Bible. It is not good that the people should not understand how they really are to be read. The conscience becomes confused and twisted if it tries to think that everything in the Psalms is the true sentiment for Christians to take upon their lips.

This idea is a part of our preposterous way of treating the Bible as if it were one whole book, dropped in some mysterious moment altogether out of heaven. It is a historical book, gradually developing its rich spiritual life. It grows to completion only in Christ. The Bible is not a stream which starts and runs unchanged down to the sea. In its earlier course it partakes of the imperfection of the banks between which it starts. It runs through deep soil, and carries part of the soil with it. It only gradually purifies itself. At length it comes to the place where it is seen as a river running along in perfect purity over its rocky bed. It starts in the midst of all the corruptions of the old Hebrew life, and of the people back of the Hebrew life who came before the Hebrews were a nation. It flows down, gradually purifying itself from its corruption. Abraham leaves his wickedness in the stream, Moses leaves his, David his, Isaiah his. By-and-by it comes to run through a great rock of salvation, where there is nothing but the richness and depth and goodness of the life of Jesus Christ. If we attempt to go back and make everything that Abraham and Moses and David did absolutely right, we shall only make the whole

stream seem foul. If the Fifty-ninth Psalm is right, the words on the Cross are not right. But if Christ shows us the way we ought to feel toward our enemies, if His words teach the soul of man what are the consummate utterances of a wronged personal soul, then this Psalm of David is harsh. and brutal and revengeful. And so it is.

As we read it we understand how, in the midst of a great spiritual life, of a soul very close to God, which God claims, which God is educating by deep experiences, there may still linger the corruptions of the old fierce nature. And this understanding may make us more hopeful in regard to ourselves, more patient in regard to our brethren.

I may hope that, corrupted as the Divine life in me now may be, it will ultimately come to purity; for I see how, in this great man, corruption existed in the midst of the Divine life which he lived. Some one near me claims to be a Christian, to be living for high purposes. Yet, behold! he is not without the frailties of human life. He comes to the communion table and accepts the invitation : "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking henceforth in His holy ways, draw near with faith and take this holy sacrament." Shall I deny his spiritual life? Shall I say his profession is all hypocrisy and sham? Not if I will take the character of David,

and see how, as shown in the Fifty-ninth Psalm, the remnants of the old carnal life still lingered in this fierce and furious man, while at the same time he was the servant of God.

How this picture comes close home to our personal life! To return to the figure of the stream. We, too, live in a weak condition; the stream of our spiritual life is clouded by muddy passions. And we, too, may look forward to the time when the stream, always gradually being purified, shall at last become absolutely pure and perfect in its entire identification with Christ.

TRUE GREATNESS.

"Thy gentleness hath made me great."-PSALM xviii. 35. ·

THE eighteenth psalm is a recital of all the goodness which had crowned the life of David. The words of our text teach us that human greatness is the result of God's gentleness. Let us define, if possible, what greatness is. It is what we are all striving after according to our own individual idea; and yet, if we ask, who can tell us what greatness" is? We have the vaguest notions of it. The boy dreams of it, the man struggles after it, the old grey-head fumbles for it among the ashes of dead hopes.

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But true greatness consists in being the best and doing the best that our nature is capable of. It is making the most of ourselves. This definition will bring many within the ranks of the great whom the world knows not as such; and it will cut off many who think themselves great, or are so esteemed among men. One characteristic of true greatness is that there is nothing partial or one-sided about it; it is the full, complete development of all our powers; whereas we, in our false estimate of life, often think

that striking and powerful things are truly great.

But look at Nature. Her greatest works are not her most noisy or most terrible ones. The Alpine torrent, the glacier, the gorge give us but one-sided views of their Maker's greatness. It is the silent influences, the secret might of Nature, that are the fullest of power and greatness. The ripening of the grain on a summer's day beneath the full sun-this is instinct with greatness. We pass by, unnoticed, the corn-field and the orchard when we are looking for instances of God's greatness; and yet there is nothing so full of the completeness of His power, the "gentleness that maketh great".

Your child, in a darkened room, sees one ray of sunlight coming through the closed shutters, and exclaims, "How wonderful!" Yet take him out into the full, broad sunlight of noon and he sees no wonder, no greatness there. He plays his little games unmindful of the greatness of the perfect day.

To get an idea of God's gentleness, and how it maketh great, look again at Nature. Her quiet and silent influences are always the mightiest. The crag frowns, the torrent rages, the storm howls. There is something cruel about them all. But in the sunshine and the corn-field we may see the most perfect development of power-nothing one-sided or partial.