tisfactions of his sin could not long content him, as they might have
done a lower type of man. Nobody buys a little passing pleasure in evil
at so dear a rate, or keeps it for so short a time as a good man. He
cannot make himself as others. "That which cometh into your mind shall
not be at all, in that ye say, We will be as the families of the
nations, which serve wood and stone." Old habits quickly reassert their
force, conscience soon lifts again its solemn voice; and while worse men
are enjoying the strong-flavoured meats on sin's table, the servant of
God, who has been seduced to prefer them for a moment to the "light
bread" from heaven, tastes them already bitter in his mouth. He may be
far from true repentance, but he will very soon know remorse. Months may
pass before he can feel again the calm joys of God, but disgust with
himself and with his sin will quickly fill his soul. No more vivid
picture of such a state has ever been drawn, than is found in the psalms
of this period. They tell of sullen "silence;" dust had settled on the
strings of his harp, as on helmet and sword. He will not speak to God of
his sin, and there is nothing else that he can speak of. They tell of
his "roaring all the day long"--the groan of anguish forced from his yet
unsoftened spirit. Day and night God's heavy hand weighed him down; the
consciousness of that power, whose gentleness had once holden him up,
crushed, but did not melt him. Like some heated iron, its heaviness
scorched as well as bruised, and his moisture--all the dew and
freshness of his life--was dried up at its touch and turned into dusty,
cracking drought, that chaps the hard earth, and shrinks the streamlets,
and burns to brown powder the tender herbage (Ps. xxxii.). Body and mind
seem both to be included in this wonderful description, in which
obstinate dumbness, constant torture, dread of God, and not one
softening drop of penitence fill the dry and dusty heart, while "bones
waxing old," or, as the word might be rendered, "rotting," sleepless
nights, and perhaps the burning heat of disease, are hinted at as the
accompaniments of the soul-agony. It is possible that similar allusions
to actual bodily illness are to be found in another psalm, probably
referring to the same period, and presenting striking parallelisms of
expression (Ps. vi.), "Have mercy upon me, Jehovah, for I languish (fade
away); heal me, for my bones are affrighted. My soul is also sore vexed.
I am wea