Psalms 16

1. PRESERVE me, O God : for in thee do I put my trust. 2 I have said unto the LORD, Thou art my Lord : I have no good beyond thee. 3 As for the saints that are in the earth, They are the excellent in whom is all my delight. 4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied that exchange the LORD for another god : Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, Nor take their names upon my lips. 5 The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup : Thou maintainest my lot. 6 The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ;

Yea, I have a goodly heritage.

7. I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel : Yea, my reins instruct me in the night seasons. 8 I have set the LORD always before me : Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth : My flesh also shall dwell in safety. 10 For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol ; Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. 11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life : In thy presence is fulness of joy : In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

THIS Psalm is remarkable for its evangelical spirit ; in none is the faith stronger, the hope, indeed the certainty, of immortal life, more fully developed. It is ascribed to David by Peter on two most solemn occasions. It is full of the spirit of David ; it is connected with the Psalms which precede and follow it by several thoughts and expressions ; and the style is recognized by critics usually captious in the question of Davidic authorship, as “belonging unquestionably to high antiquity,” and bearing clear traces of transactions in David’s reign. The freshness and vivid coloring, the warmth and brilliancy of imagery, may point to the early portion of David’s reign ere yet the dark cloud had fallen on his spirit ; not improbably soon after his peaceful settlement, “when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies” (2 Sam. 7 : 1). Cook.

The Psalm is bright with the utterance of a happiness which nothing earthly can touch. It expresses the conviction of a life rather than of any sudden emergency. The living God Himself is David’s portion and inheritance (vs. 5, 6) ; stan is at his right hand (v. 8) ; is the joy of his heart now (v. 9), and will fill him with joy and gladness forevermore. P. — Throughout the whole Psalm there reigns a settled calm, an inward joy and a joyous assurance, which is certain that everything it may desire for the present and for the future it possesses in its God. D.

1. My Lord. There is a whole world between the man to whom God’s revelation consists in certain doctrines given to us by Jesus Christ, and the man to whom it consists in that Christ Himself. Grasping a living person is not the same as accepting a proposition. True, the propositions are about Him, and we do not know Him without them. But equally true, we need to be reminded that He is our Saviour and not they, and that God has revealed Himself to us not in words and sentences, but in a life. A. M.

2. The Psalmist knows no fountain of true happiness save Jehovah ; in Him he has everything ; his treasure is in heaven.

3. The saints, and none but they, are also the illustrious in his estimation. His whole delight is in them ; all his affection and esteem are bestowed upon them. D. — By David’s language, there were many singular saints in his day. The saints that are in the earth, the excellent, in whom is all my delight. Was it so then, and should it not be so now ? If we live in a more glorious dispensation, should we not maintain a more glorious conversation ? Seeker.

Saints are not people living in cloisters after a fantastic ideal, but men and women immersed in the vulgar work of every-day life and worried by the small prosaic anxieties which fret us all, who amid the whir of the spindle in the mill, and the clink of the scales on the counter, and the hubbub of the market-place, and the jangle of the courts are yet living lives of conscious devotion to God. The root idea of the word, which is an Old Testament word, is not moral purity, but separation to God. The holy things of the old covenant were things set apart from ordinary use for His service. So, on the high-priest’s mitre was written Holiness to the Lord. So the Sabbath was kept “holy,” because set apart from the week in obedience to Divine command. Sanctity and saint are used now mainly with the idea of moral purity, but that is a secondary meaning. The real primary signification is separation to God. Consecration to Him is the root from which the white flower of purity springs most surely. There is a deep lesson in the word as to the true method of attaining cleanness of life and spirit. We cannot make ourselves pure, but we can yield ourselves to God, and the purity will come. But we have not only here the fundamental idea of holiness, and the connection of purity of character with self-consecration to God, but also the solemn obligation on all so-called Christians thus to separate and devote themselves to Him. We are Christians as far as we give ourselves up to God, in the surrender of our will and the practical obedience of our lives—so far and not one inch farther. We are not merely bound to this consecration if we are Christians, but we are not Christians unless we thus consecrate ourselves. Pleasing self, and making my own will my law, and living for my own ends, is destructive of all Christianity. Saints are not an eminent sort of Christians, but all Christians are saints, and he who is not a saint is not a Christian. The true consecration is the surrender of the will, which no man can do for us, which needs no outward ceremonial, and the one motive which will lead us selfish and stubborn men to bow our necks to that gentle yoke, and to come out of the misery of pleasing self into the peace of serving God, is drawn from the great love of Him who devoted Himself to God and man, and bought us for His own by giving Himself utterly to be ours. All sanctity begins with consecration to God. All consecration rests upon the faith of Christ’s sacrifice. And if, drawn by the great love of Christ to us unworthy, we give ourselves away to God in Him, then He gives Himself in deep sacred communion to us. “I am Thine” has ever for its chord which complete the fulness of its music, “Thou art mine.” And so “saint” is a name of dignity and honor, as well as a stringent requirement. A. M.

4. What did the grove of a demon-god conceal? Lust—blood—imposture. What sounds shook the fane? Alternate screams of anguish, and the laughter of mad votaries. What was the priest? The teacher of every vice of which his god was the patron and the example. What were the worshippers? The victims of every woe which superstition and sensuality can gender, and which cruelty can cherish. It was not then a blind national prejudice, any more than it was spiritual arrogance, that made the prophet-poet and king of Israel exult in the distinction of his people. Rather it was a righteous scorn which made him exclaim, when he thought of the errors of the nations, “Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, neither take their names into my lips.” I. T.

5,6. Jehovah is my chosen portion, mine inheritance—the good which my soul rejoices in far above all other. These several words, “inheritance,” “cup,” “lot,” concur in the common idea of one’s chosen and accepted good. So in the same sense, “the lines,” i.e., the measuring lines which lay out one’s grounds and define his landed possessions—taken from the vocabulary of an agricultural people to signify the possessions themselves. C.

5. The Lord is our portion. What a large possession have we then! There is no confiscation of it, no banishment from it. Our portion fills heaven and earth, and is infinitely above heaven and below earth, and beyond both. D. Clarkson.—God Himself is His greatest gift. The loftiest blessing which we can receive is that we should be heirs, possessors of God. “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance,” says David. “Ye are heirs of God,” echoes Paul. On earth and in heaven the “heritage of the children of the Lord” is God Himself, inasmuch as He is with them for their delight, in them to make them “partakers of a Divine nature,” and for them in all His attributes and actions. A. M.—“What must not he possess,” says Savonarola, “who possesses the Possessor of all?” In the words of Paul, “All things are yours, for ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” P.

6. An allusion to the ancient custom of marking out plots of land by measuring-lines. See the same phrase, Josh. 17:5. The line was said to “fall” as being “thrown” by lot. P.—The measuring-lines have fallen to him in a delightful district—viz., in the fellowship of God which is so rich in enjoyment; this most blessed domain of love has become his paradisaic possession. He rises from the fact to the full satisfaction that it affords him; such an inheritance even seems beautiful in his eyes; he has an intense delight therein. D.—This possession is as sure as God can make it. “Thou maintainest my lot.” The Divine power surrounds the man who chooses God for his heritage, and nothing shall take that heritage from him. He will help us, so that no temptations shall have power to make us rob ourselves of our treasure. And the man who thus elects to find his treasure and delight in God is satisfied with his choice. A. M.

All things are his, as they will subserve his best interests in time and eternity—God being both the Judge and the Director of all. If health, if riches, if honor will promote his real good, they are his. If sickness, if poverty, if obscurity or reproach will be good for him, they are his. Pardon to remove his guilt, grace to aid him in the performance of duty, strength to sustain him under trials, fears and doubts and perplexities enough to keep him watchful, every needful supply for his temporal and spiritual well-being in time, immortal life and glory in the world to come. Thus everything in God and in creation, everything in time and everything in eternity, so far as the least value pertains to it, is the Christian’s. Such is his heritage—such his all-sufficient portion. God and the created universe are his. N. W. Taylor.—With Christ he hath all things which are subservient to the purposes for which Christ was delivered: pardon to remove his guilt; grace to aid him in the performance of duty; comfort to support him under the pressure of affliction; every needful supply during his journey through this world, and immortal life and happiness in the next. Hath not the Christian then “a goodly heritage,” who hath God and the creature, grace and glory, time and eternity; who is safe among enemies as well as among friends; who lives in communion with God on earth, and shall dwell with Him in heaven forevermore? R. Walker.

7. I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel.** The Holy Ghost is a spirit of counsel, powerfully instructing and convincingly teaching how to act and walk, for He directs us to set right steps, and to walk with a right foot, and thereby prevents us of many a sin, by seasonable instruction set on upon our hearts with a strong hand; as Isaiah says, He is the spirit of counsel and of might: of counsel to direct; of might to strengthen the inner man. Goodwin.—In the quiet of its silent hours, undisturbed by the passions, and unharassed by the conflicts of the world, we can commune with our own heart, and be instructed and guarded as to our future course even “in the night season.” David especially seems to have made these seasons sources of great profit as well as delight. Sometimes he loved to meditate upon God as he lay upon his bed; and it was no doubt as he meditated on the Lord’s goodness, and on the way by which He had led him, that he was, as it were, constrained, even at midnight, to arise and pray. While, therefore, we acknowledge the pillow to be a good counsellor, let us with David here acknowledge also that it is the Lord who gives the counsel, and sends the instruction in the night season. Bouchier.

8. I have set the Lord before me, at one time as well as another. In every place, in every condition, in every company, in every employment, and in every enjoyment, I have set the Lord equally before me; and this raised him, and this will raise any Christian, by degrees, to a great height of holiness. T. Brooks.—Setting God before our face carries with it a power of growth. God is not only always before us, He is always going before us, and beckoning us to follow. A man who has God always before him cannot be stationary. The vision of God ever draws us onward with sweet and powerful allurement. And the keeping of God constantly before the face engenders hope. Hope, if we are to believe Paul, is the very atmosphere in which a Christian lives and breathes. “We are saved in hope.” V.

Bring God to the throne by placing Him in the chief purpose of a man, and at once He begins to take on reality. Cultivate the thought of Him by worship, and He seems yet more real. Act with direct aim to please Him, and every such act makes Him stand forth more distinctly. Pray to Him much, take Him into all your plans, ask His aid in the whole of life, and gradually He becomes a perpetual presence, and the most real of all beings. W. W. Patton.—We need more—far more—still communion with our Master. For want of it our energy is feverish, our patience soon exhausted, our devotion lacking in depth, our hopes in brightness, our whole lives in calmness. By all these motives, so strongly woven together in the words of our text, and by many more, we are called to the constant effort to “set the Lord always before us,” and, turning our happy thoughts to Him, even in the midst of our daily duties, to “walk all the day long in the light of His countenance.” A. M.

To live day by day upon God is to keep close to Him; is to live in constant thought of Him, and of our need of Him and of His grace; is to put ourselves in the best possible position, and the likelihood of the best possible mood, to receive His blessing, and secure the benign guardianship of His love. As a rule, when we are in our best condition spiritually—most contrite, humble, earnest to do good, anxious to grow in grace, and to glorify God—we are living day by day upon Him; feeling every morning that His joy must be our strength and stay; feeling every night that it has been in Him that we have lived and moved and had our being, since the dawn; and so abiding in Him with a constant and habitual reference to Him as the God in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways. Especially is this day-by-day life in God dear to us in periods of marked temptation or peculiar trial. Under every disappointment the perfect Saviour must ever be the model of the imperfect Christian, because he knows that though he cannot reach the standard set by Christ, yet, by constantly striving toward it, he shall reach a higher degree of holiness and purity than he would have been able to attain had he imitated anything short of perfection. Let not the Christian despair because he cannot get rid altogether of his sinfulness. We are not meant to get rid altogether of our sinfulness. Earth is not heaven. It is a place of pilgrimage and warfare and struggle. Anon.

He that by faith eyes God continually as his protector in trouble “shall not be moved” with any evil that he suffers, and he that eyes God by faith as his pattern in holiness shall not be moved from doing that which is good. This thought—the Lord is at our right hand—keeps us from turning either to the right hand or to the left. Caryl.

9. My heart, my glory** (i.e., soul), my flesh; in other words, the whole man. P.—We have thus in this passage the threefold division of man’s nature: the heart, as the seat of the understanding; the soul, as the abode of spiritual instincts; and the flesh, or body. Each has its own blessing; even the lowest is secure of endurance; for though the words “shall rest in hope” mean primarily “will dwell in security,” or “confidence,” that confidence involves the thought of permanence or restoration. David, speaking as a prophet (Acts 2: 30), uses words which point to another life. Cook.

10. He now assigns the ground or reason of the confidence expressed in the preceding verse. “I am sure my soul and body will be safe, bebecause Thou canst not, without ceasing to be God and my God, give me up to the destroyer.” He does not say leave in, but to, i.e., abandon to, give up to the dominion or possession of another. The same Hebrew phrase occurs, with the same sense, in Lev. 19: 10; Job 39: 14, and in Psalm 49: 10. The Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades, the invisible world or state of the dead. A.

8-10. This passage is quoted by Peter as directly, or in its highest sense, applicable to the Messiah. It contains one of the very clearest and strongest declarations of belief in a blessed futurity which can be adduced from the Old Testament. As such it is recognized by ancient and modern interpreters, none speaking out more clearly than Ewald: “It goes beyond other words of David, nor is anything corresponding to it found in later Hebrew writers.” There is but one adequate explanation of such a fact—viz., that the Spirit of Christ, which was in David as a prophet (see 1 Pet. 1: 11), moved and controlled his utterances, so that, while they expressed fully his own yearnings, they signified beforehand the glory that should follow in the resurrection of Christ. Cook.

That we have here a conscious prediction on the part of David is distinctly affirmed by Peter, speaking under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2: 30, 31). The language which he uses is very remarkable. Alleging vs. 8-11 in proof of the resurrection of Christ, he tells us that David here spoke as a prophet; that he knew that his great descendant would be the Messiah, and that God would place Him on His throne; and that he foresaw and spake of the resurrection of Christ. It is plain from all this that, according to Peter’s view, David not only uttered words which might be applied to Christ, but that he used prophetic—that is, inspired language, and knew himself that he was prophesying. But we may still allow a primary and lower reference of the words to David himself, without lessening their prophetic import; in some parts even an exclusive reference, for it is not necessary (and, indeed, seems scarcely possible) to refer the whole Psalm to Christ, because a part of it points to Him. P.

The application which the apostles make of this Psalm (Acts 2: 29-32; 13: 35-37) is based upon the consideration that David’s hope not to fall a prey to death was not realized in him to the unlimited extent in which the Psalm sets it forth, but that it was fulfilled in Jesus, who was not abandoned to Hades, and whose flesh did not experience the corruption of the grave; and that consequently the words of the Psalm are a prophecy of David pointing to Jesus the Christ, who was promised to him as the heir of his throne, and whom, on the ground of this promise, he had before him in prophetic consciousness. D.

Corruption. The Septuagint Greek word, meaning corruption, passed into the New Testament and received the practical indorsement of the apostles because they made their main argument from prophecy for the resurrection of Christ turn on this precise sense of our word. The authorities are therefore quite decisive in favor of the meaning here, corruption. In this construction the sentiment is every way appropriate. It was fit that the Great Conqueror of death should burst its bands and come forth from its control before even His body had experienced that decomposition by which death and the grave despoil the beauty of man and remand his flesh back to dust. Of this the Messiah was made sure on the authority of prophetic inspiration. His own words to His disciples long before His death show that He knew He should rise from the dead and even on the third day, before corruption had really begun its work (see Matt. 16 : 21 and 20 : 19). C.

He who in soul and body was pre-eminently God’s “Holy One” was loosed from the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. This is noble encouragement to all the saints; die they must, but rise they shall, and though in their case they shall see corruption, yet they shall rise to everlasting life. Christ’s resurrection is the cause, the earnest, the guarantee, and the emblem of the rising of all His people. Let them, therefore, go to their graves as to their beds, resting their flesh among the clods as they now do upon their couches. S.

11. Not to fall a prey to Hades and corruption is only the external side of that which David hopes for himself; on its inward side it is a blessed and glorious life in the other world. The second half of v. 11 consists of two members, and depicts this life which he so confidently expects. D.

The path of life. Not merely the life of the body. This is shown by the pleasure and the joy spoken of afterward, which are to be found in God’s presence, and in communion with Him. Life, in the only true sense, is union with God; and from that springs, of necessity, the idea of immortality. It seems impossible to suppose that David, who here expresses such a fulness of confidence in God, such a living, personal relationship to Him, could have ever dreamed that such a relationship would end with death. Our Lord’s words to the Sadducees apply here with especial force: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. They to whom God has made Himself known, they who are one with Him, cannot lose that Divine life of which they are made partakers.” At the same time, in the utterance of this confident persuasion and hope, David was carried beyond himself. He spake as a prophet, knowing that God had promised of the fruit of his body to raise up Christ to sit on his throne. The hope of his own immortality was based upon, and bound up in, the life of Him who was at once his Son and his Lord. What was true of David in the lower sense was true in the fullest and highest sense of Christ—was only true of David because it was true of Christ; and is only true of any of us in and through Him, according to His own words, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Briefly, then, it must be said that vs. 9-11, so far as they refer to David, express his confidence in God’s protecting care in this life and his hope of a life to come. But as a prophecy of Christ they mean all that is drawn from them by Peter and Paul. In Christ’s deliverance from the grave and His resurrection, the whole fulness of their meaning is exhausted. P.

Hades could not detain Him who was to “lead its captivity captive;” and ere “His flesh should see corruption,” He was to burst the bars of the prison, and return to the light of day; and thence ascending, should enter upon the fulness of joy. The Mediator is the Precursor of His people, on this “Path of Life,” and an experienced Guide also in its dangers. In all things “He has the precedency,” and advances in front of the host He is leading to the skies. By the right, both of conquest and experience, He exercises “domination over the dead and the living.” There is no hazard of error in thus assigning its specific sense to the prophetic words of David; for the chief of the apostles, under the fresh influence of the Divine Spirit, applies and expounds them as fulfilled in none but Jesus—the Christ. I. T.

In Thy presence is fulness of joy; in Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Mark, for quality, there are pleasures; for quantity, fulness; for dignity, at God’s right hand; for eternity, forevermore. The joy of the saints in heaven is never ebbing, but always flowing to all contentment. The joys of heaven never fade, never wither, never die, nor never are lessened nor interrupted. The joy of the saints in heaven is a constant joy, an everlasting joy, in the root and in the cause, and in the matter of it and in the objects of it. “Their joy lasts forever whose objects remain forever.” T. Brooks.

We know that this mortal shall put on immortality, and that the body of the believer is to be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body. The Christian shall see Christ, shall behold His glory, shall be like Him, shall be welcomed into the joy of his Lord. Faith will become sight and hope fruition. Now he knows in part, but then shall he know even as also he is known. He will sin no more, sorrow no more. His inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled and fadeth not away. Tears are wiped away from all faces. Entering heaven, the weary finds rest, the wanderer a home, and the pilgrim leaves his tent for a city that hath foundations. Earth’s sinning Christians shall wear white robes. Earth’s sorrowing disciples shall waken notes of joy from harps of gold. F. L. Patton.

The saints on earth are all but wayfaring men, wandering pilgrims far from home; but the saints in heaven are safely arrived at the end of their journey. All we here are but strangers in the midst of danger, we are losing ourselves and losing our lives in the land of the dying. But ere long we may find our lives and ourselves again in heaven with the Lord of life, being found of Him in the land of the living. “Fulness of joy.” In heaven they can want nothing unless it be want itself. They may find the want of evil, but never feel the evil of want. Evil is but the want of good, and the want of evil is but the absence of want. God is good, and no want of good can be in God. What want then can be endured in the presence of God, where no evil is, but all good, that the fulness of joy may be enjoyed? “In Thy presence, is.” There it is, not there it was, nor there it will be, but there it is without cessation or intercision, there it always hath been, is and must be. It is an assertion eterna veritatis—that is, always true. “In Thy presence is the fulness of joy;” and herein consists the consummation of felicity; for what measure of joy can any man wish for more than fulness of joy? And where would any man wish to enjoy this fulness of joy rather than in the presence of God, which is the ever-flowing and the overflowing fountain of joy? And when would any man wish for this enjoyment of the fulness of joy in the very fountain of joy rather than presently, constantly, and incessantly? Now all these desirables make up the consummation of true felicity. Willan.

The lawless or frivolous pleasures of mankind are only an ill sense put upon the language of nature. Let but the joy we seek be of celestial quality, and our pleasures such as ennoble and invigorate the soul, and then the true and ultimate purpose of existence is attained. Fulness of joy and perpetuity of pleasure were assuredly proposed as the end of that creation of which absolute Beneficence is the author. Who, can question that the several gradations of the intelligent universe rise in degrees of enjoyment, as they rise in degrees of power and virtue; that at each ascent there is less of what is subservient and more of what is primary; less toil and danger, and more tranquillity and joy? And thus must the progression advance, even to the mount of God—the Royal abode of eternal and unsullied Blessedness. I. T.—Our small measures could not contain that “fulness of joy.” There the vessel will be inconceivably dilated; the body will be “raised in power,” like that of angels who “excel in strength,” endued with immortal vigor—with adamantine energy; the eye will be strengthened to behold those beams of Divine effulgence which, were they to be manifested to us now, would blind us with their blaze! The ear will be fitted to receive, the voice to respond, those eternal hallelujahs! Every cloud will be dispelled from the mind; every imperfection of its powers removed: “we shall see face to face, and know as we are known.” There will exist a totally different scale of faculties, adapted to the magnitude of the objects to be comprehended—to the inconceivable splendors of the beatific vision! R. Hall.

It ought to be assumed that the shoreless ocean of the Divine Felicity contains elements, and combinations of those elements, which utterly surpass all finite knowledge. And then the fact of such unsearchable depths being admitted, as a necessary deduction of reason, there will be open to created minds the peculiar emotion naturally springing up when, with the boundless radiance of Infinite Blessedness full in view, it is recollected that a vast unknown remains beyond and within that visible glory! Herein is comprehended a provision, never to be exhausted, for supplying new enjoyments to pure and intelligent beings. It is evident that to active natures, endowed with the power and desire of advancement, the eras of protracted duration must impart continually fresh accessions of capacity for discerning the perfections of the Infinite God. That which might not at all be known or conceived of in an early stage may be comprehended in a stage more advanced; and thus the Boundless Felicity which none shall ever fathom will be to all, and forever, a spring of perpetual pleasures. I. T.

Forevermore. Eternity makes heaven to be heaven; ’tis the diamond in the ring. O blessed day that shall have no night! the sunlight of glory shall rise upon the soul and never set! O blessed spring that shall have no autumn or fall of the leaf! Its joys are eternal. Watson.—The enjoyments above, and the treasures proposed to us by our Saviour, are indefectible in their nature, and endless in their duration. They are still full, fresh, and entire, like the stars and orbs above, which shine with the same undiminished lustre, and move with the same unwearied motion, with which they did from the first date of their creation. Nay, the joys of heaven will abide when these lights of heaven shall be put out; and when sun and moon, and nature itself, shall be discharged their stations and be employed by Providence no more, the righteous shall then appear in their full glory; and, being fixed in the Divine presence, enjoy one perpetual and everlasting day—a day commensurate to the unlimited eternity of God Himself, the great Sun of Righteousness, who is always rising, and never sets. South.

That which crowns all is, that the life above is eternal. This satisfies all our desires and excludes all our fears; for unchangeableness is an inseparable attribute of perfect felicity. The blessed are in full communion with God, the fountain of life, and Christ the prince of life. “Because I live,” saith our Saviour, “ye shall live also.” What can interrupt, much less put an end to the happiness of the saints? The love of God is immutably fixed upon them, and their love upon Him. Here their love is subject to decays and gradual alienations; as the needle in the compass, though it always has a tendency to the North Pole, yet sometimes it declines, and has its variations. But in heaven the love of the saints is directly and constantly set upon God. The light of His countenance governs all their affections. It is as impossible to divert their desires from Him, as to cause one that is inflamed with thirst to leave a clear flowing spring for a noisome puddle. In short, heaven is filled with eternal hallelujahs; for there is no appearance of sin, no shadow of death there; all miseries are vanished, and all that is desirable is possessed by the saints; the circle of their employment is to enjoy and praise the Divine goodness forever. Bates.

Death is not the end, but the beginning. It is not loss, but gain. It is not into darkness, but into marvellous light. It is not to silence and stillness, but into life far more real and active. It is not away from joy and gladness and beauty, but is out of the mere hints and shadows and hopes of blessedness into the full revelation of Christ, into His very presence, where there is fulness of joy, where there are pleasures forevermore. We see hints and gleams, and we have glimpses now and then, of far more glorious life than we have yet reached. The highest attainments here are but the beginnings of sanctified life. The peace, joy, love, unselfishness, service, purity, holiness, reached in the ripest experiences of earthly sainthood are only dim intimations of what we may become—ay, of what we shall become. Our life is hid, concealed, with Christ in God. . . . Since we are to be some day like Christ, we should grow every day in grace; we should be getting ever a little more like Christ in feeling, in temper, in disposition, in affection; our aim should be to bring every thought and emotion and desire into sweet subjection to Christ. We should not only cherish the blessed vision, but should seek daily to grow into its Divine beauty. J. R. M.

We may cherish the hope of a social heaven. Man’s course begins in a garden, but it ends in a city. The final condition will be the perfection of human society. There all who love Christ will be drawn together, and old ties, broken for a little while here, be reknit in yet holier form, never to be parted more. The all-important question for each of us is how may we have such a hope, like a great sunset light shining into the western windows of our souls? If you can humbly say, To me to live is Christ, then is it well. Living by Him, we may be ready quietly to lie down when the time comes, and may have all the future filled with the blaze of a great hope that glows brighter as the darkness thickens. That peaceful hope will not leave us till consciousness fails, and then when it has ceased to guide us Christ Himself will lead us, scarcely knowing where we are, through the waters, and when we open our half-bewildered eyes in brief wonder, the first thing we see will be His welcoming smile, and His voice will say, as a tender surgeon might to a little child waking after an operation, “It is all over.” We lift our hands wondering, and find wreaths on our brows. We lift our eyes, and lo! all about us a crowned crowd of conquerors,

“And with the morn those angel faces smile

A. M.