NOTES
THE PSALMS.
Psalm 1. Ruskin, in "Our Fathers Have Told Us," declares that among others Psalms 1, 8, 15, 19, 23, 24, well studied and believed, are sufficient for all personal guidance; that Psalm 72 contains many of the principles of just government; and that Psalm 104 anticipates the triumphs of natural sciences.
Jerome, a great scholar in the early church, was drawn to study while still young. One of his favorite texts was from Psalm 1: "But his delight is in the law of the Lord; And in his law doth he meditate day and night."
Psalm 3 was used as a prayer by the English when they learned that the great Spanish Armada had sailed against England in 1588. A still more romantic use was by the Huguenots of France, in whose armies it is said sentries were posted and relieved to the chant of Psalms, and Psalm 3 was used as the signal of danger.
Psalm 4 was an evening prayer, in the early church as well as in the Jewish nation. Many have turned to it in the evening of life. Luther said that he wished to hear it sung in his last moments; and the martyr Ridley, who died in England for conscience's sake in 1555, spent the last night of his life in quiet sleep, having repeated the last verse of this Psalm.
Psalm 8. Not only Protestants, but, at other times, Catholics suffered in England for conscience's sake. One of these, the Earl of Arundel, imprisoned in the tower of London, carved the words of Psalm 8, lines 11, 12, on the wall, where they still remain. This is one of the nature Psalms, and men who loved nature have often had it on their lips, as did frequently Palissy, the Huguenot inventor of porcelain ware. The guild of butchers in Mediaeval England took their motto from Psalm 8, lines 13-16.