oodness not only
to them, but to the children of men--to all men who had the sense to call
on Him in trouble, and to put themselves in their right place as
men--God's children, calling for help to their Father in heaven.

Therefore the psalmist goes on to speak of the cases of God's goodness,
which he seems to have seen, or at least heard of. Of wretched
prisoners, bound fast in misery and iron, and that through their own
fault and folly, who had cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and been
delivered by Him from the darkness of the dungeon. Of foolish men who
had ruined their health, or at least their prospects in life, by their
own sin and folly, till their soul abhorred all manner of meat, and they
were hard at death's door. But of them, too, he says, when they cried
unto the Lord in their trouble, He delivered them from their distress. He
sent His word--what we now foolishly call the laws of Nature, but which
the Psalmist knew to be the ever-working power and providence of God--and
healed them, and they were saved from their destruction.

Then he goes on to speak of the dangers of the sea which were especially
strange and terrible to him--a Jew. For the Jews were no sailors; and if
they went to sea, would go as merchants, or supercargoes in ships manned
by heathens; and the danger was really great. The ships were clumsy;
navigation was ill-understood; the storms of the Mediterranean sea were
then as now, sudden and furious; and when one came on, the heathen
sailors would, I doubt not, be at their wit's end, their courage melting
away because of the trouble, and call on all their gods and idols to help
them; but the men of whom the Psalmist speaks, though they were no
seamen, knew on whom to call. It was by the word of the Lord that the
stormy wind arose which lifted up the billows. He could quell the storm
if He would, and when He would; and to Him they cried and not in vain.
"And He made the storm to cease so that the waves thereof were still.
Then were they glad, because they were at rest, and so He brought them to
the haven where they would be."

My friends, this was the simple faith of the old Jews. And this was the
simple faith of our forefathers by land and sea. And this faith, as I
believe, made England great. The faith that there was a living God, a
living Lord, who would hear the cry of poor creatures in their trouble,
even when they had brought their trouble on themselves. Our forefathers
we