If Hope, even with reference to present and finite things, be an emotion so joyous,--if uninspired poetry can sing so sweetly of its delights, what must be the _believer's_ hope, the hope which has God for its object, and heaven its consummation? How sweet that strain must have sounded from the lips of the exile Psalmist amid these glens of Gilead! A moment before, his sky is dark and troubled, but blue openings begin once more to tremble through the clouds. The mists have been hanging dense and thick, hiding out the water-brooks. But now the sun shines. They rise and circle in wreaths of fantastic vapour, disclosing to the wounded Hart "the springs in the valleys which run among the hills; which give drink to every beast in the field, and where the wild asses quench their thirst." The wilderness has become once more "a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." Rebuking his unworthy tears, Faith once more takes down her harp, and thus wakes its melodies,--"_I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I_ HOPE." "_Let Israel_ HOPE _in the Lord._"[28] [28] Psalm cxxx. 5, 7. And is it not well for us from time to time to open the gates of our own souls, and hold a similar consistory?--to make solemn inquisition with our hearts in their seasons of trouble and disquietude? "_Why art thou cast down?_" Is it outward trial that assails thee? Has calamity abridged thy earthly comforts? Have the golden heaps thou mayest have been a lifetime in amassing, dissolved like a snow-wreath;--the waxen wings of capricious fortune, when thou wast soaring highest, melting like those of fabled Icarus of old, and bringing thee helpless to the ground? Or is it sickness that has dulled thine eye, paralysed thy limb, and ploughed its furrows on thy cheek; shutting out from thee the din of a busy world, and chaining thee down to a couch of languishing? Or is it the treachery of thy trusted friend that has wounded thee; blighting thine affections, crushing thy hopes, dashing thy cup of earthly bliss to the ground? Or is it bereavement that has made gaps in thy loved circle; torn away the fixtures which gave thy dwelling and life itself all its gladness and joy?