Anointed One, the Christ of God, was to be his son, the heir of his throne, and that he would extend its dominion over all the nations, and establish it in perpetuity.

The king was deeply moved. The prayer in which he poured out his heart before God on the occasion, expresses just those feelings which were to be looked for in such a man on hearing disclosures so far-reaching and so glorious. He is not jubilant as when he welcomed the ark into Sion. It is not exactly gladness that possesses his mind. Rather it is awe, adoring reverence, an overwhelming and almost oppressive sense of his unworthiness, his nothingness, in the presence of God. "Who am I, O Lord God? And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said. For thou, O Lord of hosts, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house: therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee." It would seem that David's feelings were too much oppressed to find vent in song. No psalm can be traced to the day of this oracle, although it was the Psalmist's brightest day. It marks, nevertheless, an epoch in the history of the psalms. From this time forward there are new strings audible in David's harp. Henceforth there is in the psalms continual articulate mention of Christ, the divine king and hope of Israel. The reader will recall | the Twenty-second psalm, where the prophet celebrates Messiah's Cross and Crown, "The sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." He will recall also the Hundred and tenth, the psalm which furnished our Lord with the dilemma that silenced the Pharisees, the which holds forth David's son as David's lord, a Priest on his throne like Melchizedek. Even had these psalms not borne David's name, we might safely have attributed them to his pen. And internal evidence, as well as the place it occupies in the Psalter, warrants us to add to them the Second also, which tells how Christ establishes his throne in the midst of his enemies. These psalms are the most prominent examples of a class-the Messianic psalms of David-to which it may be impossible to affix exact dates, but in which we undoubtedly hear the echo of Nathan's oracle.

song

The delivery of Nathan's oracle marks the highest noon of David's felicity. Thenceforward its sun declined. It was not long afterwards that the king fell into the sin which darkened all his sky. After what was said before, regarding that great transgression and manner in which it was overruled by God for the enrichment of the Bible Treasury of penitential song, nothing needs be added except that it is to this period that we owe the Thirty-second and the Hundred and forty-third as well as the Fifty-first psalms-the three Pauline Psalms, as Luther loved to call them.

Another fruitful occasion of psalms in the same middle period of David's reign was found in those great foreign wars with the nations to the east and north, in the course of which the fate of the throne, and even of the nation, seemed more than once to tremble in the balance. The superscription of the Sixtieth psalm connects it with one of these wars; and there is one of the most beautiful of the Songs of Degrees—the Hundred and twenty-fourth Psalm-which seems to have been composed at the restoration of peace. This happy event called for a solemn national Thanksgiving, and there is reason to believe that it was on the occasion of this solemnity that the king delivered into the hands of the Levites and Congregation the Sixty-eighth psalm. This is the earliest in date of the historical psalms, and is in every respect remarkable even among David's lyrics. It is a magnificent triumphal ode, sparkling with gems from the earlier scriptures, and is by many critics esteemed the loftiest effusion of David's lyrical muse.

The rebellion of Absalom was in David's pilgrim age a valley of the shadow of death. But if the sorrows it brought him were dark and chilling. God gave him songs in the night, in so much that the Psalter owes to this period some of its most precious treasures. To it we owe among others the Third and the Fourth psalms, the Morning and Evening Hymns which God has prepared for his children to sing in the wilderness. From it proceeded also those expressions of unquenchable thirst for God, which have made the Sixty-third so dear to the hearts of God's children that its echo rings through all Christian literature and devotion.

"O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee,

My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee,

In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory,

So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy loving kindness is better than life, My lips shall praise thee."

There is reason to believe that some of the

able and unscrupulous men who participated in Absalom's revolt, were partly moved to do so by hostility to the cause of religion, of which David was the main representative and bulwark. Accordingly it is in the psalms belonging to this period-the Fifty-fifth for example, and the Sixty-ninth-that we meet with those denunciations of God's judgments on the enemies of the king, of which a handle has so often been made to depreciate the morality of the Old Testament Scriptures. We cannot turn aside at present to set forth the considerations by which they may be satisfactorily vindicated from the imputation of vengefulness and cruelty. Sober and devout readers will think twice before they brand, as full of hatred and cursing, Bible songs which were written by a man whose unrevenging, placable spirit was as remarkable as his genius, and which

the Lord Jesus sanctified by appropriating them to himself.

The Eighteenth psalm was written by David' in celebration of the Lord's goodness in deliver

ing him from all his enemies; and the Seventyarticle, was the plaintive song he uttered on his harp in his old age, when his sun was setting amidst clouds. It was the dying song of the swan of Israel. The immediate occasion of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth psalms is unknown. They are both from David's pen, and may be named here, in the last place, on account of the expression they give to the faith with which David contemplated the approach of the king of terrors.

first, from which citations were given in a former

"My heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth:

My flesh also shall rest in hope.

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ('in Hades");
Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life;

In thy presence is fulness of joy;

At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."

NE day last winter, in the corner bed of one of the hospital wards, I found a great stalwart man propped up by pillows, and labouring painfully for breath. He seemed in the prime of life, his vigorous frame as yet untouched by decay, and his curly black hair and bushy beard unmingled with gray. An acute attack of heart-disease had suddenly seized him, and caused the distressing symptoms under which he was labouring. I hesitated about addressing one in such distress; but he looked eagerly at me, and asked me to sit down.

"What comfort have you in such sore trouble?" I began to say; when, with eyes filling with tears and a sorrowful gesture, he replied, “I can have no comfort looking back upon the past, at any rate." And then he proceeded to speak, although with much difficulty, of the light in which his past life now appeared to him— so dark, so degraded, so guilty and vile. Not that he had been by any means a "wild-living man;" far from that, but when the Lord sets the sins of a man's life in order before his eyes, and says, "Now consider this, ye that forget God; lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver," sin in all its forms becomes exceeding sinful. He told me another man ill of the same disease had just died in the ward; and he had no doubt such a fatal termination of his own illness was not far off. earnestly besought me to tell him what hope there was

He

for such a sinner, and how salvation could yet be found by one in his circumstances.

I

Meantime, it was apparent to me, from the way in which he spoke, that though he was a man of native intelligence, he was very ignorant, and belonged to one of the lowest and roughest classes of mechanics. afterwards found that he was an iron-moulder, and that he had been brought up a Roman Catholic, although for some time past he had been attending a Protestant mission-station and reading the Bible.

I was rejoiced to comply with his request, and read him, in Scripture words, how "God could be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly," through Him whom he hath set forth to be the propitiation for our sins.

I marked various passages in a large-printed Testament for him to read for himself, and gave him a little book I had with me containing a simple statement of gospel truth. His humble, earnest air interested me much; and the shame and contrition which he seemed to feel for the sin of his past life, made me hope there was more in his case than mere alarm at the thought of death and desire of safety. Subsequent visits confirmed me in this opinion, and left no doubt on my mind that the Spirit of God had begun a gracious work in his soul.

Very various are the ways by which sinners are brought into the kingdom, and very diverse are the

views of the truth used by God for this great end. Samuel's case was not exactly like any other which I have ever been privileged to witness, and yet, of course, the process of conversion was in the main the same as that of every other, and, above all, so was the end reached.

I have sometimes thought his experience could be best described by the answer to the question in the Shorter Catechism, "What is repentance unto life?" "Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, under a true sense of sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of and endeavour after new obedience."

His sense of sin seemed a true sense; it seemed to humble him in the dust, to set his heart and life in the light of God's countenance. He loved the Fifty-first Psalm, "Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight." And many a time, too, with tears, he spoke of his sin towards his children, in leaving them neglected and untaught.

And yet what struck me as remarkable in his case was, that the humbling sense of his own sinfulness, which he had from the first, and which only deepened to the last, never seemed to hinder him from a simple, childlike "apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ." He had none of that struggle with unbelief which so often keeps anxious souls from at once receiving and resting on Jesus for salvation. When he heard and understood that the free gospel offer was made to him, he seemed at once to lay hold of it; and never, so far as I could see, was afterwards troubled by any doubts of his personal interest in Jesus and his salvation.

He had not only a growing, deepening sense of his own sinfulness, but a very great thirst for instruction in the things of God. The paroxysm of violent suffering passed off, and he began to entertain hopes of recovery. One day he asked me to get him a large printed Bible, as he had only a Testament, for, said he, "if both parts are God's Word, why should they ever be separated?" He slept little at nights, and was in the habit of reading then, as he refused to use the opiate ordered by the doctor, saying, "If it please God to give me natural sleep I will be thankful for it, but I don't like to have my senses confused." At last he grew so well, that he spent most of his time out of bed, by the fire; but when I entered the ward, he always came back to the side of his own bed to hold a little conversation with me. It was very affecting to see the great giant of a man, coming with the docility of a child to be taught-asking me questions, telling me of his difficulties, or showing me some passages in the books he was reading which had taught him "something he needed to know." One day he told me in great spirits he was getting so well, the doctor meant to send him to the Convalescent Home; and he said he was so thankful for spared life, because of his wife and children, as he hoped, by God's blessing, if he was allowed to go home again, he might be enabled

to bring them to the knowledge of the same blessed Saviour whom he had found for himself.

"I was speaking to the wife this morning, and trying to tell her about Jesus; but oh, woman," said the poor man, with a sorrowful shake of the head, "ye ken she's just as dark as I used to be mysel!"

I afterwards heard that every morning he laid aside his bread for her, and when she came to see him, read her regularly a portion of Scripture, and tried to explain it, as neither she nor any of the children could read for themselves.

Next day I saw him, he was hoarse with cold, and evidently a good deal disappointed with the inopportune illness. I comforted him with the hope that it would not be serious, and gave him some garments to keep him comfortable at the Home, adding a small sum of money for him to leave with his wife, as the nurse had told me how destitute she seemed to be. The poor fellow covered his face with his great brawny hands, and burst into tears. He gave me a grateful look, but could speak no thanks.

He had asked the chaplain to furnish him with a prayer-book, as he had great difficulty in expressing his thoughts in words; and Mr. had asked him if he would care for his children addressing him in fine speeches (for he was a most affectionate father) or whether the broken language of even the youngest did not at once prevail with him to grant its request. So now I read part of the 12th of Hebrews to him, and sought to teach him, through his own fatherly feelings, how our Father in heaven deals with those who are not bastards, but sons. I told him, that God was no weak parent who sought only the present comfort and pleasure of his children; it was their highest good He sought, even to make us partakers of His holiness; and that He made pain, sickness, suffering, death itself to work out only good to those who love Him. I said, "You have told me how you often shut up your children at home, to prevent them from mixing with bad companions on the stair, and no doubt they often think you very hard and unkind; but you know it is out of real love to them." I wanted to prepare him for a possible relapse, and for the disappointment of being kept from going to the Home. He was greatly struck with the passage as a true picture of God's way with

66

His children." "I believe He laid this trouble upon me, and brought me in here, just to teach me the way of salvation." Then he told me what a struggle he had with some former evil habits. "Before I know where I am," he said, "when sitting round the fire with the rest, I find myself saying something I ought not. Oh, it is so hard, so hard, to give up doing what you've been used to do!" He was so afraid of the temptation to this, that he had made his cold worse by sitting away at his bedside, which was far from the fire-place. So I told him of the wonderful promise, "My grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is made perfect in weakness." At length I bid him good-bye, saying I would look in

I did so. But alas! he was much worse; sitting up in bed with every breath whistling shrilly through his windpipe. He gave a mute gesture of great distress as I stood dismayed by his bedside. He could not speak to me, nor I to him, beyond a few words to strengthen his faith in this sudden and fiery trial. The Biblewoman was in the room, and she had already prayed with him, and so I came away, promising to return next day. He followed us with his eyes to the door, and then we nodded farewell—a last farewell. Next day as I entered the ward every eye was directed towards the bed in the corner, and all who were able to be up were grouped at a little distance from it watching the passage of their fellow-sufferer through the dark valley. Just as I went up he drew his last breath. The nurse laid her hand on his eyes, as I stood beside her and looked for the last time on the noble frame, now grand and still in death. When the chaplain asked him where his hope was, he had stretched up his dying arms towards heaven and whispered, "Lord Jesus, into thy hand I commit my spirit❤

His poor wife was expected to arrive every moment, and the nurse begged me to intercept her at the hospital gate, and break the sad news to her, that she was too late to see her husband in life.

I will not dwell on this harrowing scene, nor describe the passionate grief of the poor woman, rocking her infant in her arms, and loudly lamenting over the sudden extinction of all the fond hopes she had entertained of her "poor man's" recovery.

Next day (it was the Sabbath), after church, I went to visit the poor widow in her affliction, hoping that when the violence of her grief had spent itself, I might be able to comfort her with the hope which had sustained her dying husband. It was a wretched place, in a densely crowded land of ticketed* houses. The short December day was already closing, and in the gathering twilight the mother and her five children were cowering round a handful of fire. The only movable piece of furniture in the room (all the rest had gone to the pawnshop) was a large wooden stool, on which the fragments of a scanty meal were spread. These were hastily removed, and I was invited to sit down on the dinnertable. I found the poor woman to be as her husband had described her, "dark, dark," indeed. She could receive little from me, so I let her pour out her lamentations freely. She told me how sober and industrious, as long as he was able, Samuel had been, and what a good, kind "man" he had been to her, and related many touching instances of his considerate thoughtfulness which quite confirmed the opinion I had formed of him, as a loving husband and father. "He never struck me, nor spoke a hard word," said she, "and was

The full number of lodgers each room should contain, marked on the doorway, to aid the police in keeping down overcrowding.

were brither and sister, and no man and wife ava;" an unconscious satire on the connubial manners of her class, which the poor woman uttered in perfect simplicity.

Poor thing! There was no doubting the strength of the natural instincts of love to husband and children which possessed her, and I hoped, through these, to be enabled to do something to raise up her and the little ones from the degrading depths of dark ignorance and helpless penury in which they were sunk; but hitherto it has been a vain and thankless struggle.

I told her how often Samuel had spoken to me about her and them, and how strong his desire was that they should all be brought to know and fear the Lord. She told me he had often spoken to her in the same way, and of the plans he had made for getting the younger ones sent to school and teaching the older ones himself in the evenings, if he had been spared to return to them again. So long as her husband's memory was fresh in her mind, the thought of his wishes had some weight with her; but when these impressions wore off, which they soon did, the life-long habits of mental apathy and indolence resumed their sway. Now, the supply of their mere bodily wants, by whatever means, is all she seems to care for, whilst there is every prospect of poor Samuel's children being suffered to grow up as thieves, and liars, and all that is vile.

I used to wonder, when the poor man spoke with tears of the ignorance and degradation in which he was leaving his family, why he did not also dwell on their abject poverty; but now I understand his feelings. Where there is such utter ignorance, and utter want of all moral sense, and moral training, there is nothing to lay hold of by which to help such to help themselves.

Amongst the little crowd of patients who gathered round Samuel's dying bed, was another man suffering under another form of the same deadly disease. He too was far above middle height, but of slender make and martial carriage. He was still a comparatively young man, of three or four-and-thirty, but he had seen much of the world, and much of life in his day. He had been a soldier, and all through the Crimean War and the terrible scenes of the mutiny in India. He was a reserved, quiet man, sparing in his words, but thoughtful and intelligent. I had had many interesting conversations with him, and when my eye fell upon his grave, serious face, solemnly regarding another encountering that momentous crisis which he was so soon to be called on to face for himself, I felt the deepest sympathy for him. He told me, however, he had "often faced death on the battle-field without fear when he had no hope, and why should he fear to die now, that he had a good hope."

He had passed through all the solemn scenes of the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny without any concern about his soul, and when at last awakened, it was by a