The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 2 — Section 376

inner man." Thnt s(rength will come to us as we are: 1. Dil(qent in prayer. 2. Faith- ful in confession of Ghrist. 3. Feeding upon the Divine Word. 4. Trying to save others. 6. Keeping on believing. III. SEEKING HIS FACE EVERMORE. 1. This tells of the joy of the Lorcl which comes to us when his face shines upon us. Let us be children of the light; keep on the sunny side of the way. Let there be joy in our service, not mere duty, doing which gets to be very dull work after a. while. The elder son in the parable (Luke xv.) was a mere duty-doer, and he had no joy in his service, and therefore had no welcome for bis poor prodigal younger brother. 2. 1J we would serve God effectur,lly, pray for "the joy of God's salvation." (Ps. Ii.) Then shall we teach transgressors, and geG them converted to God. 3. .i!ll this is possible. We may have much of heaven before we get there. -S.C. Ver.12.-" When they were but a few." If we look back to the be16nnin.~s of all great enterprises and movements amongst men, this is what might have been said of them all. There was a time when those who were associated with them "were but a few," So was it after the Deluge (1 Pet. iii. 20; cf. also Neh. ii. 12). And see the beginnings of the Christian Church. Small like a grain of mustard seed. Now we are prone to be much discouraged when we see only a few caring for the things of God; and we are much elated when we see crowds of people, multitudes, uniting themselves with the professing Church. We may be wrong in both cases, Certainly we are when the fact of mere fewness casts us down. Let such despondents remember- I. THAT IT IS QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY, THAT 18 TO BE CONSIDERED, A living dog is better than a dead lion. Bigness is not strength. See the composition of the Bible. What great space is given to a little insignificant people, and the stories of their ancestors-a people who inhabited a mere shred and corner of the world, and who were just nothing at all compared witlit the vast empires that stretched themselves out on all sides of them I But it was because in this little handful of people the Divine life had its home, and that in them, under God, the~kingdom of God on earth depended, that, therefore, their history is all-important, and a special providence watched over them. And do not we know, in our experiences, the blessed force which a few, and even less than a few, thorough and wholly consecrated Christians exert, compared with what a crowd of the common sort ever accomplish? II. FEWNESS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE TO Goo. (Cf. 2 Chron. xiv. 11; 1 Cor. i. 27, 28.) How many were the men who "turned the world upside down" (Acts xvii. 6)? Ill. THE REALIZATION OF OUR OWN WEAKNESS, WHICH COMES TO US WHEN THERE ABE BUT A FEW, IS o~~ OF THE CONDITIONS OF Goo's WORKING. Our Lord had to make Peter feel what a poor creature he was before be could be used as an apostle ; and hence came Peter's fall. IV. A.FEW BECOME A HOST IF Goo LEAD. We may be but a row of ciphers; but if God stand at our head, then they are no longer mere ciphers. And this is not a mere figure of speech, but an actual fact demonstrated over and over again (cf. the vision, 2 Kings vi. 17). V. His SPECIAL PROMISES ARE FOR THE FEW, "Where two or three are gathered," etc. (Matt. xviii. 20). And that promise has constantly been fulfilled. V1. 'l'HE FEW ARE ms ESPEOIAL CABE. (See vers. 12-15.) And in the history of missions, the little handful who have gone to this country and that, though perse- cuted, and their ranks thinned by disease and death, yet have they been strengthened to hold on until they have won the battle God sent them to wage. What may not one Go:l-filled soul do? Read the history of Gideon to show this. And a company of them. If, then," where there were but a few," there was no failure in the purpose aud promise of God, let us rest assured that in like circumstances now there will be no failure. And let us stir onrsel\"es up to lay bold on God.-S. C. Ver. 19.-Josei,h's trial. It has been remarked that in every leaf the whole tree is mirrored-root, trunk, branches, leaves (Macmillan). And so e11ch member of Christ's mystical body resembles him in the way by which he is led. This especially true of Joseph. "Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the  420 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [PS. OV, 1-45,