The Threshold Grace: Meditations in the PsalmsAinsworth, Percy C. (Percy Clough)
Religion
The Threshold Grace: Meditations in the Psalms
Ainsworth, Percy C. (Percy Clough)
Bible. Psalms -- Meditations
_And to inquire in His temple._ The Psalmist desired for himself an inward
attitude before God that should not only reveal unto him the eternal
fitness of all God's ways and the eternal grace of all His purposes, but
should also put him in the way of solving the various problems that arise
to try the wisdom and strength of men's lives. Sometimes the first court of
appeal in life, and always the last, is the temple court. When all the
world is dumb, a voice speaks to them that worship. Reverential love never
loses its bearings. In this world we need personal and social guidance, and
there must be many times when both shall be wanting unless we have learned
to carry the burden of our ignorance to the feet of the Eternal Wisdom. And
perhaps a man can desire no better thing for himself than that the
reverence and devotion of his life should be such as to make the appeal to
God's perfect arbitrament an easy thing.
IV.
EYES AND FEET
Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord,
For He shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Ps. xxv. 15.
In any man's life a great deal depends upon outlook. In some ways we
recognize this fact. We do not by choice live in a house whose windows
front a blank wall. A little patch of green grass, a tree, a peep of sky,
or even the traffic of a busy street--anything rather than a blank wall.
That is a sound instinct, but it ought to go deeper than it sometimes does.
This outlook and aspect question is important when you are building a
house, but it is vastly more important when you are building a character.
The soul has eyes. The deadliest monotony is that of a dull soul. Life is a
poor affair for any man who looks out upon the blind walls of earthly
circumstance and necessity, and cannot see from his soul's dwelling-place
the pink flush of the dawn that men call hope, and who has no garden where
he may grow the blossoms of faith and sweet memory, the fair flowers of
holy human trusts and fellowships. Only the divinity of life can deliver us
from the monotony of living. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' This man
has an infinite outlook. It matters not whether he looked out through
palace windows or lived in the meanest house in Jerusalem's city. It is the
eye that makes the view. This man had a fairer prospect than ever man had
who looked seaward from Carmel or across the valleys from the steeps of
Libanus. It was his soul that claimed the prospect. From the window of the
little house of life he saw the light of God lying on the everlasting
hills. That is the real deliverance from the monotony of things. The man
who is weary of life is the man who has not seen it. The man who is tied to
his desk sometimes thinks everything would be right if only he could
travel. But many a man has done the Grand Tour and come back no better
contented. You cannot fool your soul with Mont Blanc or even the Himalayas.
So many thousand feet, did you say?--but what is that to infinity! The cure
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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