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I call to remembrance my song in the night. This expression recalls the appeal of Elihu (Job 35:10), "But none saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night?" But the mood of the psalmist here is peculiar. To him the memories of past joys do but intensify present distress. "When I remember how near God once was, the present seems more bitter, and the thought brings increase of sadness." Some, however, render this clause, "I will give my mind to my song in the night; I will muse with my heart while my spirit makes search;" and understand the psalmist to mean, that he resolves to compose the present poem that very night.

I. ALL MEN HAVE PRECIOUS AND CHERISHED MEMORIES. However sad and anxious and burdened later life may become, every man's early life - childhood, youth, young manhood - is more or less pleasant to look back on. Partly because of what it actually was, partly because of the sunshine which the spirit of youth put on it, and partly because memory keeps the pleasant, and easily drops the painful. Then there are memories of events that have happened. And, for the Christian man, memories of special times of Divine guidance, rescue, restoration. And for many, dearest memories of sanctified human love. The term, "song in the night," suggests special memories of ways in which our hearts were kept trustful and cheerful, even in times of darkest trouble and most painful distress. With the waves and billows going over us, we yet could sing in our souls, "Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness...in the night his song shall be with me."

II. THE PLEASANTNESS OR PAINFULNESS OF OUR MEMORIES DEPENDS ON OUR OWN CONDITIONS OF MIND AND FEELING. The memories never change. They are always full of God and of his grace. We change our relation to them, and make them depressing or inspiriting according to our moods. According to bodily states, anxious circumstances, or mental and spiritual conditions, we read our past. So the cause for anxiety is that "singleness," clearness of vision, which enables us to see the past as it was, and read aright its relation to the present. So often when memories depress us, we need to see that the fault lies in our way of recalling them; and we should say, "This is my infirmity."

III. IF OUR MEMORIES TELL US WE WERE ONCE GLAD IN GOD, THEY REMIND US THAT WE MAY WISELY BE GLAD IN GOD STILL. For "he is the same yesterday, today, and forever." No matter what may seem to be the present, it is the sphere of the same Divine love and care. - R.T.

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KJV: I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.

WEB: I remember my song in the night. I consider in my own heart; my spirit diligently inquires: