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 see me laugh me to scorn: They shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in God, that He would deliver him: Let Him deliver him now, if He will have him. (_Cf._ Matt, xxvii. 39-43.) Another startling prediction is that of the piercing of the hands and the feet. No such punishment was used by the Jews, or endured, as far as we know, by any of the martyrs of the Old Testament. All the four Evangelists, again, note the literal fulfilment of xxii. 18: They part my garments among them: And cast lots upon my vesture. Indeed, this 22nd Psalm along with Isaiah liii. stands forth beyond all the other writings of the Old Testament as a witness which is proof against all attempts to explain it away, to the {60} truth that "the Spirit of Christ" was in the prophets "testifying beforehand of the sufferings of Christ "(1 Peter i. 11).