And if the "I" of the Psalter is the {36} self-expression of the Communion of Saints, still more is it the voice of the King of Saints, the immaculate Lamb, in whose Name we offer our worship. But there is still the problem of the Psalms of Imprecation. What can we say of their apparent fierceness and vindictiveness, their reflection of the stormy passions and bitter warfare of a primitive age? There is much indeed that can be rightly urged, here, as in the other Old Testament writings, from the point of view of the difference between Hebrew modes of expression and our own, and from the progressive character of revelation, much that may help to remove prejudice and clear away apparent inconsistencies. But the larger view of the Psalter as the book primarily of the Church is of still greater importance. The imprecations of the Psalms, though expressed in so vividly personal a manner, are no more personal than the protestations of innocency. They express rather that age-long passion for righteousness, that burning belief in a moral Judge of the world Who must do right, which have always been the Church's saving salt among the corruptions and indifference of the world. It is this spirit that inspires them, rather than the thirst for {37} vengeance or the vindication of self. They express the Church's belief that there is a world-conflict ever proceeding between the cause of God, the cause of truth and right, and the passions of men urged on by the powers of evil. For lo, Thine enemies make a murmuring: And they that hate Thee have lift up their head. They have imagined craftily against Thy people: And taken counsel against Thy secret ones. (lxxxiii. 2, 3.) Lay hand upon the shield and buckler: And stand up to help me. Bring forth the spear and stop the way against them that persecute me: Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. (xxxv. 2, 3.) This sense of an irreconcilable conflict between the malignity of evil and the will of God, between the carnal mind and that reflection of God's will which He has implanted in the human conscience, is much to seek in our own day. We are too much inclined to minimise the reality of sin, and to imagine that it is {38} disappearing before civilisation and the growth of gentler ways and sentiments. The Psalmists knew better--they knew that the battle was to the death, and that God alone can win His own victory; and they express, sternly and roughly perhaps, but with the utmost sincerity, their undying faith that He will; that the overthrow of malice and falsehood and treachery must one day be manifested, God shall suddenly shoot at them with a swift arrow, and that the part we each have played in the battle will be the true measure of our worth. All they that are true of heart shall be glad. (lxiv.) In this sense we may even repeat the dreadful conclusion of the Babylonian exiles' Psalm: