Psalms 78

1. GIVE ear, O my people, to my law: Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old: 3 Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, And his strength, and his wondrous works that he hath done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which he commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children: 6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; Who should arise and tell them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, A stubborn and rebellious generation; A generation that set not their heart aright, And whose spirit was not stedfast with God. 9 The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, Turned back in the day of battle. 10 They kept not the covenant of God, And refused to walk in his law; 11 And they forget his doings, And his wondrous works that he had shewed them. 12 Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers, In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. 13 He clave the sea, and caused them to pass through; And he made the waters to stand as an heap. 14 In the day-time also he led them with a cloud, And all the night with a light of fire.

15. He clave rocks in the wilderness, And gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. 16 He brought streams also out of the rock, And caused waters to run down like rivers. 17 Yet went they on still to sin against him, To rebel against the Most High in the desert. 18 And they tempted God in their heart By asking meat for their lust. 19 Yea, they spake against God; They said, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? 20 Behold, he smote the rock, that waters gushed out, And streams overflowed; Can he give bread also? Will he provide flesh for his people? 21 Therefore the LORD heard, and was wroth: And a fire was kindled against Jacob, And anger also went up against Israel; 22 Because they believed not in God, And trusted not in his salvation. 23 Yet he commanded the skies above, And opened the doors of heaven; 24 And he rained down manna upon them to eat, And gave them of the corn of heaven. 25 Man did eat the bread of the mighty: He sent them meat to the full. 26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heaven: And by his power he guided the south wind. 27 He rained flesh also upon them as the dust, And winged fowl as the sand of the seas: 28 And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, Round about their habitations. 29 So they did eat, and were well filled; And he gave them that they lusted after. 30 They were not estranged from their lust, Their meat was yet in their mouths, 31 When the anger of God went up against them, And slew of the fattest of them, And smote down the young men of Israel. 32 For all this they sinned still, And believed not in his wondrous works. 33 Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, And their years in terror.

34. When he slew them, then they inquired after him:

And they returned and sought God early [earnestly].

35. And they remembered that God was their rock,

And the Most High God their redeemer.

36. But they flattered him with their mouth, And lied unto him with their tongue.

37. For their heart was not right with him, Neither were they faithful in his covenant.

38. But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: Yea, many a time turned he his anger away,

And did not stir up all his wrath.

39. And he remembered that they were but flesh;

A wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.

40. How oft did they rebel against him in the wilderness,

And grieve him in the desert!

41. And they turned again and tempted God, And provoked the Holy One of Israel.

42. They remembered not his hand, Nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary.

43. How he set his signs in Egypt, And his wonders in the field of Zoan;

44. And turned their rivers into blood, And their streams, that they could not drink.

45. He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them;

And frogs, which destroyed them.

46. He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller,

And their labour unto the locust.

47. He destroyed their vines with hail, And their sycamore trees with frost.

48. He gave over their cattle also to the hail, And their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

49. He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger,

Wrath, and indignation, and trouble, A band of angels of evil.

50. He made a path for his anger; He spared not their soul from death, But gave their life over to the pestilence;

51. And smote all the firstborn in Egypt, The chief of their strength in the tents of Ham:

52. But he led forth his own people like sheep, And guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

53. And he led them safely, so that they feared not:

But the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

54. And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary,

To this mountain, which his right hand had purchased.

55. He drove out the nations also before them, And allotted them for an inheritance by line,

And made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

56. Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God,

And kept not his testimonies;

57. But turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers:

They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.

58. For they provoked him to anger with their high places,

And moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

59. When God heard this, he was wroth, And greatly abhorred Israel:

60. So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, The tent which he placed among men;

61. And delivered his strength into captivity, And his glory into the adversary’s hand.

62. He gave his people over also unto the sword; And was wroth with his inheritance.

63. Fire devoured their young men; And their maidens had no marriage-song.

64. Their priests fell by the sword; And their widows made no lamentation.

65. Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, Like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine.

66. And he smote his adversaries backward: He put them to a perpetual reproach.

67. Moreover he refused the tent of Joseph, And chose not the tribe of Ephraim;

68. But chose the tribe of Judah, The mount Zion which he loved.

69. And he built his sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which he hath established for ever.

70. He chose David also his servant, And took him from the sheepfolds:

71. From following the ewes that give suck he brought him,

To feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.

72. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart;

And guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.

THE history of Israel, from the Exodus to the establishment of the kingdom of David, is reviewed by the Psalmist in this the longest, and probably the earliest, of the historical Psalms, intended for public recitation in the services of the sanctuary. Those services were organized by David, and the chief place among the superintendents was assigned to Asaph, to whom this Psalm is attributed by the inscription. The principal object of the writer is to draw lessons of warning and admonition from the records of national sins and punishments. Special attention is directed to the wrongdoings of one tribe, that of Ephraim; partly, it may be, as having from the time of Joshua throughout the period of the Judges held the post of leader of the whole nation, and as such being in some sense its representative; partly, however, with reference to the transfer of the national sanctuary from Shiloh to Mount Zion (see vs. 67, 68). Cook.—No historic connection can be determined for this Psalm. It sweeps over the whole period from Moses to David, in order to impress upon the hearts of the Israelites their obligations to God and the danger of rebelling against Him. De Witt.

In this, the longest of the historical Psalms, the history of Israel is briefly recapitulated, from the time of the Exodus to the final union of the tribes under David, and the establishment of the kingdom in his family. This appeal to the past is made evidently with a purpose. The Psalmist comes forward as a prophet to rebuke the sin, the ingratitude, the rebellion of his people. This he does by showing them the present in the light of the past. God had wrought wonders in behalf of their fathers of old; God had redeemed them from Egypt, led them through the wilderness, brought them to His holy mountain. But the history of their nation had been at once a history of wonders and a history of rebellions. Miracle had followed on miracle to win them; chastisement had succeeded to chastisement to deter them; but the miracle was forgotten, the chastisement produced but a temporary reformation. They had ever been “a faithless and stubborn generation.” It is evident, from his opening words, that the Psalmist was anxious to bring out sharply and clearly the lessons with which the past teemed. He saw that his people were in danger of forgetting those lessons. He saw in that history instruction, warning, reproof, for the age in which he lived.

It is, however, remarkable that another and more special purpose appears in the Psalm. If the whole nation is rebuked, the rebuke falls heaviest upon Ephraim. Ephraim is singled out as the leader in the earlier apostasy of the people, as the very type of a faithless and recreant spirit (v. 12). The rejection of Ephraim and the choice of Judah are dwelt upon at the close in a tone of satisfaction and triumph, as the fulfilment of the purpose of God. It is scarcely possible, therefore, to resist the conclusion that the Psalm was written after the defection of the Ten Tribes, and that it was designed either to curb the pride of the northern kingdom, or to address a warning to Judah, based on the example of Ephraim. Various conjectures have been hazarded as to the time when the Psalm was written. P.

The intention of the (seventeen) national and historical poems, and their tone and spirit, are well seen in this Psalm. The intention was the religious education of the people from the earliest childhood upward; the tone and spirit are such as could not fail to form the Hebrew mind to greatness, to depth and soberness of feeling, and to a profound consciousness of that providential government which fitted the people for other and higher purposes than national aggrandizement. This metrical summary of the people’s history, majestic in its imagery and musical in any translation, would, in its own Hebrew and to the Hebrew ear, commend itself at once as poetry, as music, and as devout sentiment. Such was its purpose. The wonders of the Divine government from the remotest times were to be fixed in the memory of children’s children to the end of time. I. T.

1. Maschil. By Asaph. Listen, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the sayings of my mouth. This is eminently a didactic Psalm, because it teaches the true meaning of events in the history of Israel which might otherwise seem to be mere matters of curiosity. For the same reason it was necessary that it should be so designated in the title or inscription. A.

1-4. The introduction, announcing the Psalmist’s purpose. He will recall the past, that it may act as a warning for the present, and that the wholesome lessons which it teaches may be perpetuated in the future. In the following four verses he declares that such commemoration of God’s wonders is the very destiny of Israel. For this end did he give them his law, and the lively oracles of his mouth. P.

2. The poet does not mean to say that he will literally utter apothegms and propound riddles, but that he will set forth the history of the fathers after the manner of an apothegm and riddle, so that it may become a parable, i.e., a didactic history, and its events marks of interrogation and nota-benes for the present generation. D.—Analogies are intended by God to be traced between the story of Israel and the lives of believers. The tribes and their marchings are living allegories traced by the hand of an all-wise Providence. Paul said, “which things are an allegory,” and Asaph spake to the point when he called his narrative “a parable.”

3. Told us.** Dr. Doddridge owed much to the Dutch tiles and his mother’s explanations of the Bible narratives. The more of parental teaching the better; ministers and Sabbath-school teachers were never meant to be substitutes for mothers’ tears and fathers’ prayers. S.

4. Children are their parents’ heirs; it were unnatural for a father, before he dies, to bury up his treasure in the earth, where his children should not find or enjoy it; now the mercies of God are not the least part of a good man’s treasure, nor the least of His children’s inheritance, being both helps to their faith, matter for their praise, and spurs to their obedience. “Our fathers have told us what works Thou didst in their days, how Thou didst drive out the heathen,” etc. (Psalm 44: 1, 2); from this they ground their confidence (v. 4). Gurnall.

5-8. All these points are plain—that God gave their fathers a code of civil law quite complete, and also a system of religious services, to be enjoined carefully upon their children after them, and by them upon their children onward through future ages—all for the high purpose of leading them to set their hope in God and abide in true-hearted obedience. C.—The Church on earth, though mortal in its members, as a community is undying. The Christian Church is to exhibit the sublime spectacle of an unearthly government, embarked in an enterprise of mercy for all time. Its members are “commanded to make it known to their children, that the generation to come might know it, even the children who should be born; who should arise and declare it to their children.” And as time rolls on, the only change which this spiritual government is to exhibit is that which necessarily arises under God from persevering fidelity to its original design—extended domains and a nearer approach to universal conquest. “For the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.” J. Harris.

9. The sons of Ephraim, armed bowmen, turned (back) in the day of battle. The people, during the ascendancy of Ephraim, proved false to their great mission of subduing Canaan and destroying its inhabitants. This neglect is represented in the history itself as the source of all the national calamities that followed. As the bow among the ancients was one of the chief weapons of war, the description armed bowmen is equivalent to well-armed soldiers, and is added to enhance the guilt and shame of those who thus betrayed their trust, in spite of every external advantage. A.—Ephraim had been, after the settlement in Canaan, the most numerous and the most powerful of the tribes. Shiloh, the religious capital of the nation, and Shechem, the gathering-place of the tribes, were both within its borders. During the time of the judges it seems to have asserted a kind of supremacy over the rest. Possibly the Psalmist is thinking of this. Having their rejection in view, he remembers their ancient position, and regards them as leaders of the people, and, morally, leaders in their sin. P.

The Psalm accuses “the children of Ephraim” because, “being armed and carrying bows, they turned back in the day of battle.” That saying deduces obligation from equipment, and preaches a stringent code of duty to those who are in any direction largely gifted. Power to its last particle is duty, and not small is the crime of those who, with great capacities, have small desire to use them, and leave the brunt of the battle to half-trained soldiers badly armed. A. M.

13-20. Now follows the exemplification, in certain detailed instances, of the faithlessness and disobedience and forgetfulness of their fathers in the wilderness. First (in vs. 13-16), some of God’s wonders wrought on their behalf are mentioned, and then (vs. 17-20) the thankless and perverse spirit in which these wonders were regarded. P.

14. In the daytime also He led them with a cloud. He did it all. He alone. He brought them into the wilderness, and He led them through it. The cloud both led and shadowed the tribes. It was by day a vast sun-screen, rendering the fierce heat of the sun and the glare of the desert sand bearable. And all the night with a light of fire. So constant was the care of the Great Shepherd that all night and every night the token of His presence was with His people. That cloud which was a shade by day was as a sun by night. Even thus the grace which cools and calms our joys soothes and solaces our sorrows. What a mercy to have light with us amid the wilderness of affliction! We have felt our God to be both shade and light, according as our changing circumstances have required. S.

17. And they continued still to sin against Him, to rebel against the Highest in the desert.** What ought to have been the effect of these Divine interpositions is clearly implied in this description of the actual effect. The very means which should have made them more obedient made them more rebellious. The last word in Hebrew means a desert, properly so called, a dry land, and may here be used to suggest the idea that they foolishly and wickedly provoked God in the very situation where they were most dependent on Him for protection and supplies. The extent of this dependence is implied in the use of a Divine name signifying sovereignty, supremacy. A.

18. They tempted God, i.e.,** demanded, in their unbelief, signs and wonders, to put His power to the proof, instead of waiting in faith and prayer for its exercise (repeated vs. 41, 36, as a kind of refrain). P.

22. They believed not in God, and trusted not in His salvation.** This is the master sin, the crying sin; it is in itself evil and the parent of evils. It was this sin which shut Israel out of Canaan, and it shuts myriads out of heaven. God is ready to save, combining power with willingness, but rebellious man will not trust his Saviour, and therefore is condemned already. In the text it appears as if all Israel’s other sins were as nothing compared with this. S.

32. They did believe the history of His works—namely, that such things as are there recorded were done; but yet they did not believe the prophecy or promise which was virtually in those works—namely, that God would do more wonders for them till He had finished and accomplished their deliverance. That history of bringing through the Red Sea had this prophecy in it, that they should be brought safe to Canaan; but they did not believe the voice of this prophecy. When God gave them water out of the rock, this work promised that He would give them meat out of the clouds, if they needed it; but this they believed not. Caryl.

33. And (therefore) He wasted in vanity their days and their years in terror.** As the preceding verse relates to the refusal of the people to go up against the Canaanites in the first year of the exodus, so this relates to the forty years of error in the wilderness, by which that refusal was at once indulged and punished. The fruitless monotony of their existence during this long period, and their constant apprehension of some outbreak of Divine wrath, are expressed here by the words translated vanity and terror. The meaning of the verb is that He suffered or caused their years to be thus unprofitably and miserably spent. A.

Their persistent unbelief despite of the presence of perpetual miracles, and the somewhat frequent recurrence of those which were new and fresh, are the strong points made in this Psalm. Similar depravity is a fearful fact in the human life of every age. It stands here a suggestive rebuke to the men of all time that in the very presence of most impressive testimonies of God’s love and power they are still so slow of heart to believe in His love and to trust His power to save. The Hebrew nation, doomed to wander forty years up and down, back and forth, in that waste, dreary wilderness, consuming their days in vanity and their years in trouble, are God’s witnesses to the guilt of such sin, suggesting how the unbelief of professed Christians dooms them to barrenness and desolation during the many years of their earthly pilgrimage; while in their Father’s house is bread enough and to spare, and their earthly life might just as well be spent in the land of promise, flowing with milk and honey. C.

34-39. The passage is a most striking and affecting picture of man’s heart and God’s gracious forbearance in all ages; man’s sin calling for chastisement, the chastisement producing only temporary amendment, God’s goodness forgotten, and yet God’s great love never wearied, and God’s infinite compassion ever moved afresh by man’s weakness and misery. P.

34. When He slew them, then they returned.** What does God send forth His arrows for, and shoot this man with sickness, another with poverty, and a third with shame, but to reclaim and to recover them? For God makes not the miseries of men His recreation; yet He goes on with His work, for He designs nothing but cure to the person whom He afflicts. South.—Our lives are full of afflictions; and it is as great a part of a Christian’s skill to know afflictions as to know mercies; to know when God smites, as to know when He girds us; and it is our sin to overlook afflictions as well as to overlook mercies. Caryl.

The greatness of the pain we experience in the crossing of our desires and in parting with cherished objects shows that we needed the trial; that our affections were too strongly setting toward the world. The things that are taken from us and for which we grieve so much are the good gifts of God, and if we cannot enjoy them still loving Him more, He may not continue them to us without permitting us to lose the best good He can confer. He offers us a good in comparison with which all others are as nothing, but it is a good which we can obtain only on condition of prizing it more than all. He must either take off our affections from inferior objects, and make them as steps for our ascending to Him, or let us perish in our choice. H. Hooker.

38. He, full of compassion, forgave.** The Lord will not cast away weak saints for their great unbelief, because there is a little faith in them. He will not throw them away for that hypocrisy that is in them, because of that little sincerity that is in them. A wise man will not throw away a little gold, because of a great deal of dross that cleaves to it; and will God? T. Brooks.

39. And he remembered that they** (were but) flesh, a breath departing and returning not. Here as elsewhere the frailty and infirmity of man is assigned as a ground of the Divine forbearance. The idea of fragility and brief duration is expressed still more strongly by the exquisite figure in the last clause. A.

38,39. Those historic events afford a lively illustration of the Divine qualities suggested here—deep compassion in view of human guilt; infinite readiness to forgive the penitent; turning away His anger and giving it but little scope compared with the ill-desert which He must notice and rebuke; and finally, making large account of human frailty, remembering that man is but flesh, encompassed with temptations that are mighty and having but feeble power to withstand them. Such have always been God’s marvellous ways of mercy toward our sinning race! C.

40. After thus celebrating God’s tender compassion in striking contrast with the perpetual rebellion and ingratitude of the people, the Psalmist resumes the sad tale afresh. But instead of mentioning other instances of rebellion in the wilderness (v. 40), he passes from that topic to dwell on the wonders wrought in Egypt, the lively recollection of which ought to have kept the people from these repeated provocations. Thus he takes up again the thread dropped at v. 12. The second principal portion of the Psalm begins with this verse. It is occupied, first, with the narrative of the plagues in Egypt, the exodus, and Israel’s entrance into the promised land (vs. 40-55). It then touches briefly on the history under the judges, the Philistine invasion in the time of

Eli, which was God’s chastisement for transgression, the disaster at Shiloh, whereby Ephraim was robbed of his ancient honors, and which led to the choice of Zion, the ascendancy of the tribe of Judah, and the union of the kingdom under David (vs. 56-72). P.

52. To a people so familiar with shepherd life, no analogy could be more apt, suggestive, perfect, than this: God leading this nation forth from Egypt and onward through the wilderness as a shepherd does his flock, carefully, lovingly, safely. C.

54. He brought them to the border of His sanctuary**—that is, to the holy land; so called especially because of His sanctuary, the place of His residence; to which He makes all the land to be but as bounds and limits because of the eminency of that place, the holiness whereof did, as it were, spread to all other parts of the land, as if the whole had been a sanctuary and consecrated ground. It is, therefore, to the honor of the whole land as well as of the sanctuary that He calleth it “the holy border,” a “border of His sanctuary.” Westminster Assembly’s Annotations.

56. And they tempted and resisted God. Most High, and His testimonies did not keep. Having brought down the narrative of God’s dealings with the older race to the conquest of Canaan, the Psalmist now resumes his charge (against the following generations) of being no better than their fathers. A.—Paul says, with reference to the same transactions, “Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted” (I Cor. 10: 9). These texts relate to the same rebellious acts of the Israelites in the wilderness. In the former, the Person they tempted is called the Most High God; in the latter, He is called Christ; therefore Christ is the Most High God. Jones of Nayland.

58. And made Him angry with their heights, and with their idols made Him jealous. Here, for the first time, idolatry is mentioned as the great national sin of Israel after the death of Joshua and the contemporary elders. This sin is intimately connected with the one described in v. 9, since the failure to exterminate the Canaanites and gain complete possession of the country, with its necessary consequence, the continued residence of gross idolaters in the midst of Israel, could not fail to expose the chosen people to perpetual temptation, and afford occasion to their worst defections. In the last clause, graven images are put for the whole class of idols or created gods, of whom the true God must be jealous as His rivals, as well as indignant at the heights or high places.

the hill-tops where these false gods were most usually worshipped. The whole form of expression is Mosaic. A.

60. The tabernacle was at Shiloh during the whole period of the judges. God rejected and forsook it when the ark was given into the hand of the Philistines (1 Sam. 4). The ark was never brought back thither, and the tabernacle was removed first to Nob and afterward to Gibeon. P.

61. And gave up to captivity His strength, and His beauty into the foeman’s hand. This is a still more distinct allusion to the capture of the ark by the Philistines (1 Sam. 4 : 17). The pronouns may be referred either to God or Israel. In the former case the ark is called His strength, because it was the symbol of His saving presence and a pledge for the exertion of His power to protect and save His people. It is called His beauty or honor, as it marked the place where God was pleased to manifest His glory. At the same time it was Israel’s strength, because it was considered as insuring the Divine protection (1 Sam. 4 : 3), and His glory, because the possession of this symbol was His highest honor (v. 21). Both these senses are so perfectly appropriate, that it is not easy to choose either to the entire exclusion of the other. A.

63,64. The utter desolation of the land strikingly pictured by its silence. Neither the joyous strains of the marriage-song nor the sad wall of the funeral chant fall upon the ear. It was a land of silence, a land of the dead.

65,66. God punishes and then delivers. The reference is to the long series of victories over the Philistines under Samuel, Saul, and David. P.

67. And rejected the tent of Joseph, and the tribe of Ephraim did not choose. This is the completion and specification of the statement in v. 60. Even after the punishment of Israel as a whole had ceased, Ephraim, though still a member of the chosen people, was deprived of the ascendancy, of which he had proved himself unworthy, and by means of which he had betrayed the whole race into grievous sin. The tent or house of Joseph (the progenitor of Ephraim) is particularly mentioned, because the honor taken from that family was the honor of God’s dwelling in the midst of them. A.

68. Ephraim lost her pre-eminence among the tribes; Judah arose to this position, and God located the sacred ark on Mount Zion. This fact brings out one of the purposed political lessons of the Psalm, that God chose Judah, David, and Mount Zion before Ephraim and

Shiloh, a choice therefore which all the tribes were bound to recognize and accept.

69. God built His sanctuary stable as the mountains, fixed as the earth, which He has founded for the ages. This is in contrast with the ark migratory from place to place, as in the period from Shiloh to its location on the hill of Zion. C.

72. Fed them according to the integrity of his heart.** In spite of his transgressions, which he always bitterly repented of, and which were therefore blotted out of the Book of God, David remains to all princes and rulers of the earth as the noblest pattern. In perfect inward truth he knew and felt himself to be “king by the grace of God.” The crown and sceptre he bore merely in trust from the King of all kings; and to his latest breath he endeavored with all earnestness to be found as a genuine theocratic king, who in everything must conduct his earthly government according to the ordinances and directions of God. Therefore the Lord made all that he took in hand prosper, and nothing was clearer to the people than that the Lord was truly with the king. F. W. Krummacher.

This ancient and Israelitish unbelief finds continual modern and Gentile illustration. We are ever limiting the Holy One whom we profess to serve. Amid our wilderness of emergency, temptation, trial, our faithless hearts are asking the same question, “Who is the Lord that we should serve Him? How can He deliver us?” God stands there, over against each one of us, with an infinity of blessing in His hands—of deliverance, of present and abiding peace, of the promise of the land beyond; but unbelief is a staggering and blear-eyed creature, who often cannot see what God proffers, and even when she does, reaches forth such palsied hands they cannot reach and hold the blessing. W. Hoyt.

These Israelites, who lived encompassed by miracle, had nothing which we have not. They got their bread by direct gift from heaven; we get ours no less from God, though it is eaten in the sweat of our brow. They got their marching orders from the cloud; we get ours no less from God, though we have to use our brains to read them. The form of the direction has altered, the reality has not, and the change of form is advance, not retrogression. The cloud guided only the outward steps; the spirit needs other direction than it afforded. Chili-

dren may be led so, but men want another sort of leading. The guidance which God gives the hearts that seek it to-day is every bit as real, and a great deal more noble and thorough than this of a moving pillar. What the world calls “circumstances” we should call “providence,” and carefully watch as one element in God’s guidance. He guides us by His Word, the largest principles of which are not too large to be applied to our smallest duties, and the teachings of which need but “an honest and good heart” to apply them, in order to yield certain direction. He guides us by His own spirit, speaking through our reason and judgment; and, if we will but keep our noisy inclinations quiet, we shall generally be able to hear His voice saying, “This is the way, walk

ye in it.” Life has many perplexities, and we are often brought to a stand-still. But only those who have tried it know how much mist is cleared away, and how seldom their perplexities remain insoluble to those who seek simply to know and do as God wishes. But, above all, we have the true pillar of guidance in Jesus Christ, who has left “us an example” that we “should follow His steps.” Why, even an unbeliever like John Stuart Mill had to say that there was no better rule for conduct than to do as Jesus would have done if in our place. Few, indeed, will be the knots which cannot be untied by taking God’s Word for our law, Christ for our pattern, God’s Spirit for our counsellor, and circumstances, which are God’s providence, for our instructors. A. M.