which he ascribed, and most rightly, to the inspiration of God.

But it is not merely as his physical inspirer or protector that he
has faith in God. He has a deeper, a far deeper instinct than even
that; the instinct of a communion, personal, practical, living,
between God, the fount of light and goodness, and his own soul, with
its capacity of darkness as well as light, of evil as well as good.

In one word, David is a man of faith and a man of prayer--as God
grant all you may be. It is this one fixed idea, that God could
hear him, and that God would help him, which gives unity and
coherence to the wonderful variety of David's Psalms. It is this
faith which gives calm confidence to his views of nature and of man;
and enables him to say, as he looks upon his sheep feeding round
him, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore I shall not want.' Faith
it is which enables him to foresee that though the heathen rage, and
the kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel
together against the Lord and his Anointed, yet the righteous cause
will surely prevail, for God is king himself. Faith it is which
enables him to bear up against the general immorality, and while he
cries, 'Help me, Lord, for there is not one godly man left, for the
faithful fail from among the children of men'--to make answer to
himself in words of noble hope and consolation, 'Now for the
comfortless troubles' sake of the needy, and because of the deep
sighing of the poor, I will up, saith the Lord, and will help every
one from him that swelleth against him, and will set him at rest.'

Faith it is which gives a character, which no other like utterances
have, to those cries of agony--cries as of a lost child--which he
utters at times with such noble and truthful simplicity. They