How apt are we to entertain the thought that God will wink at sin; that He will not be rigidly faithful to His denunciations--unswervingly true to His word. Time's oblivion-power succeeds in erasing much from the tablets of _our_ memories. We measure the Infinite by the standard of the finite, and imagine something of the same kind regarding the Great Heart-Searcher. Sin, moreover, seldom is, in this world, _instantaneously_ followed with punishment; "sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily;" and the long-suffering patience and forbearance of the Almighty is presumptuously construed by perverse natures into alteration or fickleness in the Divine purpose. But "_God is not a man that He should lie_!" Even in this our present probation state, (oftener than we suppose,) the time arrives for solemn retribution; when He makes bare His arm to demonstrate by what an inseparable law in His moral government He has connected _sin_ with _suffering_. A new missile pierces this panting, wounded Hart on the mountains of Israel. _One_ of those who hurled the Javelin is specially mentioned in the sacred narrative. His poisoned dart must have been rankling in David's soul when he penned this Psalm. When the King was descending the eastern slopes of _Olivet_, on his way to the Valley of Jordan, Shimei a Benjamite of Bahurim, of the house of Saul, came out against him, "_and_," we read, "_cursed still as he came. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of King David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial: the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. And as David and his men went by the way, Shimei went along on the hill's side over against him, and cursed him as he went, and threw stones at him, and cast dust._" (2 Sam. xvi 5-8, 13.) Besides this son of Gera, there were many obsequious flatterers and sycophants at Jerusalem--men once his cringing adherents, loud with their hosannahs in the time of his prosperity--who had now turned against him in his adversity, and become the partisans of the usurper. They exulted over his downfall, and followed him to the place of exile with the taunting cry, "Where is now thy God?" "_Mine enemies_," said he, "_speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying,_ GOD _hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him_." (Ps. lxxi. 10, 11.)