These being, as far as I can trace them, the literal meanings of each verse, the entire purport of the psalm is that the Name, or knowledge, of God was admirable to David, and the power and kingship of God recognizable to him, through the power and kingship of man, His vicegerent on the earth, as the angels are in heavenly places. And that final purport of the psalm is evermore infallibly true,—namely, that when men rule the earth rightly, and feel the power of their own souls over it, and its creatures, as a beneficent and authoritative one, they recognise the power of higher spirits also; and the Name of God becomes ‘hallowed’ to them, admirable and wonderful; but if they abuse the earth and its creatures, and become mere contentious brutes upon it, instead of order-commanding kings, the Name of God ceases to be admirable to them, and His power to be felt; and gradually, license and ignorance prevailing together, even what memories of law or Deity remain to them become intolerable; and in the exact [[132]]contrary to David’s—“My soul thirsteth for God, for the Living God; when shall I come and appear before God?”—you have the consummated desire and conclusive utterance of the modern republican:
“S’il y avait un Dieu, il faudrait le fusiller.”
Now, whatever chemical or anatomical facts may appear to our present scientific intelligences, inconsistent with the Life of God, the historical fact is that no happiness nor power has ever been attained by human creatures unless in that thirst for the presence of a Divine King; and that nothing but weakness, misery, and death have ever resulted from the desire to destroy their King, and to have thieves and murderers released to them instead. Also this fact is historically certain,—that the Life of God is not to be discovered by reasoning, but by obeying; that on doing what is plainly ordered, the wisdom and presence of the Orderer become manifest; that only so His way can be known on earth, and His saving health among all nations; and that on disobedience always follows darkness, the forerunner of death.
And now for corollary on the eighth Psalm, read the first and second of Hebrews, and to the twelfth verse of the third, slowly; fitting the verse of the psalm—“lunam et stellas quæ tu fundasti,” with “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth”; and then noting how the subjection which is merely of the lower creature, in the psalm, becomes the subjection of [[133]]all things, and at last of death itself, in the victory foretold to those who are faithful to their Captain, made perfect through sufferings; their Faith, observe, consisting primarily in closer and more constant obedience than the Mosaic law required,—“For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received its just recompence of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” The full argument is: “Moses, with but a little salvation, saved you from earthly bondage, and brought you to an earthly land of life; Christ, with a great salvation, saves you from soul bondage, and brings you to an eternal land of life; but, if he who despised the little salvation, and its lax law, (left lax because of the hardness of your hearts,) died without mercy, how shall we escape, if now, with hearts of flesh, we despise so great salvation, refuse the Eternal Land of Promise, and break the stricter and relaxless law of Christian desert-pilgrimage?” And if these threatenings and promises still remain obscure to us, it is only because we have resolutely refused to obey the orders which were not obscure, and quenched the Spirit which was already given. How far the world around us may be yet beyond our control, only because a curse has been brought upon it by our sloth and infidelity, none of us can tell; still less may we dare either to praise or accuse our Master, for the state of the creation over which He appointed us kings, and in which we have [[134]]chosen to live as swine. One thing we know, or may know, if we will,—that the heart and conscience of man are divine; that in his perception of evil, in his recognition of good, he is himself a God manifest in the flesh; that his joy in love, his agony in anger, his indignation at injustice, his glory in self-sacrifice, are all eternal, indisputable proofs of his unity with a great Spiritual Head; that in these, and not merely in his more availing form, or manifold instinct, he is king over the lower animate world; that, so far as he denies or forfeits these, he dishonours the Name of his Father, and makes it unholy and unadmirable in the earth; that so far as he confesses, and rules by, these, he hallows and makes admirable the Name of his Father, and receives, in his sonship, fulness of power with Him, whose are the kingdom, the power, and the glory, world without end.
And now we may go back to our bees’ nests, and to our school-benches, in peace; able to assure our little Agnes, and the like of her, that, whatever hornets and locusts and serpents may have been made for, this at least is true,—that we may set, and are commanded to set, an eternal difference between ourselves and them, by neither carrying daggers at our sides, nor poison in our mouths: and that the choice for us is stern, between being kings over all these creatures, by innocence to which they cannot be exalted, or more weak, miserable and detestable than they, in resolute guilt to which they cannot fall. [[135]]
Of their instincts, I believe we have rather held too high than too low estimate, because we have not enough recognized or respected our own. We do not differ from the lower creatures by not possessing instinct, but by possessing will and conscience, to order our innate impulses to the best ends.
The great lines of Pope on this matter, however often quoted fragmentarily, are I think scarcely ever understood in their conclusion.[9] Let us, for once, read them to their end:—
“See him, from Nature, rising slow to Art,
To copy instinct then was reason’s part.
Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake: