what is evil; and He Who understands each and every thought, word, and deed of ours, will without failing punish what is evil and against His righteousness, as He will reward what is according to it. He has made men to know the thoughts of God, and shall He not know the thoughts of men? He seeth all their deeds, He heareth all their words, He knoweth all their thoughts, vain and deceiving as they are; and all that in His infinite wisdom He sees and hears, and knows, in His infinite justice He will most surely judge. 12. Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Lord and teachest him in Thy law; 13. That Thou mayest give him patience in time of adversity: until the pit be digged up for the ungodly. Blessed is the man to whom, by suffering, by trial, and by patience, God teaches that law of perfect righteousness which is perfect love. He would have us learn that which Himself came to teach us-patience in suffering. We must needs be chastened until we know how both to bear and to forbear, to wait for our Father's will, not to seek our own. The wicked may seem to be strong in his malice and prosperous in his cruelty; he may appear to have a firm grasp of life; but notwithstanding his grave is being dug for him. It is being prepared, deep and dark, and when the patience of outraged justice is exhausted, he will be laid within it, passive, and helpless, and hopeless. There the troublers shall have tribulation, and the troubled rest. 14. For the Lord will not fail His people : neither will He forsake His inheritance; 15. Until righteousness turn again unto judgement all such as are true in heart shall follow it. : Heb. For right shall return to righteousness, The Lord may chasten His people, but He loves them still. The hand of a Father is known by his chastenings as by his caresses. The very sending adversity to His inheritance is but the message of His promise of unfailing love,-'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' He will not fail His own, until the right, which for a time seemed lost, is brought back again to clear and confessed righteousness-until the law of right be fully executed in the judgment of right, and justice and judgment be one and the same. Then shall God's judgments be evidently turned to mercies in behalf of His people, and their former sufferings shall become their greatest advantages. Then shall they who have sought to be upright, and loved the right, and hated the wrong, gladly follow and acquiesce in the plain and unmistakeable declaration of God's eternal righteousness, revealed in His dealings with men. 16. Who will rise up with me against the wicked or who will take my part against the evil-doers ? 17. If the Lord had not helped me it had not failed but my soul had been put to silence. 18. But when I said, My foot hath slipt : Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. 19. In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart freshed my soul. Thy comforts have re Who then will take the part of the sorrowing and oppressed against the malicious and the cruel? Can the soul for an instant hesitate or doubt how to reply to such a question? If there were no righteous God to help us, then should we be shut up in a silence of utter despair; life would be worse than death. But we have an immortal Helper, merciful, loving, true; and when, in impatience and restlessness, we slip from the path of trustfulness,-when our human will creeps on us, saying, Oh that God would slay mine enemy!-He makes us know that we have erred, and holds us, that we fall not so again. When we are tortured by our own crowding and despairing thoughts, and wearied out with our troubles and the anguish of our souls, then He can help us Who was in agony that we might be comforted, and Who put not away from Him the cup of misery, that we might be refreshed with the cup of mercy. 20. Wilt Thou have anything to do with the stool of wickedness: which imagineth mischief as a law? Heb. Shall the tribunal of iniquity be in covenant with Thee, Which taketh wretchlessness as its law? 21. They gather them together against the soul of the righteous and condemn the innocent blood. 22. But the Lord is my refuge and my God is the strength of my confidence. 23. He shall recompense them their wickedness, and destroy them in their own malice : yea, the Lord our God shall destroy them. For a time wickedness has power. It makes laws for impiety, as did Nebuchadnezzar, and the counsellors of Darius. It seems to possess a throne, and to establish a judgment-seat of its own, and it takes as a law its own violence and reckless self-will. Such was that miserable assembly in which Annas, and Caiaphas, and the blinded Pharisees gathered themselves together against the soul of the righteous Saviour, and condemned the innocent blood which Judas had betrayed into their hands. With such judges, and with such selfish power, the all-righteous Judge is at immortal enmity. He resisted them in the weakness of His humility, much more will He resist such in the mightiness of His glory. In Him Who suffered unjustly can they who suffer unjustly always find a refuge. The soul which flies to Him in adversity wants no longer a refuge in this world's good, or cares to make earthly passion its confidence. It seeks to God; it waits for Him; it puts all its cause into His hands, knowing that He will establish right and will destroy wrong; and that when He destroys wrong, and makes wickedness to perish, they who have loved malice and trusted in wickedness shall perish utterly and miserably, with the wickedness and the malice which they made their Punishment shall then bind those in misery whom guilt now binds from good works. own. This Psalm has no title in the Hebrew. In the LXX. and the Vulgate it is inscribed, "A Psalm of David for the fourth day of the week." In this respect it resembles the preceding Psalm. It is not impossible but that it may have been solemnly used on that day. Morning Prayer. TO BE SAID DAILY IN THE ORDER FOR MORNING PSALM XCV. Venite, exultemus Domino. 1. O COME let us sing unto the Lord let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation. 2. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving and shew ourselves glad in Him with psalms. 'Let us sing unto the Lord :' this is the Christian soul invited to do unceasingly. The prophets of the older dispensation-the saints of the new covenant M |