Second Version, continued.

He sent His Son with power to save
From guilt, and darkness, and the grave:
Wonders of grace to God belong,
Repeat His mercies in your song.

Through this vain world He guides our feet,
And leads us to His heavenly seat :
His mercies ever shall endure,

When this vain world shall be no more.

DR. WATTS.

PSALM CXXXVII.

N strains of deepest pathos, a Babylonian exile, newly returned to the now desolated land of his fathers, recalls the sorrows of the long captivity. He could not sing the Lord's song in a strange land; and now the mournfulness of his reminiscences overbears for a time even the joy of his return, It is no wonder that in the end he breaks out into an indignant invective against the people who had been the author of his nation's sorrows, and against their perfidious Edomite allies. The Saviour's law of forgiveness and the spirit of the Gospel forbid the reproduction of these closing stanzas for Christian worship.

It will be instructive to contrast the extremes of simplicity and of floridness in rendering, as exhibited in the first and second versions below.

HE compilers of this Fifth Book have now introduced a series of eight Psalms traditionally attributed to David, probably in most cases with correctness. In the present Psalm the grateful remembrance of prayer heard and mercy bestowed is very characteristic of the royal Psalmist; but, on the other hand, the reference to "all the kings of the earth" (verse 4), as joining in the praise of God, has been thought by some to bespeak a later era. The Psalm is well fitted to express the thankfulness and hope of God's children in every age.

It will be observed that in both versions given below, the phrase in verse 1, before the gods," is understood of the presence of angels in earthly worship. Some critics understand the allusion to be to idol deities, others to earthly rulers, as in Psalm lxxxii. 1.

T has been shown by many critics from the language of this Psalm that it must be assigned to a later period than that of David. The present, therefore, is one of the instances in which the title is plainly erroneous. As a meditation on the Omnipresence and Omnipotence of God, the Psalm is of an almost awful solemnity. It is further remarkable among the Psalms for its reference to the Divine workmanship as exhibited in man's physical frame :

"I thank Thee, for in fearfulness

And wonder I am wrought.

Thy works, how dread, my soul oppress
With ever-deepening thought.

"My very self, that hidden spark,

Was known to Thee ere birth,

Though framed and fashioned in the dark,

Here in the low cold earth.

"Thine eyes beheld me as I lay,

Ere face or form began,

And in Thy book, from day to day,

Was marked the growing man."—KEKLE.

The versions of this Psalm well reflect its solemn tone; that by Blacklock, rough and unfinished as it is, having some gleam of poetic fire.

Third Version. C.M.

LORD, Thou with an unerring beam,

Surveyest all my powers;

My rising steps are watched by Thee,
By Thee my resting hours.

Where from Thy Spirit shall I stretch

The pinions of my flight?

Or where, through Nature's spacious range,
Shall I elude Thy sight?

My thoughts, scarce struggling into birth, Scaled I the skies, the blaze Divine

NTERNAL evidence seems decidedly here to confirm the title; and the Psalm strikingly corresponds with Psalms by David in the earlier books, especially the Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth. It is an appeal to God against malicious and deceitful enemies, closed by the assurance that God will protect His own.

The versions of this Psalm are but few: it is wholly omitted by Dr. Watts.

8.8.6.

MY God, when dangers press me round,

And safety but in Thee is found,

O leave me not alone:

Preserve my soul from every snare,

Grant me Thine aid, and let my prayer

Reach Thine eternal throne.