of philosophy. The
one deals with moral precepts and spiritual aspirations, all the others
with subtle theories of creation or problems of the universe. The one is
the outflowing of joyous experience found in obedience to God's moral
law, and only out of the heart could such a psalm have been written. The
law of God had become not a barrier or a hamper, but a delight.
Evidently David had found a religion which filled every avenue and met
every want of his whole being.

Again, only the religion of Christ brings man into his proper relation
of penitence and humility before God. It is necessary to the very
conception of reconciliation to a higher and purer being that
wrong-doing shall be confessed. All the leading faiths of the world have
traditions of the fall of man from a higher and holier estate, and most
of them--notably Hinduism, Buddhism, ancient Druidism, and the Druse
religion of Mount Lebanon--declare that the fall was the result of
pride and rebellion of spirit. And of necessity the wrong, if it cannot
be undone, must at least be confessed. Self-justification is
perpetuation. The offender must lay aside his false estimate of self and
admit the justice whose claims he has violated. Even in the ordinary
intercourse of men this principle is universally recognized. There can
be no reconciliation without either actual reparation or at least a
frank acknowledgment. Governmental pardon always implies repentance and
promised reform, and between individuals a due concession to violated
principle is deemed the dictate of the truest honor. How can there be
reconciliation to God, then, without repentance and humiliation? Of what
value can heathen asceticism and merit-making be while the heart is
still barred and buttressed with self-righteousness? The longer a man
approaches the Holiness of Deity with the offerings of his own
self-consequence the greater does the enormity of his offence become and
the wider the breach which he attempts to close.

Even if he could render a perfect obedience and service for the future,
he could never overtake the old unsettled score. The prodigal cannot
recover the squandered estate or wipe out the record of folly and sin,
and if there be no resource of free remission on the one hand, and no
deep and genuine repentance on the other, there can be no possible
adjustment. The universal judgment and conscience of men so decide.
Philosophers may present this method and that of moral culture and