, my friends, consider the meaning of that. Consider it, I say. For
when that great thought has once flashed across a man's mind, he is a new
creature thenceforth. He need speak to no father-confessor or director;
to no saints or angels; to no sages or philosophers. For he can speak to
God Himself, and he need speak to no one else. Nay, at times he dare
speak to no one else. If he can tell his story to God, why tell it to
any of God's creatures?

He is in the presence of God Himself, God his Father, God his Saviour,
God his Comforter; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God is listening to him.
To God he can tell all his sorrows, all his wrongs, all his doubts, all
his sins, all his weaknesses, as David told his; and God will hear him;
and instead of striking him dead for his presumption or for his
sinfulness, will comfort him; comfort him with a feeling of peace, of
freedom, of being right, and of being safe, such as he never had before;
till all the troubles and dangers of this life shall seem light to him.
Let the world rage. Let the foolish people deal foolishly, and the
treacherous ones treacherously. For if God be with a man, who can be
against him? He has no fears left now. He has nothing to do, save to
thank God for his boundless condescension; and to trust on. To trust on.
If he has set his heart on the Lord, he need not fear what man will do to
him. If his heart is fixed; if he is sure that God cares for him, he
will, as it were by instinct, sing and give praise to God, as the bird
sings when the rain is past, and the sun shines out once more.

But I think that when a man has reached that state of mind, as David
reached it, he will rise, as David rose, to a higher state of mind still.
He will rise, as David rises in this psalm, from thoughts about his own
soul, to thoughts about God. In one word, he will rise from religion to
that which is above even religion, namely theology.

His first cry to God was somewhat selfish. He went to God about himself;
about his own sorrows and troubles. That is natural and harmless. The
child in pain and terror cries to its mother selfishly to be helped out
of its own little woes. But when it is helped, and comforted, and safe
in its mother's bosom, and its sobbing is over, then it forgets itself,
and looks up into its mother's face, and thinks of her, and her alone.

And so it should be with the man whom God has comforted. When the
deliverance has come; when the p