the softened blue over a
freshened world, and every raindrop on the leaves twinkles into diamond
light, and the end of the psalm is like the after brightness; and the
tranquil low voice of its last words is like the songs of the birds
again as the departing storm growls low and faint on the horizon. "The
Lord will bless His people with peace."

Thus, then, nature spoke to this young heart. The silence was vocal; the
darkness, bright; the tumult, order--and all was the revelation of a
present God. It is told of one of our great writers that, when a child,
he was found lying on a hill-side during a thunderstorm, and at each
flash clapping his hands and shouting, unconscious of danger, and
stirred to ecstasy. David, too, felt all the poetic elevation, and
natural awe, in the presence of the crashing storm; but he felt
something more. To him the thunder was not a power to tremble before,
not a mere subject for poetic contemplation. Still less was it
something, the like of which could be rubbed out of glass and silk, and
which he had done with when he knew its laws. No increase of knowledge
touching the laws of physical phenomena in the least affects the point
of view which these Nature-psalms take. David said, "God makes and moves
all things." We may be able to complete the sentence by a clause which
tells something of the methods of His operation. But that is only a
parenthesis after all, and the old truth remains widened, not overthrown
by it. The psalmist knew that all being and action had their origin in
God. He saw the last links of the chain, and knew that it was rivetted
to the throne of God, though the intermediate links were unseen; and
even the fact that there were any was not present to his mind. We know
something of these; but the first and the last of the series to him, are
the first and the last to us also. To us as to him, the silent splendour
of noonday speaks of God, and the nightly heavens pour the soft radiance
of His "excellent name over all the earth." The tempest is His voice,
and the wildest commotions in nature and among men break in obedient
waves around His pillared throne.

"Well roars the storm to those who hear
A deeper voice across the storm!"

There still remains one other psalm which may be used as illustrating
the early life of David. The Twenty-third psalm is coloured throughout
by the remembrances of his youthful occupation, even if its actual
composition is of a later date. Some c