"_My God!_" Oh, if that be the last entry in the Diary of religious experience, be not desponding now because of present passing shadows, but "thank God and take courage." It is written that "at evening-time it shall be light." (Zech. xiv. 7.) The sun may wade all day through murky clouds, but he will pillow his head at night on a setting couch of vermilion and gold. "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with _yellow gold_."[10] It was said by aged Jacob, in his prophetic death-song, regarding that very tribe on the borders of which the royal exile now sang, "GAD, _a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last_."[11] Was not this the key-note of his present elegy? Faith could lift its head triumphant in the clang of battle, amid these troops of spiritual plunderers, and sing, "_Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in_ THIS _will I be confident._"[12] [10] Ps. lxviii. 13. [11] Gen. xlix. 19. [12] Ps. xxvii. 3. III. A Peculiar Experience. "I ask'd the Lord that I might grow In faith, and love, and every grace; Might more of His salvation know, And seek more earnestly His face. "'Twas He who taught me thus to pray; And He, I trust, has answer'd prayer, But it has been in such a way As almost drove me to despair. "I hoped that in some favour'd hour At once He'd answer my request; And by His love's constraining power, Subdue my sins and give me rest. "Instead of this, He made me feel The hidden evils of my heart; And let the angry powers of hell Assault my soul in every part." --_Cowper._ "If we listen to David's harp, we shall hear as many hearse-like harmonies as carols."--_Lord Bacon._ "If we be either in outward affliction or in inward distress, we may accommodate to ourselves the melancholy expressions we find here. If not, we must sympathise with those whose case they speak too plainly, and thank God it is not our own case."--_Matthew Henry._ III. A PECULIAR EXPERIENCE. Although this Psalm, in bold and striking figure, presents a faithful miniature picture of the Believer's life, we must regard it as depicting an extraordinary experience at a peculiar passage of David's history, and which has its counterpart still in that of many of God's children. The writer of the Psalm was evidently undergoing "spiritual depression"--what is sometimes spoken of as "spiritual desertion,"--that sorrow, awful in its reality--too deep for utterance--deeper than the yawning chasm made by family bereavement--the sorrow of all sorrows, the loss of God in the soul!