shepherd reciting in
the field, and the Jewish choir boy singing in the church:

"Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise His Holy
Name, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who healeth all thy diseases.
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, Who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercies.... Like as a father pitieth his own
children, so is the Lord merciful to them that fear Him, for He knoweth
our frame, He remembereth that we are but dust.

"Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy
hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh
the truth in his heart.

"The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down
in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth
my soul. He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His Name's
sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness, according
to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.... The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O
God, Thou wilt not despise."

Are not such songs in such an age one of the miracles of history? How
could men help loving and reverencing and preserving such songs? How
could they help feeling that a divine Spirit was behind them?

3.--The rest of the Old Testament is the history of God's dealing with
the nation, a story gathered under the guidance of God's providence in
many generations, from many sources since the far back childhood of the
race. The historians were evidently men with the prophetic instinct.
But I make no appeal on the score of their being prophets. The appeal
is made by the history itself. Was ever national history so
extraordinarily written? It is the history of an evil and rebellious
people, yet everything is looked at in relation to the God of
Righteousness. Records of other ancient nations tell what this or that
great king accomplished, how the people conquered or were conquered by
their enemies. In these Jewish records everything is of God--a
righteous, holy God. It is God who conquered, God who delivered, God
who punished, God who fought. There is no boasting of the national
glory, no flattering of the national vanity; their greatest sins and