ust first be praised. There is nothing nobler
than true praise in him who speaks it, and there is nothing dearer and
sweeter to him who hears it. God Himself inhabits the praises of Israel.
All God's works praise Him. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me. Praise
waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion. Enter into His gates with
thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Violence shall no more be
heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou
shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. And such also is
all true praise between man and man. How deliciously sweet is praise!
How we labour after it! how we look for it and wait for it! and how we
languish and die if we do not get it! Again, when it comes to us, how it
cheers us up and makes our face to shine! For a long time after it our
step is so swift on the street and our face beams so that all men can
quite well see what has come to us. Praise is like wine in our blood; it
is new life to our fainting heart. So much is this the case that a
salutation of praise is to be our first taste of heaven itself. It will
wipe all tears off our eyes when we hear our Lord saying to us, "Well
done!" when all our good works that we have done in the body shall be
found unto praise and honour and glory in the great day of Jesus Christ.

At the same time, this same love of praise is one of our most besetting
and fatal temptations as long as we are in this false and double and
deceptive world. Sin, God curse it! has corrupted and poisoned
everything, the very best things of this life, and when the best things
are corrupted and poisoned they become the worst things. And praise does
not escape this universal and fatal law. Weak, evil, and self-seeking
men are near us, and we lean upon them, look to them, and listen to them.
We make them our strength and support, and seek repose and refreshment
from them. They cannot be all or any of these things to us; but we are
far on in life, we are done with life, before we have discovered that and
will admit that. Most men never discover and admit that till they are
out of this life altogether. Christ's praise and the applause of His
saints and angels are so future and so far away from us, and man's praise
and the applause of this world, hollow and false as it is, is so near us,
that we feed our souls on offal and garbage, when, already, in the
witness of a good conscience, we might be feasting our souls on