works alike in every Christian soul, and then, therefore, whatever our
sin may be, whatever our sorrows may be, whatever our station in life may
be, we have a right to offer up to God our repentance, our doubts, our
fears, our hopes, our thanksgivings, in the very words which David used
two thousand years and more ago, certain that they are the right words,
better words than we can find for ourselves, exactly fitting our own
souls, and fitting too the mind and will of Almighty God, because they
are inspired by the same Spirit of God who descended on us, when we were
baptized unto Christ's Church.

And for that, my friends, we have an example--as we have for everything
else--in our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. For He, in the hour of His
darkest agony, when He hung upon the cross for our sins, and the sin of
all mankind, and when (worse than all other agony, or shame), there came
over Him the deepest horror of all--the feeling, but for a moment, that
God had forsaken Him--even then, He who spake as never man spake, did not
disdain to use the words of David, and cry, in the opening verse of that
22d psalm, every line of which applies so strangely to Him himself, "My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" So did our Lord bequeath, as it
were, with His dying breath, to all Christians for ever, as the fit and
true expression of all that they should ever experience, the psalms of
His great earthly ancestor, David, the sweet singer of Israel.

My friends, neglect not that precious bequest of your dying Lord. Read
those psalms, study them, tune your hearts and minds to them more and
more; and you will find in them an inexhaustible treasury of wisdom, and
comfort, and of the knowledge of God, wherein standeth your eternal life.

XVI. AHAB AND MICAIAH--THE CHRISTIAN DEAD ALIVE FOE EVERMORE.

"And the King of Israel said to Jehosaphat, There is yet one man,
Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord: but I
hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." . .
.--1 KINGS xxii. 8.

If you read the story of Micaiah the Prophet, and King Ahab in the 22d
chapter of the 1st Book of Kings, you will, I think, agree that Ahab
showed himself as foolish as he was wicked. He hated Micaiah for telling
him the truth. And when he heard the truth and was warned of his coming
end, he went stupidly to meet it, and died as the fool dies. Foolishness
and wickedness often go hand in hand.