t is drawn, and layeth it low; he layeth it low,
cometh out of the body; yea, the even to the ground; he bringeth it
glittering sword cometh out of his: even to the dust. The foot shall
gall: terrors are upon him. All tread it down, even the feet of the
darkness shall be hid in his secret poor, and the steps of the needy.
places: a fire not blown shall Ch. 26:5, 6. For I will contend
consume him; it shall go ill with with him that contendeth with thee,
him that is left in his tabernacle. and I will save thy children. And
The heaven shall reveal his I will feed them that oppress thee
iniquity; and the earth shall rise with their own flesh; and they
up against him. The increase of shall be drunken with their own
his house shall depart, and his blood, as with sweet wine: and all
goods shall flow away in the day of flesh shall know that I the Lord
his wrath. Ch. 20:24-28. am thy Savious and thy Redeemer,
the mighty one of Jacob. Ch. 49:25,
26

If now we open the book of Psalms, we find ourselves in a new world of
poetry, as different from that of Isaiah as it is from that of the book
of Job. David was anointed by God to be the head and leader of Israel.
As such he had a perpetual outward conflict with powerful, crafty, and
malicious foes, who sought his life and his kingdom. This brought to him
a perpetual inward conflict with doubts and fears. Under the pressure of
this double conflict he penned those wonderful psalms, which are the
embodiment of his whole religious life. And since heart answers to
heart, as face to face in water, they are the embodiment of religious
life in all ages. The songs of David and his illustrious collaborators,
Asaph and the sons of Korah, are emphatically the poetry of religious
experience. As such they can never grow old. They are as fresh to-day as
when they were written. God has given them to his church as a rich
treasury for "the service of song in the house of the Lord," in the
family, and in the closet. If we turn from the book of Psalms to the
book of Proverbs, we have still another type of poetry, unlike any one
of the forms hitherto considered. It is the poetry of _reflection_ on
the course of human life, as seen in the light of God's law and God's
providence. It is, therefore, didactic in the highest sense of the
word--the poetry of practical life. The