s "My God, My God," the fundamental confession of
a personal faith in a personal God, seeing Him {57} Who is invisible,
waiting for Him Who hides His face, believing, even though His truth
and justice seem blotted out of the world, that God is, and that He is
still "enthroned upon the praises of Israel" (v. 3). And this faith
finds its last utterance of peace and thanksgiving and renewed
consciousness of union with the Father in the seventh Word, again from
the Psalter, "Into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Ps. xxxi. 6).

One of the most fruitful lines of Christian meditation will be found in
this Christological aspect of the Psalms. It throws a wonderful light
on the inner life of our Lord, and gives the Psalter a value which no
merely literary study could give.

The five Psalms appointed by our Church for Good Friday are a rich
storehouse of the secrets of the Passion. The 22nd and the 69th bear
upon it very directly, and present many points of similarity. In each
the sufferings of the Righteous are described minutely and
pathetically, in each these sufferings lead on to triumph and to the
assurance of their world-wide efficacy:

All the ends of the earth shall remember themselves,
and be turned unto the Lord:

{58}

And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him.
(xxii. 27.)

For God will save Sion, and build the cities of Judah:
That men may dwell there and have it in possession.
The posterity also of His servants shall inherit it:
And they that love His Name shall dwell therein.
(lxix. 36, 37.)

Each, again, in its picture of undeserved suffering, brings out the
true nature and the malignity of _sin_. In the 22nd sin is portrayed
in its cruelty and its irrational character, as if men led by it were
but wild beasts, "wild oxen," "bulls of Bashan," "dogs," and "lions."
In the 69th we see its ingratitude, and its pitiless and causeless
malice, and the fact that, whatever its immediate object, it is really
directed against God Himself:

For Thy sake I have suffered reproach.
* * * * *
The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me.

Both these Psalms, again, contain what we {59} must confess to be
definite predictions of details of the Passion. The 22nd tells of the
very words and gestures which the chief priests and Pharisees in their
blindness made use of to insult the Crucified:

All they that