Psalms 66

1. MAKE a joyful noise unto God, all the earth : 2 Sing forth the glory of his name : Make his praise glorious. 3 Say unto God, How terrible are thy works ! Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies yield feigned obedience unto thee. 4 All the earth shall worship thee, And shall sing unto thee ; They shall sing to thy name. [Selah 5 Come, and see the works of God ; He is terrible in his doing toward the chil- dren of men. 6 He turned the sea into dry land : They went through the river on foot : There did we rejoice in him. 7 He ruleth by his might for ever ; His eyes observe the nations : Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. [Selah 8 O bless our God, ye peoples, And make the voice of his praise to be heard : 9 Which holdeth our soul in life, And suffereth not our feet to be moved. 10 For thou, O God, hast proved us : Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. 11 Thou broughtest us into the net ; Thou layedst a sore burden upon our loins. 12 Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads ; We went through fire and through water ; But thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. 13 I will come into thy house with burnt offer- ings, I will pay thee my vows, 14 Which my lips have uttered, And my mouth hath spoken, when I was in distress. 15 I will offer unto thee burnt offerings of fat- lings, With the incense of rams ; I will offer bullocks with goats. [Selah 16 Come, and hear, all ye that fear God, And I will declare what he hath done for my soul. 17 I cried unto him with my mouth, And he was extolled with my tongue. 18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear : 19 But verily God hath heard ; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, Which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.

THE poet celebrates God’s great deeds on be- half of His people, and calls upon all nations to join in thanksgiving to Him. From the lan- guage of vs. 8-12, the Psalm would seem to have been composed on the occasion of some special deliverance, but the expressions used are too general to lead to any certain conclusion as to the time when it was written. But not a single critic of any name has ventured to place this Psalm earlier than the times of Hezekiah. As the Psalm was clearly intended for the pub- lic worship of the Temple, the former part was probably designed to be sung by the whole choir of Levites and the latter by a single voice. Ewald thinks that vs 13-20 formed originally a distinct poem ; but the similar turn of expres- sion in v. 5 and v. 16, and the abruptness of v.

13, considered as the beginning of a Psalm, are against this view, which otherwise is plausible.

The Psalm consists of five strophes, three of them being distinguished by the Selah at the close : 1. The exhortation addressed to the whole world to give glory to God (vs. 1-4). 2. The recounting of God’s great acts on behalf of His people in times past (vs. 5-7). 3. The won- derful deliverance recently vouchsafed (vs. 8-12). 4. The Psalmist himself promises to bring large offerings to God in grateful ac- knowledgment of His goodness (vs. 13-15). 5. He calls upon all to hear the story of God’s mercy to himself (vs. 16-20). P.

1. 2. It is not commonly thought of as being in itself a privilege to worship, but it is consid- ered to be only a good much commended because a prescribed part of our duty in religion. On the contrary, as we are constituted, there is nothing to be thought of, or desired, or done at all comparable to the exercise of worship itself. In it we rise highest, think the noblest things, burn with the divinest fires our nature can support. We discover what joy we are made for, in having our finite mind exalted by the contemplations, and kindled by the glow of worship. And it is a joy of the finite and created only. The Infinite Being has of course no right or possibility of worship; for there is nothing above Him to move His homage or set Him in the beatitude of praise. The glorious Amen, the awful joy of worship, is permitted creature minds alone. Bushnell.

3. Lie to Thee, make false professions of allegiance, yield a feigned obedience, through the influence of fear. A.—“Yield feigned obedience,” is doubtless the true rendering. There is, perhaps, a tacit comparison implied. If even His enemies must render a forced and tardy and hypocritical submission, what should they do to whom He has manifested Himself in love? P.

4. God finds satisfaction and delight in human worship.** Apart from this conviction, our praises and our adoration must lose their life and reality. If I speak, it is because I believe He listens. If I rejoice in looking up into His face, it is because I see Him looking back upon me with ineffable love and delight. In the act of worship we draw near to God, and God draws near to us. How it is, we know not, but through secret avenues He enters our spirits, and we become mysteriously one with Him. To discharge this duty of worship aright, our religious thought should not incessantly revolve about our personal conflicts with sin and our own immortal safety. We think too much of ourselves, too little of God. We ask Him too constantly for help; we too seldom thank Him with throbbing gratitude for the blessings which are ours already, and for the infinite grace which prompted Him to give us Christ and to promise us heaven. More deep and devout thought on what God is would change all this, and bring our life in this world into nearer harmony with what we hope it will be in the next. R. W. Dale.

5. Come and see the works of God.

Such glorious events as the cleaving of the Red Sea and the overthrow of Pharaoh, are standing wonders, and throughout all time a voice sounds forth concerning them—“Come and see.” Even till the close of all things, the marvellous works of God at the Red Sea will be the subject of meditation and praise; for, standing on the sea of glass mingled with fire, the triumphal armies of heaven sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. It has always been the favorite subject of the inspired bards. S.

6. He turned the sea into the dry (land); through the river they shall pass on foot; there will we rejoice in Him. There is an obvious allusion to the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan, not as mere historical events, but as types or samples of God’s extraordinary interpositions on behalf of Israel, such as might be realized again in their experience. Hence the promiscuous use of preterite and future forms, as if to say, the God of Israel will again turn the Red Sea into dry land for the passage of His people; if need be, they shall again cross the Jordan dry shod; there, on the scene of these miraculous events shall we again rejoice in Him. A.

The Psalmist refers to the passage through the Red Sea and the Jordan, not as to transactions which took place and were concluded at a given period of time, but as happening really in every age. God’s guidance of His people is a constant drying up of the sea and of the Jordan, and the joy over His mighty deeds is always receiving new materials. Hengstenberg, —Those miracles of the past recur in the present. That ancient story is not the record merely of a bygone age, but is daily new, daily repeats itself to those who have eyes open to see and hearts open to perceive. P.

7. Those deeds of the Red Sea and the Jordan were no transient outbursts of power, but indicate a rule and sway that are indeed eternal, abiding, evermore sustained, and never waning. His eyes look into the nations, piercing, scanning perfectly. Let rebels never lift up themselves against Him! C.**

8. Again he calls upon all nations to bless God for His wonderful deliverance vouchsafed to His people. Then he describes their oppression. P.**

10. For Thou, O God, hast proved us.** He proved His Israel with sore trials. All the saints must go to the proving house; God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without trial. Why ought we to complain if we are subjected to the rule which is common to all the family, and from which so much benefit has flowed to them? S.—Thou, O God, hast proved us and tried us. Then we are likely to get good by our afflictions when we look upon them under this notion, for then we may see God’s grace and love at the bottom of them, and our own honor and benefit in the end of them. By afflictions we are proved as silver in the fire, that our graces by being exercised may be made more strong and active; and so we may be improved, as silver when it is refined by the fire and made more clear from its dross; for thus we are made partakers of God’s holiness (Heb. 12 : 10). H.

If anything, so to speak, is providential, affliction is. If in anything whatever we are bound to trust God with all the completeness of our judgment, with all the strength of our understanding, with all the adoration of our heart, it is when He is taking us apart to make us perfect through suffering. Therefore it is that God sends sorrow to one man, and not to another; at one time in this way, at another time in that. The sorrow that might cure us to-day might not cure us to-morrow; the sorrow that might be good for me, might not be good for you. Each man has his own sorrows, different from any one else’s in all the world, since he himself is different from any one else. Each individual believer is led his own way into the wilderness; each has Jesus with him there. Bishop Thorold.—The Spirit of Christ calms the soul of a suffering believer, not by taking away all sense of pain, but by overcoming it with a sense of His love. Gurnall.

11. God will not use His rod upon strangers, but upon His own children, because He loves them; and such afflictions, though distressing, are good visitants. And nothing is gained by striving with the Almighty, for He will either break the heart or break the neck of those that contend with Him—will bring them either to repentance or to ruin. H.

12. Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.** Thou hast proved, and Thou hast brought. Thou laidst the trouble, and Thou tookest it off; yea, and hast made us an ample recompense, for Thou hast brought us to a pleasant, lovely, fertile, rich place, a happy condition, a flourishing condition of things, so that Thou hast made us to forget all our trouble. W. Nicholson.—“A wealthy place.” The Hebrew word occurs elsewhere only in Psalm 23 : 5; “My cup runneth over”—is abundance itself. It indicates prosperity and plenty, with allusion to abundant moisture—so essential in the climate of Palestine. C.—Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place, into a well-watered place, for the word is, like the gardens of the Lord, and therefore fruitful. God brings His people into trouble that their comforts afterward may be the sweeter, and that their affliction may thus yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness, which will make the poorest place in the world a wealthy place. H.

13. We have now the personal acknowledgment of God’s mercy; first, in the announcement on the part of the Psalmist of the offerings which he is about to bring, and which he had vowed in his trouble; and then, in the record of God’s dealing with his soul, which had called forth his thankfulness. P.

Come with burnt-offerings. Let this be our burnt-offering, a sanctified body and a heart given up to the Lord. “Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” When the eyes abhor lustful objects, the ear slanders, the foot erring paths, the hands wrong and violence, the tongue flattery and blasphemy, the heart pride and hypocrisy; this is thy whole burnt-offering. T. Adams.

Pay Thee my vows. Vows incautiously made may prove a snare to the soul; and therefore it is that the Hebrew ritual—which, as a grand collection of symbols, descended into the details of religious life—undertook carefully to regulate this matter of vows. All statutes concerning them were designed to be restrictive and cautionary; showing even under that imperfect dispensation how careful we must be as to our vows in the presence of Almighty God. On the other hand, there are vows which are right vows, and which ought to be made—vows that engage us to do things that were originally binding upon us; vows made under a sense of the Divine presence and the Divine authority. And so the Psalmist, under inspiration of the Holy Ghost, again and again declares his purpose to pay unto the Lord the vows which he has made. B. M. Palmer.

15. Of all we have we should give the Lord His portion, and that should be the choicest we can select. It was no waste to burn the fat upon Jehovah’s altar, nor to pour the precious ointment upon Jesus’ head; neither are large gifts and bountiful offerings to the Church of God any diminution to a man’s estate. S.

16. I will declare what He hath done.** The beginning of all friendship between Christ and men lies with Him. I suppose that every man who has felt Christ’s love will say, whatever his theological standpoint, “I was apprehended of Christ.” It is because He lays His seeking hand upon us that we come to Him, and His choice of us precedes ours of Him. This is how men come to be His friends, because, when they were enemies, He gave Himself for them, and has ever since been sending the rays of His love to draw us to Himself. The personal relation and obligation of each soul to Christ, when fully admitted, has great power to give individuality and strength of character to piety. Instead of making us exclusive or solitary in our religious feelings, it is sure to expand our love for all men when one feels how Christ has loved him and died for him, and then that every other human being is as truly the object of the Saviour’s sufferings and death as he. Toward every one for whom Christ has done all which he has done for him, a Christian feels, at times, great love and desire, and has no rest till every one knows and feels the love which Christ has for him. N. Adams.

Loyalty to Christ leads us to witness for Him. If we are true to our Lord we shall feel that we cannot but speak up and out for Him, and that all the more where His name is unloved and unhonored. He is a doubtfully loyal subject who, if he lives among rebels, is afraid to show his colors. He is already a coward, and is on his way to be a traitor. A. M.

As long as we were without Christ and Christ’s peace, we did not know the value of them, and so could not be expected heartily to recommend them to others—just as the blind man cannot be expected to speak of the beauty of colors, or the deaf man of the loveliness of music. But when we have “tasted that the Lord is good;” when Christ has “become precious to us, as He is to all them that believe,” then we can enlarge upon our own experience—“Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth will speak.” M’Gosh.

All have not the gifts which would fit for public speech, but all who have tasted that the Lord is gracious can tell somehow how gracious He is. The first Christian sermon was very short, and it was very efficacious, for it “brought to Jesus” the whole congregation. Here it is: “He first findeth his brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias.” Surely we can all say that, if we have found Him. Surely we shall all long to say it, if we are glad that we have found Him, and if we love our Brother. We have to carry a message—no refinement of words is needed for that—arguments are not needed. We have to tell it simply, faithfully, and confidently, as having proved it true. We have to tell it beseechingly, as loving the souls to whom they bring it. Surely we can all do that if we ourselves are living on Christ and have drunk into His Spirit. A. M.

17. I cried unto Him, He was extolled.** That God has given us leave to pray, a command to pray, encouragements to pray, and (to crown all) a heart to pray, is what we have reason to mention with thankfulness to His praise; and the more, if, when we cried to Him with our mouth, He was extolled with our tongue, if we were enabled by faith and hope to give glory to Him then, when we were seeking for mercy and grace from Him, and to praise Him for mercy in prospect, though it be not yet in possession. By crying to Him we do indeed extol Him. He is pleased to reckon Himself honored by the humble, believing prayers of the upright, and this is a great thing which he has done for our souls, that He has been pleased so far to unite interests with us, that in seeking our own welfare we seek His glory. His exaltation was under my tongue, so it may be read; I was considering in my mind how I might exalt and magnify His name. When prayers are in our mouths praises must be in our hearts. H.

18. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.** The very supposition that “if he regarded iniquity in his heart, the Lord would not hear him,” implies the possibility that such may be the state even of believers; and there is abundant reason to fear that it is in this way their prayers are so often hindered, and their supplications so frequently remain unanswered. R. Gordon.

When our end and aim in prayer is not right, our prayers are not successful. We miss the blessing when we ask amiss. God never undertook to satisfy mere selfish, worldly, covetous, or fleshly desires. He will own no other voice in prayer but that of His own Spirit: “He that searcheth the heart knoweth the mind of the Spirit.” A spiritual breathing—a spiritual sigh is heard. Holy desires have a sure answer. Manton.

Possibly our hearts are shockingly deceitful in such iniquity. Are we strangers to an experience like this—that when we mourn over our cold prayers as a misfortune, we evade a search of that disputed territory for the cause of them, through fear that we shall find it there, and we struggle to satisfy ourselves with an increase of spiritual duties which shall cost us no sacrifice? Are we never sensible of resisting the hints which the Holy Spirit gives us in parables, by refusing to look that way for the secret of our deadness—saying, “Not that! Oh no, not that! But let us pray more”? Many a doubtful principle in a Christian mind, if once set in the focus of a conscience illumined by the Holy Spirit, would resolve itself into a sin, for which that Christian would turn and look up guiltily to the Master, and then go out and weep bitterly. A. Phelps.

None trifle with God and make a sport of sin so much as those whose way of living interferes with their prayers; who pray for such or such a virtue, and then put themselves under circumstances which render the practice of it next to impossible. But the spirit of prayer is a spirit of prudence, a spirit of caution and conduct, and never pursues the thing it prays for in a way contrary to the nature of the thing itself. South.—The mournful thought is suggested, How many there are who seem to be doing what they can to make it useless for them to pray! A man who tells lies over the counter cannot pray. A man who bribes or who accepts a bribe cannot pray. A man who forgives not, asks uselessly for forgiveness. The possibility that any secret sin may be shutting off any answer to our prayers should make us cry fervently, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” It is not where there is a distressing consciousness of falling in execution below our desires and yearnings that prayer is blocked out. Far from this. But the desire to cherish sin, or the refusal to do the whole will of God, makes prayer itself useless and sinful, because the heart does not submit entirely to God. C. C.

The very fact of our weakness and insufficiency is of itself an argument and a cord that draws Him to our help. An honest cry of any heart to Jesus will bring Him instantly without thought on His part either on our merit or demerit. He only asks this much, that it be from the heart; iniquity covered up, one face for Him and one for the devil, does not bring Him. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” But the faintest effort of the heart enslaved in sin, to free itself from its chains, is sure of the strong arm which the prophet said should “break every chain, and set the captive free.” Anon.

Verses 18, 19, 20. I find David making a syllogism, in mood and figure, two propositions he perfected. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me; but verily God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.” Now I expected that David should have concluded thus: “Therefore I regard not wickedness in my heart;” but far otherwise he concludes: “Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.” I looked that he should have put the crown on his own, and he puts it on God’s head. I will learn this excellent logic, that whatsoever the premises be, I make God’s glory the conclusion. He who reasons according to David’s logic, will be bent on influencing men to give God the glory in all things. T. Fuller.—God’s glory must always be the conclusion. God has heard me, and therefore blessed be God. What we win by prayer we must wear with praise. Mercies in answer to prayer do, in a special manner, oblige us to be thankful. He has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy. Lest it should be thought that the deliverance was granted for the sake of some worthiness in his prayer, he ascribes it to God’s mercy. II.

20. Blessed be God.** It is God’s due that we remember all His kindness. No view of His providence is complete or correct without it, no estimate of His character, no measure of our deep indebtedness and heightened obligation. It were a great violence to the thankful spirit to deny it the privilege of returning often along the track of its mercies, to weep tears of penitence over its own poor returns, and to tune to sweeter music its notes of praise. Let them still shine upon us from the full round of the year—all its sunny hours, its bright pages of rescues, healings, preventions, interpositions, every endowment for soul and body ministered by that Fatherly hand! All these we may, we must, we shall remember! A. L. Stone.—If we wish the perpetual feast of a contented spirit, and the perpetual ornament of a praising one, combat natural fault-finding, and no less natural foreboding. Rejoice in the present, and trust for the future. And in the fulfilment of any wish and the disappointment of any fear—in the kindness of any friend, and in the answer to any prayer—in every gracious providence, and in every spiritual mercy bestowed on ourselves or others dear—in all these let us recognize the merciful kindness of the Lord, and let us acknowledge what we recognize. Hamilton.

As far back as I can remember, I had the habit of thanking God for everything I received, and of asking Him for everything I wanted. If I lost a book or any one of my playthings, I prayed that I might find it. I prayed walking along the streets, in school or out of school, whether playing or studying. I did not do this in obedience to any prescribed rule—it seemed natural. I thought of God as an everywhere-present being, full of kindness and love, who would not be offended if children talked to Him. Charles Hodge.

Which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me. He has neither withdrawn His love nor my liberty to pray. He has neither cast out my prayer nor me. His mercy and my cries still meet each other. S.—So long as we are here let us ask this of God, that He will not “remove from us our prayer, and His own mercy”—that is, that we may perseveringly pray, and He may perseveringly pity. For many grow languid in praying; and in the freshness of their conversion they pray fervently, afterward languidly, afterward coldly, afterward negligently; they become careless. The enemy is awake; you are sleeping. Our Lord Himself, in the Gospel, gave us the precept, “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;” and He gives us an illustration from the unjust judge. Therefore let us not faint in prayer. Although He delays that which He is going to grant, He does not take it from us; since we may be confident of His promise, let us not faint in praying; and even this not fainting comes of His own bounty. Therefore when you see that your prayer is not removed from you be of good heart, for His mercy is not removed from you. Augustine.

I have known devout persons to stand year after year, in utter wonder that their prayers, so reasonable in appearance, brought no visible return; yet the faith that came at last out of that trial finally justified such patience by its splendor. For even while we wait, through all the breathings of our aspiration, from the first hesitating, stammering whisper of entreaty, on to the last strong syllable of praise when faith triumphs over the failing flesh—prayer is ever, moment by moment, its own suffacing recompense. Its words react on the soul like a benediction. Its every struggle is a consolation, and every sigh is peace. It puts the world under your feet. It makes all things yours, while ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. The spirit comes back from its seasons of converse with God into the strife of the world, its interior face radiant with a veil of glory like that Moses wore when he came down from the mount. And this mutual interacting of prayer and fulfilment ever stimulates the soul and rewards the understanding, while a far profounder and holier satisfaction descends into, illumines, and inspires the heart. F. D. H.

Prayer is the expression of a faith, obscure or clear, wavering or steadfast, in the existence, the presence, the power, and the sympathy of the Being to whom prayer is addressed. Without a certain measure of faith and trust in God prayer would not burst forth, or would suddendely be dried up in the soul. If faith everywhere resists and outlives all the denials, all the doubts and darkness which oppress mankind, it is that man bears within himself an imperishable consciousness of the enduring bond which connects him with God and God with him. And he who believes in God cannot but have recourse to Him and pray to Him. Guizot.

God has so arranged His providence that He provides an answer to prayer. He sends an answer to prayer in precisely the same way as He compasses all His other moral designs, in the same manner as He conveys His blessings and inflicts His judgments. He does not require to interfere with His own arrangements in order to answer prayer, for there is an answer provided in the arrangement which He has made from all eternity. How is it that God sends us the bounties of His providence and supplies the many wants of His creatures? that He encourages industry, arrests the plots of wickedness, and punishes in this life notorious offenders against His law? The answer is, by the skilful pre-arrangements of His providence, whereby the needful events fall out at the very time and in the very way required. When the question is asked, How does God answer prayer? we give the very same reply—it is by the pre-ordained appointment of God, when He settled the constitution of the world, and set all its parts in order. There appears to us to be a beautiful congruity in this method of answering prayer. Prayer is effectually answered, and yet there is no room for, or encouragement to any possible evils, such as pride, self-confidence, and indolent self-complacency and inactivity. If prayer and its answers were connected as cause and effect, there might be a risk that when the person had prayed he would rashly conclude that exertion could not be necessary. But in the system now developed, while there is assuredly a connection between prayer and its answers, it is not a connection in the mechanical laws of nature, but in the counsels of God; and the man who has prayed, as he looks for the answer, feels that he must fall in with the Divine procedure. There is a wholesome discipline exercised by the very uncertainty (humanly speaking) of the means which God employs for sending the answer, and the man who has prayed is kept humble and dependent, and in the exercise of a spirit of waiting and watchfulness. He feels that he dare be proud and presumptuous only at the risk of defeating all the purposes served by his acts of devotion. He sees that on ceasing to be active God may probably punish him for his folly by laying an arrest on the expected answer to his petitions. McCosh.

Prayer rests on the fact of our dependence on God, on the belief of our intimate connection with the invisible world, and on the deep longing for spiritual communion which springs from the conviction that God is to us the most real and the most near of all beings. Prayer is not an instrument for altering the purposes or moving the heart of God, or for procuring the suspension of the ordinary course of nature; but it is one of the natural modes in which piety utters itself—in which it wants, for its own sake, to utter itself. Young.

In prayer the mean is more valuable than the end. The spirit of prayer, and the frequent exercise of it, is a greater blessing than the attainment of any other object short of heaven itself. It is the key to the treasury of heaven, and the promise and pledge of every other attainment. There is but one higher exercise than that of prayer—the returning of thanks for the granting of our requests; but each have their fitting seasons—prayer is the service of time; praise the employment of eternity. Douglas.

Every prayer for specific blessings in a Christian soul is tacitly conditioned. Three conditions, always understood, are given at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” In effect these conditions are one. If any blessing be prayed for a Christian petitioner deliberately wills that his prayer be refused, if to grant it should in any way obscure God’s glory or hinder the advance of His kingdom, and so contravene what must be His will. Every Christian tacitly adds to every prayer, “nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done.” H. P. L.

When thou prayest for spiritual graces, let thy prayer be absolute; when for temporal blessings, add a clause of God’s pleasure; in both, with faith and humility. So shalt thou receive what thou desirest, or more or better; never prayer rightly made was made unheard, or heard, ungranted. Quarles.—No man ever yet asked to be, as the days pass by, more and more noble, and sweet, and pure, and heavenly-minded; no man ever yet prayed that the evil spirits of hatred, and pride, and passion, and worldliness might be cast out of his soul, without his petition being granted, and granted to the letter. Farrar.

As holiness fits to prayer, so prayer befriends holiness, increases it much. Nothing so refines and purifies the soul as frequent prayer. If the often conversing with wise men doth so teach and advance the soul in wisdom, what then will the converse of God? This makes the soul to despise the things of the world, and in a manner makes it Divine; winds up the soul from the earth, acquainting it with delights that are infinitely sweeter. Leighton.—It is well to learn the lesson that peace comes after grace, that for tranquillity of soul we must go to God, and that He gives it by giving us His love and its gifts, of which, and of which only, peace is the result. There must be first of all, peace with God, that there may be peace from God. Then, when we have been won from our alienation and enmity by the power of the cross, and have learned to know that God is our Lover, Friend, and Father, we shall possess the peace of those whose hearts have found their home, the peace of spirits no longer at war within—conscience and choice tearing them asunder in their strife, the peace of obedience which banishes the disturbance of self-will, the peace of security shaken by no fears, the peace of a sure future across the brightness of which no shadows of sorrow nor mists of uncertainty can fall, the peace of a heart in amity with all mankind. So living in peace, we shall lay ourselves down and die in peace, and enter into “that country, afar beyond the stars,” where “grows the flower of peace.” A. M.