s their Shepherd and
Redeemer, under whose wings they trust. Corresponding to this sublime
faith, the virtues of obedience and fidelity are dwelt upon, while the
ideal of personal righteousness and purity is constantly held forth.
It is no doubt largely temporal blessings which the psalmists
emphasise, and the rewards of integrity are chiefly those of material
and earthly prosperity. The hope of the future life is nowhere clearly
expressed in the Old Testament, and while in the Psalter here and there
a dim yearning for a future with God breaks forth, hardly any of these
poems illumine the destiny of man beyond the grave. The hope of Israel
was limited mostly to this earth. The land beyond the shadows does not
come within their purview. Like a child, the psalmist is content to
know that his divine Father is near him here and now. When exactly the
larger hope emerged we cannot say. But gradually, with the breaking up
of the national life and under the pressure of suffering, a clearer
vision dawned. With the limitations named, it is a sublime outlook
upon life and a high-toned morality which the Psalter discloses.
Poetry, indeed, idealises, and no doubt the Israelites did not always
live up to their aspirations; but men who could give utterance to a
faith so clear, to a penitence so deep, and to longings so lofty and
spiritual as these Psalms contain are not the least among the heralds
of the kingdom of Christ.

We cannot enlarge upon the ethical ideas of the other writings of the
Old Testament, the books of Wisdom, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.
Their teaching, while not particularly lofty, is generally healthy and
practical, consisting of homely commonplaces and shrewd observations
upon life and conduct. The motives appealed to are not always the
highest, and frequently have regard only to earthly prosperity and
worldly policy. It must not, however, be overlooked that moral
practice is usually allied with the fear of God, and the right choice
of wisdom is represented as the dictate of piety not less than the
sanction of prudence. The writers of the Wisdom literature are the
{50} humanists of their age. As distinguished from the idealism of the
prophets, they are realists who look at life in a somewhat utilitarian
way. With the prophets, however, they are at one in regarding the
inferiority of ceremonial to obedience and sincerity. God is the ruler
of the world, and man's task is to live in obedience to Hi