I. THE BLESSED FACT. The Lord our Dwelling place, which this psalm tells of at its beginning. Weary wanderers as the Israelites were, with no settled resting place, here today, gone tomorrow, how blessed for them that there was refuge, a dwelling place, a home, in God! And this, Moses and such as he had realized and may realize still.

1. Here there may be, there is, perpetual change; but in God a settled abode.

2. Here, weariness and turmoil; in God, rest and peace.

3. Here, continual disappointment; in God, the soul's satisfaction. (Cf. Psalm 63:5.)

4. Here, perpetual peril; in God, perfect security.

5. Here, the coldness and enmity of men; in God, unfailing sympathy and love. Yes, God is the Home of the believing soul.

II. THE SUSTAINING POWER OF THIS FACT. It enables us to meet with calmness the heart breaking events of life. The psalmist enumerates a number of them.

1. The brevity of our life. (Vers. 3-6.)

2. The real cause of human misery. (Ver. 7.) It is our sin, and God's displeasure thereat. Hence is it (ver. 9) that the sense of that displeasure overwhelms us as with lightning flash, and our lives are as a breath. And so all life is sad, even at the best (ver. 10).

3. The fearfulness of the Divine anger. (Ver. 11.) "Who knoweth the might of thine anger and thy wrath, according to the fear that is due unto thee?" (Perowne). None can even rightly estimate it, much less overestimate it.

III. THE RELIEVING PRAYER TO WHICH IT LEADS.

1. That we may not miss the instruction which these sad facts should impart. The "wisdom" craved is that we may make the Lord our Dwelling place.

2. For brighter days. (Vers. 13-15.)

3. For the promised salvation - the work and the glory of God (ver. 16).

4. For the beauty of holiness. There had been none of this in Israel in all these many years.

5. That life may be worth living. Not a perpetual disappointment, such as it had been hitherto, but that the work of their hands might be established (ver. 17). Such are some of the prayers which the soul whose home is in God will be led to offer in view of the brevity, the frailty, and the sinfulness of life. Let the Lord be our Dwelling place, and all is well. "Our life is hid with Christ in God." - S.C.

I. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? How can the Lord be our Dwelling place?

1. It is evident that a spiritual dwelling place is meant. It is not a material habitation, such as the body needs, but one for the spirit of man.

2. And the Lord is such a Dwelling place for our spirits. For if we be such as Moses was, men of God, then God will be our spirits' home, because there they continually abide. Christ said, "Abide in me," and this they do, as a man's home is his dwelling place. And chiefly because it is there he not only dwells, but loves to dwell. Home is not a mere place: it is only home when love dwells there. A man's habitation may be a hell for him, and it will be if it be without love. But it is his home when his affections centre there, when it contains those whom he dearly loves, and who in like manner love him. Then, whether rich or poor, great or small, a palace or a pauper's hut, it is yet his home. Now, God is the home of his people, not alone because they do dwell there, but because they love to dwell there (cf. Psalm 63; Psalm 43:3, 5).

3. For in God there is rest for our intellects. Even unbelievers have recognized this. A French philosopher in the days of the Revolution said, "If it could be shown that there was no God, we should have to invent one." They felt that for the satisfaction of the understanding God was a necessity. In him we can see the adequate Cause and Creator of all things, and in his wisdom and power and goodness the mind finds rest.

4. And in him also there is met the cravings of our affections. Even the contemplation of God in his spiritual attributes, in his exalted character, has been found to be full of delight to God's servants; but how much more when he is revealed to us in Christ! Then the heart goes out to him in a great rush of affection, as it beholds his infinite purity and goodness and love as these are seen in Christ our blessed Redeemer. The heart of the believer gazes upon him until it grows toward him as the flowers grow toward the sun.

5. And the will - that lordliest faculty of our nature - finds in him its Inspiration, Strength, and Guide, and loves to lose itself in the will of God. Thus is the Lord our Dwelling place, our spirit's Home, where it dwells, and loves to dwell.

II. WHO ARE THEY THAT DWELL IN GOD? St. John, in his First Epistle, lays down the marks of these blessed ones.

1. They are they who dwell in love. (1 John 4:16.) He who loveth not his brother cannot dwell in God, nor God in him.

2. They who possess the Spirit of God. (1 John 4:13.)

3. They who openly confess him. (1 John 4:15.)

4. They who keep his commandments. (1 John 3:24.) Thus may we test our right to say, "Lord, thou hast been our Dwelling place."

III. WHAT COMES OF THIS DWELLING IN HIM?

1. The unity of God's people.

2. The world's conversion, when it sees all God's people thus united (John 17:21).

IV. HOW CAN WE ENTER INTO AND ABIDE IN THIS BLESSED HOME? (John 14:6.) Christ is the Way. Give yourselves up to him. - S.C.

I. HOME IS A PLACE OF RELATIONSHIPS. Man enters into a variety of connections with his fellows; but his relationships, sanctified by love and service, centre in his home. Relationship to God as "our Father" makes his house our home, and our brothers' home.

II. HOME IS A PLACE OF SECURITY. It is our sanctuary. There we feel not only that none will harm us, but that none ever want to harm us. We even feel that nothing can harm us if we only are safe at home. And nothing ever can harm the soul that is in the shelter of the "everlasting arms."

III. HOME IS A PLACE OF PERSONAL INTERESTS. Each one is concerned in the best welfare of each of the others. It is full of mutual love service. Nothing is paid for, save by responsive love and service. So God may be thought of as personally concerned, personally interested, in all for whom he finds a home.

IV. HOME IS A PLACE OF REST. For those wearied and worn by toil or by trouble. So we sing, "Oh rest in the Lord!"

V. HOME IS A PLACE OF REFUGE. To which the traveller gladly returns from the fatigue and peril of the way. To which the erring child, the prodigal, turns in the penitent hour. So God is the Home of the sinful soul, ever the Father. - R.T.

I. GOD WAS BEFORE ALL THINGS. Philosophers try to persuade themselves that matter is eternal; or they fix upon the atom, or upon water, as the essential primary thing. They are always driven back behind their conclusions, and urged to say whence comes the atom or the moisture. There is no consistent thinking that does not bring us to the conclusion that there was some self-existent, immaterial Being, who was the absolute originator of all material existence, and still exists in complete and conscious independence of everything he has made. He is beyond and above all the chances and changes of his own handiwork.

II. GOD IS IN ALL THINGS. Separable from them, but voluntarily interested in them. The life and light of all this wondrous world we see. The poetical faculty discerns his presence. Human experience attests his practical working. The religious sentiment opens the eyes, and makes the recognition of God easy. When we say all things, we mean absolutely all, not merely those which we are pleased to call religious.

III. GOD WILL BE AFTER ALL THINGS. This can but appeal to faith. To us the time is inconceivable when things will no longer exist. Conceive the time when material things exist no longer, you must think of God as still the One Being. In the One who never passes, never changes, we may put the perfect trust. - R.T.

I. THE GROUND OF THIS ESTIMATE. It is the eternity of God. He who is from everlasting to everlasting - God, the Eternal. There never was a period in which he was not. He is more permanent than the most changeless things.

1. History teaches us this. Push back so far as we can into the remote past, there we find the sure proof of the Divine existence and work.

2. Science teaches it yet more powerfully. Whether we investigate the old rocks beneath our feet, or gaze upon the stars on high, both alike tell of vast ages, millenniums upon millenniums, in which they have had their being, and alike they proclaim God.

3. Revelation affirms the same.

II. ITS REASONABLENESS. Human analogies help us here. For our ideas of time are:

1. According to our own length of life. To short-lived creatures, such as the insects, a day appears a vast stretch of time; but to us, the days of whose years are three score years and ten, and perhaps four score years, a day is scarcely any time at all. We think a great deal of half a century, but what would one like Methuselah have thought of it? Only an insignificant fraction of his life, not needing to be much counted of. The angels of God also, what are our centuries to them? Above all, God the Eternal, how could it be otherwise than that a thousand years should be to him as one day?

2. According to the magnitude and multiplicity of those matters which demand and occupy our attention. There are people who live in very limited spheres, and who have scarcely anything to do - the idle rich, and many more. Their one idea is how to kill time; they hardly know how to get through it - their days are miserably long. But take the man of affairs, who has large responsibilities resting upon him, the statesman, the merchant, the governor of wide areas and of great numbers of men; - these have so much to attend to that the days are all too short and too few, and are gone long before they can accomplish what they have to do. Apply this to the idea of God. How vast his dominion! how infinite the demands upon his thought and energy! To him, therefore, a thousand years would be as one day.

3. Happiness or misery also cannot but affect our estimate of time. The sufferer tossed with pain, the prisoner in his dungeon, the exile, the miserable ones of all kinds, - how long, how wearisome, are their days (Job 7:4; Psalm 130:6; Luke 16:23-25)! On the other hand, the happy ones, - how time flies with them! And God is the blessed God - "the blessed and only Potentate." All that. can contribute to his joy is present to him increasingly; the evil that exists is but the evolution of good. Why should he not be blessed? Our sad days of pain, therefore, which seem to us like a thousand years, he knows not, but only the joy which reverses such estimate of time.

III. ITS BENEFICENT REMINDERS. All truths of Scripture have practical bearings, and this one assuredly has.

1. It deepens in us the spirit of holy reverence. (Psalm 8:3, 4.)

2. It loosens the power of this world over us. What poor things are all the world's gifts, when seen in the light of God the Eternal!

3. It bids us be patient, and not fret ourselves at the seemingly slow progress of good.

4. It ministers unspeakable consolation. We die, and leave our loved ones and our work; but God ever liveth, and they are in his charge. - S.C.

I. A LESSON FROM THE FRAILTY OF THE GRASS, It is little more than a blade. Compare with plant, shrub, or tree. A delicate trembling thing. It comes too suddenly, and grows too quickly, to give us any impression of strength. So the apostle reminds us that "all flesh" is as frail as grass. We are here today, tremble today, and are gone tomorrow. "Surely every man's life is but a vanity."

II. A LESSON FROM THE PERILS OF THE GRASS. From insect, from flood, from drought, from wind, from the scythe of the mower. So are the perils that attend human life many and varied. Hereditary tendencies, diseases, results of vice, unhealthy situations and occupation, accidents. Well did the hymn writer say -

"Strange that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long." A considerable proportion of a population die in infancy or in youth; a vast proportion die of preventible disease; an alarming proportion die of Divine judgments on sinful indulgence; and a considerable proportion die through the uncertainty that attaches to the working of man-made machinery. "In the midst of life we are in death." "Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh."

III. A LESSON FROM THE BRIEF LIFE OF THE GRASS. Growing up in the morning, and withered by night, it has but its little day in which to do its work. There can be no wasting of the few moments, the "little while," which represent the human life of even the longest lived. The brevity of our life puts supreme importance into the passing moment. "Now is the accepted time."

IV. A LESSON FROM THE MISSION OF THE GRASS. Frail as it is, brief as is its life, the grass has its work; and it has but to be faithful to the measure of power it has, and the length of time it abides. It has a mission to the soil, to the atmosphere, to the cattle, and to man. So we have our mission; it is precise to our powers; it is limited to the time of our sojourn. And, however little, it fits into the great plan of God for the well being of the race. - R.T.

I. SECRET SIN REGARDED AS THAT WHICH WE WOULD GLADLY CONCEAL FROM OTHERS. Secrecy is always suspicious. "He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." Secrecy may be duty; in public spheres it may be wise policy; but when a man, in private life, does not wish any one to know what he is doing, he is generally found to be doing something wrong. The burglar, the coiner, the sensualist, want secrecy. They work in the dark; they go under feigned names; they hide themselves in the great cities; they devise all sorts of excuses to account for their time. If they succeed in deceiving their fellows, surely their ways and works are "naked and open" to God, whose "eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good."

II. SECRET SIN REGARDED AS THAT WHICH WE TRY TO CONCEAL FROM OURSELVES. This point requires more searching treatment.

1. Natural disposition, and errors in education, prevent men from recognizing the sinfulness of their own sins.

2. Conscience may be blunted so that it is no longer keen to witness against sin.

3. Strong will to continue in sin sets men upon persuading themselves that their sin is not sin. Illustrate from the sins of drinking, slandering, envying, etc. A man may deceive himself, but God quickly tears away his "refuges of lies." God knows the man who does not know himself. He puts the secrets into the "light of his countenance."

III. SECRET SIN REGARDED AS THAT WHICH WE TRY TO CONCEAL FROM GOD. As did Adam, by hiding among the trees. Men say, "The Lord shall not see;" but no man ever yet succeeded in closing the eye of Heaven. Men's most desperate effort is to assert and prove that there is no God, and so no observer of their sin. They never really succeed. Infidelity is the hopeless attempt to get rid of a God who sees, and will be sure to judge. - R.T.

I. IN THAT OUR DAYS ARE SOON OVER. The tale that was told was never long, but soon done, and room made for another. And so is it with our life, even at the longest, and especially that portion of our life which is of paramount importance - the formative character fixing years. How soon they are over! And the life takes its bent and bias from them, and generally continues so to the end. In the tale of most lives you know very soon how it will go on. The child is father to the man, and you can generally foretell how it will wind up. Let such as are young, therefore, take heed to their days, the days of their youth - they are all-important.

II. IN ITS VARIED CHARACTER. There are tales told that are poor, mean, hurtful, not worth the telling; that stain the imagination, that incite to evil, and are doomed to a speedy and contemptuous oblivion. But there are others of an entirely different character. And so it is with men's lives - some evil, some blessed and good.

III. IF EITHER IS TO BE WORTHY, THE ESSENTIAl, ELEMENTS ARE THE SAME.

1. Energy and activity.

2. Thoughtfulness.

3. Character must be revealed.

4. The aim must be generous and high.

5. It must end well. - S.C.

I. PROLONGED LIFE GIVES OPPORTUNITY FOR INCREASE OF SIN. See the case of the antediluvian sinners, who went on sinning through long lives until they became hopelessly corrupt, and had to be swept away by the Flood. It may, indeed, be a severe judgment to prolong a life, and a gracious judgment to shorten it.

II. THE LOVE AND CLINGING TO LIFE MAKE SHORTENING LIFE A VERY EFFECTIVE JUDGMENT. Love of life is natural to man. It is the expression of his consciousness of immortality, only it leads him to want his immortality here. The things which man begins to do make it extremely trying to have to leave them unfinished. Life means pleasant relationships, which man feels it a very bitter thing to break off.

III. MAN'S UTTER HELPLESSNESS IN THE PRESENCE OF EARLY DEATH MAKES THIS FORM OF JUDGMENT SPECIALLY HUMILIATING. To conquer, rise above, mate and master everything, is man's supreme passion. Early death is God - it may be the neglected God - mastering him. - R.T.

I. THE AGED ARE PUT ASIDE FROM THE ACTIVITIES OF LIFE. Life goes past them: opinions change; customs change; business is changed. The old man no longer fits; he must stand aside; if he persists in keeping his place, he ruins his business, and worries everybody. It is hard to have to live on into a time when we shall no longer be of any use.

II. THE AGED MUST BEAR THE BURDEN OF FAILING POWERS. See the description of old age in Ecclesiastes. See the force of the terms "labour" and "sorrow" in the text. The necessary weakening of the bodily faculties is accompanied - save in very extreme cases - with corresponding failing of mental powers, and a trying limitation of human interests. The old man ceases to belong to his day, and lives over again his childish years. Sometimes aged helplessness, with disease, is most pitiful.

III. THE AGED SOMETIMES HAVE TO BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SINS OF YOUTH. All sins of sensuality and self-indulgence carry their inevitable penalties; and if the pressure of them be delayed by a well regulated manhood, they come on a man with a rush when the vitality is lowered by advancing age. A man bears "the sins of youth in the bones of old."

IV. THE AGED OFTEN FIND THEIR HEAVIEST TROUBLE TO BE THE LONELINESS IN WHICH THEY ARE LEFT. He who has had troops of friends dies at last tended by the hireling. Loved ones die away or remove out of reach. The old man often says, as did the Revelation William Jay, of Bath, in his advanced years, "My burying ground is richer than my church." To sensitive, affectionate souls, aged loneliness must be the supreme woe. Wife, children, friends, gone on before. How the old man must say to himself continually -

"What is my nest to me? - my empty nest?"

V. THE AGED SOMETIMES HAVE TO BEAR DISTRESSING CIRCUMSTANCES AS WELL AS BODILY FRAILTY. To live on means exhausting the savings; to be unable to earn; to have none to work for us. But life is in the Lord's hands, not ours. "If life be long, we will be glad, that we can long obey." - R.T.

I. SOME DO NOT KNOW IT AT ALL. They do not believe in God at all, or in a very faint way. Hence they turn at once to what they term "natural causes," when the judgments of God are abroad in the earth. "The fool hath said in his heart," etc.

II. MOST MEN HAVE SOME IDEA OF IT.

1. From the Bible. The records of God's wrath are there writ large - the Fall; the Flood; the destruction of Egypt; the deaths in the wilderness, which were probably the occasion of this psalm.

2. From what they see. Vice and villainy come down with a crash from time to time, and men are forced to confess, "Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth."

3. From sad experience in their own hearts and lives.

4. From the frenzied fears of many godless ones when death seizes them. Their last awful hours betray the knowledge of God's wrath.

III. BUT NONE KNOW IT ACCORDING TO THE FEAR OF GOD THAT IS DUE.

1. They cannot, because of the limitation of human faculties.

2. But they will not know it as they might and should. The thought of it is a terror and torment to them.

3. But they must, if they are to be saved. If we see not our need of Christ, we shall never seek him. "Spirit of God's most holy fear," come to us, that we may come to thee! - S.C.

I. WHAT IS THIS WISDOM TO WHICH WE SHOULD APPLY OUR HEARTS? It is that which leads us to so use this life as the preparation for the life eternal. This life is our school, our training ground, the scene of our education for eternity. What folly, then, to waste and squander such a season! We chide sternly the boy who wastes his school time, but how many men throw away the opportunities which are given to them in this school of life to prepare them for the real life which awaits us when this is over! To the foolish child we say, "School time does not come twice." To many men the same needs to be said. But we shall never use this life aright until we have surrendered our wills - given our hearts - to God, that by his wonder working grace he may cleanse, and sanctify, and keep, and use them for himself. Then all will be well.

II. HOW DOES THE RIGHT NUMBERING OF OUR DAYS LEAD TO THE APPLYING OF OUR HEARTS TO WISDOM? Because it makes us realize how transitory our life is. This is the burden of this psalm. But to really see this, to absolutely believe it, as few do, is to think but little of this world.

1. Of its riches and glory. For if I know - not merely think, but know certainly - that I must have done with them all in a very little time, shall I care very much for them? Would a prisoner in the condemned cell be greatly elated if, the day before his death, he was left a fortune? Would any struggle as they do for this world's wealth if they knew that their lease of it was so brief?

2. And so, too, of this world's sorrows. Should we be so moved by them if we knew how little time they lasted? The martyrs were wont to strengthen their minds by this thought as they anticipated their cruel tortures and death. Paul says, "Our light afflictions which are but for a moment. Hence he who rightly numbers his days lives above the world, is independent of it, is free from its terrible down drag and tyranny.

3. And he will, knowing the transitoriness of this life, seek for that which is eternal.

III. WHY ARE WE SO SLOW TO NUMBER OUR DAYS?

1. Because we do not like the task. It breeds melancholy and fearful thoughts.

2. We persuade ourselves there is no need. We shall have plenty of time (cf. the rich fool).

3. We so love the world.

4. Doubt. The teachings of Holy Scripture and the Church are dimly seen, or doubted, or, it may be, absolutely denied. Many more than we think are practical atheists. Therefore we need to pray, So teach us to number our days," or else we shall never do it at all. - S.C.

I. Days, to be well numbered, must be ESTIMATED IN THE LIGHT OF ETERNITY. How changed a thing life would become to us if there were no eternity! Compare two lives, one without, and one with, the thought of eternity.

1. Days may seem many; they are really but few. Seventy years is but a little while to look back on. See striking Bible figures of our life - weaver's shuttle; passing shadow; shepherd's tent; breath of mouth in winter. The generations are like the changing sentinel watch in the night.

2. Days may seem to go slowly; they really hurry by. "Thou carriest them away as with a flood." Swifter than the post.

3. Days may seem to be made up of little things; really there is nothing little; because everything has its bearing on the future, on character; and everything has eternal issues. It is a cause with a consequence. A little pebble may make ripples that shall never die away.

II. Days well numbered will not allow THE PUTTING OFF OF DUTY. Every day has its work. There is no possible overtaking the ends of life, save in daily faithfulness. If we are faithful every day, life cannot be unfinished. A faithful man can be stopped at any time. He wants no time in which to get himself ready.

III. Days well numbered must seem TOO SOLEMN FOR UNAIDED SELF-EXERTION. The man who rightly values them will tremble to step on them alone. Even the lesser claims of life overwhelm a thoughtful spirit. We all fail to be what we desire to be, even in common life. Much more the higher. We have a soul to save, a crown to win; and there should be jewels in the crown. Can we do it alone? - R.T.

I. MAN CRAVES FOR SATISFACTION. He may have many advantages and gifts, much wealth, friends, health, and much beside; and these may divert, interest, and absorb him; but they cannot really satisfy. His soul will hunger still.

II. GOD'S MERCY ALONE CAN MEET THAT CRAVING. For:

1. It puts out of the way all that hinders our satisfaction. The sense of guilt; the tyranny of sin; the burden of care; the fear of death.

2. It brings along with it the true elements of the soul's satisfaction. Sense of acceptance with God; uniform victory over sin; perfect peace; the will and power to bless others; communion with God; abiding hope.

III. BUT IT MUST BE SOUGHT EARLY. "In the morning" is the literal rendering.

1. Each day should be begun with the seeking with all intensity this blessed mercy of God.

2. But especially should each life be so begun. The parents for their child at its birth; the child itself as soon as it is able to understand. What ills will be escaped, what good ensured, if this be done!

IV. THE RESULT SHALL BE THE BLESSED LIFE - heaven before you get there. - S.C.

I. GOD'S WORK MUST APPEAR TO US. That is, God's salvation - for that is emphatically his "work," and must be seen by us, and seen as our salvation. Here is the primary essential of all true gladness.

II. HIS GLORY ALSO. "And thy glory unto," etc. That is, God must be seen to be the delight and joy of the soul. David speaks of God as "God, my exceeding joy." This is what is craved in Psalm 63, "To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have," etc. The soul must learn to delight itself in the Lord, as it will if the glory of God be seen.

III. THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD OUR GOD MUST BE UPON US. That is, the graciousness, gentleness, and goodness of the Lord's character; its purity, holiness, truth, and righteousness; - these, which constitute the beauty of the Lord, and which are so mighty in their attraction, that one asks, "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" (Psalm 16.); these must be upon us. They are the adornment of the doctrine of God our Saviour. They were, and are, all seen in Christ, and they irresistibly draw all men unto him. And unless in some measure they are upon us, God cannot make us glad. Their absence kills all gladness.

IV. OUR WORK MUST BE ESTABLISHED. "Thework of our hands, establish thou it." To know that we are not labouring in vain, that when we let down the net Christ will give the draught, yea, does so; this is his establishing our work, and by it God does make us glad.

CONCLUSION. Pray this prayer for your own sake, for your work's sake, for Christ's sake; for gladness wins many hearts. - S.C.

I. THAT GOD'S PURPOSE SHOULD BE MADE TO APPEAR. "Thy work." That prayer is constantly rising from the hearts of men. We are always wanting to know the meaning of life; the meaning of our lives; the meaning of our lives at particular times. What is God doing with us? Unto what, into what, is God leading us? This is only made known in answer to prayer, which reveals to God an attitude of mind and feeling to which his purpose and his work can be explained. God holds the key to every life story.

II. THAT MAN'S WORK SHOULD BE ESTABLISHED. This is the prayer of those who feel the uncertainty of life, and fear that they will be unable to complete what they have begun. The prayer may take two forms.

1. Permit me to finish the work I have started.

2. Let my children carry on to completion my work. Do not let it be lost and useless, as an unfinished thing. "Establish thou the work of our hands upon us" "When Moses prays that the 'children' of the present generation may see God's glory, he perhaps has in mind the exclusion of the latter from entrance into the land of Canaan. It was only to their children that this, the culminating and most glorious blessing, was to be vouchsafed." - R.T.

I. THAT GOOD MEN ARE ENGAGED IN IMPORTANT WORK. God has a work to do; and the psalmist prays that it may be made manifest to their eyes. We desire to see God's work - the revelations and exercises of his great power and love. But the thought here is of our work.

1. It is divinely appointed. Not self-chosen. The great aim of it is the same as God's - to save men, by our giving them all possible help.

2. This work gives to life its chief value and interest. Living for the bodies and souls of others is intrinsically more valuable than all the private ends we pursue.

II. GOOD MEN FEEL ANXIOUS FOR THE SUCCESS OF THEIR WORK. They want it established, made strong, prospered. Even as they aim to succeed in their temporal work. On account of the intrinsic importance of the work itself. Because of the consequences of the work in the future. "And thy glory unto their children." Good men think not only of their own future, but of the future of Christ's Church. Because of our future. It will soon be of the utmost consequence to us whether our work has been established or not. Have we done anything, are we doing anything, that will last - of a beneficent kind?

III. GOOD MEN FEEL THAT THE SUCCESS OF THEM WORE DEPENDS ON THE BLESSING OF GOD. "Let thy beauty be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands." If our work is to be strong - be established - the strength must come from God. The utmost we can do is to accomplish the outward conditions of success; but God alone can reach the heart of the sinner and sufferer to cleanse and comfort. Our work ought to be beautiful, but God alone can give the beauty. If our work be the work of gratitude, love, humility, and self-sacrifice, it is God that has made it beautiful.

IV. THAT THE DIVINE BLESSING ON OUR WORK IS OBTAINED BY PRAYER.

1. God has made prayer necessary to the success of spiritual work. Christ taught this constantly, "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest," etc.; "Thy kingdom come."

2. As a matter of experience, the men who have prayed most over their work have succeeded best. Their prayer expressed their earnestness and faith - trust and spirit of dependence. Observe how work and prayer are here conjoined, Prayer useless where there is no work on hand. - S.