"In his hand are all the corners of the earth; and the strength of the hills is his also.
"The sea is his and he made it; and his hands prepared the dry land.
"Oh come, let us worship, and fall down: and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
"For he is the Lord our God; and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand."
What a splendid burst of joy; the joy of earth, when the sun is bright in a cloudless heaven, and the fresh wind blows cheerfully across the plain. There is no question of duty here, of a task to be performed in heaviness, but a simple tide of joyfulness such as filled the heart of the poet who wrote:—
"God's in His Heaven;
All's right with the world."
I take it that these verses draw into themselves, as the sea draws the streams, all the rivers of joy and beauty that flow, whether laden with ships out of the heart of great cities, or dropping and leaping from high unvisited moorlands. All the sweet joys that life holds for us find their calm end and haven here; all the delights of life, of action, of tranquil thought, of perception, of love, of beauty, of friendship, of talk, of reflection, are all drawn into one great flood of gratitude and thankfulness; the thankfulness that comes from the thought that after all it is He that made us, and not we ourselves; that we are indeed led and pastured by green meadows and waters of comfort; in such a mood all uneasy anxieties, all dull questionings, die and are merged, and we are glad to be.
Then suddenly falls a different mood, a touch of pathos, in the thought that there are some who from wilfulness, and vain desire, and troubled scheming, shut themselves out from the great inheritance; to them comes the pleading call, the sorrowful invitation:—
"To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.
"When your fathers tempted me: proved me, and saw my works."