fferent opinion from nine persons out
of ten, I fear from ninety-nine out of a hundred, of every country, every
age, and every religion.

For, he says--Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept
Thy Word. Whereas nine people out of ten would say to God, if they
dared--Before I was troubled, I kept Thy Word. But now that I am
troubled; of course I cannot help going wrong.

He makes his troubles a reason for doing right. They make their troubles
an excuse for doing wrong.

Is it not so? Do we not hear people saying, whenever they are blamed for
doing what they know to be wrong--I could not help it? I was forced into
it. What would you have a man do? One must live; and so forth. One
finds himself in danger, and tries to lie himself out of it. Another
finds himself in difficulties, and begins playing ugly tricks in money
matters. Another finds himself in want, and steals. The general opinion
of the world is, that right-doing, justice, truth, and honesty, are very
graceful luxuries for those who can afford them; very good things when a
man is easy, prosperous, and well off, and without much serious business
on hand: but not for the real hard work of life; not for times of
ambition and struggle, any more than of distress and anxiety, or of
danger and difficulty. In such times, if a man may not lie a little,
cheat a little, do a questionable stroke of business now and then; how is
he to live? So it is in the world, so it always was; and so it always
will be. From statesmen ruling nations, and men of business "conducting
great financial operations," as the saying is now, down to the beggar-
woman who comes to ask charity, the rule of the world is, that honesty is
_not_ the best policy; that falsehood and cunning are not only
profitable, but necessary; that in proportion as a man is in trouble, in
that proportion he has a right to go wrong.

A right to go wrong. A right to make bad worse. A right to break God's
laws, because we are too stupid or too hasty to find out what God's laws
are. A right, as the wise man puts it, to draw bills on nature which she
will _not_ honour; but return them on a man's hands with "No effects"
written across them, leaving the man to pay after all, in misery and
shame. Truly said Solomon of old--The foolishness of fools is folly.

But the Psalmist, because he was inspired by the Spirit of God, was of
quite the opposite opinion. So far from thinking that his troubl