Four Psalms XXIII. XXXVI. LII. CXXI. / Interpreted for practical use

by George Adam Smith

Take one or two commonplace cases that do not require the great capital which this fellow put into his business of sinning, but are quite within reach of your and my very ordinary means of selfishness.

You have been overreached in some business competition, or disappointed in getting a post, or foiled along some path of public service. You come home with a natural vexation in your heart: sore at being beaten and anxious about your legitimate interests. It is all right enough. But sit down at the fire for a little and brood over it. Shut God out as care and anger can. Forget that your Bible is at your elbow. Think only of your wrong, and it is wonderful how soon you will find spite rising, and envy and the cruellest hate. It is wonderful how quickly plans of revenge will form themselves in your usually slow mind, and how happy they will make you. Malice is like brandy to a man's brain, and will send him back with a beaming face to the work he left with scowls. Ah, why boast thyself in mischief, O man? God's leal love is all day long! The Bible is within reach of you. The lustre is as fresh on the promises as the rain-drops were under the glints of sun this morning. Walk there with God in His own garden: all God's steps are comfort and promise to the meek who will walk with Him. God is full of gentleness, and His gentleness shall make you great. I will be as the dew unto Israel. Or seek with the Master the crowds of men. Keep near Him in the dust and the crush: watch how He endures the contradiction of sinners, how patient He is with men, how forgiving. Watch most of all how He prays. Bow the knee like Him, and He shall lift thee up a sane and a happy man. To think of it—all that Divine fellowship and solace may be ours by opening the pages of a Book which lies on every table. God's love is all the day.

Let the other case be for young men and young women. For you the fresh air and sunshine are not yet shut out by the high walls of success or the thick ones of material prosperity. The dust of strife for you has not yet hidden heaven. But we all know that passion can build as solidly as wealth, and that a young heart may be as closely prisoned in a sudden temptation as an old one among the substantial accumulations of a lifetime. What is Temptation?

I turned to her: she built a house
And Thought was her swift architect,
And Falsehood let the curtains fall,
And Fancy all the tables deck'd.

And so we shut the world out,
Soul and Temptation face to face,
And perfumed air and music sweet,
And soft desire fill'd all the place.

O brothers, in such an hour, and it comes to every one of us, think upon the vast world outside, and the walls so magically built will as magically fall. God's sunshine is there, and God's fresh air, to think upon which, with the companies of men and women who walk up and down in it and are fair, is the most sovereign charm against temptation that I know. Why glory in this evil? Put that challenge to your heart in the crisis of every evil passion. God's mercy is all day long. Think of the love of the Father: of His patience with thee, of His trust of thee; think of the Love of the Redeemer, Who gave Himself for thy life; think of the great objective truths of religion—righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. Or if these seem unsubstantial thoughts, that flash and fade again like clouds on the western sky at evening, come out among the flesh-and-blood proofs of them which walk our own day. Frequent the pure, strong men and women who are in sight of us all, fair on every countryside, radiant in every city crowd. Hearken to the greater spirits who by their songs and books come down and speak with the lowliest and most fallen. And do not forget the holy dead, nor doubt that though unseen they are with us still.

I will wait on Thy name, for 'tis good, in face of Thy Saints.

PSALM CXXI

THE MINISTRY OF THE HILLS AND ALL GREAT THINGS

We catch the key-note of this Psalm if we read the words whence cometh my help not as a statement but as a question. Our older version takes them as a statement; it makes the Psalmist look to the hills, as if his help broke and shouted from them all like waterfalls. But with the Revised Version we ought to read: I will lift mine eyes unto the mountains—from whence cometh my help? The Psalmist looks up, not because his help is stored there, but because the sight of the hills stirs within him an intense hope. His heart is immediately full of the prayer, Whence cometh my help? and of the answer, My help is from the Lord, that made heaven and earth.