PSALM VIII.

I O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou or dained strength, because of thine enemies; that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of

thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

THOUGHT OF BY GOD

REV. R. A. WEBB, D.D., LOUISVILLE, KY.

"I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me." (Psalm xl. 17.)

It is sweet to be remembered; it is bitter to be forgotten. Many of the sorrows and some of the tragedies of life are due to a famishing heart-a heart that sighs and cries and dies for human love, sympathy and appreciation. The great Shakespeare says, "Men are men; the best forget." But the great Psalmist says, "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me." Men are men, and the best forget; but God is God, and never forgets.

This is a tonicful text to the drooping spirit. It braces like the air from a mountain's icy crest. It buoys like the sea-tide that lifts the ship. It cheers

like the sunbeam that pierces the fog. It soothes like the strain of an evening song. It comforts like a voice from among the stars. Poor and needy—yet the Lord thinks upon me!

1. The sweetness of my text is emphasized when we remember the great things which God has to think about.

Try to grasp the greatness of this universe which is a perpetual care to its august Maker and Ruler. How shall we get the idea of one world-of countless worlds? Let us begin with the earth on which we live.

Its diameter is nearly eight thousands of miles; its weight is many millions of tons; its surface is nearly two hundred millions of square miles; its velocity is nineteen miles a second, and its annual journey is five hundred and sixty millions of miles through space.

Try to imagine this mass described by these paralyzing figures. Climb some mountain peak and let the eye range and the imagination wander. Take some ship and travel a thousand miles each day. Take some flying train and spend a lifetime going from kingdom to kingdom, from country to country. Pause occasionally to look upon some island flashing like an emerald upon the bosom of a purple sea. Spend an hour in talking about the lands you have visited, the sights you have seen, the cities whose streets you have walked, the cathedral splendors which have charmed you, the ancient monuments which have interested you, the wild wastes of desert which have oppressed you, the mountains which have awed you, the streams which have fascinated you, the flowers with their

colors and fragrance, the birds with their plumage and songs, the beasts of the fields, the fishes of the sea, the minerals of the earth, the jewels that flash, and the human beings of all sorts and nationalities. Spend all your years in continual going until you lie down in death-and you will not have seen the thousandth part of the surface of the earth, and will not have so much as begun to penetrate towards its far-off center!

But astronomers tell us that our earth is no more relatively than a single apple in a great orchard. We must transfer ourselves to the sun, to even grasp at the magnitude of the starry system to which we belong.

Standing on that fiery ball we must remember that it is nearly a million and a half times larger than the earth, and that its diameter is eight hundred and eighty millions of miles. Its surface is more than fifty-three millions time greater than that panorama which would be swept by a revolving eye on the top of Mount Etna, and that it would require more than twenty-four thousand years for the human eye to take in its surface if it should take in the Etna vision at each glance.

But looking away from the central sun, there is Mercury, lying thirty-six million miles in the distance, and half the size of our own earth. Next is the queenly Venus, about the size of the earth, and sixtyseven millions of miles from the sun. Next is the earth the planet on which has been enacted the tragedy of the fall and the glories of redemption, ninetytwo millions of miles from the sun. Beyond, one hundred and forty-one millions of miles away, is

fiery Mars, red like the eye of war, and half the size of our globe. Farther out, four hundred and eighty-three millions of miles, is great Jupiter with his satellites, three hundred and eighteen times larger than our world. Beyond is Saturn, ninety-five times larger than the earth, and swimming eight hundred and eighty-six millions of miles from the sun. Then comes Uranus, fifteen times greater than our earth, and lying one billion seven hundred and eighty-one millions of miles from its solar center. Finally swimming far out on the frontier of our solar system, more than two billion seven hundred millions of miles from the sun, is Neptune, seventeen times larger than our earth.

Starting at the sun as a station, it would take an express train, running at the rate of thirty-five and a half miles an hour, 108 years to reach Mercury, 204 years to get to Venus, 285 years to reach the earth; 426, Mars; 1,450, Jupiter; 2,670, Saturn; 5,400, Uranus and 8,325 years to arrive at Neptune the farthest point in our solar system. But if we send our train on without stopping, to Sirius, the nearest fixed star, it would take it sixty million years to come to that starry depot. But if we sent it on to the last star visible to the naked eye, it would require more than a billion years to reach its destination. Then how long would it take such a train to reach those mystic depths of space which are but dimly hinted at by the most powerful telescope? It would take a telegram, traveling at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, three years to reach the nearest fixed star!

All these worlds, and systems of worlds, and episystems of worlds, must be thought of by God, and

be kept in perpetual and awful balance. Yet He thinks of me! In space, but an atom. On the horizon, but a speck. In possessions, but a pauper. I am not lost in the universal vastness. The great universe does not displace me in the mind and heart of God. He gave his Son to be my Saviour, knows all the hairs of my head, calls me by name, is familiar with all my story, and is unmindful of none of my poverty and needs! The universe is not so big that He overlooks little me.

2. The sweetness of my text is emphasized when we remember the multitude of things which God must think about.

Think of the countless units in God's universe. Up, where stands the burning throne of God on the rim of glory, are innumerous angels that shine like light, seraphs which veil their faces with burnished wings, cherubs whose songs drip with celestial praise, innumerable ranks, and principalities, and powers, and mights and dominions, of the heavenly hostsall fit subjects to attract the thought and delight the heart of God.

Out, above, beyond, around, beneath the throne of God, swimming in the blue amplitudes of space, are countless suns and moons and stars and comets and nebulæ a blazing host which none but He can

even count.

Down here on the earth where we dwell are men of a thousand types and temperaments; an almost infinite variety of fauna and flora; minerals and motes and atoms which no human calculus can express in figures.