TWENTY-FIVE VILLAGE SERMONS




SERMON I. GOD'S WORLD



PSALM civ. 24.

"O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them
all: the earth is full of Thy riches."

When we read such psalms as the one from which this verse is taken,
we cannot help, if we consider, feeling at once a great difference
between them and any hymns or religious poetry which is commonly
written or read in these days. The hymns which are most liked now,
and the psalms which people most willingly choose out of the Bible,
are those which speak, or seem to speak, about God's dealings with
people's own souls, while such psalms as this are overlooked.
People do not care really about psalms of this kind when they find
them in the Bible, and they do not expect or wish nowadays any one
to write poetry like them. For these psalms of which I speak praise
and honour God, not for what He has done to our souls, but for what
He has done and is doing in the world around us. This very 104th
psalm, for instance, speaks entirely about things which we hardly
care or even think proper to mention in church now. It speaks of
this earth entirely, and the things on it. Of the light, the
clouds, and wind--of hills and valleys, and the springs on the hill-