However much the word "conversion" may have been abused, and turned into a mere catchword or shibboleth, it is unquestionable that the Christian religion demands a fundamental change of mind and attitude, a change which does not come by education only, nor by any natural process. There is a hidden wisdom in the Church which to the natural man is {34} "foolishness" (1 Cor. ii. 14); it can only be learned by those who humbly set themselves to be taught by the Spirit. This change, come it suddenly or very slowly, must have its effect upon the whole man, his intellect, as well as his heart and will. "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof." Especially will it rule our attitude towards Holy Scripture. Without such a change neither historical nor grammatical explanations can make the Scripture sweet or even intelligible. Not least will our comprehension of the Psalter be influenced by it. How impossible is it really to say, "Lord, what love have I unto Thy law," if one has never realised that there is a law of God, supreme and absolute, to be read in the Scriptures and in the witness of the Church; and that only in obedience to this law can man find his true self and "walk at liberty." It is vain to seek to be critics before we are disciples. And the Psalter is clearly meant for the initiated, not for him who merely follows the crowd. The Divine Office, which the Psalter fills and dominates, is the means whereby the instructed faithful express their unchanging delight in, and loyalty to, what they have received freely from God. It is not the Church's message to the unconverted world, nor the voice of man's natural desires and sympathies, {35} undisciplined by grace. The Catholic temper, the mind of the Church, is an absolute first principle in the right use of the Church's book of praise, and the key to its chief difficulties. Bearing this in mind, let us endeavour to face, in conclusion, this moral difficulty of some parts of the Psalter--a difficulty which undoubtedly causes pain and uncertainty to some who are really devout, and which has led many to ask for a revised or expurgated Psalter for the public services. First, there is what appears to be the self-righteousness of the Psalter. Side by side with the most perfect expressions of humility and penitence, there are found protestations of innocence and purity which, if they were merely personal, we should rightly hesitate to make our own. But the "I" of the Psalter is not merely personal; it is the collective voice of the Church, and of the Church in her ideal aspect, such as we confess her in the Creed--"one, holy, Catholic." It is the voice of the great company of the holy souls from the beginning of the world, on earth and beyond the veil. It is with these that we recite our psalms, with these that we humbly associate ourselves, it is their righteousness that we seek to make our own, for it is the righteousness of Christ.