And I will wait on Thy name--for
'tis good--
In face of Thy saints_.


The character who is challenged is easily made out, and we may recognize
how natural he is and how near to ourselves.

In the first verse he is called by a name expressing unusual strength or
influence--a mighty man, _a hero_. The term may be used ironically, like
our 'big fellow', 'big man.' But, whether this is irony or not, the man's
bigness had material solidity. He was _rooted in the land of the living,_
he _had abundance of riches._ Riches are no sin in themselves, as the
exaggerated language of some people of the present day would lead us to
imagine. Rich men are not always sent to hell, nor poor men always to
heaven. As St. Augustine remarks with his usual cleverness: 'It was not
his poverty but his piety which sent Lazarus in the parable to heaven, and
when he got there, he found a rich man's bosom to rest in!' Riches are no
sin in themselves, but, like all forms of strength, a very great and
dangerous temptation. This man had yielded. Prosperity was so unchanging
with him that he had come to trust it, and did not feel the need of
trusting anything else. He was strong enough to stand alone: so strong
that he tried to stand without God. If he was like many self-centred men
of our own time he probably did not admit this. But it is not profession
which reveals where a man puts his trust. It is the practice and discipline
of life, betraying us by a hundred commonplace ways, in spite of all the
orthodoxy we boast. It is sorrow and duty and the call to self-denial. When
this man's feelings got low, when he was visited by touches of
melancholy--those chills sent forward from the grave to every mortal
travelling thither,--when conscience made him weak and fearful, then _he