may be felt to be afoot.

Now to a pure heart and a hungry heart this is always what a mountain view
effects. 'A hill-top,' says a recent writer, 'is a moral as well as a
physical elevation.' He is right, or men would not have worshipped on
hill-tops, nor high places have become synonymous with sacred ones. Whether
we climb them or gaze at them, the mountains produce in us that mingling of
moral and physical emotion in which the temper of true worship consists.
They seclude us from trifles, and give the mind the fellowship of
greatness. They inspire patience and peace; they speak of faithfulness and
guardianship. But chiefly the mountains are sacraments of hope. That high,
steadfast line--how it raises the spirits, and lifts the heart from care;
how early it signals the day, how near it brings heaven! To men of old its
margin excited thoughts of an enchanted world beyond; its clear step
between heaven and earth made easy the imagination of God descending among
men.

So it is here. At the sight of the hills our Psalmist's hope--instead of
lying asleep in confidence of a help too far away to be vivid, or dying of
starvation because that help is so long of coming--leaps to her feet, all
watch and welcome for an instant arrival. _Whence cometh my help? My help
cometh from the Lord, that made heaven and earth_. This is not fancy; it is
an attitude of real life. This is not a poet with a happy phrase for his
idea: it is a sentry at his difficult post, challenging the signal, and
welcoming the arrival, of that help which makes all the difference to life.

But we may widen the application of the Psalmist's words far beyond the
hills. This is a big thing to which he lifts his eyes to feed his hope. God
is unseen; so he betakes himself to the biggest thing he can see. And
therein is a lesson which we need all across our life. For it is just