that love Thy Name ... the righteous.'

I. So, then, the first thought here is that the foundation of all is
trust.

Now, the word that is employed here is very significant. In its literal
force it really means to 'flee to a refuge.' And that the literal
signification has not altogether been lost in the spiritual and
metaphorical use of it, as a term expressive of religious experience, is
quite plain from many of the cases in which it occurs. Let me just
repeat one of them to you. 'Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful to
me, for my soul trusteth in Thee; yea, in the shadow of Thy wings will I
make my refuge.' There the picture that is in the words is distinctly
before the Psalmist's mind, and he is thinking not only of the act of
mind and heart by which he casts himself in confidence upon God, but
upon that which represents it in symbol, the act by which a man flees
into some hiding-place. The psalm is said in the superscription to have
been written when David hid in a cave from his persecutor. Though no
weight be given to that statement, it suggests the impression made by
the psalm. In imagination we can see the rough sides of the cavern that
sheltered him arching over the fugitive, like the wings of some great
bird, and just as he has fled thither with eager feet and is safely
hidden from his pursuers there, so he has betaken himself to the
everlasting Rock, in the cleft of which he is at rest and secure. To
trust in God is neither more nor less than to flee to Him for refuge,
and there to be at peace. The same presence of the original metaphor,
colouring the same religious thought, is found in the beautiful words
with which Boaz welcomes Ruth, when he prays for her that the God of
Israel may reward her, 'under the shadow of whose wings thou hast come
to trust.'