I. WE MIGHT FILL UP THE TEXT IN MANY WAYS. As St. John does, "because God first loved us." Or because of what he is in himself. Or because of what he has done for us, is doing, and will do for us or for others dear to us. And there are other ways still.

II. HOW IT IS FILLED UP. "Because he hath heard my voice," etc. God's heating of our prayer is the reason given for loving him.

1. Now, can we say this? Not if we never pray. Not if we do not look out for the answers in the right way - believing - and in the place where they are to be looked for.

2. But many, like the psalmist, can say this.

III. AND HOW REASONABLE IS THIS FILLING UP! It is fitting that we should "love the Lord, because," etc. If we think of the sad characteristics of our prayers. How unworthy! How slow we are to pray I What a number of desires we have! What unbelief mingles with them! How trivial! How impatient! How misused! What his answering of our prayers has cost!

CONCLUSION.

1. If he hears our prayer, he shall hear our praise, and we will hear his word.

2. And we will tell others of this. - S.C.

I. GOD HEARING IS A BASIS OF LOVE. "He hath heard my voice and my supplications." Then God is a living Being; in his image we are made; and he is responsive to his children. Contrast the feeling of the heathen, who prays to the stone figure of his god. He can only vaguely fear or vaguely hope, for there is no response from the stone face; and if he gets what he asks he cannot associate it with the action of the god - it is but a happy accident. We can only love living persons. We use the term "love" in a very secondary sense when we apply it to things. God hearing is God living; and the living God can be the Object of human love.

II. GOD LOVING TO HEAR IS A FURTHER BASIS OF LOVE. "He hath inclined his ear unto me." Inclining the ear is a sign of disposition, even of personal feeling and regard. When we do not care for those who make requests of us, how short and sharp we are with them! When we have personal regard for them, how patiently we listen. How we bend down to attend to them! How we incline our car! The psalmist read personal interest and affection in that inclining of the Divine ear; and it was precisely fitting that he should respond to love with love.

III. GOD'S ACTING ON WHAT HE HEARS BECOMES A FURTHER BASIS OF LOVE. He may incline his ear, and so show his interest in us, but go no further. Then he would but be like so many of our earthly friends, who sympathize with us, but can or will do nothing for us. For God to hear is for God to heed, and for God to heed is for God to bless and help. And new love to him is kindled as we experience his deliverances and salvations. From every man God asks worship. From his healed, restored, redeemed ones he asks the worship of love. - R.T.

I. CELEBRATES A GREAT DELIVERANCE. (Vers. 3-8.)

1. From threatened death. (Ver. 3.)

2. From the pains of the unseen world or of death. (Ver. 3.)

3. His whole nature is troubled and sorrowful. (Ver. 3.)

II. THE MEANS OR INSTRUMENTS OF HIS DELIVERANCE.

1. Prayer. (Vers. 1-4.)

2. The goodness and mercy of God. (Vers. 5, 6.)

III. THE EFFECTS OF THIS DELIVERANCE.

1. An increase of love. (Ver. 1.)

2. An increase of obedience to the Divine will. (Ver. 9.)

3. A more untroubled rest in God - the rest of faith. (Ver. 7.) - S.

I. THE DISTRESS. It is told of:

1. As the sorrows of death and the pains of hell, or the grave. Some render it "the snares," others, "the cords," of death. But the meaning is much the same, however the word be rendered. It must he remembered that the psalm was written in the dim light of the Old Testament as to the believer's condition after death. And, compared with our own, that light was very dim. To the faithful servant of God now, who "dies in the Lord," there are no sorrows of death. Christ hath abolished death; and still less are there any pairs of hell. But the writer of this psalm did believe in them, as did all the saints of his day. And they meant for him, not burning flames or purgatorial fires, but exclusion from the presence of God (see Psalm 115:17, and parallels; Psalm 31:22, etc.). These were the sorrows they dreaded. In death they would no more see - so they feared - God's power and glory as they had seen them in the sanctuary (Psalm 63:2). The grave was to them the pit, the land of darkness and the shadow of death. These were the sorrows of death and the pains of hell, and they caused the deepest spiritual distress.

2. And there are the like of these still. When the soul feels itself shut out from God; when it has no hope; when nothing but the Divine condemnation seems possible to it; when it knows and feels itself to be utterly and hopelessly wrong; when it gazes wistfully upon the blessed promises of God, but is in abiding despair as to ever realizing them - is certain it never shall; and that for it there is nothing but the fearful looking for of God's indignation and of his fiery wrath. Souls not a few have passed, and are passing, through experience like that.

3. It is caused in various ways. Sometimes through deep conviction of sin when first the soul is awakened. And it is well for the after-life of the soul that there should be deep conviction wrought by the Holy Spirit, for then there is likely to be a permanent work done, and not a mere ephemeral and superficial one, such as is all too common. And oftentimes this experience is the result of back sliding from God (see Peter after his denial; Judas after his betrayal of the Lord). "Keep me, O Lord, as the apple of thine eye," let every Christian pray. At other times it is through a perverse habit of mistrust and doubt. The melancholy mass of miserable Christians are nearly all begotten of this wretched and God-dishonoring habit. And sometimes it is the result of disease in mind or body, or both. Then it is a pure affliction, and has to be accepted as such. But this is not often the case.

II. THE DELIVERANCE.

1. See how thorough it was. (Ver. 8.) "My soul from death." Sin is death, and until we are not free from that, whatever else we may be, we are not saved. "Mine eyes from tears." There has come peace and joy in God instead of anguish of soul. "My feet from falling." I not only begin the better life, but go and keep on in it. God's salvation means this for us.

2. How it was won. Through prayer (ver. 4). How direct, definite, and to the point, this prayer was! So is all real prayer.

3. And how evident. (See vers. 9, 13.) When we are saved, people will know it. Walking is a very visible act, as is the walking before the Lord. There is no invisible religion.

III. THE DIVINE TEACHING FOR US ALL IN ALL THIS.

1. If till now you have never been convicted of sin, be thankful for your soul-distress, remembering its gracious intent.

2. If you are in Christi pray that you may never come into the soul-agony that the backslider knows.

3. If from any cause such distress be on you, despair not, but turn to God in prayer, earnest and definite, and persevere in faith till the deliverance comes.

4. If you have been delivered, go and declare to others what God has done for your soul.

5. And let your life show your love to God. - S.C.

I. THE DIVERSE INFLUENCE OF SICKNESSES. Different diseases have different effects. And the influence of any disease depends on the bodily organization, mental disposition, and even religious sentiments of the man in whom it works. It has different effects according to the season of the year, and the state of the atmosphere; and it varies even according as the patient is well or badly nursed. All these things man cannot estimate, but we may be sure God does.

II. THE SPECIAL EFFECT OF SOME DISEASES. They directly affect the brain. They make a man become a sort of double self, as did the devil-possessions of our Lord's time. There is the man of Christian trust and hope, and at the same time a man saying all sorts of bitter and unreasonable things against himself, and so a distress to him self and to all who have to deal with him.

III. THE MENTAL CONFLICT OCCASIONED BY SICKNESSES. When this dual life is created, there must be conflict between the man of trust and the man of despair. The soul's love to God struggles hard to hold its own. It persists in hoping on. And its persistency is seen at every moment when the tight grip of the disease is loosened. It is the constant conflict of the flesh and the spirit.

IV. THE CONDITIONS OF SOUL-VICTORY UNDER SICKNESSES. To use a business expression, we must discount the influence of the body. We must keep from thinking about our spiritual state till we are free to judge it fairly. We must cling to what God is, and is to us. - R.T.

I. THE SIMPLE MAN LETS GOD WORK. "The Lord preserveth the simple." He has no confidence to make his own plans; he waits to know and fit in with God's plans for him. This may seem weakness; and it sometimes is weakness. But it need not be. It should only be the simplicity of the child-spirit, which depends on the father, and has the fullest confidence in the fatherly wisdom and ways. He has no confidence in his own working out of the plan. So he leans on Divine help continually, ever saying, "What I know not, that teach thou me;" "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe," This, too, may seem to be weakness, but it is not; it is only man meeting fully the conditions of his being, for man is as a climbing plant, only strong and able to attain his best when he leans upon the strong. It is the problem of life, and the simple man most easily solves it - How can humanity reach its best? The simple man says, "By being always open to God's working in us."

II. THE GUILEFUL MAN DOES HIS OWN WORK. He is quite satisfied with his own plans. They are such as will bring the best possible to himself. He has an eye to the "main chance" always, and means to secure it straightforwardly if he can, otherwise if he cannot. And he is quite satisfied with his resources. There is nothing that he cannot do, or thinks he cannot do. Life is to him the sphere in which things have to yield to his wishes. The guileful man has no particular need of God, and, indeed, he sometimes finds him in his way, and so is aroused to an active antagonism. "God is not in all his thoughts." There is no place in him for humility - self-confidence fills all the space. There is no call to prayer, for he wants no help. He is sufficient unto himself, or thinks he is. The guileful man will not have it that he is a dependent creature.

III. THE GUILEFUL MAN REACHES PRESENT RESULTS; THE SIMPLE MAN REACHES ABIDING RESULTS. This is precisely the difference which having God makes. With out him there is nothing that abideth. With him everything worth having abideth forever. - R.T.

I. THAT REST IS ONE OF THE RIGHTFUL POSSESSIONS OF THE SOUL. It was designed for the soul. God would not have created a soul to be the perpetual victim of fret, worry, and distress, as we see many souls now are. It must have belonged to the soul. Hence it is called "thy rest." In the primal paradise, in which our first parents were placed, they enjoyed this rest. Theirs was the repose of the intellect, of the affections, of the will; all were at rest in God.

II. BUT THE SOUL HAS GOT AWAY FROM THIS REST. What need to labor any proof of this?

1. You can read the fact in men's very looks - the careworn countenance, the anxious mien, the sad, disappointed air.

2. In their words, whether spoken or written; weariness is written on them all.

3. In the frantic but futile efforts they make to find a substitute for what they have lost.

III. THAT IT CAN, IF IT WILL, RETURN UNTO ITS REST. Yes, in forsaking sin, surrender to Christ, and trust in him, rest is still attainable. - S.C.

I. THERE IS A REST FOR THE SOUL - GOD. He is so by virtue of his atonement, his Spirit, his Word. And this for the individual soul.

II. BUT WE FOOLISHLY LEAVE THAT REST. By neglect of communion. By unbelief. By disobedience.

III. NEVERTHELESS, WE ARE BIDDEN RETURN. We do so as we first of all turned to him - in penitence and prayer and trust.

IV. WE HAVE A MIGHTY ARGUMENT FOR THIS. "He hath dealt bountifully with thee." Thus he meets us.

V. WE MUST EACH DO THIS FOR OURSELVES. "Return unto thy rest, O my soul!

VI. HE IS CERTAIN TO RECEIVE US. - S.C.

I. A problem to solve is given to every dependent moral creature, and to the human race. It is this; WHERE, IN WHAT, OR IN WHOM, WILL YOU FIND YOUR REST? A husband finds rest in home. A thinker finds rest in truth. A worker finds rest in the products of his toil. Israel found rest in Canaan. The saint hopes to find rest in heaven. Where does the soul find its present rest? As the psalmist uses the expression, "Return," we infer that he had solved the problem and found his rest. He must have found it in God, and in personal relations with God. The soul's rest comes in the voluntary uniting of the soul with God; it comes when the soul goes out of itself to trust God fully; or, more precisely, rest comes by winning the character that can trust. And that character is gained only by discipline, which roots out the self-reliance. This rest is no mere idling quiescence. It is not destroyed individuality. It is such rest as the "Man Christ Jesus" knew all the while he was going to and fro on the earth's highways. Many, looking over the conflicts of their early life, can remember how they won rest. They can recall their soul-struggle. They can remember how it ended in a glad surrender, which brought them peace.

II. THE SOUL'S REST, WHEN WON, NEEDS PROVING. It must be tried. It may have to be tried "so as by fire." In Birmingham there is a "proving-house." The gun-barrels are skillfully made, but there is no security in their use until they have been tested and proved. The bridge may be completed, but traffic cannot be permitted until it has been proved. Young people go from country homes with good characters, but the full strong manhood does not come until those characters have been submitted to stern city-tests. Our earthly life, more especially, perhaps, the early years of our manhood, are the proving-house of the soul-rest that we have gained.

1. Our soul-testings often come in the way of enlarged faculties and increasing knowledge. Perhaps there never was a time when our discipline in this way was more severe. The man must grow out of his childish notions. Every year is bringing us richer stores of knowledge. Much of it is antagonistic to our previous knowledge; more of it is felt to be incompatible with it. We are half tempted to associate ignorance with faith, and knowledge with doubt, and then to wish that we need not know. But the trouble passes when we can see that this is a part of the soul's proving-house, one feature of the discipline through which alone can come virtue and strength. "Let knowledge grow from more to more:" what matter, if only "more of reverence in us dwell"?

2. Our soul-testing often comes in the self-activity demanded in order to win world-success. Many a godly man has, for a time, lost his soul in the all-absorbing business, and civic, and political strain. There is no pressure put on men equal to that of heaped-up daily responsibilities. Under it their souls are flattened right down, silenced, stifled, crushed.

3. Our soul-testing often comes in the discipline of disappointment and failure. This we find represented in the psalms of Asaph. Such experiences made him feel uncertain about God - whether he really was on the side of the good. But these provings need but have a passing and temporary influence. Bunyan shows his pilgrim sleeping in the arbor, and letting his roll drop out of his bosom, losing it thus for a while. Only when lost soul-rest becomes a permanent state does it become fatal.

III. THE SOUL'S REST, THOUGH TEMPORARILY LOST, MAY BE REGAINED. God is always watching for the first opportunity to give it back; and the soul that has once had it is keen enough to seize the first occasion to get it hack. Here is the peculiarity of the psalmist - he had lost his soul-rest, but he was troubled by the loss.

1. All through the dark time in the proving-house he wanted to keep trust if he could. That made all the difference. There are two attitudes which we may take. We may want to doubt, if we can. We may want to trust, if we can. And though the false notion prevails that doubting - wanting to doubt - is the more intelligent, it is surely more reasonable that dependent creatures should want to trust.

2. All through the dark time in the proving-house the psalmist kept that love to God on which his trust was based. The trust was no mere intellectual conclusion, which could be upset by enlarging knowledge. He had gained his soul-rest by self-abandonment. He gained it by entering fully into the sonship which is based on affection. There is no fear of love-relations with God. Love may have its faded times. Other interests may seem to come in, and for a time push love aside. It will never consent to be pushed aside very long; it will soon say, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul!" - R.T.

I. GOD'S DELIVERANCE FROM BODILY PERILS. "Soul from death." The "soul" here is the animal life. Spiritual need is not, here, in the psalmist's mind. We all have had perils of death - from drowning, accident, or disease. Illust.: Hezekiah. Man walking in the dark, stopped at very edge of quarry. Do we keep the memory of God's restorations of imperiled life? In this God has "dealt bountifully with us." And we are bound to God by the claims

(1) of life given; and

(2) of life restored.

II. GOD'S DELIVERANCE FROM HUMAN SORROWS. "Eyes from tears." The thought here is of the trouble that causes grief-tears. We can look back over trials that were distresses, anxieties. Illustrate by the pathetic picture of David going up Olivet weeping, when fleeing before his willful son Absalom. Cannot bear to see a man disheartened unto tears. It is always a sad sight. It has been such to God. For us he has "wiped the tears away." Illustrate by the fact that, in our family discipline, we let the child cry; but it is very hard to us to see it cry; and all the while we mean to wipe the tears away. See the bountifulness of God in dealing with us thus.

III. GOD'S DELIVERANCE FROM MORAL TEMPTATIONS. "Feet from stumbling." Who can look over life and fail to see times when the "feet were almost gone, the steps had well-nigh slipped"? We are liable to fall. "Prone to wander." Exposed to temptation. We may learn a lesson from the spread of infectious diseases. Every thing depends on the measure of inward susceptibility. Then, should it not be our unceasing wonder that we have not fallen? Why have we not? There can be but one answer: "The Lord hath dealt bountifully with us." There is, then, a threefold memory-bend binding us to God, and ever setting us upon asking, "What shall we render unto the Lord for all his mercy to us?" There is one fitting answer: "I will pay thee my vows." We can just be God's servants, in all holy love and obedience. - R.T.

I. HASTY THOUGHT IS BEST KEPT AS THOUGHT. It is not always clearly recognized that suggestions made to the mind are not sin. They may be made by circumstances, or made by our fellow-men, or made by the spirit of evil. So far as they only awaken thought in us, no sin has been committed; our will has not been concerned in the matter. There is no more than response to suggestion according to the ordinary working of mental laws. So far there is something which we cannot help. If left alone, it will soon pass away. Only that is kept in memory on which the attention is fixed. Passing thought passes into oblivion. And this is the best fate for such a hasty thought as this of the psalmist.

II. HASTY THOUGHT DOES MISCHIEF WHEN IT GETS INTO SPEECH. So our Lord taught that the things which come out of a man defile him. It takes an act of will to give expression to a thought. That act of will makes the thought our own. If it is a bad thought, it must do a bad work by getting expression; for that expression starts bad thoughts in others. The psalmist's hasty word sowed the seed of mistrust, which spoils the relations of human society. - R.T.

I. THE BENEFITS WHICH THE LORD HATH CONFERRED UPON US.

1. It is difficult because of their number, character, variety; and because of Satan's never-ceasing endeavor to hinder us herein.

2. But is full of advantage. More glory comes to God. Our own soul is blessed. We become able to help others.

3. It is a habit which we should cultivate.

II. THE RESPONSE WHICH THESE BENEFITS DEMAND. That of a grateful heart, first and chief of all. God is ever seeking to make up this response; and the devil is ever seeking to prevent it.

III. THE LORD WHO PROMPTS THE INQUIRY WILL ENABLE US TO GIVE THE RESPONSE. - S.C.

I. HE WILL ACCEPT GOD'S SALVATION. This the meaning of the words, "I will take the cup of salvation." God has designed salvation for each one of us; he puts it before us as the master of a feast was wont to hand the cup to each guest. And the grateful heart here says, "I will take thy salvation, O Lord, the pardon which is in Christ, the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life." No worship or service is pleasing to God until this is done.

II. HE WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD. Thus, by fervent prayer, will he keep in communion with God, and look to him day by day for all needed grace.

III. HE WILL OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE GOD. "I will pay my vows," etc. What has gone before has been transacted between God and the soul; this should be before all men. If there be these three things, all holy obedience will follow; there will be the consecrated life. - S.C.

"What shall we render, O heavenly Friend, to thee,
For care so tender, for love so free?" It is the feeling of all pious souls, the ever-growing feeling of the deepening experience, that no fitting return can be made to God, and that the only possible return we can make is to let him do all his work of grace in us - to take his "cup of salvation." We know how, sometimes, in the ordinary associations of life, the gifts of our friends altogether overwhelm us. We cannot keep pace with them in returning their gifts. At last we give up attempting to do so, and just let them spend their love on us as they will. This may help us to understand the psalmist's feeling concerning God. Possibly there is a reference to the "cup of blessing" in the observance of the Pass over, which may have been introduced after the Exile; but it is better to regard it simply as a poetical figure, and as meaning, "I will accept thankfully and with devout acknowledgment the blessings which God gives me as my portion." The Christian can flu the term "salvation" with higher and holier meanings.

I. THE HOPELESSNESS OF FINDING ANY WAY OF RETURNING GOD'S GOODNESS. Because he wants nothing of us. When we would return a gift, how anxiously we try to find out what our friend wants I But it is hopeless to think of finding out any thing that God wants. Illust. by the reproachful plea through the psalmist (Psalm 1.), "Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof." And because we could find nothing that he wanted, if he did want. Things are not in our possession or control. How can we give when we have nothing? And all the things we seem to have are his.

II. THE HOPEFULNESS OF RESPONDING TO GOD'S WAY FOR OUR RECOGNIZING HIS GOODNESS. What he asks of us is to let him bless us - to be willing recipients of his benedictions, to take his cup of salvation; he wants not things, but thanks; not gifts but love; not offerings, but praise. "Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving." That we can do. - R.T.

I. "I WILL TAKE THE CUP OF SALVATION." It honors God for us cheerfully to accept the blessings which he sends. It may be proper to refuse gifts offered by our fellow-men. It is never a true and worthy humility that hesitates to act upon God's promises or to accept what God offers. And yet that we find beginners in the Christian life, and even experienced Christians, often do, especially when what God provides is not just "according to their mind." Note also how the very freeness of God's gifts makes them unacceptable to human pride. We like to have things on our conditions, and at our price.

II. "I WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD." That is, in the spirit and act of thankfulness. Thankfulness should be regarded

(1) as an important Christian obligation;

(2) as an enjoined Christian duty; and

(3) as a most real help to the brightness, the joyfulness, and the steadiness of the Christian life.

The utterance of thankfulness is a public testimony of our recognized and happy dependence on God. "I have set the Lord always before me."

III. "I WILL PAY MY VOWS UNTO THE LORD." Give some account of Jewish vow-making in times of special thankfulness; as when recovering from a serious sickness.

1. Sincere and right-intentioned, vow-making is acceptable and pleasing to God.

2. The earnest endeavor at vow-paying is much more acceptable. Our resolves match the ancient vows; and our lives have witnessed many resolves made and few resolves carried out. Illust.; resolves in times of conversion, of success, of sickness, of trouble, of rescue from peril. Try to think what unpaid vows or resolves of yours God has on his record. Vow, but be sure to "pay your vows unto the Lord." - R.T.

I. THE MEANING OF THE WORD "PRECIOUS." It is used frequently in a like sense, and means:

1. God will not suffer death to come to his saints save as he permits; and never shall his saints cease from off the earth. The fact of the old age to which they commonly attain seems to confirm what the text affirms. But:

2. The word "precious denotes also the mind of God in contemplating the death of his saints. He delights in all their life - in its beginning, its progress, and now its end. This is the last step of the saint, and our text tells with what loving regard the Lord looks down upon it.

II. THE REASON OF THIS DIVINE ESTIMATE.

1. Because of his love and sympathy. His saints are dear to him.

2. At the time of their death there is more than ever a response of trust and desire made to the heart of God. In the full vigor of life we are apt to forget, or to think but seldom and slightly, of God; we do not feel our dependence upon him as we should. But when heart and flesh fail - when all our strength is gone, then there is that utter casting of the soul upon God in which God delights.

3. The wondrous witness to others on behalf of God which the death of many a saint has borne. See how Paul never forgot the dying speech of Stephen. The blood of the martyrs has been ever the seed of the Church. And in calmer deaths than these witness for God has also been borne, and with power unknown before.

4. The precious blood of Christ is glorified. For at such times that is all their trust, During life we discuss all manner of questions, doctrines, and beliefs; but when we come to die, it is, Thou, O Christ, art all I want!"

5. It is the moment of their safe ingathering. Till then, they have been, as the sheep in the wilderness, liable to wander, exposed to peril, watched for hungrily by the wolves of hell, often all but lost. But death is God's angel gathering them safe within the eternal sheepfold. Such are some of the grounds wherefore "precious in the sight," etc.

III. BUT NOTE THE CONCLUSIONS THIS WARRANTS CONCERNING THE FUTURE OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD.

1. Death cannot end all. How could such death be "precious?"

2. Nor can it introduce us into a state of mere unconsciousness. Death for God's saints is not a sleep, but the entrance on fullness of life with Christ.

3. Still less into any purgatory. Scripture has nothing to say of such condition for God's saints. But:

4. It is a departing and being with Christ, which is far better. Surely we may "comfort one another with these words."

IV. THE ONE LIMITATION OF THIS STATEMENT.

1. It is not as to time. We may die at any moment.

2. Nor as to place. It may be anywhere.

3. Nor as to manner. It may be in deep peace or dreadful pain.

4. But it is as to character. Of the saints of God alone is it said that their deaths are "precious in," etc. Therefore, by surrender to Christ, be one of God's saints. - S.C.

I. THAT THE DEATH OF OUR BELOVED ONES IS A PRECIOUS THING TO GOD. These "deaths" are certainly very precious things to us, whether they come as a sudden call or follow upon many days of weary watching. There is peculiar sacredness in a time of death for a family. The family bend never seems so closely knit as then. Each member makes so much of each other member in those hours of common sorrow. Our text says that the dying of our friends is so precious to God. We may think of God as our Father; as one of our family, the very Head of our family, and therefore the one on whom the heaviest part of the burden falls. No one feels so deeply as the father and the mother; and in calling himself the great Father, he unveils a heart of infinite sympathy, that "bears our griefs, and carries our sorrows." How God feels toward us finds its illustration in the manifested God - Christ Jesus. The sympathies of Nain, the tears of Bethany, show us our God. The death of the saint is so precious to God:

1. Because the trust of the dying is so severely tested. What the mysterious conflicts of the time of death are none of us can know, perhaps none of us can imagine. In perilous disease we may have been to the "border-land;" but, then, the border-land is a very wide space, and we have not really felt what it is for the soul fully to face the eternal, The struggle must be a great and sore one, for even the best of men, when they come to die, have a time during which their faith seems to fail, and their hope to die out. It is a most "precious" thing to God for a human soul to be in struggle.

2. Because the living who are left are so overwhelmed with sorrow. Of the heavenly sphere it is said, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." That means that the sympathy felt by God in their tear-bringing sorrows will by-and-by be able to express itself without limit or hindrance. Our tears are precious things to our heavenly Father, though, for the holiest ends, he may bid them flow on while we tarry here below.

3. Because through death God brings his children home to himself. To him death is precious; he thinks about it, is anxious about it, rejoices in the anticipation of that which follows it, looks on it much as the parent looks on the perilous journey which brings his absent child home. If we could always think of our beloved as gone home to our Father and theirs, their death would become precious to us. We think of them as dead, gone from earthly love and fellowship. Better think of them as having found the true love and the eternal fellowship.

II. THAT THE DEATH OF OUR FRIENDS FITS IN WITH GOD'S PERFECT AND LOVING PLAN FOR US. When we look over our past lives we often can see the wisdom and goodness manifested in isolated scenes and incidents; but we fail to see the wonderful ways in which the various experiences fit in together. It is not always an easy thing to discern what the common things have to do with the special things, or how the special things have become necessary in order to teach more effectively the lessons learned from the common things. We fail to discern the plan. God's plan in our life is not at present offered to our comprehension. It is offered to our faith. Our life is a worked pattern of various colors; the pattern is large, and it scarcely comes out until it is nearly complete. Our life is a complicated mosaic, and each day new shapes and new colors are added. God makes the pattern complete, but keeps it for a heaven-view.

III. THAT THE MYSTERY HANGING ABOUT THE DEATH OF OUR BELOVED WILL ONE DAY BE DISPELLED. Familiar as we are with death, its ways always seem strange to us. We think it has stricken the wrong person; it has come at the wrong time; or it has done its work in the wrong way. Sometimes Death comes too suddenly. In a moment our friend went in, and all left to us was the outer robe flung off as he passed through. Sometimes Death tarries wearyingly. Sometimes Death gathers about him circumstances which add peculiar painfulness to the death-scenes. We incline to say, "It is all wrong." And yet it is God who arranges it. The wise God. The faithful Creator. The loving Father. It is precious to him. "Thou shalt know hereafter." Let us wait. We all have some mysteries to keep until the time for unfolding mysteries shall come. By-and-by "we shall know as we are known." - R.T.

I. BY SCRIPTURE. (See text.) The one trouble of the psalmist seems to be lest he should not be owned by the Lord as his servant. Hence:

1. He asserts with emphasis, "Truly I am thy servant." Here is not a mere make-believe, as so many professed servants of the Lord are.

2. And he reasserts it. "I am thy servant," not was, or will be, but I am, here and now, this day, thine.

3. And he cites a fact which unanswerably proves his assertion. I am "the son of thine handmaid." Slaves born in the house, home-born of another slave, were regarded as the property of their master, even more than those gained by purchase or taken captive in war. The meaning, therefore, is, "I am thy very own." Thus completely and altogether does the psalmist dedicate himself to God.

4. And he brings forward the mighty motive which had led him thus to do. "Thou hast loosed my bonds." He was speaking, probably, of the bonds of death, from the very gates of which he had been delivered (ver. 8). In his over whelming gratitude for this deliverance, he yields himself entirely to God. What a contrast does the psalmist present to the ordinary run of men! They care nothing for God's service. If they begin it, they soon forsake it; or if perchance they seem to continue in it, with what sloth and slackness is it pursued! But the psalmist feels that no service he can render is too great; his one desire is to be confessed as the servant of the Lord.

II. AND RIGHT REASON ENDORSES THIS COMMENDATION.

1. We cannot escape service of some sort; some lord will have rule over us. Where is one whose rule is righteous and reasonable as is that of the Lord?

2. Has he not all claim? He is our Creator, Preserver, our Redeemer, and daily Benefactor, our heavenly Father.

3. The noblest of mankind have been the first to confess this.

III. So ALSO DOES EXPERIENCE. Who ever repented of having served the Lord too well, or thought he had done so sufficiently? The best of his servants are eager to have all those they love, and all whom they can influence, in his service. It brings here and now such rich recompense of reward, and promises eternal reward by-and-by. Our happiest hours are those spent in serving him. "He has loosed my bends, and I must and will serve him." - S.C.

I. SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES AS THANKSGIVINGS. The formality of thanksgiving was strikingly illustrated in the great national services held when the Prince of Wales was restored to health. It was an appropriate national act; and to many devout souls it was also a spiritual sacrifice. The worship of the Church is a sacred duty to be formally done; but it only rises to its highest when the souls of the worshippers are fully in the praise. The spiritual element in formal worship is an unceasing care to all devout souls. God asks to hear men's souls sing when their voices raise the psalm.

II. SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES AS ADORATIONS. Calling upon the "Name." There is a feature in the early Jewish ritual which it is difficult to retain in the Christian. The Jew had sublime, reverent, oppressive views of the majesty and holiness of God. So there was an element of adoration in the worship, and an element of adoration in the psalms. The truth of the Divine Fatherhood is misapprehended if it is allowed to lighten the soul's august impressions of the Divine glory.

III. SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES AS PRAYERS. Our Lord spoke against "vain repetitions." Prayer is soul-dependence and soul-desire. It may be spoken out, but it may not. God reads hearts. - R.T.