"Psalmist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which man can certainly not effect by his own efforts. Of this change it can certainly be said that it is "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." To have this change brought about in the heart, all need to pray in the words of the Psalmist, Ps. lxxxv. 4, "Turn us, O God of our salvation;" or as Ephraim in Jer. xxxi. 18, "Turn thou me and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God;" or as Judah in Lamentations, v. 21, "Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned." It is God the Holy Ghost ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... power, without which he feels that neither he nor any thing else would have any life or reality. We are so fashioned that as soon as we awake we feel on all sides our dependence on something else; and all nations join in some way or another in the words of the Psalmist, 'It is He that made us, not we ourselves.' This is the first sense of the Godhead, the sensus numinis, as it has well been called; for it is a sensus, an immediate perception, not the result of reasoning or generalization, but an intuition as irresistible as the impressions ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... His radiant bow in the clouds and copies its colours in myriad flowers. He gives to the babe a mother's love, to the child a father's care, to parents the joy of children, to brothers and sisters the sweet association of the fireside, and He gives to all the friend. Well may the Psalmist exclaim, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." Surely everything that hath breath should praise ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... entire contour of the coast and reverse the once brilliant destinies of maritime cities. With the recorded experience of mediaeval writers at hand, we can localize lagoons and inland seas where to-day we find belts of luxuriant cultivation. In a lifetime falling short of the Psalmist's threescore years and ten observations may be made that necessitate the reconstruction ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... all nations the fondest admirers of man and the things of man. But when we ascend to God, we are out among the immensities and eternities. The vastness of creation, the infinity of the Creator,—there is no mode or measure there. In those heights the Hebrew Psalmist loved to soar. Christianity, with its central dogma of the Incarnation, is the meeting of Hebrew and Greek. That mystery clothes the Lord God of hosts with the measured beauty, grace, and truth, that man can enter into. But enough of this. Enough ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... his walk. His bones, as the Psalmist said, turned to water. How should he confront that gaze of hers, which knew so much and understood so deeply—he with the memory of his two last ignominious ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Beauty remain subjective and ephemeral until they have received the "imprimatur" of some mysterious superhuman Being or Beings, such rebellious temperaments as I am speaking of might conceivably cry aloud for the Psalmist's "wings of ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... Nicetas calls him enneorguioV, nine orgyae, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would, indeed, have excused the terror of the Greek. On this occasion, the historian seems fonder of the marvellous than of his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the words of the psalmist, persequitur ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... to excite the mind internally. But if they distract or in any way impede the mind we should abstain from them; and this happens chiefly to those whose mind is sufficiently prepared for devotion without having recourse to those signs. Wherefore the Psalmist (Ps. 26:8) said: "My heart hath said to Thee: 'My face hath sought Thee,'" and we read of Anna (1 Kings 1:13) that "she spoke in her heart." Secondly, the voice is used in praying as though to pay a debt, so that man may serve ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... by good breeding. When the speaker came to a pause, the King said, with a kinder manner, "Thou hast done well, and hast given no just cause of offence to anyone. Mr. Secretary is an approved friend: but I need not remind your Reverence of the prayer of the Psalmist: 'Let not his ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... the Babylonian period was ushered in. Some of the captives rose to positions of trust in the Babylonian government. Daniel and his three associates are examples. During this period Ezekiel was a prophet. No doubt the frame of mind of most of them is well expressed by the Psalmist: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... little of the enterprise of the original five-pointers. It may be that as I grow older, my most interesting historical period will move with me, keeping always at a distance of sixty years from the present, until, when I get within hail of the Psalmist's stint, I shall be most interested in childish things." These words rather staggered me, and set me thinking of geometrical loci. A man holding such views would find it difficult to obtain a bird's-eye view ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... my honored friend and fellow-delegate, the Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, was standing calm, yet firm, amidst those rude scoffers, the words of the Psalmist kept sounding in my ear: "Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me roundabout, gaping upon me with their mouths." I marked the biggest of the herd with the purpose, at the first suitable season, of laying on one blow of the lash with such a will that it should ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participated likeness of the uncreated light, in which are contained the eternal types. Whence it is written (Ps. 4:6, 7), "Many say: Who showeth us good things?" which question the Psalmist answers, "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us," as though he were to say: By the seal of the Divine light in us, all things are ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... a few moments entirely changed her course of action. She was almost moved to tears and her manner seemed to say, "Well, I suppose it is all for the best, come what will I am prepared for it." But might we not quote the words of the Psalmist, "The words of his mouth were sweeter than butter but war was ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... will, at least, have thrown a feeble and imperfect light. It will have afforded an additional proof of the strength of the unconquerable will, and the weakness of matter as compared with it; another illustration of the words of the inspired Psalmist, that "we are fearfully and wonderfully made." If it serve no other purpose than this, its history will prove useful. Truth ere now has been elicited by means of error; and Animal Magnetism, like other errors, may yet contribute its quota towards the instruction and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Psalmist numbered out the years of man: They are enough; and if thy tale be true,[hr] Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span,[297] More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo! Millions of tongues record thee, and anew Their children's lips ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... started out to my first day's work at the forge, breakfastless, for the good and sufficient reason that there was none to be had, but full of the glad pure beauty of the morning. And I bethought me of the old Psalmist's deathless words: ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... reassurance and power. Every normal man needs two attitudes: one when he goes into action determined to do his work and to do it well, and the other when he subdues his spirit to receptivity and with the Psalmist cries, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... the Lord: the Lord hath chastened me sore yet he hath not given me over to death" (Psalm 118.17-18). "Look here, mother," says he, "did you read this?" And here I may take occasion to mention one principal ground of my setting forth these lines: even as the psalmist says, to declare the works of the Lord, and His wonderful power in carrying us along, preserving us in the wilderness, while under the enemy's hand, and returning of us in safety again. And His goodness ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
... friends. The allusion is to David the Psalmist and Jonathan the son of Saul. David's lamentation at the death of Jonathan was never surpassed in pathos and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... come to pass with all sinners. For, unless by repentance you first come to God, and yourself confess your sin to God, God will surely come to you, to disclose your sin. For God cannot endure that any one should deny his sin. To this fact the psalmist testifies: "When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was changed as with the drouth of summer." Ps 32, 3-4. For, although sin has its sleep and its security, yet that sleep is "at the door"; ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... 2, 6, the valley of the son of Hinnom being regarded as typical of "the field of blood." (2) That in xxvii. 34, from Ps. lxix. 21. It is said that the evangelist, in order to make our Lord's action correspond with the words of the Psalmist, makes Him drink "gall" instead of "myrrh" (Mark xv. 23), and thus represents the soldiers as cruelly giving Him a nauseating draught instead of a draught to dull His pain. The argument will hardly hold good, for the ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... the Northern Presbyterian and Northern Baptists and the failure of the financial drive have imperilled the existence of this ambitious project. Is it not a case of repeating with the Psalmist: "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... and so far from not believing in such miracles within their sphere, I believe in nothing else. But does that which wakes love put it there? Is some new thing added to life? Rather let us say that it is life coming to its own; just finding what was already there. This may be what the Psalmist means when he speaks of deep calling to deep. The deep in man answers to the deep of attraction which appeals to it. If man was conceived in the image of God, then God is immanent in man. This is not to say ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... little shade from that sweltering sunlight. I tied my mare to the gnarled root—it was the only part big enough—and sat down by Hilda's side, under the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. I realised at that moment the force and appropriateness of the Psalmist's simile. The sun beat fiercely on the seeding grasses. Away on the southern horizon we could faintly perceive the floating yellow haze of the prairie ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... in the age of Plato; and that the terrors of another world were freely used in order to gain advantages over other men in this. The same objection which struck the Psalmist—'when I saw the prosperity of the wicked'—is supposed to lie at the root of the better sort of unbelief. And the answer is substantially the same which the modern theologian would offer:—that the ways of God in this world ...
— Laws • Plato
... earnest and complete, that it did not mean—as it does among honest shopkeepers in a civilised country—I will make a little more money than you; but—I will crush you, enslave you, exterminate you, eat you up. "Woe to the weak," seems to be Nature's watchword. The Psalmist says: "The righteous shall inherit the land." If you go to a tropical forest, or, indeed, if you observe carefully a square acre of any English land, cultivated or uncultivated, you will find that Nature's text at first sight ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... mist and wind and clamoring sea and solemn hills, the dour, ill-tempered world wherein we were, our days as grass (saith the psalmist). Ay, an' 'tis so. I remember the day: the wet moss underfoot; the cold wind, blowing as it listed; the petulant sea, wreaking an ancient enmity, old and to continue beyond our span of feeling; the great hills of Twin Islands hid in mist, but yet watching us; the clammy fog embracing ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... young friends, don't pay overmuch attention to what the Psalmist says about "the years of man." I knew dans le temps a fine old octo-and-nearly-nonogenarian, one Graberg de Hemsoe, a Swede (a man with a singular history, who passed ten years of his early life ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... my life are protracted beyond the Psalmist's threescore and ten, even though the events that chance in the comparatively long future seethe and struggle as strenuously as those that befell in the eager, vivid procession of yesterdays which makes up my past, my memory's ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... was a man of the world, whose strenuous fighting now was to be done as a general—not, as hitherto, in the ranks. His manner was very quiet and gentle. "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength," says the psalmist. That was ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... repeated the syndic, "'put not your trust in princes,' says the psalmist. If such is to be the return for my loyalty—but there is no time to lose. I must send this post, to Hamburgh and Frankfort. Many thanks, my dear friend for your kind council, which I shall follow," so saying, Mynheer Krause went to his room, threw off his gown and chains in a passion, and ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... attending divine service in a church at Langley in Bucks, and hearing there a psalm sung, whose wretched expression, far from conveying the meaning of the Royal Psalmist, not only marred devotion, but turned what was excellent in the original into downright burlesque; he tried that evening if he could not easily, and with plainness suitable to the lowest understanding, deliver it from that garb which rendered ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... will get a syllable or two in advance, or an enchanted singer so lose all thought of time and place in the luxury of a closing cadence that he holds on to the last semi-breve upon his private responsibility; but how much more of the spirit of the old Psalmist in the music of these imperfectly trained voices than in the academic niceties of the paid performers who take our musical worship out of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Mr. Speaker," said George Washington, rising with his hand in his bosom; "as de question is befo' us, I wish to say that de las' bro' mus' have spoken under 'xcitement. Every man don' have his price! An' I hope de bro' will recant—like as de Psalmist goes out o' his way to say 'In my haste I said, All men are liars.' He was a very busy man, de Psalmist—writin' down hymns all day, sharpen'n' his lead-pencil, bossin' 'roun' de choir—callin' Selah! Well, bro'n an' sisters"—both arms going ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... or cadence." The same peculiarity is observable in all experiments with the moving tables or rapping spirits, which are more successful when accompanied by constant music. Circe fascinated with incantation; and the Psalmist alludes to it as a means of charming. Serpents, as well as men, are thus charmed. Virgil says, that, if to this incantation by words certain herbs are joined, the fascination works ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... wine, Philip; I am going to have one; it is a good thing to begin a conversation on. What says the Psalmist: 'Wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make him a cheerful countenance'—a cheerful countenance! Ho, ho! my old limbs are tired; I am going to sit down—going ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... of angel-youths is best seen in the picture which represents the Christ-child borne by two attendant cherubs in exemplification of the psalmist's words, "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." The Madonna stands before the Divine Babe, with hands clasped in adoration, a lovely impersonation ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... on its margin and when your fire burns low, and you draw your blanket around you, with the mountain brook singing its lullaby, and the vesper sparrow chanting its melodious vesper hymn, you can say with the psalmist, "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep," and you might add, "lulled by the song of ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... it was impossible to ascertain from the Old Testament the name of David's mother. In the Genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, by J. S. (usually assumed to stand for John Speed, the historian and geographer), the name of the Psalmist's mother is given "Nahash." Can this be made out satisfactorily? Will the text 2 Sam. xvii. 25., as compared with 1 Chron. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... to have recognized the deities of their neighbours as existing spirits, but inferior in power to the God of Israel. "All the gods of the nations are idols" are words that entirely fail to convey the idea of the Psalmist; for the word translated "idols" is Elohim, the very term usually employed to designate Jehovah; and the true sense of the passage therefore is: "All the gods of the nations are gods, but Jehovah made the heavens."[1] In another place we read that "The Lord is ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... him, make him known, set him forth in his many roles, his functions, his offices and his covenant glories, prophets recite their visions, a Psalmist sings his rarest songs, and apostles unfold ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... 18-19). And the apostle says: "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (II Tim. iii, 12). And elsewhere he says: "I do not seek to please men. For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" (Galat. i, 10). And the Psalmist says: "They who have been pleasing to men have been confounded, for that God hath ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... particular sparrow should fall at that particular moment and in that particular place. I cannot see why all things should not move in a divine and wonderful order, and yet why they should not all work together for good to those who love God. The Psalmist of old finds no contradiction between the two thoughts. Rather does the one of them seem to him to explain the other. 'All things,' says he, 'continue this day as at the beginning. For all things ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... royal Psalmist says,[X] "The Lord also thundered out of heaven, and the Highest gave his thunder: hail-stones, AND COALS OF FIRE,"—the latter expression, in consistency with common sense, and conformably to the right meaning of language, cannot ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... to face the perils of an ocean-passage of forty-six days' duration, and the new, strange life in the wilds of America, that they might prove their faith in each other, in their principles, and in God. "He setteth the solitary in families," says the Psalmist; and the truth was never better illustrated than in the isolated and weary life of our ancestry, two ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... Apsimar were cast prostrate in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou set thy foot!" The universal defection which he had once experienced might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one head. Yet I shall presume ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... undoubtedly laid to heart Virgil's reproof, when he wept at the sad punishment of the soothsayers: 'Who is more wicked than he who feels compassion at the Divine Judgment.' Passionate love of God, Dante holds, implies passionate hatred of God's enemies. That is a thought expressed by the Psalmist. 'Lord, have I not hated them that hate thee and pined away because of thy enemies? I have hated them with a perfect hatred and they are become enemies to me' (CXXXVIII, 21). So it may be said that Dante has the spirit of the psalmist and seeks to love, as God loves, and ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... careering over his bare feet, had ample leisure to watch the break of day: the gradual lighting up of the zenith, the rosy tints gathering and growing upon the tiny, pearly trade-clouds of which I have spoken, the blue of the water gradually revealing itself, laughing with white-caps, like the Psalmist's valleys of corn; until at last the sun appeared, never direct from the sea, but from these white cloud banks which extend less than five degrees above it. Such a scene presents itself day after day, day after ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... haps, he is less triumphant in his wrestles with Satan. But it was the first time I ever heard it uttered by another; and, to say truth, he ever seems to repeat it unwillingly, as a child after his pedagogue, and as it was not indited by his own head, as the Psalmist saith." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the beginning of this period has drawn from the lips of Thomas of Celano a sort of canticle in honor of the monastic life. It is the burning and untranslatable commentary of the Psalmist's cry: "Behold how sweet and pleasant it is to be brethren and to ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... plead for you all with many tears." And then, speaking of some intimate friends who were impatient, (as I suppose by the connection) for his return to them, he takes occasion to observe the necessity of endeavouring to compose our minds, and say with the Psalmist, "My soul, wait thou only upon God." Afterwards, speaking of one of his children, who he heard had made a commendable progress in learning, he expresses his satisfaction, and adds; "But, how much greater joy would it give me to hear that he was greatly advanced in the school of Christ! Oh ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... with pity in his heart. The spectacle was one of the most painful he had ever witnessed. How was the mighty fallen!—the proud brought low! As he walked from the prison, the Psalmist's striking words passed through his mind—"I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree; yet he passed away, and lo, he ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... soon they grow again and leave their nest. 'Oh!' saith the Psalmist, 'that I had a dove's Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!' And who that recollects young years and loves,— Though hoary now, and with a withering breast, And palsied fancy, which no longer roves Beyond its dimm'd eye's sphere,—but would ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... ASH WEDNESDAY (which see). There are no prayers more fitted for penitent sinners than the Seven Penitential Psalms, if we enter into the feelings of compunction, {211} love, devotedness and confidence with which the Royal Psalmist was penetrated. The purport of each psalm may ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... everything that seemed like display or the desire of applause or of immediate effect. Intellectual depreciators of intellect may deceive themselves, and do not always escape the snare which they fear; but in Isaac Williams there was a very genuine carrying out of the Psalmist's words: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself; I refrain my soul and keep it low, as a child that is weaned from his mother." This fear of display in a man of singularly delicate and fastidious taste came to have something forced and morbid in it. It seemed sometimes as if in ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... their own thoughts and actions. Naturalists have depicted the habits and customs of many ferocious animals, but they have forgotten the mother and daughter in quest of a husband. Such women are hyenas, going about, as the Psalmist says, seeking whom they may devour, and adding to the instinct of the brute the intellect of man, and the genius of woman. I can understand that those little spiders, Mademoiselle de Belor, Mademoiselle ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... life-giving love, healing both mind and body, that raised the deadened conscience, paralyzed by inactive faith, to a quickened sense of mortal's necessities,—and God's power and purpose to supply them. It was, in the words of the Psalmist, He "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... blessed man referred to by the psalmist, "Whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night." Abandoning a vain search after abstractions, and applying his simple formula to life, Hinton found that it enabled him to express the faith in his ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... and courage,—a soul, full of sweetness and purity, clung to him for its hope of Heaven! The glad blood quickened in his veins,—he was twice a man,—never had he felt so proud, so powerful, and withal so young. Like the Psalmist he could have said 'My days are renewed upon the earth'—and he devoutly thanked God for the blessing and glory of the gift of love which above all others makes ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... love, take 'em to drink and the like vanities. I, that suffered all this, took to the Bible and found all my needs betwixt the covers o' this little book. For where shall a wronged man find such a comfortable assurance as this? Hark ye what saith our Psalmist!" Turning over a page or so and lifting one knotted fist aloft, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... will go further still, and say, that in those great words—"Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them,"—in those words, I say, the Psalmist has anticipated that realistic view of embryological questions to which our most modern philosophers are, it seems to me, slowly, half unconsciously, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... suggestion of the picture? Man wakes up here on this planet what sort of a being? Not at first "a little lower than God," as the old Psalmist says of him, but only a little higher than the animals, ignorant of himself, ignorant of his surroundings, weak, undeveloped in every faculty and power. He begins, we say, to live; and what does that mean? He begins to ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... them all motives that conflict against it, and be the inner principle, or necessity, of all their actions. Such complete devotion to the good is expressed, for instance, in the words of the Hebrew Psalmist: "Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever; for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have inclined mine heart to perform Thy statutes alway, even unto the end. I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... before, the psalmist had magnified God's favor to Israel in making her holy house His dwelling-place: "In Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling-place in Zion."(23) He "chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... was the best feature of Solomon's reign. They were of such prominent importance that a name was affixed to each of them. One was called "Jachin," which means, "he will establish," the other was called "Boaz," which means "in strength." The ideas involved are stability and strength. Possibly the Psalmist had these pillars in his mind when he wrote, "Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary" (Ps. xcvi. 6); strength first, then beauty; strength as the foundation of divine work, then beauty, graceful ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... on paper. During this period, I have sometimes realized all the pleasures of health; at other times, borne down with pain and sickness, the spirit would be cast down. At such seasons of depression, religion would come in as my only comfort, and with the Psalmist I would exclaim, "Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the light of my countenance, and my God." Thus I find from blessed experience, that in every state and condition, union and intercourse with God brings true peace, joy, trust, and praise. If there be any honour, here it is. If ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... sparkling and sputter; Then earth in a sudden contortion Gave out to our gaze her abortion. Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature's but narrow, And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) I should study that brute to describe you Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu. One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy To see the black mane, vast and heapy, The tail in the air stiff and straining, The wide eyes, nor waxing ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... one of those inexpressibly sweet, motionless evenings, in which one is inclined, if in ordinary health, to rejoice in one's existence; and in which the Christian is led irresistibly to join with the Psalmist in praising God, "for his goodness, and for his wonderful works ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... lightened and spake through the quick and the dead. The chant of the prophetess, louder and loftier than tempest and wave, Rang triumph more ruthless and prouder than death, and profound as the grave. And sweet as the moon's word spoken in smiles that the blown clouds mar The psalmist's witness in token arose as the speech of a star. Starlight supreme, and the tender desire of the moon, were as one To rebuke with compassion the splendour and strength of the godlike sun. God softened and changed: and the word of his chosen, a fire at the ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of nourishing earth—the belief, first, that what you are now is the result of your actions in previous lives, and, secondly, that there are plenty more rebirths in which any merit you possess may have its just recompense of reward, the caste system has flourished like the Psalmist's green bay tree, though its influence has been more like that of ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... acting mind of God. To the latter are to be referred all the manifestations of design in nature, and the ordering of events in Providence. This doctrine does not ignore the efficiency of second causes; it simply asserts that God over-rules and controls them. Thus the Psalmist says, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made.... My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought (or embroidered) in the lower parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... that fitfully possessed the first king of Israel, was expelled by the skilful hand of his successor, even when his youthful fingers awoke the melodies of the lyre, how much more puissant the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired as they were with sentiments and views alike honorable to God and man, to elevate the conceptions, purify the heart, ennoble the aspirations, and adorn the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... things, and because of itself and independently of God's omnipotence it has no power whatever. We read: "Now it follows that free will is a title altogether divine and cannot belong to any other being, save only divine majesty, for He, as the Psalmist sings [Ps. 115, 3], can do and does all that He wills in heaven and in earth. Now, when this title is ascribed to men, it is so ascribed with no more right than if also divinity itself were ascribed to them,—a sacrilege than which there is none greater. Accordingly ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him?" So said the royal psalmist. And, in a sense, time should only have deepened the astonishment which this question expresses. For man's ideas of the magnificence of the heavens have grown with the course of ages; and though the stars in the transparent atmosphere of Palestine shone with a brilliancy ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... in Imitation of one of those Psalms, where, in the overflowings of Gratitude and Praise, the Psalmist calls not only upon the Angels, but upon the most conspicuous Parts of the inanimate Creation, to join with him in extolling their common Maker. Invocations of this nature fill the Mind with glorious Ideas of Gods Works, and awaken that Divine Enthusiasm, which is so natural ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... more personal phrase, "My God," which we find about seven times in his writings, St. Paul expresses his consciousness of personal possession and the blessed reality of fellowship with God. "This God is our God," as the Psalmist says. ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... upon her. Cursed him and his descendants, to the sixth and seventh generations, good and bad alike. Declaring, moreover, that as judgment on his perfidy and lust, no owner of Brockhurst should reach the life limit set by the Psalmist, and die quiet and Christianly in his bed, until a somewhat portentous event should have taken place—namely, until, as ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... exercise of congenial labour! Here came in the worth of effort, that one could force oneself to the task, commit oneself to the punctual discharge of an unwelcome duty. And if even that failed, then one could cast oneself into an inner region, in the spirit of the Psalmist, when he said, "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it." One could fling one's prayer into the dark void, as the sailors from a sinking ship shoot a rocket with a rope attached to the land, and then, as they haul it in, feel with ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sheer force of will. Now he let it rush in on him, all through him, all over him, flooding his mind and spirit, making his heart swell and his blood surge and his nerves ache and his limbs throb and quiver. If he could have formed a thought it would have been that of the Hebrew Psalmist when he felt himself poured out like water. He had neither shame for his manhood nor alarm for his pride till he heard himself panting, panting raucously, with a sound that was neither a moan nor a sob, but which racked ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... can become: only it is so difficult to know whether it is a call of reason or of conscience. I cannot make out, if I am impelled by what seems clear, or by a sense of duty. You can understand how painful this doubt is; so I have waited, hoping for light, and using the words of the Psalmist, 'Show some token upon me.' But I suppose I have no right to wait for ever for this. Then I am waiting, because friends are most considerately bearing me in mind, and asking guidance for me; and, I trust, I should attend to any new feelings which ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... and the little doctor skipped out of the library with a gay look and a merry nod, leaving the bishop relieved and smiling, and devoutly thankful for the solution of his life's riddle. At that moment the noble verse of the Psalmist was in his mind and upon his lips—'God is our refuge and our strength: a very present help in trouble.' Bishop Pendle was proving the truth of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Poe, the son of Irish strolling players, called "The Virginia Comedians," settled in the South and was educated in England. By an odd coincidence, it now appears that he actually was a native, as it were by accident, of Boston itself. In the words of the Psalmist, "Lo! there was he born!" This Gentile poet, such was the then state of American literature, could not arrive on earth elsewhere than in the Jerusalem of Massachusetts. But that concession was not known to the high priests, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... hope and trust for a coming and unknown future. It binds those memories of the past and those hopes for the future into one living body of thanksgiving, which, for all who have gone before us, for ourselves, and for those who are to follow us, must find utterance in the words of the Psalmist: "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise, for Thy loving mercy and for ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... to the leader, "surely this day's march is done. It is time to rest, and eat, and sleep. If we press onward now, we cannot see our steps; and will not that be against the word of the psalmist David, who bids us not to put confidence in the legs ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... heels of the Word of God as the Psalmist experienced. "I believe, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted." (Ps. 116:10.) The Christians are accused and slandered without mercy. Murderers and thieves receive better treatment than Christians. The world regards true Christians ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... wonderful thought, also mirrored in this piece of ancient ritual, that God delights in men's sacrifices and surrenders and services. 'If I were hungry, I would not tell thee,' said the Psalmist in God's name in regard to outward sacrifices; 'Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?' But he does 'eat' the better sacrifices that loving hearts or obedient wills lay on His altar. He seeks for these, and delights when they are offered to Him. 'He ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... left! Oh, that I could break loose! Oh, that I could free myself! Oh, that I had the wings of a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest!'" she exclaimed, breaking into the pathetic language of the Psalmist. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... be another motive and inducement thereunto; this appears both in personal and national covenanting—In personal, Psal. cxix. 106—"I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments." The Psalmist's having sworn, was a very quickening consideration to excite him to the performance of his duty. In national covenanting, we always find, after the people of Israel and Judah had covenanted with the Lord, they made progress in reformation, and the land ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... the sky, and he watched its black shadow climbing like a terrifying threat of doom out of the illimitable and blotting out the stars one by one.... "For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain...." Out of a childhood which seemed very far away and unreal the words of the Psalmist came to ring in his ears like the muffled tolling of a passing-bell. So it must be soon for all the living; and whether a little sooner or a little later, what could it matter? A breath more or less to be drawn; ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... trials incident to life, we hear the Psalmist exclaim "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word." This seems to be the lamentable condition of man. When rolling in the calm tide of uninterrupted prosperity, and rejoicing in the vigor of health, he forgets there is a God, or becomes ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... negroes was too great for him to resist."[225] But it seems to me that something more deserves to be said on the subject. We do not know whether Williams' epigram was a sober opinion or merely one cast off in a fit of irritation, that moment of "haste," which even the Psalmist knew, when he was led to sweep all mankind in under the term of "liar." But, further, if Williams was the deliberate sycophant and racial toady Gardner strives to shelter behind his shield of excuse, how was it that he had not won from the planter ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... behind, rendering it next to impossible for an enemy to approach undiscovered. As we reflect on these and numberless other points for admiration presented by the giraffe, we involuntarily exclaim with the Psalmist, "Oh, Lord! how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... self-evident? That justice ranks next to truth, if not with it, seems to have been, and to be, the general judgment of mankind. It has engaged the thought and fired the imagination of the greatest minds. A few quotations from such, ranging from ancient to modern times, will illustrate this. The Hebrew Psalmist gloried that "justice and judgment" were the habitation of Jehovah's throne. Aristotle wrote, "political science is the most excellent of all the arts and sciences, and the end sought for in political science is the greatest good ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... "It was the sweet Psalmist of Israel, David, son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite. Now, who is the man that long ago published a book of jests, said to be greatly studied now-a-days by diners-out and professed wits, and endlessly copied ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... his sufferings of mind and body and their result in a completed redemption: "My God, my God ..."; "I thirst;" "it is finished." He now breathed out his soul in a sentence of absolute confidence taken from the psalmist and recorded by Luke alone: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." It was the supreme utterance of faith. The earthly ministry of the Son of God ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... had desired. Finding that her son could understand more about the work, she became more particular and increased his tasks accordingly until it seemed that he could do nothing to suit her. Poor nervous child! if only he could have known the words of the Psalmist, what a comfort they would have been—"He shall deliver the needy ... and precious shall their blood be in his sight." ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... and grit can do what this man has done: indeed hard work and perseverance will as amply reward the labourer in the northern lands as they have done in the south. The sight of this great crop of valuable maize, on land which a few months before was a mere waste, brings the words of the Psalmist forcibly to one's thoughts, for surely of no country could it more truly be said than of the Argentine, "Dwell in the land, and be doing good, and, verily, thou shalt be fed"; and perhaps there are few countries in which ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... applied to that part of man which is divine, is the wellspring of Repentance and Humility, of Thankfulness, Love, and Joy. It reproves and it comforts; it stimulates and animates. This it is which led the Psalmist to cry, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." This has satisfied prophets, apostles, and martyrs with God as their Portion. This has been passed from heart to heart for ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... Under its authority the sinner could have no hope. Another decree provides that the Son of God shall bear the sceptre of authority—that the government shall be upon his shoulders. To this arrangement we suppose the words of the Psalmist to refer: "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give the heathen for thine inheritance, and the ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... blossoms into music as naturally as a bulb bursts into bloom and fragrance. He is a creature of marvelous inheritance. Poetry is a true bird-land, where you shall hear the birds as often as in any meadow or orchard on a May morning. All poets have been their lovers, from the psalmist of old, who knew "all the birds of the mountains," to our own Lowell with his "Gladness ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock |
