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Over and over again the refrain comes, "His mercy endureth for ever." But it is never a vain repetition, unless the mind, by its heedlessness, makes it so. It is like the German piece of music which is called 'The Fremensberg,' which tells one of the old legends of the region - how "a great noble of the Middle Ages got lost in the mountains, and wandered about with his dogs in a violent storm, until at last the faint tones of a monastery-bell, calling the monks to a midnight service, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the sounds came from, and was saved. A beautiful air runs through the music without ceasing, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft that it can hardly be distinguished, but it is always there. It swung grandly along the shrill whistling of the storm-wind, the rattling patter of the rain, and the boom and crash of the thunder; it wound soft and low through the lesser sounds, the distant ones, such as the throbbing of the convent-bell, the melodious winding of the hunter's horn, the distressed bayings of his dogs, and the solemn chanting of the monks; it rose again, with a jubilant ring, and mingled itself with the country songs and dances of the peasants assembled in the concert-hall to cheer up the rescued huntsman as he ate his supper, imitating all these sounds with marvelous exactness. The solemn chanting of the monks was not done by instruments, but by men's voices, and it rose and felt and rose again in that rich confusion of warring sounds and pulsing bells, and the stately swing of that ever-present enchanting air, and it seemed to me that nothing could be more divinely beautiful" (Mark Twain). So the sweet refrain of this psalm is heard amid all variety of circumstances, and is never absent, but investing with its own charm every one of the manifold statements which the psalm contains. But wherefore all this repetition?

I. BECAUSE WE ARE SO APT TO FORGET THE TRUTH IT TELLS OF. Is not this so? "The ox knoweth its owner," etc. (Isaiah 1.).

II. BECAUSE IT IS A TRUTH SO UNSPEAKABLY IMPORTANT. We repeat messages to those who we know are liable to forget, and we do so the more according to the importance of the message. And none can be more important than this, consider it how we will. Who is there that does not need to remember it, that is not every way the better for the remembrance of it?

III. BECAUSE, WHEN IT IS REMEMBERED, BELIEVED, AND REALIZED IN THE HEART WE CANNOT KEEP SILENCE ABOUT AT. "I believed, therefore have I spoken," said St. Paul; and it has ever been so. He who wrote this psalm believed this most blessed truth of God's mercy enduring forever, and he could not keep silence; nor shall we when we in like manner believe. - S.C.

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KJV: O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

WEB: Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good; for his loving kindness endures forever.