In this case, as in others, the words which in our version form the title of the psalm are in the Hebrew its first verse. And they enable us, with less than the usual uncertainty, to fix on the historic occasion on which it was written. This is one of those psalms which come under those in the first division of the introductory homily. It is an historical psalm, and as such it must be studied and estimated, As an illustration of the way in which excellent men have turned aside from the obvious intent of a psalm to put fancied dogmatic meanings of their own into it, Luther's interpretation of this psalm is a choice specimen. By such a process, men not only proceed on insecure bases, but they lose very much of the instruction which the historical psalms are calculated to afford. The evangelical truth which they think they find here is abundantly taught elsewhere; hence nothing is gained; while very much is lost by their failing to note the fine shades of personal experience, emotion, and character with which these psalms are marked. We have here one of the many priceless specimens of an Old Testament saint's experience - struggle, prayer, victory, song. "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." And it has brought comfort to many a struggling soul in the hard conflicts of life, to find how believers in bygone times have gone through trials even sharper than their own. We note in this psalm five stages of personal experience.

I. PERIL. (Vers. 1, 2.) (In order to introduce this psalm vividly to the people, a preacher should study closely the historic, incidents to which it refers.) The writer was

(1) compassed with foes;

(2) surrounded with plots and snares;

(3) scoffed at for his piety. There is no help for him in God. These who were plotting against him thought they had laid their plans securely, and that none could upset them. So it was with Daniel and with St. Peter. Note: If the people of God have to struggle hard with opposers and revilers, let them remember that they have had and shall have "companions in tribulation;" and that the experience of the saints of old, and of the course they adopted, is here recorded as a help for them.

II. PRAYER. (Ver. 4.) "I cried unto the Lord with my voice." The name of God . used by the psalmist is the revealed name of Israel's redeeming God, Jehovah. Of the vast meaning of this name the scoffing heathen knew nothing. And now, when the world scornfully asks, "Where is their God?" they do so in entire ignorance of the blessed throne of grace to which the believer can repair. "With my voice" - while their voice defies God, my voice shall address God. The blessed reality of inter-communion with the infinite and eternal God, through his own appointed way of sacrifice and mediation, is one of which the carnal mind knows absolutely nothing. None laugh at prayer who understand what it is. Those who know God know well that he is a Refuge and a Hiding-place in any time of trouble.

III. RESCUE. In God he has a Deliverer. In three forms is this expressed, each one full of suggestiveness.

1. A Shield. The word means more than this, even a protection which compasses one around.

2. My Glory. The believer can make his boast in God, even when men are scoffing at the great Name.

3. The Lifter-up of my head. One who enables me to rise superior to my troubles, and to smile upon them. All these expressions show not only what God was to David, but what he is to the saints still. Note: Whether we sink in trouble or rise above it will depend on our faith and prayer. We may fetch such help from God as will enable us to "smile at the storm."

IV. FEARLESSNESS.

1. In spite of all his foes, he could lie down and sleep. How many a wakeful night would have become one of sweet repose if the troubled ones did but thus hide in God! As the little child sleeps away his griefs on his mother's breast, so we can have sweetest repose when we make God our Hiding-place. The prophecy is, "A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind," etc.

2. As he sleeps in holy calm, so he awakes in holy courage. (Ver. 6.) "I will not be afraid," etc. (cf. Psalm 26., 46.). The courage of David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, etc., may well be repeated in us. "Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?"

3. The answers to prayer already received strengthen his confidence for the future. (Vers. 4, 7.) "He heard me," etc.; "Thou hast smitten all mine enemies," etc.; and because this has been so, his faith in future deliverances is confirmed.

V. TESTIMONY. The psalmist had prayed to Jehovah; he now testifies for him, as the result of his experience.

1. Experience furnishes the best answer to the scorner. In ver. 2 David quotes the words of the heathen, "There is no help for him in God;" but he knows better. He has tried what prayer will do. He has asked for help, and help has come. So that in direct opposition to wicked men, and as the result of positive knowledge, he can affirm, "Salvation belongeth unto the Lord," i.e. (same Hebrew word as in ver. 2) "help" or deliverance. This, of course, would be true of salvation from sin, etc.; but that is not its reference here. It means deliverance or help in any time of trouble.

2. Experience warrants a confident statement of the truth. "Thy blessing is upon thy people." How rich this blessing (or favour) of God is cannot be told in words. Not even the Old Testament saints knew its fulness of wealth and glory. Not till such teachings as Romans 8:31-39 were known to believers was it possible that they should. Of this blessing it was then true, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, what God hath prepared for them that love him." And in Revelation 7. the double form of that blessing is given (see the present writer's homily thereon), viz. safe keeping now, while in the tribulation; and safe leadership out of the great tribulation, to the glory yet to be revealed! - C.

"In His temple everything saith Glory!" The temple of which the psalmist here speaks is the temple of Nature. He believed that every object in the visible universe was engaged in singing paeans of praise to its Creator — "fire and hail." Too many of us lack almost entirely this sixth sense, "the vision and the faculty divine;" we hear scarce a whisper of this great shout of praise that goes up from all creation. But in what sense does everything in Nature cry, Glory! In what sense does the material universe sing the praises of God? It does so, I doubt not, directly. For God's pleasure all things are and were created, and doubtless the incense which arises from Nature's altars, the songs which are chanted in her leafy aisles, the perfume of her flowers, the beauty of her landscapes, are as grateful to the Creator as man's acts of worship. "The trees clap their hands, and She little hills rejoice together before the Lord." But there is another sense in which natural objects praise God, and it is this we shall meditate upon; they awaken gratitude in the heart of man and thus transmute themselves into conscious praise. Man's soul is the great organ upon which Nature plays her anthems of praise; the five senses are the keys; and through the medium of this instrument every created thing in God's Temple crieth, Glory!

I. NATURE INCITES MAN TO PRAISE BY HER BEAUTY, Think of one or two of those myriad appeals to our admiration which Nature makes, and which, for the most part, go unregarded.

1. Reflect how God's glory reacheth unto the clouds. The clouds, perhaps more than all other objects in Nature, teach us the immanence of God, teach us how His presence may penetrate and transfigure even what is most commonplace and familiar. For what are clouds? When they rest on the surface of the earth they are just choking fogs and clinging mists disfiguring everything they touch. But raise them away into the purer strata of the air to which they rightly belong; let the wind churn them into flakes of snow, and the moon pierce them with its silver arrows; and the sun suffuse them with its golden ardours; let them become the womb of the lightning and the chariot of the storm — and they present such visions of glory as can be seen nowhere else. Thus God would teach us that evil is but good in its wrong place, and that the fogs and mists of earth's sins and sorrows are the substance out of which God will weave hereafter golden visions of ethereal beauty.

2. Think what praise we owe God for the loveliness of all watery forms with which He has robed and adorned the earth, and of which clouds are but a part. The brooklet seeks the river, and the river empties itself into the sea, and the sea sends aloft its multitude of clouds, and the clouds form themselves anew on the face of the earth. That which is part of a stagnant ditch to-day may be a radiant dewdrop tomorrow, and what is now a peaceful pool may anon be a part of the stormy ocean which writhes its white fingers in the shrouds of sinking ships. But whether in forms of sublimity or of tenderness, how varied is its loveliness, and how varied are the notes of praise it should educe from man. Think of it as the iceberg and the glacier; as the snow that robes the mountain, and the hoar-frost that bejewels the branches; as the foam ball upon the torrent and the dewdrop on the rose; as the cataract spanned by the rainbow, and the crystal pool, the mirror of the woods 1 And then, perceiving how beautiful these things are in themselves, and what a throb of gratitude they awaken in the heart of him who feels their beauty, you will be impelled to link the gratitude of conscious and unconscious nature together, and to cry with the psalmist, "All Thy works praise Thee, O God, and Thy saints give thanks unto Thee."

3. Whether we gaze downward at our feet, where God has covered the earth with a carpet of emerald, and embroidered it with flowers, and, lest we should weary of their colours, has decreed that they shall bloom and fade, and be succeeded by others, month by month, and season by season; or visit those mountain regions which are, as an eminent writer has said, "the great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars"; whether it be the lichen which softens the scarred ruin or the forest which clothes a mountain side which engages our attention; the insect which flutters its hour of sunshine and is gone, or the star whose light takes a thousand years to bridge the space between it and us — alike, if we have indeed ears to hear, shall we be impelled to confess that everything in God's temple crieth, "Glory!" — alike we shall declare with the psalmist, "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy works, and I will rejoice in giving praise for the operation of Thy hands."

II. NATURE INCITES US TO PRAISE BY HER BOUNTY. The beauty of those natural objects of which I have spoken appeals to our higher nature, but our lower nature also needs ministering to. "Man shall not live by bread alone," but without bread he cannot live at all. And, therefore, Nature awakens our gratitude by her material as well as her spiritual gifts. The clouds not only delight the eye; they are, as a psalmist calls them, "the river of God," and rain plenteousness on the earth. The flowers of the field do not merely charm us by their loveliness, they yield up to us their colours and their perfumes; they serve us with their seeds and their fibres; they give us medicine to heal our sickness. The oak, the pine, the cedar, and the ash are not only types of strength and gracefulness; they yield timber for the ships and rafters for the homestead. The mountains serve not only to sanctify and delight the human heart by their sublimity, they help to make the earth habitable by purifying the air and giving birth to the rivers; without them the ground would become stagnant morass and the atmosphere would breathe pestilence. The mighty ocean, which is, in calm, as a waving veil of iridescent colours, and in storm —

The mirror where th' Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests,

is also the helper of man, bearing on its bosom the argosies of many nations, and in its depths the harvest of the sea, without which the harvest of the land would be insufficient for our needs. All nature thus ministers to us —

The whole is either our cupboard of food,

Or cabinet of pleasure,

And, moreover, nothing is too insignificant to be serviceable. Says Dr. Macmillan: "Even the hoary lichen on the dusky rock, that has drunk ill all the hues of the spectrum and made no sign, yields, when artificially treated, its hidden store of colour, and produces a violet and golden hue not unworthy of the fairest garden flower."

III. NATURE INCITES TO PRAISE BY THE MORAL QUALITIES SHE EDUCES IN MAN. This is Nature's chief glory, her highest honour, that she is the instrument by which God educates human souls and fits them for their immortal destiny, For we are placed here under the discipline of Nature, and she is a severe task-mistress, from whom nothing is to be had for the mere asking. Nature exacts laborious toil in exchange for all her gifts. She hides her pearls in the depths of the sea, her gold in the sands of the river or the crevices of the rocks; she buries the metals, man's most useful allies, and the coal to smelt those metals, deep down in the heart of the earth; she secretes her balms and her subtle essences where even the cunning chemist can scarce track them. Her most powerful forces, such as electricity, are ever the most elusive and the hardest to be subdued. Everything man extorts from Nature he must win, not only by the sweat of his brow, but by the sweat of his brain. He wrestles with her for her blessing as Jacob wrestled with the angel at Penuel, till almost he seems crippled with the strain. But the conflict proves at last that as a prince he has power with God and has prevailed; he wins the blessing, and, lo! it is not only corn and oil and wine, but rich endowments of mind and heart as well. Think about it, and you will see that almost all the highest moral qualities of our race — patience, endurance, forethought, courage, mutual helpfulness — are the outcome of the necessity to work which Nature lays upon us.

(A. M. Mackay, B. A.)