we see light_.

The Psalmist's analysis of sin has been spoiled in translation. Take our
Old Version, or the Revised one, and you will find no meaning in the first
two verses, but take the rendering offered on the margin by the Revisers
(and approved by most scholars), and you get a meaning intelligible,
profound, and true to experience:

_Oracle of sin hath the wicked in the
midst of his heart;
There is no fear of God before his eyes_.

The word _oracle_ means probably secret whisper, but is elsewhere used
(except in one case) of God's word to His prophets. It is the instrument
of revelation. The wicked man has in him something comparable to this. Sin
seems as mysterious and as imperative as God's own voice to the heart of
His servants. And to counteract this there is no awe of God Himself.
Temptation in all its mystery, and with no religious awe to meet it--such
is the beginning of sin.

The second verse is also obscure. It seems to describe the terrible power
which sin has of making men believe that though they continue to do evil
they may still keep their conscience. The verse translates most readily,
though not without some doubt:

_For it flatters him, in his eyes,
That he will discover his guilt--that he will hate it_.

While sin takes from a man his healthy taste for what is good, and his
power to loathe evil, it deludes him with the fancy that he still enjoys