profitable to be explained in a few sermons as I
said before, at _this_ season when, if we have any eyes to see with, or
hearts to feel with, we ought to be wondering at and admiring God's
glorious earth, and saying, with the old prophet in my text, "Praise the
Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed
with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a
garment: who stretchest out the heavens as with a curtain: who layeth the
beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot:
who walketh upon the wings of the wind . . . O Lord, how manifold are thy
works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy
riches" (Ps. civ. 1, 2, 3, 24).

First, then, consider those wonderful words of the text, how God covers
Himself with light as it were with a garment. Truly there is something
most divine in light; it seems an especial pattern and likeness of God.
The Bible uses it so continually. Light is a pattern of God's wisdom;
for light sees into everything, searches through everything, and light is
a pattern of God's revelation, for light shows us everything; without
light our eyes would be useless--and so without God our soul's eyes would
be useless. It is God who teaches us all we know. It is God who makes
us understand all we understand. He opens the meaning of everything to
us, just as the light shews everything to us; and as in the sunlight only
we see the brightness and beauty of the earth, so it is written, "In thy
light, O God, we shall see light." Thus light is God's garment. It
shows Him to us, and yet it hides Him from us. Who could dare or bear to
look on God if we saw Him as He is face to face? Our souls would be
dazzled blind, as our eyes are by the sun at noonday. But now, light is
a pattern to us of God's glory; and therefore it is written, that light
_is_ God's garment, that God dwells in the light which no man can
approach unto. As a wise old heathen nobly said, "Light is the shadow of
God;" and so, as the text says, He stretches out those glorious blue
heavens above us as a curtain and shield, to hide our eyes from His
unutterable splendour, and yet to lift our souls up to Him. The vastness
and the beauty of those heavens, with all their countless stars, each one
a sun or a world in itself, should teach us how small we are, how great
is our Father who made all these.

When we see a curtain, and know that it bides something