determine to which of these orders--the perishable, noisy and intrusive
and persistent in its appeals, or the calm, silent, most real, eternal
order beyond the stars--our petty lives shall attach themselves.

II. Now note, secondly, the defences.

'Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.' This 'evangelical
prophet,' as he has been called, is distinguished, not only by the
clearness of his anticipations of Jesus Christ and His work, but by the
fulness and depth which he attaches to that word 'salvation.' He all but
anticipates the New Testament completeness and fulness of meaning, and
lifts it from all merely material associations of earthly or transitory
deliverance, into the sphere in which we are accustomed to regard it as
especially moving. By 'salvation' he means and we mean, not only
negative but positive blessings. Negatively it includes the removal of
every conceivable or endurable evil, 'all the ills that flesh is heir
to,' whether they be evils of sin or evils of sorrow; and, positively,
the investiture with every possible good that humanity is capable of,
whether it be good of goodness, or good of happiness. This is what the
prophet tells us is the wall and bulwark of his ideal-real city.

Mark the eloquent omission of the name of the builder of the wall. 'God'
is a supplement. Salvation 'will _He_ appoint for walls and bulwarks.'
No need to say who it is that flings such a fortification around the
city. There is only one hand that can trace the lines of such walls;
only one hand that can pile their stones; only one that can lay them, as
the walls of Jericho were laid, in the blood of His first-born Son.
'Salvation will He appoint for walls and bulwarks.' That is to say in a
highly imaginative and picturesque form, that the defense of the City is
God Himself; and it is substantially a parallel with other words which