despair the discovery of a more deep, radical inbred evil in himself
than he ever expected before. 'Behold, I was shapen in wickedness:
and in sin hath my mother conceived me;' because he could say also,
'Thou requirest truth in the inward parts; and shalt make me to
understand wisdom secretly.' He can cry to God, out of the depths
of his foulness, 'Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right
spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence: and take not
thy holy Spirit from me. O give me the comfort of thy help again:
and stablish me with thy free Spirit. Then shall I teach thy ways
unto the wicked: and sinners shall be converted unto thee.' He can
cry thus, because he has discovered that the will of God is not to
hate, not to torture, not to cast away from his presence, but to
restore his creatures to goodness, that he may thereby restore them
to usefulness. David has discovered that God demands no sacrifice,
much less self-torturing penance. What he demands is the heart.
The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit. A broken and a contrite
heart he will not despise. It is such utterances as these which
have given, for now many hundred years, their priceless value to the
little book of Psalms ascribed to the shepherd outlaw of the Judaean
hills. It is such utterances as these which have sent the sound of
his name into all lands, and his words throughout all the world.
Every form of human sorrow, doubt, struggle, error, sin; the nun
agonising in the cloister; the settler struggling for his life in
Transatlantic forests; the pauper shivering over the embers in his
hovel, and waiting for kind death; the man of business striving to
keep his honour pure amid the temptations of commerce; the prodigal
son starving in the far country, and recollecting the words which he
learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boy trudging a-
field in the chill dawn, and remembering that the Lord is his
shepherd, therefore he will not want--all shapes of humanity have