but irresistible tendency of human nature are found in the history of fsrael and the history of Christianity. From the time of Joshua's successors to the Baby- lonian Captivity, the incurable propensity of rulers and people to idolatry is scarcely a less striking feature of Israel's history than the steadfast witness of the prophets and of the faithful remnant against it and on behalf of the truth. Chri~tianity itself, whose glorious message to the heathen was-to tum from dnmb idols to the living God, became in five centuries so encrusted with the worship of saints, the Virgin, the Host, relicR, images, that when Mohammed drew the sword against idolatry, he reckoned Christians among idolaters. Wbat is, then, the explanation? We find in it (1) man's need-of worship-his" feeling after God." (2) In all which makes men shrink from worshipping the Holy One, who says to his worshippers, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." St. Paul gives the true philosophy of religion (Rom. i. 18-25). II. THE EVIL OF IDOLATRY. People ask-Is not this greatly overrated? Does there not lie in the heart of idolatry a craving after God? Is it not better to worship an idol (as a symbol, it may be, of an unseen power) than not to worship at all-blind reverence better than none? Answer: Granting this, it does not change the fact that idolatry has death at its root, and death as its fruit (Jer. ii. 13). Blind reverence brings no fruit of blessing into life, pardon, love of goodii~ss, strength for duty, comfort in trouble, moral renewal, or spiritual life. To be Godless is to be Christless, hopeless (Eph. ii. 12). False substitutes for God do not prepare the heart to know and love him, but harden and close it against hi.9 voice. And for the most part idolatry brings the !(rossest immorality in its train. III. THE DUTY, therefore, of delivering from the curse of blind, false, degrading worship a thousand millions of mankind, and spreading in it8 place the true knowledge of the ever-living Creator, the Father of spirits, and the glad tidings ot reconciliation to him, and lifo eternal, as his children by faith in Christ Jesus, is one of the noblest, happiest, most imperative, to which Christians are called.
HOMILIES BY VA RIO US AUTHORS. Vere. 1-3.-Songs and sermons. ,ve have both in these verses. There is a three- fold summons to sing unto the Lord, and a similar threefold summons to speak for the Lord. Such psalms as this never contemplate a religion which can be hid away and held in secret. The passionate love which breathes in this psalm must have vent or die. There is hero no coming to the Lord by night, or being secretly a disciple for fear of the Jews, but the psalm is an open, full, joyous confession of the soul's delight in the Lord. And such confes~ion takes this double form. I. SoNa. This is called for: 1. Because our love to the Lord should be amongst those deep and intense feelings which d=nd the fullest utteranct1 of which the soul is capable. Plain prose will serve for ordinary communications, but when the soul is deeply stirred, as it should be, by the love of God, then song becomes a necessity. See in the Scriptnres how the rapt utterances of psalmist and prophet inevitably clothe themselves in poetical form. 2. Because it is so attractive. It tells of a glad, bright, winsome religion, of sunshine in the soul and joy in the heart, all which in this sad, weary, sin-stricken world cannot but be infinitely attractive. Therefore God would have his people sing. 3 . .And because it is the noblest form of utterance. Music and poetry combine to invest the soul's deepest and holiest thought in the most perfect garment of praise. 4. .And the IO'Tlg is to be Cl mw song. Every day is a new day, and brings with it material for a new song, "New meroiee, each returning day, Hover around us while we pray; New perils past, new sins forgiven, New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.• 5. And universal, 'I his ie our deaire, and, if so, its expression commits us to do our PSALMS-ll, Y 322 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [Ps. xovt 1-13.