the great musical work which has these very words for its theme. It
begins with the call, 'All that hath life and breath, praise ye the
Lord,' and although the gladness saddens into the plaintive cry of a
soul sick with hope deferred, 'Will the night soon pass?' yet, ere the
close, all discords are reconciled, and at last, with assurance firmer
for the experience of passing sorrows, loud as the voice of many waters
and sweet as harpers harping with their harps, the joyful invocation
peals forth again, and all ends, as it does in a Christian man's life,
and as it does in this book, with 'Praise ye the Lord.'

III. We have here also a twofold prophecy of the perfection of Heaven.

Whilst it is true that both of these purposes are accomplished here and
now, it is also true that their accomplishment is but partial, and that
therefore for their fulfilment we have to lift our eyes beyond this
world of imperfect faith, of incomplete blessedness, of interrupted
praise. Whether the Psalmist looked forward thus we do not know. But for
us, the very shortcomings of our joys and of our songs are prophetic of
the perfect and perpetual rapture of the one, and the perfect and
perpetual music of the other. We know that He who has given us so much
will not stay His hand until He has perfected that which concerns us. We
know that He who has taught our dumb hearts to magnify His name will not
cease till 'out of the lips of babes and sucklings, He has perfected
praise.' We know that the pilgrims in whose hearts are the ways are
blessed, and we are sure that a fuller blessedness must belong to those
who have reached the journey's end.

And so these words give us a twofold aspect of that future on which our
longing hopes may well fix.