end to the people and God's justice
and judgment.

In both these Canticles, the thought is present that those, who do what
God designs that they should do, are thereby praising Him. Hills, and
valleys, and seas, are thought of as if they were human beings: they
rejoice, and sing, and clap their hands, when ungrudgingly and with all
the beauty and generosity of their best nature they carry out the Will
of God. When man does the like, of his own will and in his {82} own
place, he also sings, and makes great the praise of God.

_v._ 2. _With his own right hand, and with his holy arm_. Several
passages in Isaiah (li. 9, lii. 10, lix. 16, lxiii. 5) use this figure
to represent God's invincible might.

Other phrases of Isaiah (lii. 7-10) are to be traced in this Psalm.
_The Lord the King_, "Thy God reigneth": _declared his salvation_,
"publisheth salvation": _all the ends of the world have seen the
salvation of our God, "all the ends of the earth shall see the
salvation of our God_." _O sing unto the Lord . . . let the hills be
joyful_, "Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places."

CANTICLES WHICH FOLLOW THE SECOND LESSON.

We have seen that the Gospel is frequently hidden[1] in the Old
Testament Lessons. The unfolding of this hidden thought comes by
natural sequence in the Second Lessons. They are chosen from the
Gospels, which tell the History of our Lord's Earthly Life, or from the
other parts of the New Testament, which carry on the History from His
Ascension. The Acts of the Apostles is the second volume of the Gospel
History, and the Epistles form a book of correspondence commenting on
the first, or illustrating the second, volume. Lessons from the
Gospels are records of the Gospel Spring-time, Lessons from the {83}
Epistles and the Acts are records of the Summer; the Revelation of S.
John carries us on to the Autumn, or Harvest time. To adopt a
different metaphor, one kind of Second Lessons are chapters from the
Wars of our Leader, another kind are chapters from the Wars of His
lieutenants. There is in the one kind the Gospel thought, pure and
simple; in the other kind there is the Missionary thought.

Since the Lessons have place in the Services as parts of an Act of
Praise, we must always consider each Lesson in combination with its
attendant Canticle. We saw that the First Lesson, when combined with
the Respond of the Congregation in _Te Deum_, is an Act of Praise to
God, for His Pro