First of all the Psalm shows us that Israel far off there in Babylon is homesick for Zion. Babylon has much to offer, but nothing avails to. satisfy that longing in the exiles hearts for their native land, and for the temple of their God, And Israel in Babylon is typical of the sinner away in the far country from his God. We are reminded of the greatest of all the parables of Jesus, that of the Prodigal Son. The prodigal was an exile—self-chosen, but none the less bitter for that. He was in a far country, and it was the me-mary of home that filled his heart. It is true psychology. It is universal experience.
I know that there are other resations, There are. times. when. the awakened sinner finds himself the prey of fearing and despair.—Consdence awakes and he is filled with remorse. I know that sometimes when a man comes to himself, he can see nothing and hear nothing in the universe but the terrors and the judgments: of the Sovereign God. But it was not terror that possessed the repentant Israelites in Babylon, it was not terror that moved the Prodigal, it was home for which they longed. It was memories of Zion that filled their eyes with bitter tears there beside the waters of Bebylon, The Prodigal Son came to himself, and he remembered his Father's house. In type and parable the teaching is the same. We were not meant to be, and we cannot be, satisfied in the far country. We were not fashioned to be at home in sin. And no matter how far away from God he may wander, no matter how engrossed he may become in the life of the far country, the prodigal son will never be at rest and satisfied. As St. Augustine has so aptly said, "Thou hast made us for thyself, and we shall never be content until we rest in thee."
We bear the image of God. The native air of these hearts of ours is the love and purity and joy of faith and obedience. There may be interests and pleasures which at first attract and enthrall us in the world's Bebylon, but they can never really satisfy. The world's good things soon prove to be husks, and like the prodigal, our hunger remains.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.