rom thence in brooks and rivers, making the whole lowland
green and fertile. Well--all very true, you may say. But that is simply
a matter of science, or indeed of common observation and common sense. It
is not a subject for a psalm or for a sermon.

True: in the words in which I have purposely put it. But not in the
words in which the Psalmist puts it; and which I purposely left out, to
shew you just the difference between even the soundest science, and
faith. He brings in another element, which is the true cause of the
circulation of water; and that is, none other but Almighty God.

This is the way in which the inspired Psalmist puts it; and this is the
truth of it all; this is the very kernel and marrow and life and soul of
it all: while the facts which I told you just now are the mere shell and
dead skeleton of it--"_Thou_ sendest the springs into the rivers."

Thou art the Lord of the lightning and of the clouds, the Lord of the
highlands and of the lowlands, and the Lord of the rainfall and of the
drought, the Lord of good seasons and of bad, of rich harvests and of
scanty. They, like all things, obey Thine everlasting laws; and of them,
whatever may befal, poor purblind man can say in faith and hope--"It is
the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good."

Yes. He was not of course a man of science, in the modern sense of the
word, this old Psalmist. But this I know, that he was a man of science
in the soundest and deepest sense; an inspired philosopher, as well as an
inspired poet; and had the highest of all sciences, which is the science
and knowledge of the living God. For he saw God in everything and
everything in God.

But--he says--the trees of the Lord are full of sap; even the cedars of
Lebanon which He hath planted. Why should he say that specially of the
cedars? Did not God make all trees? Does He not plant all wild trees,
and every flower and seed? My dear friends, happy are you if you believe
that in spirit and in truth. But let me tell you that I think you would
not have believed that, unless the Psalmist, and others who wrote the
Holy Scriptures, had told you about trees of God, and rivers of God, and
winds of God, and had taught you that the earth is the Lord's and the
fulness thereof. You do not know--none of us can know--how much we owe
to the Bible for just and rational, as well as orthodox and Christian,
notions of the world around us. We, and--thank God--our forefathers for
hun