The Tupelo journal., 1904-07-29

MItA8er@5H&I1 we are going to
call it. "The Vaca-
ton Psalm" The
-- vacation is the
time for rest and
meditation. The time when we love
to get off into the heart of Nature and
listen to the harmony of her manifold
voices, to drink in the thousand and
one beauties of the vaulted heavens
and the verdant earth. to feel the gen.
tie influences stealing in upon our
souls as fair Nature comes and cheer
fully and faithfully ministers to our
needs and smiles with indulgent grace
upon our whims and exactions. How
patient she is as we take all she has
to give us and never so much as voice
a thank YOU with life or lips. AS
we enjoy Gods Nature, our hearts
ought to turn in grateful thought to
Natures God. The words of our
mouth should speak some message
back to Nature and to God; our hearts
should find their meditation in chan
nels that lead Godward and that will
pIONc dCCCpIdOIC " iAAh. >aSoA AZ
not of herself a sufficient teacher and
~revealer of God. She bears her faith
full testimony to the reality and the
personality of God, but in the fullest
sense of the word she is not a revealer
of Him. She gives lavish evidence that
there is a God. The heavens declare
His glory and the armament showeth
His handiwork. The voice OF Nature
everywhere whispers of a great and
all-powerful and all-wise Creator and
ruler. The message has gone out into
all the earth, so that we find the con-
seriousness of a Supreme Being to
prevail among the most benighted peo-
pies. But this evidence and testimony
of Nature are not sufficient revelation
of God. If they were, why should not
the untutored savage, who has Nature
as a teacher, even as those OF more
enlightened conditions, know as much
of God as the latter?
THE Psalm before us places Nature
i in her right relations to God and
man. The full, lofty, graceful lines
OF its opening verses, with their po-
etic figure of the splendid sun riding
through the heavens in strength and
majesty and beauty, even as the care
f~ully-groomed bridegroom cometh
forth to seek his bride and rejoiceth
as he goes with strong, stately, grace
full tread to her abode, give us a
rare picture OF Nature at her best, and
speak to us of Gods glory, of His
handiwork, of His wisdom and. power.
But it does not stop there. 1t goes
on from the visible evidence of God
to the revelation of God. The trouble
with so many people is that they never
get beyond the sixth verse of this
Psalm. They see God in His created
universe, but they refuse to hear Him
out Of His written Word. They love
to walk abroad at night and trace the
stars in their course, but they refuse
to walk with the Psalmist as he
traces the evidences of God in His
Word. But it is not sufficient that
you should rejoice in Nature and Ma
lures God; your soul must receive His
revelation, and revelation brings OBJ
legation. The three divisions of this
Psalm cover the ground of the souls
need. The evidence of God in Nature,
verses l to 6; the revelation of
God in His Word, verses 7 to IL,
and the Obligation of man to God,
verses II to IA. This, then, is the
ideal Vacation Psalm. 1t lures off
into tba boort nj Nature apd cpaalc
of God there. 1t holds up the Word
of God as perfect and sure, as right
and pure, as clean and holy and true,
and then speaks of its converting pow
er, of it's gift of wisdom, of it's fill
ing the heart with rejoicing and the
eye with a new and glorious light,
OF it's p~erpetuity, of it's value above
gold and it's sweetness above honey,
OF it's faithfulness in guarding from
harm and danger, and of the great re-
ward which is to be realized from ODE
dience yielded thereto. The Vacation
Psalm. Let us not be content with
the experience of its opening verses,
but may we get into deeper touch with
God. Take the whole Psalm into the
woods and get its full message,
THE thought of law and order runs
/ through the whole Psalm. The
law governing nature and the law gov
erning man. Nature obedient TO the
Divine will, and graceful and beautiful
harmony prevailing between the God
head and His created worlds. Man
given the Divine law and revelation
which to obey would produce a har-
mony that would fill earth with peace
and joy and prosperity of millennial
promise, and Heaven with the music
of the glad angelic hosts, but man vio-
lating that law, and despising that rev.
elation. AS we walk abroad at night
and lift a~ppreciative gaze to the star
studded heavens, we are conscious of
q law which keeps them faithfully in
their place and steadily upon their
course. Day after day we see the glori-
GUS king of the day enter the eastern
gate of the morning and ride in splen-
dor through the heavens and then re-
tire majestically behind the ramparts
of the western horizon, while from its
battlements there stream forth the gold
and crimson signals of the approaching
night, and realize that that splendid