than guidance: we need grace.'

This is probably what the Psalmist himself felt when he did not close with
the fourth verse, otherwise so natural a climax. He knew that weariness
and death are not the last enemies of man. He knew that the future is
never the true man's only fear. He remembered the inexorableness of the
past; he remembered that blood-guiltiness, which sheep never feel, is
worse to men than death. As perchance one day he lifted his eyes from his
sheep and saw a fugitive from the avenger of blood crossing the plain,
while his sheep scattered right and left before this wild intruder into
their quiet world,--so he felt his fair and gentle thoughts within him
scattered by the visitation of his past; so he felt how rudely law breaks
through our pious fancies, and must be dealt with before their peace can
be secure; so he felt, as every true man has felt with him, that the
religion, however bright and brave, which takes no account of sin, is the
religion which has not a last nor a highest word for life.

Consider this system of blood revenge. It was the one element of law in
the lawless life of the desert. Everything else in the wilderness might
swerve and stray. This alone persisted and was infallible. It crossed the
world; it lasted through generations. The fear of it never died down in
the heart of the hunted man, nor the duty of it in the heart of the
hunter. The holiest sanctions confirmed it,--the safety of society, the
honour of the family, love for the dead. And yet, from this endless
process, which hunted a man like conscience, a shelter was found in the
custom of Eastern hospitality--the 'golden piety of the wilderness,' as it
has been called. Every wanderer, whatever his character or his past might
be, was received as the; 'guest of God'--such is the beautiful name which
they still give him,--furnished with food, and kept inviolate, his host
becoming responsible for his safety.