Now as she drew it towards her, and turned over its pages to verify the exactness of the words, it soon opened to the blessed thirty-fourth psalm, which has proved to many an anchor of hope when they cried to God "out of the depths."
"I will bless the Lord at all times;" Oh, surely not!—How could any one bless the Lord at such a time as this? Yet there it stood:—
"I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth." If others could do this, and had done it, God helping her, she would do it too. She, too, would bless the Lord, and speak his praises.
"My soul shall make her boast in the Lord." A feeling of exultation began to rise within her. Something was yet left to her. Her earthly "boast" was indeed broken; but why might not she, too, "make her boast in the Lord"?
Touched with living light, verse by verse stood out before her, as written by the finger of a present God. Humbled to the earth, overpowered by deep self-abasement and contrition of soul, she clung as with a death-grasp to the words that were bearing her triumphantly through these dark waves.
"They looked unto Him and were lightened." Was not her darkness already broken as by a beam from His face?
"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles."
"The angel of the Lord encampeth about them that fear Him, and delivereth them."
"The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry."
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all."