THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3250, 28 June 1916, Page 62

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR

No. 143

By Duncan Wiught, Dunedin

PSALMS AND HYMNS

" Make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms." —Psalm xcv, 2. "Speak to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.—Ephesians v, 19. "In all wisdom teach and admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. —Colossians iii, 16. "Is one of you suffering? _ Let him pray. Is anyone in good spirits? Let him sing a psalm.'' —James v, 13. Let mo hero note that when I looked up this subject of "Psalms and hymns" I was amazed to find such a superabundance of material for this week's Garland, and, if needed, for many a week to follow. To-day I am quoting from "The Treasury of David," by Mr Spurgeon ; from Dr John Ker, of Glasgow; from a charming little book entitled " The Psalms in Human Life," by Rowland E. Prothero; and from Miss jane T. Stoddart's book entitled "The Old Testament in Life and Literature."

" Above the couch of David, according to Rabbinical tradition, there a harp. The midnight breeze as it rippled over the strings made such music that the poet-king was constrained to rise from his bed, and, till the dawn flushed the eastern skies, he wedded words to the strains.

"The poetry of that tradition is condensed in the" saying that the Book of Psalms contains the whole music of the heart of man, swept by the hand of the Maker. In it are gathered the lyrical burst of his tenderness, the moan of his penitence, the pathos of his sorrow, the triumph of his victory, the despair of his defeat, the firmness of his confidence, and the rapture of his assured hope." " In the Psalms is painted for all time, in fresh, unfading colours, the picture of the moral welfare of man, often baffled, yet never wholly defeated, struggling upwards to all that is best and highest in his nature, always aware how short of the aim falls the attempt, how great is the gulf that severs the wish from its fulfilment."

If any reader of the Otago Witness is in doubt as to th 9 use and influence of the Psalms, please remember that in the early dawning of Christianity they were a truly potent power; the same remark applies to tie Middle Ages and the Reformation period. The Huguenots Were strengthened in the struggles by the rugged Psalms; so were the Puritans and the Scottish Covenanters of hallowed memory. Tho Psalms changed the character of the romance of religion, and the lives of illustrious leaders like Baxter, Law, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Wilberforce, Keble* Manning, NeAvman, Thomas Arnold, Neander, Kingsley, Stanley, Chalmers, Irving. Men of science like Lock, Humboldt, Sir William Hamilton, Sir James Simpson, Romanes; in literature —Addison, Cowper, Boswell, Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, the Brownings, Ruskin, Carlyle, and. an illustrious host of men and women who helped to mould and shape the world.

The Psalms need no defence, and the malicious sneers by ill-bred and illinformed men are utterly unworthy of notice.

Sir Walter Scott loved the round of psalmody. Ha fixed his bowling green at Abbotsford near the abode of his conchman, Peter Mathieson. " I must not forget," said Lockhart, "the reason he gave me sometime afterwards for having fixed upon that spot for his bowling green. jln truth,' he then said, 'I wished to have a smooth walk and a canny sent for myself within earshot of Peter's evening Psalm.' He loved to hear Peter Mathieson and his familv at worship."

John Bright said : " What poets there old Hebrews were!" "The Jews had conquered the world," was Thomas Binney's prelude to a grand eulogy of the Psalms. This book has been well described as the heart of the Bible. "In the Psalms," said Luther, " we look into the heart, of all the saints, and we seem to gaze into fair pleasure gardens—into heaven itself indeed, —where bloom the sweet, refreshing, gladdening flowers of holy and happy thoughts about God and all His benefits."

James Gilmour, of Mongolia, wrote: " When Ifo I cannot malie headway in devotion I opsn at the Psalms and push in my canoe and let myself be carried along in the stream of devotion which flows through the whole Book. The current always sets towards God, and in mo t places is strong and deep.

Amid the droughts of Estremadura, the Emperor Charles V sang Psalms on sleepless nights with the gentlemen of his chamber. George Ellinger tells how Melanchthon's students made notes with reverent en re from the lectures on the Psalms which belong to the Preceptor's closing years." .

" The music of the Psalm-river mingles with the flowing of the Thames. S. T. Coleridge - testified that after having studied every page of the Bible with the deepest attention, he had found no other part of Scripture come homo so closely to his inmost yearnings and necessities. During his later years he read some verses of the Psalms every evening. He would have approved the practice of Archbishop Temple's mother, who read the Psalms and lessons for every day with her children."

LEST WE FORGET

let mo iemind you of one incident in the life of one of God's heroes. When Dr Brydon arrived at Jellalabad announcing the total destruction of a British army, a gloom fell on the hearts of the whole garrison. On the Sunday after Dr Brydon had arrived the whole force assembled for divine service in one of the open squares of the Bala Hissar, and Havelock, standing up in the midst of men and officers, read the church service, only substituting for the psalms of the day the 46th Psalm : God is our refuge and our strength, In straits a present aid; Therefore although the earth remove Wo will not be afraid. And as that band of heroes raised their voices to heaven, with the supplication, God is our refuge and strength, there arose in their minds a sublime feeling of dependence on the God of battles, a noble spirit of self-devotion, and a stern determination to defend the battlements around to the last extremity. When the Huguenots and the Covenanters of Scotland were in trouble, they, too, used to sing the 46th Psalm. PSALM 124. Now Israel may say, and that truly, If that the Lord had not our cause maintained; If that the Lord had not our right sustained, When cruel men against us fur:ously_

Eoso up hi wrath, to make of us their prey. This second version of the Psalm, with its bold marching melody, is known in Scotland as Durie's Psalm. James Melville, in his own quaint way, gives in his diary, date 1582, the origin' of the name. -John Durie had been banished from his pulpit and from Edinburgh for his boldness of sneech in critising some of the high-handed acts of James VI; but the feeling in his favour was so strong that the sentence had to be reversed. We quote James Melville's own words: " Within few days after the petition of the nobility, John Durie gat leave to ga haim to his own flock of Edinburgh; at whase returning there w r ar, a great concours of the haill toun, wha met him at the Nether Bow; and going up the street, wi' bare heads and loud voices, they sang to the praise of God, and testifying of great joy and consolation, Psalm 124, till heaven and earth resoundit. This noise, when the Duke (of Lennox), being in the townj heard, and ludging in the Hiegate looked out and. saw, he rave his beard for anger, and hasted him off the toun."

MONICA.

Who, that cares for 'such things, can forget the beautiful story of Monica and her illustrious son Augustine, who became saint, bishop, and theologian? The mother's patient perseverance, courage, and prayer for her son have comforted thousands of mothers in all ages of the world's history.

On Easter Sunday, 387, Augustine had been baptised by Ambrose at Milan. In the summer he .set out to return to Africa with Monica. To the mother it seemed that the purpose of her life was achieved, now that she had seen her one longing gratified and her son baptised a Christian. Five or six days later, while they were still waiting to embark, Monica was struck down by fever, and died in the fifty-sixth year of her ago. It was in the psalms that Augustine found comfort in his sorrow. When the first gush of weeping was over, his friend, Euodious, took up the Psalter, and began to sing, the whole household joining with him, Psalm 101: I mercy will and judgment sing, Lord, I will sing to thee. "With wisdom in a perfect way Shall my behaviour be. 0 when, in kindness unto me, Wilt thou be pleas'cl to come? 1 with a perfect heart will walk Within my house at home.

St. Augustine, in his "Confessions,' wrote :

"Oh! for Thy mercies' sake, tell me, 0 Lord my Cod, what Thou art to me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. So speak, that I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart is before Thee; open Thou the ears thereof, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. After this voice let me haste and take hold of Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let mo die—lest I die—onlv let me see Thy face."

So far as psalms and hymns are concerned. I must meanwhile reluctantly leave off just as I am touching the fringe of an entrancing theme.