e of enemies in
it; but his attitude is that of silent submission, while wicked men are
disquieted around him--which is precisely the characteristic peculiarity
of his conduct at this period. It consists of two parts (vers. 1-6 and
7-13), in both of which the subjects of his meditations are the same,
but the tone of them different. His own sickness and mortality, and
man's fleeting, shadowy life, are his themes. The former has led him to
think of the latter. The first effect of his sorrow was to close his
lips in a silence that was not altogether submission. "I held my peace,
even from good, and my sorrow was stirred." As in his sin, when he kept
silence, his "bones waxed old," so now in his sorrow and sickness the
pain that could not find expression raged the more violently. The
tearless eyes were hot and aching; but he conquered the dumb spirit, and
could carry his heavy thoughts to God. They are very heavy at first. He
only desires that the sad truth may be driven deeper into his soul. With
the engrossment so characteristic of melancholy, he asks, what might
have been thought the thing he needed least, "Make me to know mine end;"
and then he dilates on the gloomy reflections which he had been
cherishing in silence. Not only he himself, with his handbreadth of
days, that shrink into absolute nothingness when brought into contrast
with the life of God, but "every man," even when apparently "standing"
most "firm, is only a breath." As a shadow every man moves spectral
among shadows. The tumult that fills their lives is madness; "only for a
breath are they disquieted." So bitterly, with an anticipation of the
sad, clear-eyed pity and scorn of "The Preacher," does the sick and
wearied king speak, in tones very unlike the joyous music of his earlier
utterances.

But, true and wholesome as such thoughts are, they are not all the
truth. So the prayer changes in tone, even while its substance is the
same. He rises from the shows of earth to his true home, driven thither
by their hollowness. "My hope is in Thee." The conviction of earth's
vanity is all different when it has "tossed him to Thy breast." The
pardoned sinner, who never thereafter forgot his grievous fall, asks for
deliverance "from all his transgressions." The sullen silence has
changed into full acquiescence: "I opened not my mouth, because Thou
didst it,"--a silence differing from the other as the calm after the
storm, when all the winds sleep and the sun shines