think. The darkened vision indicated the approach of death, and against this he prays, “Lest I sleep the sleep of death.” Literally, lest I sleep the death that is in death. Death is often compared to sleep. In many respects there is a resemblance between the two states. The ancients regarded it as an eternal sleep. We only as temporary sleep-they as the eternal sleep of the whole man—we only as the temporary sleep of the human body. “Lest mine enemies say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.' If David is speaking merely in his own person, this sounds very much like the language of pride. He is afraid of being beaten. Surely this is unworthy of him. But he may be regarded as speaking in his relation to that divine cause with which as a theocratic king he was connected. He deprecated any injury to that holy cause.

"But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation." "And I in thy mercy have trusted; let my heart exult in thy salvation." The word "salvation" does not mean the salvation of the soul, but temporal deliverance from his sufferings. “I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.” Some render this, "Let me sing to Jehovah, because he hath dealt lovingly with me." These two last verses contain three states of mind in which there seems to be a gradation. (1.) Trust in the Divine mercy. "I have trusted in thy mercy." (2.) A desire for a joyous deliverance. Let me "rejoice in thy salvation." (3.) A determination to celebrate the praises of Jehovah. "I will sing unto Jehovah." The Septuagint has an additional clause which is retained in the Prayer Book version, and thus rendered: Yea, I will praise the name of the Lord most Highest. The words are not found in any Hebrew manuscript.

ARGUMENT.—This psalm consists of a complaint, verses 2, 3 (1, 2), a prayer for deliverance, verses 4, 5 (3, 4), and an expression of strong confidence that God will grant it, verse 6 (5, 6).— (Alexander.)

HOMILETICS.-Homiletically the whole psalm may be regarded as illustrating the relative changes of the immutable God.

TOLY SCRIPTURE frequently represents the great In God as immutable and yet changing. Job says, " He

is in one mind." James, that "with him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." And He Himself declares, "I am the Lord, I change not." In other places He is represented as changing, turning, repenting, passing

from anger to love, and from love to anger. There is no contradiction in this. He is really in Himself immutable, but phenomenally, that is, as He appears to the human soul, ever changing. He is different to different men. To one man He is arbitrary power, ruthless tyranny, all-consuming vengeance. To another He is power directed by wisdom, authority guided by righteousness, and love, the primordial spring of all. To one He is a Draco, to another a Father. Nor does He appear different merely to different men, but appears different to the same man at different times. The soul filled with conviction for sin, sees Him as an insulted sovereign; the soul atoned to Him by holy love, sees Him as a Father, and rejoices in his presence. "With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt show thyself upright; with the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward." The Psalm will farther illustrate this.

I. HERE WE HAVE THE SOUL THROUGH ITS TROUBLE BEHOLDING HIM AS AN OBJECT OF BITTER COMPLAINT. David, as we have seen, was in sore distress. His enemy, he felt, was about triumphing over him, and through his suffering he was about sinking into this sleep of death. He was afflicted in estate, body, mind, and heart. And looking at God through his troubled soul, He appeared to him—

First: As forgetful. "How long wilt thou forget me ?" David's reason must have told him that the ascription of forgetfulness to God was absurd in the last degree. Omniscience sees all things, and no time, no event, can strike the minutest atom from its vision. All things stand ever naked to that EYE. But to David's mind He seemed to be a forgetful God. He felt in his distress that he had forgotten that he was, where he was, and how he was. Looking at God through his troubled soul, He appeared to him—

Secondly: As unkind. "How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?" In Scripture figure the showing of the face indicates favour and friendship-the turning it away,

aversion and displeasure. David's reason would have told him that God was infinite love, and that infinite love could never be unkind. But he looked at his Maker not through his reason, but through his sufferings, and looking thus he appeared unkind. Looking at God through his troubled soul, he appeared to him—

:

Thirdly As utterly neglectful. "How long, how long, how long, how long." Thus no less than four times does he utter these words, as if he felt that his God was utterly careless of him. As if he cared nothing about his mental perplexities, the cruelty of his enemies, and the sufferings of his dying body. Phenomenally such was David's God to him now. How terrible to the soul is such a God as this! How absurd and how impious it is for men to proclaim those views of God which they get through their own troubled and disordered souls as truths to be preached to the race.

II. HERE WE HAVE THE SOUL THROUGH ITS PRAYER

BEHOLDING HIM AS AN OBJECT OF EXULTANT PRAISE.

David in the midst of his hear me, O Lord my God: the sleep of death," &c. As he prays, the clouds that darkened his soul break into sunshine-the notion that his Maker was forgetful, unkind, and indifferent, passes away as unhealthy mists, and God appears to him as He really is, as an object of boundless trust and exultant praise. "I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me." Thus David, who begins this short Psalm with the distressing moan of sadness, closes it with a jubilant hymn of praise. What has wrought the change? Prayer. Prayer changes the night of the soul into morning, the discords of the soul into music, its dark and chilly November into a sunny and life-giving May.

troubles prays, "Consider and lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep

CONCLUSION. On the whole, three lessons may be learned. First: The power of external circumstances to disturb the soul. Whoever the enemies of David were at this time,

they had sufficient force to throw his whole soul into poignan distress. Whilst man need not be the creature of circumstances, it is impossible for him not to feel their influence. Physical suffering, social bereavements, frustrated plans, secular losses—these must ever affect the spirit even of the strongest and the best of men. Though the gallant ship may have a propelling force and a nautical skill on board to enable her to cleave her way against the strongest headwinds and the mightiest billows towards her destined port, still she cannot fail to quiver and to plunge amid the fury of the elements. And though the human soul is invested by its Maker with a force and a skill to enable it to control external circumstances and to subordinate the most hostile to its own purpose, it cannot fail to be affected by them, and often stirred to the very centre of its being.

Secondly: The rapid changes which occur in the mood of the soul. How swiftly David seemed to pass from the dark to light. He begins the Psalm in gloom, he ends it in sunshine. The soul, like external nature, has its seasons, but its alternations are far more rapid. It can pass from winter to summer in a bound; spring with a thought from the lowest to the highest temperature. Peter in one hour says, "Though all men deny thee, yet will I never deny thee." The next hour finds him an impious recreant. One single thought can bear the soul as on the pinions of an angel into sunny realms, and the next like a millstone can drag it into nether deeps. The rapid changes to which these natures of ours are subject should urge us to make God our centre and our stay. "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe."

Thirdly: The influence of prayer to elevate the soul. Prayer brought David into true ideas of God, and joyous feelings towards Him. With the hand of prayer Israel's afflicted monarch now disrobed the Eternal of all that was dark and terrible in aspect, and invested Him with the attributes of paternal tenderness and love. Prayer is the power that changes the whole horizon of the soul, sweeps away the nocturnal clouds, and brings out the bright stars of God.

A Homiletic Glance at the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians.

The student is requested to keep in mind the following things, which will throw much light upon the Epistle. First: The circumstances of the writer when he wrote. He was a prisoner in Rome. During his residence there, in "his own hired house" (Acts xxviii. 30, 31), from the spring A.D. 61 to 63, he wrote the Epistles to the Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, and to the Ephesians. It is generally supposed that this Epistle to the Ephesians was the first he wrote during his imprisonment. Secondly: The circumstances of the persons addressed. They lived, it is thought, in Ephesus, an illustrious city in the district of Iona, nearly opposite the island of Samos, and about the middle of the western coast of the peninsula commonly called Asia Minor. It had attained in Paul's day such a distinction as in popular estimation to be identified with the whole of the Roman province of Asia. It was the centre of the worship of the great goddess Diana. Paul resided here on two different occasions. The first, A.D. 54, for a very short period (Acts xviii. 19-21); the second, for a period of more than two years. The persons therefore addressed in this letter are those whom he had converted from paganism, and in whom he felt all the interest of a spiritual father. Thirdly: The purpose of the letter. The aim of the Epistle seems to be to set forth the origin and development of the Church of Christ, and to impress those Ephesian Christians, who lived under the shadow of the great temple of Diana, with the unity and beauty of a temple transcendently more glorious. For the minute critical exegesis of this apostolic encyclical, we direct our readers to the commentaries of Alford, Webster and Wilkinson, Jowett, Harless, Stier, Eadie, Hodge, and, last though not least, Ellicott. Our aim will be to draw out, classify, and set in homiletic order, the Divine ideas reached by the critical aid of such distinguished scholars.

SUBJECT: Exultant Praise.

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."-Ephes. iii. 20, 21.

ANNOTATIONS." Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think." There are two forms of expression here-Tŵ VπEP παντα ποιῆσαι δυναμένω: to him that is able to do beyond all things, or, more than all things. What higher thing could be said of the Eternal? But the apostle strives to say something more than this, and he adds, ὑπερ ἐκπερισσοῦ ὧν αἰτουμερα ἤ νοοῦμεν, exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. Ellicott renders it, "above and beyond what we ask or think.” “Ask or think!” We can ask a deal, but we can imagine more. Thought can take a wider range than prayer.

"According to the power that worketh in us." Kaта тǹν dúvaμiv тǹv éveрyovμévŋv èv ňμîv. The in-working power is that of the in-dwelling spirit. (Rom. viii. 20.) The measure of the Divine capacity to help us is only limited by the desires that the in-dwelling spirit generates in us.

"The glory" ( dóga).

The glory of a being

This either means his praise or his perfection. consists in the perfection of his character; the