THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM.

III.

RESTORATION.

"HE RESTORETH MY SOUL: HE LEADETH ME IN

THE PATHS OF

RIGHTEOUSNESS

SAKE."-Psalm xxiii., 3.

FOR HIS NAME'S

N the stress of this world's toil and strife, the soul

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often sinks down fainting; needing a strong hand to lift it up, and a powerful restorative to bring back its living will. Slowly, but surely, the "heat and burden of the day," bearing long upon the animal powers, wears and wastes them, till one link in the too tightly stretched chain, weaker than the rest, snaps asunder, and the man lies stricken to the ground, helpless, strengthless ;-work unfinished, difficulties unconquered, hopes unrealised. Or, like a lost sheep, which has wandered far away from the beaten path into the rough trackless wilderness; wearied out with vain efforts to recover the right way, torn by the briars, wounded by the sharp rocks against which it

has fallen, footsore, parched with thirst, exhausted with fatigue, fainting for food, panting and feebly bleating, in the solitary place, where none seem near to help,— the soul sinks into despair. The world has been tried; its pleasures have lost their attraction; its emptiness has bitterly disappointed its worshipper; rougher and rougher the path has grown, till nothing but barren desolation has surrounded the wanderer. "He looked on his right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know him; refuge failed him; no man cared for his soul." Or, again, the "storm of sorrow has caught a weak creature, suddenly, without shelter; the darkness fell upon him; the fierce blows came rapidly one after the other, till he lay prostrate with terror and exhaustion; not knowing how to rise; trembling for fear of still greater calamities; expecting death.

Many are the soul's extremities. Some the natural issues of overburdened weakness; some the just working out of violated laws; some the mysterious appointments of an inscrutable Providence. David's experience was almost unlimited. He knew the weight of anxious toil, and what it was to feel it crushing him to the earth. He knew the misery of a life which fled from pursuing enemies, hiding in dens and caves of the mountains; suffering extremes of hunger and thirst. He knew the exhausting agony of grief, with "tears for his meat day and night." He knew the desolation of guilt; the wilderness of an accusing conscience;

the awful bewilderment of a sinner, who has come to himself in the very midst of his own wretchedness. He remembered a Mercy which "brought his soul out of prison," and "compassed him about with songs of deliverance." It was the mercy of the Good Shepherd, who "goeth after that which is lost until He find it.” "He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake."

HERE ARE ACKNOWLEDGED THE MERCY OF DIVINE INTERPOSITIONS; THE FITNESS OF DIVINE MINISTRATHE GLORY OF DIVINELY ACCOMPLISHED

TIONS;

ISSUES.

1. One who sees the Shepherd's care in his life, acknowledges the mercy of Divine interpositions. "He restoreth my soul." An extremity confessed by us was the opportunity used by God. It was not an ordinary danger; had it been so, we might have attributed much to the native elasticity of the soul. We were past recovery by ourselves. If a Divine hand had not laid hold of us and restored us, we must have perished. His mercy interposed. We were restored. We went on in the path in which He Himself graciously led us, as we were able to walk. We dare not ascribe our rescue to anything but His immediate, compassionate, interposition.

Such mercy may have visited a soul wandering away from God, in a state of spiritual decline and

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backsliding. Neglected opportunities have produced indifference; chronic coldness of heart; blindness to danger, and infatuated self-will. Who recovered the fainting hope? Who knit together again the broken resolutions? We remember the time. We wonder that anything could restore us. He knew the whole secret of our state. He understood the reasons of our life. He knew the worth of our excuses. He mercifully sent exactly the right remedy. He brought us to ourselves. It was His interposition that took us, in our wandering, into that place of bitter shame and suffering, where we woke up suddenly to feel what danger there was in backsliding, and we cried out, with all our might, "Lord, save, or I perish!" It was His interposition that provided the voice of warning which thrilled us through; the kindly Hand which was laid upon our shoulder, with the question, "Whither away?"-the Providential appointment which exactly met our repentance, and led it out into decided change and renewed life. "He restoreth my soul."

He came when sorrow had worked a sad change in us. We were like a shattered vessel. The agony of a grief beyond all human consolation, had broken our strength into fragments. Thought had become almost impossible. Energy seemed gone. The occupations of life looked at us like cold-hearted strangers, and we shrunk away from them, though

really so familiar with them. "Can life ever be the same?" we cried. "Is not death itself better than such dreary desolation?" But the mind resumed its activity. Energy returned. Occupations became again attractive. Life, though never the same, because never without a remembered loss, was not a cheerless waste, but the threshold of the future. We looked forward more; we looked around us less. Hope had been kindled afresh by the fiery trial which had consumed some of our earthly joys. The brightness of heaven henceforth lay upon the path, shining more and more; and it will shine unto the perfect day. Was it not merciful interposition? "He restoreth my soul."

Or, it may have been otherwise with us. We look back and recall an averted calamity. We watched and waited for it, with a suspense which seemed to press out the very marrow of our soul with its awful weight. It was a time of such mingled terror and oppressive helplessness, that we often feel astonished, as we remember it, that reason did not give way. If the expected shock had followed upon the continued strain, surely nothing could have recovered us. But His mercy interposed. The trial was not greater than we could bear. The danger passed. The weight was lifted off. The overwrought heart found rest. The scaring terror vanished, and the tears of joy refreshed us with a sense of recovered nature. "He restoreth my soul."