Psalm 61:2 From the end of the earth will I cry to you, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. I remark, first, that this is the expression of faith, as distinguished from science, and it justifies that faith. The present age is not, I think, to be characterized above all others as an age of intellect. It is an age of wonderful control over the forces and facts of nature. By this knowledge, certainly, man has great power, as he has by all intellectual acquisition. Intellectual strength is a wondrous faculty. In yonder closet there sits a pale thinker, in body puny almost as an infant, shrinking from the cold, and withering under the heat like a sensitive plant. And yet upon some occasion that man will stand up, and his words will run like an electric shock through the hearts of thousands, and they will be swayed by the sheer force of his mind like the leaves of the summer forest. He sets his pen to the vindication of some truth, and his documents flying abroad, alarm councils, change faiths, and alter polities. It is possible you may find a few rare instances of men who can make out what is called a scientific religion, and live by it; having a cause for every effect, and a law for every crisis; finding the source of their own suffering at -the end of the scalpel, and counting up their beating pulses by the tick of the watch. But there are few people who can stand on the level of the mere facts of nature and say it is enough to know that the earth turns on its axis, and that all things move in order. We want something higher than all this. These forces of nature have no particular sympathy with us. They are relentless, silent, stern. We crave something akin to ourselves — something near to our own souls, as nature is not — something that is higher than ourselves, to lift us up. It must be above the facts that prevail around us. Therefore, we say, what comes through science does not make up the complement and perfection of human nature. We need an element of faith — that kind of faith with which this grand old psalm was written. The soul wants something more than what the mere intellect gives; something that can reach the depths of its affections, and strengthen it in its moral weakness. So I come to observe, finally, that there are occasions in life when religion demonstrates itself to be a special need and prompting of the soul; when not only is this text found to be the language of religion, above all science and all mere morality, but above all mere logical arguments, above all debates, above all controversy; when there breaks out a demonstration of the truths of religion in just such language and experience as that which is contained in the words of the text — "When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I."(E. H. Chapin.) Parallel Verses KJV: From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. |
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