as long as a brooding bird is left
on the earth, to remind us of David's song; and of One greater than
David, too, who said--"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have
gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and thou wouldest not." God grant that we all may do, when our time
comes, that which those violent conceited Jews would not do; and
therefore paid the awful penalty of their folly.

And the darker and more painful figures of the psalm: are they not true
still? Is not a man's soul, even in this just and peaceful land, and far
oftener in lands which are still neither just nor peaceful--Is not a
man's soul, I say, sometimes among lions?--among greedy, violent,
tyrannous persons, who are ready to entangle him in a quarrel, shout him
down, ay, or shoot him down; literally ready to eat him up? Are not the
children of men still too often set on fire; on fire with wild party
cries, with superstitions which they do not half understand, with brute
excitements which pander to their basest passions, running like fire from
head to head, and heart to heart, till whole classes, whole nations
sometimes, are on fire, ready like fire to consume and destroy all they
touch; and like fire, to consume and destroy themselves likewise?

Are there none now, too, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their
tongue a sharp sword? Such use the pen now, rather than the tongue: but
they know, as well as those whom David met, how to handle the spears and
arrows of slander, and the sharp sword of insult. Are there none left,
who set nets for their neighbours' feet, by gambling, swindling, puffing,
by tricks of trade and tricks of party?--none who, like the Scribes of
old, try to entangle men in their talk, and make them offenders for a
word; and who, like David's enemies, fall now and then into the very pit
which they have digged, and ruin themselves in trying to ruin others?

My friends, such men will be, as long as there is sin upon the earth.
Their weapons are very different now from what they were in David's time:
but their hearts are the same as they were then. "The works of the flesh
they do, which are manifest;" and a very ugly list they make; as all who
read St Paul's Epistles know full well.

But such men have their wages. God is merciful in this; that He rewards
every man according to his work. And He is merciful to the whole human
race, in rewarding such men according to their work. To t