thoughts about himself, and receive the truths of religion as objective to
him, taking the knowledge of God's pardon and peace as freely as he takes
the sunshine of heaven, the calm of earth in summer, and the cool, strong
winds from off the hills. To those old founders of our faith, religion was
never man's feelings about religion: it was the love of God. God was not
man's thoughts about God, but God Himself in His wonderful grace and truth,
objective to our hearts. Therefore those ancient saints moved to the Spirit
as the tree rustles to the wind, and as in summer she is green and glad in
the sunshine that bathes her, so they rejoiced in the Lord, and in His
goodness. _I will give thanks, for_ THOU _hast done it_.

But this getting out of self does not only bring a man into the open air,
and to gladness in a God who worketh for him. It gives him the company of
all good and noble men. I _will wait on Thy name, for it is good, in the
presence of Thy saints_. What a fellowship faith and unselfishness make a
man aware of!

* * * * *

Let us turn back for a moment to the man, to whose close character this
open air is offered as a contrast. Is it really difficult for us to
imagine him? There is not one of us who has not tried this kind of thing
again and again,--and has succeeded in it with far less substance than the
great man had to come and go upon. He trusted in the abundance of his
riches: he lost God for the multitude of his temptations. But for us there
is no such excuse. There has been no pleasure too sordid, no comfort too
selfish, no profit too mean, no honour too cheap and vulgar, but we have
sometimes preferred it, in seeking for happiness, to the infinite and
everlasting mercy of our God. We may not be big men, and deserve to have
psalms written about us; but in our own little ways we exult in our