We have now reached the close of this instructive Psalm--the last entry in the experience of the Royal Exile. Here is the grand summing up--"the conclusion of the whole matter." The curtain falls over the scene of conflict, leaving the believer triumphant. As he began with prayer, he now ends with praise; as he began with weeping, he now ends with rejoicing; as he began mourning over the loss of his God, he ends exulting in Him as "_the health of his countenance_." We are reminded of the Great Apostle reaching, by successive steps in his high argument, new altitudes of faith and hope,--beginning with "_no condemnation_," till he ends with "_no separation_,"--mounting with loftier sweep and bolder pinion, till, far above the mists and clouds of the lower valley, he can utter the challenge, "_Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?_"[98] [98] Romans viii. Joyful is it when a protracted war, which has been draining a nation's resources and rifling its homes, is drawing to a close,--when an army, amid hostile tribes, and the more fatal ravages of a hostile climate, has succeeded in trampling out the ashes of rebellion, and is returning triumphant from hard-contested fields of valour. Joyful is it when a noble vessel, that has for long been wrestling with the storm, enters at last the desired haven,--when the voyagers, who for hours of anxiety and terror have been hanging with bated breath between life and death, can now pass the gladdening watchword from mouth to mouth--"Thank God, we are safe!" Joyful, too, when the tried believer, as described in this Psalm,--"_persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed,_"--has surmounted wave after wave, that has been threatening to sweep him from his footing on the Rock, and is made "more than conqueror through Him that loved him!" The wounded Hart we found in the opening verse bounding through the forest glades, hit by the archers, with glazed eye and panting sides, has now reached the coveted Water-brooks;--the fainting soul is now drinking at the great fountainhead of consolation and joy. We have elsewhere an appropriate inspired comment on the whole Psalm, with its successive experiences: "_Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all._"[99] [99] Psalm xxxiv. 19.