And what in it is true for ever?  The very figures, the metaphors of the psalm are true for ever.  “Under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my refuge”—­that is a noble figure; can we not feel its beauty?  And more.  Do none of us know that it is true?  David did not believe any more than we do, that God had actual wings.  But David knew—­and it may be some of us know too—­that God does at times strangely and lovingly hide us; keep us out of temptation; keep us out of harm’s way; as it is written, “Thou shall hide them privately in Thy presence from the provoking of all men.  Thou shall keep them in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues.”  Ah, my dear friends, in such a time as this, when the strife of tongues is only too loud, have you never had reason to thank God for being, by some seemingly mere accident, kept out of the strife of tongues and out of your chance of striving too, and of making a fool of yourself like too many others?  The image of the mother bird, hiding her brood under her wings, seemed to David just to express that act of God’s fatherly love, in words which will be true for ever, as long as a brooding bird is left on the earth, to remind us of David’s song; and of One greater than David, too, who said—­“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not.”  God grant that we all may do, when our time comes, that which those violent conceited Jews would not do; and therefore paid the awful penalty of their folly.

And the darker and more painful figures of the psalm:  are they not true still?  Is not a man’s soul, even in this just and peaceful land, and far oftener in lands which are still neither just nor peaceful—­Is not a man’s soul, I say, sometimes among lions?—­among greedy, violent, tyrannous persons, who are ready to entangle him in a quarrel, shout him down, ay, or shoot him down; literally ready to eat him up?  Are not the children of men still too often set on fire; on fire with wild party cries, with superstitions which they do not half understand, with brute excitements which pander to their basest passions, running like fire from head to head, and heart to heart, till whole classes, whole nations sometimes, are on fire, ready like fire to consume and destroy all they touch; and like fire, to consume and destroy themselves likewise?

Are there none now, too, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword?  Such use the pen now, rather than the tongue:  but they know, as well as those whom David met, how to handle the spears and arrows of slander, and the sharp sword of insult.  Are there none left, who set nets for their neighbours’ feet, by gambling, swindling, puffing, by tricks of trade and tricks of party?—­none who, like the Scribes of old, try to entangle men in their talk, and make them offenders for a word; and who, like David’s enemies, fall now and then into the very pit which they have digged, and ruin themselves in trying to ruin others?