THE CHURCH.

“Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself

being the chief corner-stone."

JULY, 1869.

LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF DAVID.

SECOND SERIES.

BY THE REV. CHARLES VINCE. No. III.—THE Two THINGS WHICH DAVID HAD NEVER SEEN. "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor

his seed begging bread.”—Psalm xxxvii. 25. THERE can be no doubt that many disadvantages and disabilities belong to the period of old age. For many reasons the season of youth is to be greatly preferred. In elasticity of limb, in buoyancy of feeling, in the intensity with which pleasure can be enjoyed, in the faculty of getting great mirth out of very small materials, in the irrepressible energy with which both body and spirit overflow, the young man has & decided advantage over the old one. In the midst of his present infirmities, the old man remembers the time when he too was in the pride of youth and prime of life, and possessed all these glories of an unwasted and unwearied nature; and as he realises that they have passed away from him for ever, so far as earthly experience is concerned, he cannot help a measure of pensiveness stealing over his spirit. But he soon checks his sadness by reminding himself that the goodness of the Creator has left no period of life without its own peculiar pleasures, and hence even old age has its own special advantages and alleviations. He knows that while the course of time has separated him widely from the energy and enthusiasm of youth, it has also enlarged his experience and matured his wisdom. He knows his own heart better than he formerly knew it, and is less likely to commit the folly of an excessive confidence in it. He knows the real nature and worth of things better, and is less likely to be deceived by mere appearances. He knows God better, and therefore with increased force he can testify how safe it is to trust in God, how wise it is to serve Him, and what ever-multiplying reasons there are for loving Him with all the heart and soul and strength. In the most effective of all schools the old man has learned lessons of priceless value, which, apart from the teaching of years and circumstances, he could not have learned. He has the wisdom which

is the offspring of experience, the best wisdom in the world for givin birth to patience and contentment, forbearance and charity. He wait for further light where a young man would rush to hasty conclusion He knows how to do nothing and to say nothing in circumstances whic would tempt a young man to say and to do all manner of rash thing whereby present difficulties would be complicated and work would be provided for future repentance. “Thanks be to God!” he can exclaim, “the great law of compensation which runs through the uni verse prevails in all its beneficent force in these regions of old age. The same irresistible tide which has swept me away from some privileges and powers, has carried me into possession of others. My eye has be come dim and my natural force is abated, but I have treasures which belong to no other period of life. These 'the hand of palsy shall neve touch, and the fire of fever shall never burn.' The outward man de cays, but the inward man is renewed day by day.”

To a generous heart, delighting in doing good, it would be a grea grief if no further service could be rendered. The old man is no doomed to that sadness. For him the change is not from usefulnes to uselessness, but only from one kind of service to another. As it earlier life he rendered effective help by his ardour and vigour an passion for work, so now he can serve by means of his sober counsels ripened wisdom, and rich experience. This was fully exemplified in the history of David. We have seen him serving his generation in cir cumstances wherein the strength and enthusiasm of the young man were necessary; and we have now to listen to him as in this psalm he serves all generations by bearing that emphatic testimony in favour of godliness, which is never so effective as from the lips of an old man. This is not a psalm in which David confesses his own sins, or celebrates his own mercies, or tells the troubles of his own life. It is rich in counsel given by the matured saint to other people. He exhorts them to be patient, and not to fret because wicked people sometimes prosper, and not to think that God cares nothing about the good or the evil of human character, and that godly people have nothing but the shady and wintry side of earthly experience. He entreats them to rest in the Lord, to be faithful and diligent in all well-doing, and to set their hearts on holiness, counting that to be the greatest treasure man can gain or God can give. He assures them that this course must sooner or later prove the only wise and safe course. It may, for a while, lead through darkness and difficulty, but it will finally conduct the persevering pilgrim to peace and joy, to glory and to God. David gives these exhortations and assurances on the strength of his own experience and observation. These were the truths he had learnt during his long and chequered career. “A little that a righteous man. hath is better than the riches of many wicked. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down : for the Lord upholdeth him with Hus hand. I HAVE BEEN YOUNG, AND NOW AM OLD; YET HAVE I NOT SEEN THE RIGHTEOUS FORSAKEN, NOR HIS SEED BEGGING BREAD."

-It must be borne in mind that these words are not a Divine probut a human testimony; not a declaration of God's unchanging universal purpose, but of one man's life-long experience. This prompts the inquiry-Who and what was this man ? Before ex. ing the nature of the testimony, we must look at the character apacity of the witness. He tells us of two things he had never : but had he travelled far and wide, or had he looked round upon i narrow circle ? He declares that he never saw a good man in ual loneliness, or a good man's children in utter temporal destitubut in what scenes and circumstances had he spent his days ? | always consorted with the prosperous and the wealthy, the 3 he saw not may have existed not very far from him, although art was never troubled by the sight of them. There are people hrined in ease and splendour, that they know little or nothing world of want and woe which lies just outside of their charmed ilded circle. That world is none the less real, because easy-going ampered folk live in what they would deem blissful ignorance of Was the psalmist a man after this fashion ? Was he of the num. rho, because they always sleep in the lap of luxury themselves, ! not of poverty and pain endured by others ? The answer is, here never lived a man who, by a wide and diversified experience, etter able than David to speak with authority upon the matter which he here testifies. Supposing ourselves in his presence, we aquire of him as to his fitness for bearing this testimony. From icts of his wondrous history we can imagine what his answer

am king of Israel, and I dwell in a palace of cedar. I have rest all mine enemies round about me. There are thousands of men om my word is law, and of earthly good I have all that wealth urchase, or power procure, or heart can wisely desire. But I Inown other times, and lived in other circumstances. To what ne of human position am I an utter stranger ? To what height wer and prosperity have I not been uplifted ? To what depth of F and difficulty have I not been cast down ? I was a peasant in ehem; I married the king's daughter and became a prince of the · I have been keeper of a handful of sheep in the wilderness, and 3 commanded the hosts of Israel in the field of battle. I have the champion and deliverer of my fatherland, and I have been d as its Offscouring, to be cast out with scorn and violence. I been the idol of the people, eulogised in their songs, greeted their loud acclaim, enveloped in the clouds of their incense; e been falsely denounced both as a traitor and a tyrant, and I been hunted like a partridge upon the mountains. I have drunk ill cup of a conqueror's glory; I have tasted the bitterness of and have barely escaped the martyr's death. I have lived in es; I have had to hide myself in dens and caves of the earth. I had all things richly to enjoy, and I have known what it is to eat Last piece of bread and not be able to tell whence the next moal will come. I have been blessed by Samuel, and cursed by Shimei. have been the companion of crowned kings and inspired prophets ; have been captain of a band of discontented men, with whom debt a difficulty were the chief bond of union. I have been borne to t throne by the enthusiasm of a grateful people; I have been drivi from it by a cruel rebellion, of which my own son was the leade The faithfulness and loving-kindness of my God I have put to th test in all manner of scenes and circumstances! I have tried th worth of godliness always and everywhere. I have tried it in prosperi and in adversity,-in my father's peaceful home, and amongst the u circumcised Philistines, in the time of my greatest popularity, and i the season of my fiercest persecution. I tried it in the noonti of my glory, when not one dark cloud spotted my azure sky, and I one forecast shadow of a coming trouble fell upon my path; I tried in the midnight of my anguish, when my crown was stolen from and my favourite son was the thief,—when the sword was dray against me, and my own son's was the hand that plucked it from t scabbard. I tried it on the top of my delectable mountains, whe the consciousness of grace received, and duty discharged, and sin fo saken, and holiness acquired, gave me rich foretastes of the bliss paradise ; I tried it in the time of my remorse, when the prophet parable awoke my slumbering conscience, when the arrows of convi tion pierced my spirit, and from my breaking heart there went up fl cry which brought back pardon and peace,— Hide Thy face from sins, and blot out all mine iniquities : cast me not away from Thy pr sence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Is there any extreme i human experience which is utterly unknown to me? Who has had life richer than mine in strange and strong contrasts ? Yet in al things and through all things and above all things, I have found that the Lord is mindful of His own. 'I HAVE BEEN YOUNG, AND NOW AV OLD ; YET HAVE I NOT SEEN THE RIGHTEOUS FORSAKEN, NOR HIS SEEN BEGGING BREAD.'"

“ Take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thor standest is holy ground.” It behoves us to bow ourselves before thi aged man, and to receive his testimony with the utmost confidence That which he passes on to us is no crude theory, no empty bubbl blown by mere conjecture. It is solid gold which has been trie again and again in the crucible of life, and has come forth from th fire seven times purified. If David had said, This is how I thin it will be, and how I think it ought to be, we might have bee tempted to reply, Yes! but things are often appallingly different from our notions of what is likely and right. But when he says, This what I have observed during my long and eventful career, then respond, Thy words are weighty, thy testimony is trustworthy. Nem to Divine declarations, we can have nothing more trusty than thi lessons of human experience extending over a vast and varied rang of events. History is man's best book of prophecy. That which been, why should it not be repeated ? Man's necessities and Grou

ire are the same. He who bas hitherto cared for the righteous, kept their children from destitution, is He not the Father of its, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning ? he fact of David's eminent fitness to bear witness on this matter inds us of one great feature of the Bible. The message is always by the right messenger. In every case the words spoken gather tional force and value from the circumstances or character of the by whom they were spoken. Words about the freeness and fulof pardon would have been quite as true but they would have less weighty if they had been spoken by those who showed no sense of the greatness of man's guilt. Isaiah and Micah make ous declarations concerning the riches of Divine forgiveness, and 'assurances are all the more encouraging to the penitent because of them paint most appalling pictures of human depravity and ement. The apostle Paul says that earthly afflictions are light and entary, and that heavenly bliss is an exceeding and eternal weight lory. This estimate of the sorrows and troubles of the present vould have been scorned and repudiated by woe-stricken people had been put forth by a man who personally knew little of afflic

What force there is in the apostle's words to those who rememthat he who talked thus of burdens being light and lasting only

moment, did himself endure enough to make a man a martyr times over! The human element in the Bible neither dims the htness nor impairs the power of the Divine element. On the con1, God in His thoughtful love and careful compassion chose such nels for the transmission of the waters of life, that to us men are all the more sweet and refreshing because of the particular an courses along which they flow. :-From the capacity of the witness we now turn to see the meaning s testimony. The first part of it is not difficult to understand or to ve. “I HAVE NOT SEEN THE RIGHTEOUS FORSAKEN.” David did say he had never seen a good man in straits and difficulties. His iness had not kept him free from them. He had seen the righteous ily burdened, but he had never seen him left to carry his woe out sympathy or succour from his God. He did not say that he never seen a good man in sorrow and darkness. In the days of reatest vigour and purity, his goodness had not sheltered him such things. Death had come into his house, and he had laid oved ones in the grave. He had been almost wrecked on trouble's ny sea, and had cried out to God, “ All Thy waves and Thy billows

gone over me.” But he affirmed that in his greatest extremities od man can say, “ The Lord of hosts is with me, the God of Jacob is efuge. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Il fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they ort me.” David had seen the good man forsaken by his fellow, but even then he could say, “I am not alone.” He had seen the teous when his own flesh and blood turned against him, and when, ugh the power of popular clamour, even parental love had been