Lord, and to be of good courage' in the Lord, that so his heart may be strengthened. Beloved, let us learn the lesson here, let us be of good courage,' and most surely He shall strengthen our hearts.

Lastly, 'wait,' I say, 'on the Lord;' wait on Him, and you will never be ashamed. My prayer for you, beloved friends, is this, that so waiting on the Lord you may 'renew your strength, may mount up with wings as eagles, may run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.'

I'm kneeling at the threshold, weary, faint, and sore;

I'm waiting for the dawning, for the opening of the door;
I'm waiting till the Master shall bid me rise and come
To the glory of His presence, the gladness of His home.

A weary path I've travelled, 'mid darkness, storm, and strife,
Bearing many a burden, contending for my life;

But now the morn is breaking, my toil will soon be o'er,
I'm kneeling at the threshold, my hand is at the door.

Methinks I hear the voices of the blessed as they stand
Sweet singing in the sunshine of the unclouded land:
O would that I were with them amid the shining throng,
Uniting in their worship, rejoicing in their song!

The friends that started with me have entered long ago;
Ah, one by one they left me to struggle with the foe;
Their pilgrimage was shorter, their triumph sooner won;
How lovingly they'll hail me when my work too is done!
With them, the blessed angels, that know no grief or sin,
I see them at the portals, prepared to let me in;
O Lord, I wait Thy pleasure, Thy time and way are best;
But I'm wasted, worn, and weary; my Father, bid me rest !
W. L. ALEXANDER, D.D.

PSALM XXVIII.

THE SILENCE OF GOD.

'Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

'Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto Thee, when I lift up my hands toward Thy holy oracle.

'Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.

'Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.

'Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them, and not build them up.

'Blessed be the Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my supplications.

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise Him.

The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving strength of His anointed.

'Save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up for ever.'

THE keynote of this Psalm is the silence of Jehovah. In one respect this silence should be regarded as something with which we must not and cannot interfere. God is pleased to reveal Himself to man, and he must be satisfied with both the nature and amount of that revelation as He has given it, remembering always that 'the secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever.' Everything connected with Himself and His doings is wonderful and mysterious. Job asks, 'Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?' Well may we exclaim with St. Paul, 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!'

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But the silence in the Psalm before us is quite different from that mysterious silence in which the being of the Infinite One must of necessity be enveloped. When a man is first turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, he walks up and down in the Lord,' as one has quaintly said, 'in the enjoyment of constant communion with Him and of a sweet and blessed interchange of thought and feeling between Him who has stooped from His mighty throne to do such marvellous

things for the poor lost child, and that child himself, once lost, now found.' Here, then, in this Psalm is one who is realising for a time the silence of the Lord, and who longs to have that silence broken. He says, 'Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent unto me!' Oh, what an unfolding of deep heart-experience is here, beloved friends! Where could we find a word that more thoroughly sets forth the truth of that which every child of God must have felt and known in his own experience than this, 'Be not silent to me!' Child of God, have you not known it, when sometimes the heavens over you have seemed like brass? You have looked, it may be, upon the pages of your Bibles, and read the words there, and yet there has been no word for you, until at length, in the deep anguish of that silence, you have cried as David did here, 'Be not silent to me.'

There was one, of whom we read in the New Testament history, whose experience this forcibly recalls. The Syro-Phoenician woman came and cried to our Lord, 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David: my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.' And Jesus answered her not a word.' Had His silence the effect of discouraging the poor suppliant? Quite the reverse. She came and worshipped Him, saying, 'Lord, help me!' From this point her case may seem to differ from that of David in this Psalm, and from that of many of the Lord's people. The Lord often delays to answer our prayers, and that in order to bring us before Him more and more with the earnest and heartfelt cry, 'Be not silent unto me.' In the case of this woman, He did there and then break His silence; but how? It is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs.' And this answer, which seemed at first to repel her from His feet, only drew her nearer to Him, in the exercise of humble yet heroic faith: Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.'

This special trial is not ours, dear friends; but still we have need to be proved and chastened by the silence of God, until we are driven to cry out, 'Be not silent to me, lest if Thou be silent to me (or be hushed still) I become like them that go down into the pit.'

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Verse 2, Hear the voice of my supplications, when cry unto Thee, when I lift up my hands toward Thy holy oracle.' You will see, by referring to 1 Kings vi. 16 and Numbers vii. 89, that the oracle is the holy place, that is, the meeting-place which God Himself had appointed. So David says, Lord, be not silent to me,' 'I will continue to cry unto Thee. Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto Thee, when I lift my hands toward Thy holy oracle.'

In verses 3 and 4 we find the reason for the Psalmist's extreme anxiety that the silence should be broken between God and himself: Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity; which speak peace to their neighbours, and mischief is in their hearts.' David had cause indeed, from his own personal experience of the exceeding bitterness of sin, to be filled with fear, lest, if the silence of God towards him were continued, he might haply be drawn aside again with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity,-with those who shall be rewarded according to their deserts, and to whom it shall be given according to their deeds (verse 4), for the Judge of all the earth must do right.

'Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operations of His hands, He shall destroy them, and not build them up;' therefore, says David, I will the more earnestly and continually cry unto the Lord, that He keep not silence toward me, lest I be gathered with them, and turn aside with them. I know well,' he would say, 'that I have deserved nothing but punishment at Thy hand; nevertheless Thy word is true, and Thou art just, and I will meet Thee at the meeting-place which Thou Thy

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self hast appointed.' And then, even in the very midst of the night, the darkness flees away, and he exclaims, (verse 6), 'Blessed be the Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my supplication.' Have we not found it so, beloved? At times when the heart has reached the utmost depth of sorrow, out of which it cries 'Be not silent to me,' 'Lord, help me,' then, suddenly, the silence has been broken; that blessed voice is heard, and the blessing flows into our hearts, and we cry out, 'Blessed be the Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my supplication.' You observe, it is not that God has heard his prayer merely, but his supplication, — that intense earnestness of desire for one ray of light, of joy, of hope, and that He has heard and so he bursts forth, 'Blessed be the Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my supplication.'

That 'voice,' beloved friends, is not always what one would desire it to be. There is great variety in such ' voices.' Sometimes it may be the voice of an 'exceeding great and bitter cry,' from one in great agony of soul. Or it may be very feeble, a mere whisper, scarcely to be heard by any ear but God's. Or it may be a very trembling voice, or a very doubting or a very despairing voice. Or it may be a voice of tenderest love, or a voice of strong faith, or of loving childlike confidence. It matters not. If the voice come rising up in its fulness from the depths of His child's heart, then it does not signify what the nature or tone of the voice may be the Father hears it, and sends, out of the fulness of His love, an answer of peace. If it were not so, if it were only when all was right in our hearts that God would hear our voice, if only when our hearts were attuned to His praise, ah! we should have to go mourning all our days in the bitterness of our souls. But, thank God, it is far different. He hath heard the voice of my supplications.

It is interesting to observe here that David evidently