And then rises the gathering wrath; the doom of all perverse and stubborn natures, who will not yield, or be guided, or led; who live in a wilful sadness, a petty obstinacy:—
"Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said: It is a people that do err in their hearts for they have not known my ways."
And then the passion of the mood, the fierce indignation, rises and breaks, as it were, in a dreadful thunderclap:—
"Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest."
But even so the very horror of the denunciation holds within it a thought of beauty, like an oasis in a burning desert. "My REST"—that sweet haven which does truly await all those who will but follow and wait upon God.
I declare that the effect of this amazing lyric grows upon me every time that I hear it. Some Psalms, like the delicate and tender cxix., steal into the heart after long and quiet use. How dull I used to find it as a child; how I love it now! But this is not the case with the Venite; its noble simplicity and directness has no touch of intentional subtlety about it. Rather the subtlety was in the true insight, which saw that, if ever there was a Psalm which should at once give the reins to joy, and at the same time pierce the careless heart with a sharp arrow of thought, this was the Psalm.
I feel as if I had been trying in this letter to do as Mr. Interpreter did—to have you into a room full of besoms and spiders, and to draw a pretty moral out of it all. But I am sure that the beauty of this particular Psalm, and of its position, is one of those things that is only spoilt for us by familiarity; and that it is a duty in life to try and break through the crust of familiarity which tends to be deposited round well-known things, and to see how bright and joyful a jewel shows its heart of fire beneath.
I have been hoping for a letter; but no doubt it is all right. I am before my time, I see.—Ever yours,
T. B.
UPTON,
Oct. 25, 1904.