119th Psalm. It is like a piece of music, every
verse a subtle and harmonious variation on one dominant theme. It is
the voice of the converted soul, learning the one lesson which man must
learn in this world's school, if he is to attain his true
being--learning to be ever turning away from self, from one's own
doubts, troubles, persecutions, sufferings, to rest on what God has
revealed in His statutes, His judgments, His testimonies, His laws.
Nor is it without a subtle propriety that this Psalm is arranged as an
acrostic under the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. These
letters are, as it were, the rudiments out of which man is enabled to
exercise his characteristic gift of articulate speech; and in the
acrostic Psalms they are visibly consecrated to His service Who made
the mouth of man. And each part of the 119th Psalm consists of eight
verses, a significant Hebrew number, the symbol of the {12}
Resurrection and the restoration of all things in that eighth day, the
octave of eternity, which is yet to come, and will complete the work of
the seven days of the first creation.

This Psalm, which expresses the unchanging spirit of true religion, was
most naturally appropriated by Christian devotion to form the services
for the working part of each day, beginning at Prime, when "man goeth
forth to his work and his labour" with that benediction which comes on
labour done with a pure motive in God's Name:

Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way:
And walk in the law of the Lord,

and ending at None, the hour of the death of the Lord, when day visibly
declines, with the confession that the worker, as he looks back, must
always make:

I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost:
O seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments.

It was like a stream of water, crossing unexpectedly a dusty
way--_mirabilia testimonia tua_! In psalm and antiphon, inexhaustibly
fresh, the soul seemed to be taking refuge, at that undevout {13} hour,
from the sordid languor and the mean business of men's lives, in
contemplation of the unfaltering vigour of the Divine righteousness,
which had still those who sought it, not only watchful in the night,
but alert in the drowsy afternoon.[5]

We can scarcely exaggerate the value, in our own time especially, of
this use, not only of the 119th Psalm, but of the whole Psalter, as the
response of the Church and the human soul to the revealed word of God.
Th