A Holiday Sermon Preached on July 31, in Union Church, Shanghai "The heavens declare the glory His handiwork." Ps, 19, 1.
Before the lo was written and long before Christ was born there were men who found God's Gospelin Nature and lived by the] light of it. They were the patriarchs, the prophets and the psalmists in {srael and many a seeker in other lands. And though we have the advantage of the entire Bible in our mother speech, and the life and work of Christ within the knowledge, if not the <perience of us all, there is no reason why we should forego the aid of Nature which is a partner in this Triple Alliance. Sometimes indeed it is good to get back to tha first of the three witnesses to the ilory of God, to Nature whose teaching is amplified in the Bible and certified in Jesus Christ. Perhaps that is the special opportunity of holiday time when townspeople are brought to the less familiar realm of Nature to listen with a fresh mind to all that it conveys, for it is true now as ever that "the heavens declare the glory of God and the firma ment showeth His Handiwork."
Tur Morive or THE Psatn.
Our good Germans tell us that this is evidently two psalms tied together to look like one. But our good sense reassures us that whatever be the history of its parts the psalms is as it stands—perfect. whole. The unity of psalm is explained by its motive and the motive of this psalm can be found, if I am not mistaken, man's confession. "Who can discern his errors? Cleanse Thou from secret faults." (v. 12. f.) The poet has got his eyes for nature from the experience of his heart,-—the restlessness caused by his hidden faults, the anarchy created by his presumptuous sins. these experiences made him look with mew eyes on the natural world whose serenity and splendour reflect the law, the testimony and the judgements of God which are the subject of the psalm. And from the standpoint of his own shortcoming the psalmist builds a big' faith on the breadth of the sunshine. He finds in Nature what he longed for and missed in himself, the signs of a victorious life, a comprehensive order and a kingdom, a pledge that already the will ci God is being done, and everywhere at last the will of God shall be done, when righteousness is mated to peace,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.