the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; His countenance doth behold the upright.' As the righteous Lord, He must love righteousness; and His hatred to sin demands from Him all the judgment which is foretold against the sinner. But oh! beloved, if you are His, 'Fear not,' whatever may be coming on the earth; 'Ye are Christ's and Christ is God's; and when He calls you to Himself, He will pass by angels and archangels, and go forward to meet you, as the special objects of His grace and loving mercy in Christ Jesus; His heart of hearts going out to you in all its unutterable fulness, and your portion shall be joy and happiness and peace and glory for

ever.

The closing passage may be rendered rather differently, The upright shall at length behold His countenance,' and shall see Him as He is. When His glorious presence breaks upon the spirit, what a moment will that be; what a step from earth to heaven, to that bright and glorious vision, when we shall see Him ‘eye to eye,' with the smile of forgiveness on His face. So has it been with one of the greatest men of science of our own day who has just been taken from us.* It is sweet to think that, before Brewster passed away, he had laid all his wondrous science and discoveries at his Master's feet, and said he was going where the light would be so effulgent that it would dim the brightest of earth's visions for ever; even as Newton felt that, after all, he had been all his life-time only picking up pebbles on the sea-shore ; touching but as it were the mere hem of His garment.

And in these days, when there is so much of boasted wisdom and science, often falsely so called,' it is precious that Brewster should have closed that long life of science, and at the same time of deep personal holiness, by taking all that God had bestowed upon him and laying it, like a little child, at the 'feet of Jesus.'

* Sir David Brewster, died February 1868.

Yes, the upright shall behold His countenance,' beloved; and we shall see up there Newton, and Brewster, and many, many others like them, who have been called by the Master 'up hither,' gazing on Him face to face and eye to eye, and diving through all eternity into the unutterable mysteries of redeeming love, crying 'Oh! the depth.' Yea, 'great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are all Thy ways, Thou King of saints.'

From every stormy wind that blows,
From every swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a safe retreat,
"Tis found beneath the mercy seat.

There is a place where Jesus sheds
The oil of gladness o'er our heads!
A place, than all beside more sweet,
It is the blood-stained mercy seat.

There is a spot where spirits blend,
Where friend holds fellowship with friend;
Though sundered far, by faith we meet
Around our common mercy seat.

Ah! whither could we flee for aid
When tempted, desolate, dismayed;
Or how the hosts of hell defeat,
Had suffering saints no mercy seat?

There, there, on eagles' wings we soar,
And time and sense seem all no more;
And heaven comes down our souls to greet,
And glory crowns the mercy seat.

Oh let my hands forget their skill,
My tongue be silent, cold, and still,
This bounding heart forget to beat,
If I forget the mercy seat.

HUGH STOWELL.

PSALM XII.

THE STRONG TOWER.

'Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.

They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.

'The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:

'Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own who is lord over us?

For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

'The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

'Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.'

We have in this Psalm a fresh feature in the spiritual history of the people of God. The circumstances are different from any previously brought before us, a peculiarity which needs to be noted. It is well to observe what the Psalmist says of the enemies of God, whom he calls children of men,' not of God. He characterises them in this special manner: They speak vanity every one with his neighbour.' They are vain words, empty words. There is no truth in them. 'With flattering lips' they speak smooth things: with a double heart,' or as in the margin, 'an heart and an heart.' The Psalmist doubtless refers here to those who were mere hypocrites, and used words outwardly, with their lip; but in a strong sense, I think it is similar to that expression used by St. James, 'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.' So they are unstable and uncertain, they have 'an heart and an heart.'

The 4th verse, you observe further, gives another feature of this: Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail;

our lips are our own.' You see it is not merely that they speak empty, flattering, and unstable words; but they are 'loud and swelling words.' Not whispered in a corner, but loudly proclaimed in the ears of men: 'With our lips will we prevail: who is Lord over us?' 'Surely we are the men, and wisdom shall die with us.' They have this deadly brand upon them, that they do not acknowledge the Hand of God. Miserable independence of spirit, too common in these our days.

Our lips are our own!' beloved! Alas! only For we must bear in

mind that this Psalm is a very general one, and refers to every age. This generation of proud and lofty speakers has never ceased. They never do cease; and certainly just now we cannot say they have in any way ceased. Perhaps, from various causes, this latent independence of spirit in man has never been more fully brought out than now: Our lips are our own: who is Lord over us?' Observe, the first cry of the Psalmist here is for aid against such: 'Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth.' It is supposed, and truly, that these two expressions which occur in the first verse, the godly' and 'the faithful,' while they mean to a certain extent the same thing, are different in this, that the first means rather God-like, while the second points more to the principle of faithfulness. It seems to point to a time when the holy and Godlike ceased to be seen; when they went away within the veil; when, one after another, those whose influence and example seemed of the utmost importance are taken away; and the faithful-those left behind-too often fail in their allegiance. I like that good old Saxon word, which has now been so sadly corrupted, and is used in so widely different a sense Fast!' a fast man. Firm, true, steadfast, faithful to the end. The Psalmist then complains that those who remained had not this mark of real, tried Christian faithfulness. They put their light too often under a bushel. Of Elijah we once read that

he was so greatly deceived by the outward appearance of things, that he complained that he only was left to worship and serve God, while there were in truth seven thousand men which had not bowed the knee to Baal. Where then was their faithfulness? They could not have been, like Elijah, ready to confess their Master, and if need be to die for Him, else would not Elijah have known them?

Ah! there was a sad failing of the faithful then from among the children of men. We know that God has always His own 'hidden ones,' but jewels, my beloved, should not hide themselves: and when people who ought to stand forth boldly, and confess Christ before all men, shrink back into corners, and only let it be half-understood 'whose they are and whom they serve,' then, alas! we may truly say the faithful fail from among the children of

men.'

If these two things are true in our day; if the godly man ceaseth; if, one by one, they go and we see them on earth no more, remember that the gates of Heaven have opened wide to receive them with a joyous welcome, that another has been brought safe into the Fold, that another stone has been added to the Heavenly Temple quietly, as in Solomon's Temple; without any sound (the noise of the cutting and polishing was all down here), higher and higher the building rises, and the 'gates of Hades shall never prevail against it.' Take comfort then, beloved, and praise Him for the sheaves already gathered in. And then, if it be also true that those who remain are not so steadfast and faithful as they ought to be, let us cease looking at those around us, and rather look within, at our own hearts. There we shall find, alas! faith which seems but as a grain of mustard-seed! Failings, alas, how many! Steadfastness, which seems to take to itself wings and fly away! All this we shall find; but we shall also learn, every day more and more, these two things: Lord, increase our