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I. His GOODNESS TO THE IRRATIONAL CREATION. Although nature is out of joint, yet even in its disruption I am surprised to find the almost universal happiness of the animal creation. On a summer day, when the air and the grass are most populous with life, you will not hear a sound of distress unless, perchance, a heartless school-boy has robbed a bird's nest, or a hunter has broken a bird's wing, or a pasture has been robbed of a lamb, and there goes up a bleating from the flocks. The whole earth is filled with animal delights — joy feathered, and scaled, and horned, and hoofed. The bee hums it; the frog croaks it; the squirrel chatters it; the quail whistles it; the lark carols it; the whale spouts it. The snail, the rhinoceros, the grizzly bear, the toad, the wasp, the spider, the shellfish, have their homely delights — joy as great to them as our joy is to us. Goat climbing the rocks; anaconda crawling through the jungle; buffalo plunging across the prairie; crocodile basking in tropical sun; seal puffing on the ice; ostrich striding across the desert, are so many bundles of joy; they do not go moping or melancholy; they are not only half supplied. God says they are filled with good. Take up a drop of water under the microscope, and you will find that within it there are millions of creatures that swim in a hallelujah of gladness. The sounds in Nature that are repulsive to our ears are often only utterances of joy — the growl, the croak, the bark, the howl. God's hand feeds all these broods, and shepherds all these flocks, and tends all these herds. He sweetens the clover-top for the oxen's taste; and pours out crystalling waters, in mossed cups of rock, for the hind to drink out of on his way down the crags; and pours nectar into the cup of the honeysuckle to refresh the humming-bird; and spreads a banquet of a hundred fields of buck-wheat, and lets the honey-bee put his mouth to any cup in all the banquet; and tells the grasshopper to go anywhere he likes, and gives the flocks of heaven the choice of all grain fields. Why did God make all these, and why make them so happy? How account for all this singing and dancing, and frisking amid the irrational creation? Why this heaven for the animalcule in a dew drop? Why for the condor a throne on Chimborazo? Why the glitter of the phosphorus in the ship's wake on the sea, which is said to be only the frolic of millions of insects? Why the perpetual chanting of so many voices from the irrational creation in earth, and air? There is only one solution, one answer — God is good. "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord."

II. NOTICE THE ADAPTATION OF THE WORLD TO THE COMFORT AND HAPPINESS OF MAN. He was to be king in it. Heaven and earth are represented in his nature, his body from the earth, his soul from heaven. He is a strange commingling of dust and glory. The earth for his floor; heaven for his roof; God for his Father; eternity for his lifetime. Think of his body — "fearfully and wonderfully made." No embroidery so delicate or elaborate, no colour so exquisite, no mechanism so graceful, no handiwork so divine. And all working so quietly and mysteriously. Volumes have been written of the hand. Wondrous instrument! With it we give friendly recognition, and grasp the sword, and climb the rock, and write, and carve and build. It constructed the Pyramids, and hoisted' the Parthenon. It made the harp, and then struck out of it all the world's minstrelsy. Four fingers and a thumb. A hundred million dollars would not purchase for you a machine as exquisite and wonderful as your own hand. Mighty hand! In all its bones, and muscles, and joints, I learn that God is good. Behold one eye, which, in its Daguerrean gallery, in an instant catches the mountain and the sea. This perpetual telegraphing of the nerves; these joints, that are the only hinges that do not wear out; these bones and muscles of the body, with fourteen thousand different adaptations. If we could realize the wonders of our physical organization, we would be hypochondriacs, fearing every moment there must be a break. down somewhere. But from birth to old age all goes on without failure. Take a step higher and look at man's mental constitution. The powers of perception whereby we transport the outer world into our own mind; the law of association, one thought starting up a hundred and enabling us to draw a long train of thought through the mind with incredible velocity; memory, the sheaf binder that goes forth to gather in the harvest of the past. In reason and understanding man is alone. The ox surpasses him in strength, the antelope in speed, the hound in keenness of nostril, the eagle in far-reaching sight, the rabbit in quickness of hearing, the honey-bee in delicacy of tongue, the spider in fineness of touch. Man's power, therefore, consisteth not in what he can lift, or how fast he can run, or how strong a wrestler he can throw — for in these respects the ox, the ostrich, and the hyena are his superior — but by his reason he comes forth to rule all: through his ingenious contrivance to outrun, outlift, outwrestle, outsee, out-hear, outdo. I take a step higher, and look at man's moral nature. Made in the image of God. Vast capacity for enjoyment; capable at first of eternal joy, and though now disordered, still, through the recuperative force of heavenly grace, able to mount up to more than its original felicity. Thus has God adapted everything to our comfort and advantage. But for the soul still higher adaptation; a fountain in which it may wash; a ladder by which it may climb; a song of endless triumph that it may sing; a crown of unfading light that it may wear. Christ came to save it — came with a cross on His back; came when no one else would come, to do a work which no one else would do. See how suited to man's condition is what God has done for him! Man is a sinner; here is pardon. He has lost God's image; Christ retraces it. Jesus, I sing Thy grace! Cure of worst disease! Hammer to smite off heaviest chain! Light for thickest darkness! Grace Divine! Devils scoff at it, and men reject it, but heaven celebrates it! Then let us, as well we may, celebrate the mercies of the past year, and reviewing them all, confess, yea, "the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

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KJV: He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.

WEB: He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the loving kindness of Yahweh.