But he exults in the persuasion that Israel's God is not confined to lands or to sanctuaries. "_I will remember Thee_," says the banished monarch. "Though wandering here beyond the region Thou hast blest with Thy favour, I will not cease still to call Thee and claim Thee as my God, and to recount all the manifold tokens of Thy mercy, even though it be from the 'land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.' My foes may drive me from my home,--they may strip me of my regal glories,--they may make me the butt of scorn, the mark for their arrows;--but they cannot banish me from the better portion and heritage I have in Thy blessed self!" If we should ever be in circumstances when, like David, we are denuded of the means of grace--shut out from the public ministrations of the sanctuary,--or, what is more common, placed in a disadvantageous position for spiritual advancement;--when our situation as regards the world, the family, business, pursuits, companions, society, is such as to prove detrimental to the interests of our souls,--let us still "_remember God_!" Let the loss of means, and privileges, and opportunities, and congenial intercourse, draw us nearer the Source of all knowledge, and peace, and true joy. If the starlight be wanting, let us prize the sunlight more. If the streams fail, let us go direct to the fountainhead. Yes, and God can make His people independent of all outward circumstances. In the court of an Ethiopian Queen there was a believing Treasurer. In the household of Nero there were illustrious saints. Down in the depths of the briny ocean, imprisoned in the strangest of tombs, a disobedient prophet "remembered God," and his prayer was heard. Joseph was torn away from the land of his birth, and the home where his piety had been nurtured, but in Egypt "_the Lord was with Joseph_." "At my first answer," says the apostle of the Gentiles, "no _man_ stood with me, but all _men_ forsook me.... Notwithstanding, THE LORD stood by me, and strengthened me." Comforting thought! that the true Sanctuary, of which all earthly ones are the shadowy type, is ever near: God himself, the refuge and dwelling-place of His people to all generations, and who, wherever we are, can turn the place of forlorn exile--our "land of Jordan, the Hermonites, the hill Mizar"--into scenes bright with manifestations of His covenant love. * * * * * 2. But the references to these several localities may admit of a different interpretation. David may be reverting to some memorable epochs in his past history--some green spots in the waste of memory, where he enjoyed peculiar tokens of God's grace and presence.