C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, November 13th, 1864.

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly; nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord: and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season: his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”-Psalm 1:1-3.

It is an old saying, and possibly a true one, that every man is seeking after happiness. If it be so, then every man should read this Psalm, for this directeth us where happiness is to be found in its highest degree and purest form. “Blessed,” says David, “is such and such a man”; and the word which he uses is, in the original, exceedingly expressive. It implies a sort of plurality of blessedness-“Blessednesses are to the man;” and it is scarcely known whether the word is an adjective or a noun; as if the blessedness qualified the whole of life, and was, in itself, better even than life itself. The very highest degree of happiness is blessedness, “these blessednesses,” as Ainsworth says, “heaped up one upon the other.” Surely this is the very highest to which the human heart can aspire. Let us then, this evening, come with attentive hearts to consider in the light of revelation the character of the blessed man. We will begin by considering-

The description given of him is simply this, that he is a man. There are moral qualities given, but the only thing said of him, in the first place, is that he is a man. Here is something very suggestive, for he is a person subject to the common sorrows of humanity. If we hear of a person greatly blessed by the sense of Christ’s presence, and so enabled to walk in holiness and much usefulness, we cherish the delusion that he must have been better than the ordinary run of men, certainly not such an one as ourselves. Ah! but how great is the mistake! God fashioneth all hearts alike, and if there be distinctions they are of grace, not of betterness by nature. The most blessed man is still a man. He must suffer pain, or pine in sickness, endure losses and crosses, and yet in it all be a blessed man.

Being a man, he is also subject to infirmities,-perhaps of a quick temper, or of a high and haughty spirit. He may be tempted to sloth or besetting sin of another kind. Still being a man he must have some infirmity, and yet, none the less is he blessed. Do not dream that the best of men are yet without fault. They will confess to you that they have-

“To wrestle hard as we do still

With sins and doubts and fears.”

More than this, it appears that he has to endure the same temptations that we have. “The way of sinners” often crosses his path; the “seat of the scornful” is sometimes next door to his own; or even under the same roof. He is not blind: he is obliged to see the lust which struts through the street. He is not deaf: he is forced to hear the lascivious song as it floats on the midnight air. He is subject to like passions, and tempted in all points as we are, and yet-he is blessed! Only a man, but much more than he could have been, had not God blessed him.

Observe, too, he does not hold any eminent position. It is not “Blessed is the king, blessed is the scholar, blessed is the rich,” but, “Blessed is the man.” This blessedness is as attainable by the poor, the forgotten and the obscure, as by those whose names figure in history, and are trumpeted by fame. It is not to the hermit who lives alone, but to the workman toiling amongst his fellows. Not to the man who wears a surplice and assumes the exclusive title of “priest.” But it comes to any man, in fustian, or corduroy, who loves God and seeks to obey him. His position has nothing to do with it. His character has everything to do with it. He is a man, and nothing but a man, though grace makes him much more.

The Psalm reveals to us, too, that in order to secure his blessedness, he is a man needing help. He is likened to a tree. It must drink of the rivers of water, and so this man must live upon divine grace. “His way” is said to be “known to the Lord,” implying that God’s approval of his way brings him strength. The best of men cannot live upon themselves. Our hearts are like the fire in the Interpreter’s house which the enemy tried to quench, but blazed the more because a man stood behind the wall and fed the flame from a vessel of oil in his hand. Here is a secret and mysterious power, the work of the Holy Spirit, who “works in us to will and do of God’s good pleasure.” In ourselves we are as weak as we can be, and left to ourselves would soon fall into some sin.

There is in the Psalm, however, one word which truly describes this man, and that is, that he is a righteous man! Observe the last verse: “The Lord, knoweth the way of the righteous.” The balance of this man’s nature has been read justed by the divine Scale-maker. He was once all out of gear: put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter; but now his judgment is rectified, and in spirit and character he is a righteous man. Once he was naked and defiled, but he has been washed in the fountain filled with blood, and clothed with the righteousness of Christ, a garment glittering with gold and silver threads, and all by faith.

This is the description of the “blessed man;” but still I beg you to remember he is only a man. Some such were born in the lowliest paths of life, educated in the most slender fashion, yet they have been among the finest witnesses and most heroic martyrs for their Lord. The brightest spirits that now wave the palm-branch, and strike the golden lyres most rapturously, were but sons Adam, like ourselves. Ezekiel, privileged to see more visions perhaps than any other prophet, is constantly called “son of man,” as if God would keep him humble, reminding him of the hole of the pit whence he was digged. However blessed you may get, my brother, it is still only, “Blessed is the man.” So I have tried to put the ladder down to you who are beginners in the heavenly life, to show you that there is not a long step to take at first. You are a man, and the text comes to you with, “Blessed is the man!” May it be true of everyone of us! Now, we get, following on this,-

There is, I believe, a book published which is entitled, “What to eat, drink, and avoid.” I should imagine the third section to be by far the largest portion, for there are a thousand things to be avoided. Now in this Psalm it appears that the divinely blessed man avoids the common way of ungodly persons. The ungodly are not necessarily drunkards or swearers. These are ungodly, of course, but not all ungodly persons are like them. The ungodly are just your go-easy sort of people. They may go to church or chapel, or go nowhere. They are often very respectable, good neighbours, kind to the poor. They may hold public office, and enter Parliament. There is no place they may not fill, for it is not considered an offence among men to be “ungodly.” The tragic folly and sin of these people is, that they have neglected the chief thing to be remembered, namely, that there is a God, that they are his creatures, and, being his creatures, ought to live to him. But they give God no part of their lives, and he is in none of their thoughts. They will think of their neighbours, remember their friends and acquaintances. The duties of the second table of the law they observe in a measure, but the first table is despised as though it had never been written.

The blessed man, however, avoids this. He sees that God, who filleth all things, ought to fill his thoughts, and that the great end of his being should be “to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.” It is chiefly here that the godly man differs from others. He does not consider first how the world regards a thing, but how God looks at it. If they ask, “Is it fashionable?” he replies, “the fashion of this world passeth away.” “But will you gain by it?” “Ah!” says he, “that is not the measuring-line I carry. I am content to lose, so that I can keep my word and serve God.” The first thought of the truly blessed man is how he can best glorify the name of Christ, and in so doing he avoids “the counsel of the ungodly.”

In the next place he avoids “the way of sinners.” Sinners live for pleasures. The Christian has his, but they would never please the worldling, nor would the worldling’s gratify his new tastes. The sinner can do a thousand things which the saint cannot do, and would not if he could: and the Christian can do a thousand things of which the sinner knows nothing. Let a thing be labelled “sin” in God’s book, and though men may laugh at it, call it a mere joke, a piece of fun, a peccadillo, the godly man accepts God’s labelling of it, and leaves the “way of sinners” let it be never so smoothly turfed, and grassed never so attractively.

The true Christian shuns “the seat of the scornful.” It makes his blood boil when he hears God’s name profaned. His heart is full of horror because of the wicked who obey not God’s law. Though he be told to “prove all things,” he knows that a very slight test is enough for some things, and he puts them quickly aside, to hold fast only that which is good. Some professors like to sit near the seat of the scornful, “for argument’s sake” they say. ’Twas thus that Mother Eve ruined the whole world, by listening to the serpent’s suggestions; and much mischief has been done in a similar way since then to Christian faith and simplicity. Ah! the further I can get from the scorner’s seat the better, and there let him sit alone! Away! away! away! for behold the day cometh when like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the profane shall go down alive into the pit. Happy is the man who shall escape that horror, by keeping fan, far away. These are some of the things the truly “blessed man” avoids, and the more he avoids them, the more blessed he is.

Once more, he avoids the very persons of sinners except so far as he has to deal with them in civil matters and the common courtesies and duties of life. They are not his bosom-friends, he would never dream of being unequally yoked with them in marriage: he shuns their company all he can, for his congenial associates are elsewhere. Their ways, example, words, he avoids. As he would keep from plague-infected places and people, so he strives to keep aloof from men who blaspheme, lest their profanity should taint and defile him. “Father,” said a young fellow, “I can go into such and such company and not be hurt.” The father stooped down to the fireplace and picked up a piece of coal. “There,” said he to his son, “take that in your hands.” The son shrank from the black cinder. “Why,” said the father, “it will not burn you!” “No! but it will blacken me,” he replied. Ah! bad company can blacken even where it does not burn, so keep away from it. Thou canst never retain this blessedness unless, like the man described here, thou walkest not in the counsel of the ungodly, thou standest not in the way of sinners, nor sittest in the seat of the scornful.

And now for the third truth here insisted on-

“His delight is in the law of the Lord.” Man must have some delight, some supreme pleasure. His heart was never meant to be a vacuum. If not filled with the best things, it will be filled with the unworthy and disappointing. As we remarked the other night when our text was. “Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him,”*-man cannot be alone, for if evil departs, good will come, but if good is driven away, evil will come. If you do not fill the measure with wheat, the arch-enemy will fill it with chaff. If the river flows not with sparkling sweet water, it will soon reek with pestilent miasma. Take care to have something worthy to delight in. I do not know how those people go through the world who never have any sort of pure excitement, but always go moping about from the first of January to the last of December. Life must to them be a sorry drag. The sparkling eye and the smiling face are the things God meant men to have, and they do not realize life’s full beauty unless at times they possess them. Why, the Christian, above all men, should have what the world calls his “holidays and bonfire nights,”-his days of rejoicing, times of holy laughter, seasons of overflowing delight. Nay! I think he should strive to have them always, for we are told, “Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” If we take our religion as men do physic, it is of little good to us. Some folks go to the house of God as you might suppose criminals would go to the whipping-post. But I like to see people come up to the house of God with glad alacrity, like children going home, or like those who are bound for the place-

“Where my best friends and kindred dwell,

Where God my Saviour reigns.”

The true Christian has his holy delights; and chief among them is his revelling in the law of the Lord, the Word of God. Of course, David had not a fourth of what we possess; it was a very little Bible then, but it has gone on increasing like a majestic river, until it is the wondrous volume we have. We, therefore, should take ten times more delight in it than the Psalmist did. Why do Christians delight in it? Because it is God’s law. Anything belonging to God should delight the believer. A child far from home is intensely pleased with anything that father gave him. A letter from home is a welcome and joyous thing Here is a letter from home to us telling us of our Father’s grace, and permitting us to read the precious secrets of his heart of love for us. We delight in it because it comes with divine authority to us, and so brings confidence and joy to our hearts.

The other day I was reading a book in which six reasons were given why the Christian delights in God’s law. First, because of its antiquity. Many people delight in old coins. Some will go down to the Thames and buy pieces of old iron that are rusty, under the idea that they are antiquities; which they may or may not be. Ah! there is nothing so old as this book! The first writings of Hesiod fall short at least five hundred years of the writings of Moses, so that that part of the blessed volume has divine antiquity about it, and is radiant with divine inspiring. Let us ever delight in it then.

We delight in it because of the justice of it. There is a law revealed in it, if perfectly carried out, no man would hurt his neighbour, but love him as he loves himself; no rank or class would press heavily upon another, and each would remember, consider, try to bless the other. It is made as no human law can be made, and every person yielding to it feels it in his conscience to be just.

We prize the book, too, because of its lofty wisdom. There is more wisdom for the life here than anywhere else besides. We do not come here for astronomy, or geology; but we come here for the highest of all wisdom, the science of God; for, though Pope says,-

“The proper study of mankind is man,”

we beg his pardon. A yet more proper study of mankind is God, and here, in this book of God, we learn of his love to us in the person of Christ Jesus, and grasp the science-heavenliest wisdom-of a crucified Redeemer.

We delight in the book, also, because it is true. Fiction may be read or not, as men’s tastes may direct; but it is of infinite value to have a book in which every word stands fast, when like a dream heaven and earth shall have melted away.

Again, we delight in it because it is pleasant. There are sweetnesses in it better than the honey-droppings from the honey-comb. When we read it, it makes the godly heart to beat at a high and glorious rate, and sometimes takes him on the wings of eagles, bearing him to a loftier Pisgah than Moses ever stood upon, and so helping him to see the land on the further side of Jordan, his eternal rest and heritage.

Lastly, the Christian delights in “the law of the Lord, because it is profitable. This book enriches with the best of wealth, and stored up treasures for all eternity. Now gathering up all these reasons I want earnestly to ask each one of us here, “Do you delight in this book?” Not, do you read it: but do you read it with delight? To go to it dragged there by duty, is miserably to miss its best messages, and is no evidence of true godliness. To put a sentence of it under the tongue as a sweet morsel, to grow healthy upon it when you are sick, rich upon it when poor, this is one of the truest tests of being a “blessed man,” and if you do not enjoy this, God help you to begin at the foundation; repent of sin, seek the Saviour, or otherwise where God is you can never come.

But I must hasten on to ask,-

“In his law doth he meditate day and night.” By day he gets little intervals of time to read it, so he steals from his nightly rest moments in which to meditate upon it. Reading reaps the wheat meditation threshes it, grinds it, and makes it into bread. Reading is like the ox feeding: meditation is it digesting when chewing the cud. It is not merely reading that does us good; but the soul inwardly feeding on it, and digesting it. A preacher once told me that he had read the Bible through twenty times on his knees, and had never found the doctrine of election there. Very likely not. It is a most uncomfortable position in which to read. If he had sat in an easy chair he would have been better able to understand it. To read on one’s knees is like a Popish penance Besides, he read in the wrong way. If instead of twenty times galloping through he had read once and pondered continually, probably he would have seen clearer than he evidently did.

It is said of some horses that they “bolt their oats.” This good brother was “bolting” Holy Scripture, and so getting little nutriment out of it. The inward meditation is the thing that makes the soul rich towards God. This is the godly man’s occupation. Put the spice into the mortar by reading, beat it with the pestle of meditation, so shall the sweet perfume be exhaled.

May I ask whether there are not some here who do not meditate on God’s Word at all? If so, then this solemn thought will seize us: if you have not the blessedness of God’s Word, you must inherit its curse. Let us see to it; and now beginning at the cross of Jesus Christ, study the mystery of his wounds for our sin, and then go on afterward to meditate in his law day and night.

This brings us now to the very centre of the Psalm’s teaching.

Very briefly on each point. He is blessed first of all, for life. “He shall be like a tree.” Not a dry, dead, sapless pole. His life is such that unregenerate men are strangers to it. He has been begotten again unto a living hope. The sap of God’s grace is in him; he is united to Christ his Root, and because he lives, and lives in him, he lives also. He has stability. The tree planted. Well-rooted in the ground. The wicked are like the chaff which the wind drives away, but the Christian’s life is stable. “Solid joys and lasting pleasures” are his portion. He has, too, the gladness of growth. The tree remains not the sapling, but grows upward, downward, abroad, spreading its branches. So the godly man is ever learning more of his Heavenly Father, and endeavouring to be more conformed to the image of his Lord. He has the blessing, too, of favoured position. Planted by God himself. Not self-sown or the foundling of the wind. If he is a servant he believes God has put him where he should be. Poor or rich, he learns to be content, for he is a tree divinely planted. He is well sustained. Whatever is really good for him God has pledged himself to give. Not a tree in the desert, but placed where the rivulets come rippling to his roots. He hears his Master say, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.”

He has, yet again, beauty in God’s sight. Beauty of an unfading kind; “his leaf also shall not wither.” When personal beauty decays by reason of old age, and beauty of wit and learning be assailed by approaching death, still he shall be fair, in the likeness of his Master, as a young olive tree, and grow as a cedar in the court of his God. And to crown all, he has constant prosperity. “Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” He may not grow rich, but he still prospers. His ships may be broken at Ezion-Geber, and he can thank God even for that, for their breaking may help him to heavenly grace, through his very tribulations; so he is content to lose in his possessions if his soul is made wealthy in faith and love, and sweet submission to God’s will. This metaphor of the flourishing tree, is a very beautiful one. See it there, always green, loaded with fruit, standing where it can never know drought. If God has taught us to delight in his law, that is our true picture and portrait. Is it ours?

But to close, here we are made to ask,-

There must be somebody who takes care of him, or he could not be so blessed as he is. Ah! “The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous.” If thou art resting in Christ for salvation, the Lord knows thy way. The minister knows nothing of your trials; you half wish you might dare tell him so that he might guide and comfort. But if he knows not, the Lord knows all your way. Are you sore depressed, do waves of grief roll over your soul? Well, pour out your heart to God: for he knows, and knows how to help. If the Lord did not look after us in our best days we should perish by the sunstroke of too much prosperity, and if he did not watch us in our worst days we should be frost-killed by the cruel Arctic winds of adversity.

But saith one, “How may I begin this way?” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and this is the fear of the Lord, to trust thy soul in the hands of God’s appointed Saviour, and know thou art safe. Say from thy very heart,-

“Just as I am, without one plea,

But that thy blood was shed for me,

And that thou bidd’st me come to thee,

O Lamb of God! I come.”

If thy very soul sings that, thou art on, the road to true blessedness, and all that is in this Psalm shall be thine in life, in death, and throughout eternity. May God bless thee thus, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 32

“A Psalm of David, Maschil;” that is to say, an instructive Psalm. I suppose that David wrote it after he had been forgiven and restored to divine favour. I think we may read it as a part of our own experience, either of conversion or when restored after backsliding.

Verses 1, 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

Twice he says “blessed.” He had felt the weight of sin; he had been sore troubled, and now that Nathan is sent to him with the word of pardon, “The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die,” he counts himself doubly blessed,-blessed not the man who has never sinned, blessed is he who having sinned is forgiven, not the man who has no sin, but whose sin is covered. Wonderful word! Both in English and Hebrew it sounds very much alike; the sacred kopher, the cover which covers sin so that it is hidden even from the eve of God himself! A wondrous deed! Blessed is the man who knows that divine covering! “Blessed,” says he, “is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” All along after David’s sin he became very crafty and very cunning, full of guile. You know the dodges that he had to cover up his sin; he tried to play some of his tricks on God himself, but he felt it was a mischievous thing to do: he was uneasy, he was unhappy. We have sometimes heard it said that after David sinned he remained insensible for nine months until he received the divine rebuke, but it was not so. He remained very sensitive, very depressed, very unhappy, and he was trying this way and that to cover up his sin and guile. He could not do it; he ought to make a clean breast of it and confess it before God and give up his crooked ways and his ideas of excusing himself, and when he had done that, when he had given up his guile and his guilt too, then he got the double blessing: “blessed, blessed!” If there are any of you who are treading crooked ways with God and man give them up. I know of nothing that will make you give them up like knowing free, full, perfect pardon through the precious blood of Christ and the free grace of God. The two things go together, guilt and guile; the two things go out of us together; when guilt is pardoned guile is killed. Now hear how David felt while he was conscious of his sin and yet was not right with God.

3. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

A wanton glance, the sin with Bath-sheba, where was the pleasure of it when it cost him all this? Such groaning that his very bones got old as if they were rotten, and his heart was heavy as if he wished to die.

4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me.

God was with his hand pressing him heavily, forcing his sin home upon him, making him say, “My sin is ever before me.” Oh! the misery of sinning to a child of God. Do not dream that we can ever have any pleasure in sin; the worldling may, but the believer never can. To him it is a deadly viper that will fill his veins with burning poison.

4. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

When he tried to pray, it was a dried-up prayer; he tried to make a Psalm, but it was a dried-up song; he tried to do some good, for he was still a good man, but it was all withered without the Spirit of God. His moisture was gone out of him, turned into the drought of summer, and summer in David’s country was a very droughty thing indeed. Every human thing despaired, the grass seemed to turn to dust; it was so with him. If you go into sin, this is what will happen to you. If you are a true child of God, you will have all the joy of God taken from you, all the moisture of your heart dried up, and you will be like a parched, withered thing. “Selah.” It was time to have a pause in the music, he was on so base a key; he had need now to screw up the harp strings and rise to something a little sweeter.

5. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

He must come to confession, full, spontaneous, unreserved: there must be a resolution. “I said, I will confess my trangressions unto the Lord;” a firm determination to hide nothing, to see the sin yourself, and to tell the Lord that you do see it, and to confess it with great grief and sorrow. What a wonderful word that is: “I said I will confess, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” God took away the sin; ay, the very pith and marrow of it,-“the iniquity of my sin,” taking the bone away and the marrow of the bone too: “thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin,”-it has all gone, wholly gone; by one stroke of God’s divine grace the sinner was pardoned. “Selah” again.

6. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.

For this (because of this), and for this blessing, “shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found.” The pardoning God must be sought. There is an attraction in the greatness of his mercy. They that are godly, even though they have offended and gone astray, must come back and seek for pardon in a time when thou mayest be found. “Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.” The godly man is safe when the floods are out. There are times when great waters prevailed in David’s country, the brooks sometimes turned to rivers, and came down with a rush when they were least expected; and here he says that when such a thing as that shall happen yet God’s people shall be saved. They shall come, but they shall not come nigh unto them. Let me read those words again. If you have gone to God in the day of your sin, and have found pardon, he that took away the sin will take away the sorrow: “Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.”

7. Thou art my hiding place;

Precious words! “Thou art my hiding place,” not “Thou art a hiding place,” but “Thou art my hiding place.” A man who is beset by foes does not stand still and say, “Yes, I can see there is a hiding place there,” but he runs to it. Beloved, run to your hiding place this evening, each one of you who can have a claim and interest in Christ, run to him now, and say,-

7. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.

He has come up to us out of the roaring to the singing; all the day long he roars, and now all the day long he sings; he sees songs everywhere; he lives in a circle of music: his heart is so glad. Well may he put another “Selah,” for he has smitten the strings very joyfully, and they need tuning again.

8. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.

Here the Speaker is changed. “I will instruct thee;” I have forgiven thee; “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go.” I have prayed thee back to the way, now I will teach thee in the way thou shalt go. “I will guide thee with mine eye;” thine own might lead thee astray. “I will guide thee with mine eye;” I will be on the path, I will fix mine eye upon thee. “I will guide thee with mine eye.”

9. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.

“Be ye not as the horse,” not only David, but all of you. If God will guide you, be guided; if he will teach you, be teachable; if he will be gracious to you, be gracious towards him.

10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.

“Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.” David had found that out; his sin had brought him a transient pleasure, but a lasting misery. He shall have a bodyguard of mercy; God will be gracious to him, tender to him, and will not leave him if he is trusting in the Lord.

11. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

“Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous.” Be glad. Well, but you cannot always be glad, says one. “Be glad in the Lord:” you may always be glad in him. Here is an unchanging source of joy. “Rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy.” Here, the man that was silent has gone as far as shouting now. Is it not enough to make him? Twice he was blessed, in the first and second verses: and now, he has been pardoned, he has been delivered, he has been compassed about with mercy. Why, he must be glad! “Shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart.” God bless you in the reading of his Word!

(As the Sermon and Exposition are short, the publishers have included Mr. Spurgeon’s Commentary upon the text from The Treasury of David.)

Verses 1, 2. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

“Blessed”-see how this Book of Psalms opens with a benediction, even as did the famous Sermon of our Lord upon the Mount! The word translated “blessed” is a very expressive one. The original word is plural, and it is a controverted matter whether it is an adjective or a substantive. Hence we may learn the multiplicity of the blessings which shall rest upon the man whom God hath justified, and the perfection and greatness of the blessedness he shall enjoy. We might read it, “Oh, the blessednesses!” and we may well regard it (as Ainsworth does) as a joyful acclamation of the gracious man’s felicity. May the like benediction rest on us!

Here the gracious man is described both negatively (verse 1) and positively (verse 2). He is a man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He takes wiser counsel, and walks in the commandments of the Lord his God. To him the ways of piety are paths of peace and pleasantness. His footsteps are ordered by the Word of God, and not by the cunning and wicked devices of carnal men. It is a rich sign of inward grace when the outward walk is changed, and when ungodliness is put far from our actions. Note next, he standeth not in the way of sinners. His company is of a choicer sort than it was. Although a sinner himself, he is now a blood-washed sinner quickened by the Holy Spirit, and renewed in heart. Standing by the rich grace of God in the congregation of the righteous, he dares not herd with the multitude that do evil. Again it is said, “nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” He finds no rest in the atheist’s scoffings. Let others make a mock of sin, of eternity, of hell and heaven, and of the Eternal God; this man has learned better philosophy than that of the infidel, and has too much sense of God’s presence to endure to hear his name blasphemed. The seat of the scorner may be very lofty, but it is very near to the gate of hell; let us flee from it, for it shall soon be empty, and destruction shall swallow up the man who sits therein. Mark the gradation in the first verse:

He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor standeth in the way of sinners,

Nor sitteth in the seat of scornful.

When men are living in sin they go from bad to worse. At first they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly, who forget God-the evil is rather practical than habitual-but after that they become habituated to evil and they stand in the way of open sinners who wilfully violate God’s commandments; and if let alone, they go one step further, and become themselves pestilent teachers and tempters of others, and thus they sit in the seat of the scornful.

They have taken their degree in vice, and as true Doctors of Damnation they are installed, and are looked up to by others as Masters in Belial. But the blessed man, the man to whom all the blessings of God belong, can hold no communion with such characters as these. He keeps himself pure from these lepers; he puts away evil things from him as garments spotted by the flesh; he comes out from among the wicked, and goes without the camp, bearing the reproach of Christ. O for grace to be thus separate from sinners.

And now mark his positive character. “His delight is in the law of the Lord.” He is not under the law as a curse and condemnation, but he is in it, and he delights to be in it as his rule of life; he delights, moreover, to meditate in it, to read it by day, and think upon it by night. He takes a text and carries it with him all day long; and in the night-watches, when sleep forsakes his eyelids, he museth upon the Word of God. In the day of his prosperity he sings psalms out of the Word of God, and in the night of his affliction he comforts himself with promises out of the same Book. “The law of the Lord” is the daily bread of the true believer. And yet, in David’s day, how small was the volume of inspiration, for they had scarcely anything save the first five books of Moses! How much more, then, should we prise the whole written Word which it is our privilege to have in all our houses! But, alas, what ill-treatment is given to this angel from heaven! We are not all Berean searchers of the Scriptures. How few among us can lay claim to the benediction of the text! Perhaps some of you can claim a sort of negative purity, because you do not walk in the way of the ungodly: but let me ask you-Is your delight in the law of God? Do you study God’s Word? Do you make it the man of your right hand-your best companion and hourly guide? If not, this blessing belongeth not to you.

3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

“And he shall be like a tree planted;” not a wild tree, but “a tree planted,” chosen, considered as property, cultivated and secured from the last terrible uprooting, for “every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up:” Matthew 15:13. “By the rivers of water;” so that even if one river should fail, he hath another. The rivers of pardon and the rivers of grace, the rivers of the promise and the rivers of communion with Christ, are never failing sources of supply. He is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;” not unseasonable graces, like untimely figs, which are never full-flavoured. But the man who delights in God’s Word, being taught by it, bringeth forth patience in the time of suffering, faith in the day of trial, and holy joy in the hour of prosperity. Fruitfulness is an essential quality of a gracious man, and that fruitfulness should be seasonable. “His leaf also shall not wither;” his faintest word shall be everlasting; his little deeds of love shall be had in remembrance. Not simply shall his fruit be preserved, but his leaf also. He shall neither lose his beauty nor his fruitfulness. “And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” Blessed is the man who hath such a promise as this. But we must not always estimate the fulfilment of a promise by our own eye-sight. How often, my brethren, if we judge by feeble sense, may we come to the mournful conclusion of Jacob, “All these things are against me!” For though we know our interest in the promise, yet are we so tried and troubled, that sight sees the very reverse of what that promise foretells. But to the eyes of faith this word is sure, and by it we perceive that our works are prospered, even when everything seems to go against us. It is not outward prosperity which the Christian most desires and values; it is soul prosperity which he longs for. We often, like Jehoshaphat, make ships to go to Tarshish for gold, but they are broken at Ezion-geber; but even here there is a true prospering, for it is often for the soul’s health that we should be poor, bereaved, and persecuted. Our worst things are often our best things. As there is a curse wrapped up in the wicked man’s mercies, so there is a blessing concealed in the righteous man’s crosses, losses, and sorrows. The trials of the saint are a divine husbandry, by which he grows and brings forth abundant fruit.

GOD, THE CHILDREN’S TEACHER

A Sermon to Children,*

intended for reading on lord’s-day, october 15th, 1911,-the day of special player for sunday-schools and other work amongst children,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Tuesday Evening, March 2nd, 1869.

“O God, thou hast taught me from my youth.”-Psalm 71:17.

David was a very great man, and at the time he used these words he ruled a kingdom, and wore a crown; but he needed to be taught, and he tells us that he had been to school, and that the wisdom he had was given to him by the great Teacher who taught in that school. You who are at school now must take care that you use well the privilege you have. You will not be wise without learning. Learning does not grow up in our heart, like weeds do in the fields; but it must be sown in us, as good wheat and barley must be oast into the ground if there is ever to be a harvest.

David did well in life because he had been well taught in his youth. He was one of those in whom God fulfilled that text, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” You know, when boys go to school, their teacher feels very anxious that they should turn out well, and be a credit to him. The teacher is very sorry when, after all his trouble, the boy becomes a dunce; and he is very happy when he sees some lad prosper in life, because he says, “I trained that boy.” The success of the scholar brings honour and credit to the teacher. So David speaks of God having taught him, in order that he may give honour and glory to God. David feels that he owes so much to his God that he cannot help saying what he does. “Lord,” he seems to say, “if I have learnt anything, if I have learnt how to fight giant Goliath, if I have learnt how to bear my troubles, if I have learnt how to pray, if I have learnt how to preach and how to be a king, I had it all from thee. I was the scholar, thou wast the Teacher; and unto thy name be all the praise.” Now, I shall not keep on any longer with the preface to my sermon; it is a cold, damp night, and people do not like to be kept outside the doors at such a time; we will just put our finger on the latch, and get to the inside of our sermon at once.

As soon as we come into it, the first thing we see is the great Teacher. Who is the Teacher? David says, “Thou hast taught me from my youth.” Who taught David?

The Children: “God.”

Mr. Spurgeon: Yes, that is right, God was David’s Teacher; he says in the text, “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth.” I have no doubt that David had other teachers; but all the teachers he had would not have been of any practical use to him if he had not also been taught by God.

Now, if God be the Teacher, we shall notice, first, that God is an effectual Teacher. David had been taught by his good mother. I know he had a godly mother, for he says, “Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid.” He calls his mother God’s handmaid, which shows that she was one of God’s servants. I have no doubt that she took David on her knee, and taught him God’s Word while he was but a child, for he had such a love to it afterwards that he must have had a love to it while he was yet little. After his mother, I have no doubt his father taught him. What was the name of David’s father?

The Children: “Jesse.”

Mr. Spurgeon: Quite right; and we believe that Jesse was also one of God’s people, and that he would have been sure to teach his son wisely, and train him up in the way he should go. I think there was another person who taught David, namely, the prophet Samuel. You recollect that Samuel anointed David while he was yet a youth; he poured oil on his head, and told him that he would one day be a king over God’s people. I feel sure that Samuel told him what God’s will was, and tried to train him so that he might, when he became a king, do God’s good pleasure rightly. But all these teachers-his mother, his father, and the prophet, could not have taught David if God had not taught him too. You see, dear children, your teachers, though they are very good and kind, can only get at your ear; but God gets at the heart, and that is where we most need to be taught. Suppose my watch should get out of order so that it would not go, and I could not get it open, all I could do in polishing up the gold outside, or cleaning the glass, would not make it go. I must take it to some watchmaker who could get at the inside, and who could touch the mainspring, or clean out the wheels. Now, your teachers cannot get at that which is inside of you as they could wish unless God helps them; but God can get at the heart, which is like the mainspring of the watch. He can get at our thoughts and feelings, which are like the wheels. I trust that you, my dear children, may be taught of God from your youth, because God is an effectual Teacher.

The next point is that God is a condescending Teacher. Have you ever thought of this? The great God made you blue sky, the sun and the moon, and all those bright stars that we see at night, and piled up the big mountains, and poured out the great seas and oceans from the hollow of his hand, and he is so great that all the things in this world are just like nothing when compared to him; and yet he stoops to teach children. He stooped to teach David. David says, “Thou hast taught me from my youth.” Would not some of you girls like to go to school if the Queen were to take a class? I am sure that nearly all the young ladies and all the little girls in London would be tearing away to the place if the Queen would but teach a class; you would think it such a great honour to be taught by Her Majesty. Oh, but when God teaches, what a wonderful stoop of condescending love that is! He who made the world, and bears all things up by his everlasting might, condescends to be a Teacher of little children: “Thou hast taught me from my youth.” Perhaps you have heard of that holy man, Mr. John Eliot. He went away from all his home comforts, out among the Red Indians, and spent his life in preaching to them; and when he was sick, and near to death, he was lying in a hut upon a hard couch, and what, think you, was the last thing he did? He had a New Testament, and he was teaching a little Red Indian boy his A B C, and making him spell out some simple text from God’s holy Word. “Oh, but!” one said; “does this great missionary teach that little red-faced, copper-coloured boy?” “Yes,” replied Eliot; “I prayed to God that I might never live to be useless; so, now I cannot preach, I am trying to teach Jesus Christ to this one little boy.” That was very kind of him; but think of the kindness of the great God, who wheels the stars along, and calls them all by their names, that he should condescend to teach us. Dear children, do not refuse to be taught by God; but, on the contrary, let this be your resolve, “My Father, thou shalt be the Guide of my youth.” Ask the Lord to teach you; for, as surely as he taught David, he is willing to teach you to-night.

My next remark is that God is a loving Teacher. I know you boys and girls in the Sunday-school classes like to have a smiling-faced teacher. You do not care to have one who is very cross and short-tempered with you, and inclined to give you a box on the ears; you like somebody who is very kind. I cannot tell you how kind God is to us; how patient, how pitiful, how tender. A good mother was telling her little girl a lesson over ever so many times,-I think it was nineteen or twenty times,-and someone said, “How can you have the patience to tell the child the same thing twenty times?” “Why!” she replied; “I tell her twenty times because nineteen are not sufficient.” Now, our God not only tells us twenty times, but twenty thousand times if necessary: “for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” From our very earliest childhood, right on, God keeps teaching us with great patience; and yet some of us are so wicked or so thoughtless that we forget what he teaches us almost as soon as we hear it; and we go on to do the wrong thing which he tells us not to do, and we forget to do the right thing which he bids us do. Yet he does not strike us dead. He still continues preaching to us, teaching us on the Sabbath, and on the week-days, by his Book, and by his Spirit, and by his ministers, and by our teachers, and in a thousand ways. Oh, what a kind and patient Teacher the Lord our God is! But I must not keep you long on any one point.

The next truth is that God is a wise Teacher. Have you ever thought what a wise Teacher God is? I will prove to you that he is very wise; for, do you know, he teaches not only men, but he can teach beasts? Did you ever see a beaver? Perhaps you did at the Zoological Gardens. Well, those beavers have flat tails, and they know how to use them just like bricklayers use their trowels; and they will go and nibble away at trees, and get bits of wood, and go down to a river, and build a house. Nobody could build such a house, so fit for beavers, as they build; they daub it, and plaster it; you would think that they had been apprenticed to a plasterer, they do the work so well. Who taught the beavers to build a house? Why, God! And how wise he must be to teach even the animals he has created? How wise be must be to teach the beaver to build a house! But God not only teaches beasts, he also teaches fish; and I never heard of any man who could teach a fish as God does. The fishes of the sea know exactly the day of the month when they ought to begin to go round the English coast; and the herrings and the mackerel come exactly to the time, though nobody rings the bell to say to them, “It is such a day of the week, and such a month of the year; and you ought to swim away.” When the time comes for them to go back again, away they go, and they seem to understand everything that they should do. If God can teach even the fish of the sea, what a wise Teacher he must be!

It is said that, many years ago, there was a very wise man who lived at Cambridge, and he taught scholars Latin and Greek, and many things that seemed very queer to the people who lived then; and the news flew abroad that there was a wonderful man there who knew everything, a little about the stars, and a great deal about all sorts of things. The young men all over Europe began to flock to him, and that is how there came to be a University at Cambridge, for the fame of the man’s learning drew those who wanted to be taught to come and be pupils to him. Now, when God can teach even the beasts and the fishes, you boys and girls and grown-up people ought to say, “Lord, let us be scholars in thy school!” Why, my dear friend over here, Mr. Johnson, is such a good teacher that the boys come and fill the school-house! If he were a bad teacher, he would not have half the number of boys that he has. A good teacher is sure to draw pupils, and God is the best and wisest Teacher. Oh, may his grace draw you to his school, that you may be able to say with David, “Thou hast taught me from, my youth”!

I have only one more point to speak upon under this head, so do not grow weary. God is a needful Teacher. It is really necessary that every one of us should be taught of God; for, if we are not, somebody else will teach us, and that somebody else will so teach us that we shall lose our souls for ever. There was a sad sight seen some years ago, I daresay the like of it has been seen far too often. A minister called at a house, and he saw a woman crying, oh, so bitterly, and she refused to be comforted! The minister said, “My good woman, what is the matter?” She answered, “Oh, my boy, my boy, my boy!” “What, is he ill?” “Oh, no, sir; worse than that!” “Is he dead?” “Worse than that.” “What is the matter?” “Oh, my boy, my boy!” “Where is he?” “Oh, sir, he is in prison,-in prison for stealing,-and it is all my fault!” “How is that?” said he. “Why, I took him to the theatre; and if there is any place where children can learn to do wrong, it is there!” And so she began to cry again. “I took him there, and that was the first step in his ruin; and now my boy is lost.” Ah, if you do not go to God to teach you, the devil will teach you! Do you know, the devil has plenty of teachers? I see them on Sunday; I mean bad boys and bad girls, who teach other boys and girls to do wrong. The devil can make a Sunday-school teacher out of a very small boy. “Come,” he says, “I’ll teach you;” and he teaches that boy to say bad words, and to do wrong things; and then away the boy goes, and teaches others. A bad boy is like a sheep that comes into the flock with a disease in it, and the disease goes from one sheep to another.

“One sickly sheep infects the flock,

And poisons all the rest.”

But if we have God for our Teacher, we shall not be taught to sin; but we shall be taught everything that is good.

But now we are going on to the second head, and that is, the lessons which this great Teacher taught David.

One of the lessons which God taught David was, to value his soul. We all want to be taught that lesson. We generally value our bodies, and take care of them; and up to a certain point that is right. Some of us like to look into the glass, for we think we are rather pretty; but there is danger in that glass as well as in others. I like to see the boys well-washed and clean, and I am pleased when they keep themselves tidy; and though I do not like to see girls dressed very finely, yet it is very nice to see them neat and trim. But, after all, you know, the body is only like the shell of the nut; the inside is the nut itself. It is the soul that is the thing we ought to care about. Some time ago, there was a great fire. What a noise there was in the street! Here come the engines! People are gathering together all round the house, and there is a woman shouting and crying, “Oh!” she says, “come and help me! Do come and help me! I want to save some of my things. She gets a bed downstairs, she brings out a box, she has secured some little trinkets and jewellery, and she gets everything that she can out of the fire, and she says to herself, “Dear me, am I not fortunate in having saved so much?” The fire is burning, the house is crackling, everything is being consumed, and all of a sudden the woman starts up, and says, “Oh, dear! where’s my child?” The neighbours cry, “What, did you not think of your child first?” “Oh!” she replies, “what a foolish woman I’ve been! I have saved these paltry things, and forgotten my child, my precious child!” That is like a person who cares only for his body, what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and what he shall put on, and then at last when he comes to die, he says, “Oh, dear! I have forgotten my soul, and now my soul must be cast away for ever into the everlasting burning that never shall be quenched.” Dear children, I hope God will teach every one of you in the Sunday-school to look after the welfare of your soul, and to recollect that, if you were to gain the whole world, and lose your own soul, all the gain would be an eternal loss.

The next lesson that God taught David was, to value the world aright. David, I am sure, valued the world aright because he says, “There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us!” And he says again, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” Young people generally think of this world. I will tell you a story, and ask you a question. There was a little boy carrying a basket of peaches, and he had to cross a railway. Just as he crossed it, the train came up, and went right over him, and crushed him to atoms. A little girl heard that story, and I do not think you could guess what question she asked, because it was such a silly question that you never would guess it, I think. Her mother said the dear little boy was all crushed to pieces by the train going over him; but the little girl was silly enough to say, “Mother, what became of the peaches?” Was not that a foolish question to ask? Now, when I hear of people dying, and I often do hear of persons who have been living without God, and without Christ, and they have been said to be “worth” perhaps £20,000, or £50,000, what silly question do you think I hear people ask? They say, “How much money did he leave?” as if that was of any consequence at all compared with the other question, “What has become of his soul? Where is his immortal spirit?” The little basket of peaches that the child carried was nothing compared with the boy himself; and all that you can ever gain in this world is nothing compared with your own self, your own real self, your soul. So I hope you will be taught by God’s grace to put the world in its right place, and look at it as being nothing compared with the saving of your soul.

Another thing that David was taught of God was, to see his sin. I know that, in your classes, you have read the fifty-first Psalm. How much David talks about his sin in that Psalm! He says, “My sin is ever before me.” This is one of the lessons that every boy and every girl here must learn, if they would enter heaven. You must learn that you are a sinner, and learn it so that it makes you mourn and cry out before God. I saw, last week, in the West-end of London, two soldiers, with bayonets fixed, one walking on one side of a soldier, and the other on the other side of him, and the man who was walking in the middle had a coat over his hands. I knew what that meant; he had handcuffs on his wrists. He had been deserting; and he had his hands chained together; but he did not like the people to know it, and therefore he had asked his comrades to be kind enough just to throw a cloak over his hands, so that he might not look as though he was chained. I do not blame him for that. But, you know, the devil-though men are all chained by nature, and are all of them slaves,-puts something over them so that they cannot see their chains, and they walk on believing that they are free, whereas they are in the worst possible bondage. One of the best lessons you can learn is to find out that you are a slave, and that you need someone to set you free; to find out that your soul is sick, and needs to be healed. Oh, may God’s Spirit teach you that, and teach it to you in your youth!

But, better still, the next lesson that God taught David was, where the remedy was for all his sins. If you read the fifty-first Psalm, you can hear him say, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” David knew that the blood of Jesus Christ could take away his sin. I have heard, but I do not know whether it is true, that a little creature, called the ichneumon, which lives in Egypt, lives by killing and eating snakes. It is a very useful little creature, for it destroys many things that would be deadly to men. But sometimes these snakes bite the ichneumon, and he would die, but the story goes that there is a kind of grass growing near the river which heals snake-bites, and as soon as ever the ichneumon gets bitten, and feels the poison, he runs away to this little herb, and nibbles at it, and gets healed directly. Whether it is true or not, you and I have been bitten by the old serpent Satan, and there is “the Plant of Renown”, the Lord Jesus Christ; and if we go and feed upon him, all the wounds that sin can make will soon be healed.

Well, these were very good lessons to be learned by David. Let me remind you what they were. God taught him to value his soul, to value the world aright, to see his sin, and to see the remedy for it. Another thing David learned was, to live as in God’s sight. How wonderfully David talks, in various parts of the Psalms, about God seeing him! When I was a boy, about the size of many of these boys that I see before me here, my father made me learn that long Psalm, the one hundred and thirty-ninth, in which Dr. Watts puts thus the great truth that God is everywhere, and can see everyone:-

“If mounted on a morning ray

I fly beyond the Western sea,

Thy swifter hand would first arrive,

And there arrest thy fugitive.

“Or should I try to shun thy sight

Beneath the spreading veil of night,

One glance of thine, one piercing ray,

Would kindle darkness into day.

“The veil of night is no disguise,

No screen from thy all-searching eyes;

Thy hand can seize thy foes as soon

Through midnight shades as blazing noon.

“O may these thoughts possess my breast,

Where’er I rove, where’er I rest!

Nor let my weaker passions dare

Consent to sin, for God is there.”

One other lesson David learnt was this, he learnt to prepare to die. This is one of the grandest lessons that any man can ever learn; for, you know, we must all die. There was a great king, who was a great warrior as well as a king. His name was Saladin; and when he was very ill in his tent, he said to his generals who gathered round him, “Go and fetch the crescent-banner, around which my warriors have always rallied in the day of battle.” So they brought it in, on a long lance, and they unfurled the colours right before him, and the dying man said, “Take off the colours; and see, there is the shroud that I have had prepared to wrap me in when I am dead. Now, put the shroud on the lance instead of the colours;” and they did so. These were the last words he uttered, “Go and take that shroud on the lance, and go through every street of the city, and cry aloud, ‘This is all that remains of the mighty Saladin! This is all that remains of the mighty Saladin!’ ” And this is what will be said of all of us, “This is all that remains of that fair girl with the beautiful hair;” “This is all that remains of that dear boy who was once so full of mirth and laughter;” “This is all that remains of that grey-headed man, so wise and learned;” “This is all that remains of the merchant with all his wealth;” or “This is all that remains of the preacher with all his speech.” Oh, to be ready, thoroughly ready, whenever the summons shall come for us to leave this world behind us, and go to the better land!

Now the third head is about when the scholar went to school.

I hope none of these boys who go to school ever go too late. “Dilly, dilly dollar,” don’t they say? “ten o’clock scholar.” He is always a bad scholar who comes in late. Those who go to God’s school are never very good scholars if they go too late. When did David go to God’s school, according to the text?

The Children: “In his youth.”

Mr. Spurgeon: That is right; in his youth. He says, “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth.” He went to school in his early days, and that is one of the reasons why he turned out so good a scholar, because he went to school betimes. Why should we go to God’s school early? I think we ought to do so, first, because it is such a happy school. Schools used to be very miserable places; but, nowadays, I really wish I could go to school again. I went into the Borough Road School the other day, into the Repository, where they sell slates, and pencils, and books, and all such things. The person who was there said to me, “Do you want to buy any of these things?” I said, “What are they?” He opened a box, and I said, “Why, they are toys, are they not?” He answered, “No, they are not; they are used for the lessons that are taught in the Kinder-garten school.” I said, “Why, if I were to take them home, my boys would have a game with them, for they are only toys!” “Just so,” he said, “but they are what are used in the Kinder-garten school to make learning the same as playing, so that little children should, play while they are learning.” Why, I thought, if that were so, I should like to go at once! Now, those who go to God’s school are made much more happy than any toys can make children. He gives them real pleasure. There is a verse, I don’t know how many of you know it; I will say the first line, you say the second, if you can.

Mr. Spurgeon: “’Tis religion, that can give”

The Children: “Sweetest pleasures while we live;”

Mr. Spurgeon: “’Tis religion must supply”

The Children: “Solid comfort when we die.”

Another reason why boys and girls should try to get to God’s school very early is because they will not have so much to be sorry for afterwards. Two or three times during the last fortnight, I have heard good men pray in the Tabernacle, and each one has said something like this, “O God, save my dear children! Grant that they may never go into sin as I did, that they may never have so much to repent of and to weep over as I had!” That was the father of some boy here, I expect; and oh, I know, if he were here to-night, he would say, “Dear boy, dear girl, do not go into sins which will afterwards cause you to weep.” This story will show you what I mean. A boy’s father once said to him, “Now, John, I will tell you what I am going to do to make you look at yourself a little. Every time you do wrong, I am going to drive a nail into that post; and every time you do right, and are a good boy, I shall draw one out.” “Well,” John thought, “I will not have any nails in that post if I can help it.” But they did get in somehow; boys will be boys, and girls will be girls; and there was a lot of nails in the post, and the boy felt very sorry as he saw them, for they seemed to speak to him, and to say, “You disobeyed your father that day; you disobeyed your mother another day,” and he thought he would be a good boy. So he tried with all his might, and got half the nails out; and after a while, he got every nail out of the post. And what do you think he said then? His father said to him, “You have got all the nails out, John.” “Yes, father,” he said, “but there are the holes still there. There are the holes still there.” Now when God’s grace comes to a man who has led a wicked life from his boyhood, it pardons him, and takes the nails out. “Ah!” says he, “but there are the holes still there. I recollect the sins I did, and they have done me serious hurt, though God has forgiven me.” one good man said, “I never shall forgive myself, to think that I lived so long without serving God.” Get then, dear children, to God’s school early, that you may not have the holes in the post, nor have so much to be sorry for in your after life.

Another reason why I would have boys and girls go to God’s school early is because it will make them most useful. A man cannot be very greatly useful who has only the fag end of his life to use for God. The tree that has been transplanted very lately cannot be expected to bear much fruit; but a tree that was put into the soil when but a scion, and that has continued to grow there year after year, is more likely to become a good fruit-bearing tree.

One other reason why I would have you go to God’s school soon is that you will die soon. Even if you live long, life will be very short. Oh, that God’s mercy would take you into God’s school now, even to-night, that you may be able to say with David, “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth.” Let this be your cry,-

“Soon as my youthful lips can speak

Their feeble prayer to thee,

O let my heart thy favour seek;

Good Lord, remember me!”

Now the last thing, and that is the most important of all to-night, and it will not take many minutes to tell you about it, the last thing is this. David said, “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth.” But David is dead now. I wonder whether there are some here to-night who can say the same as he did; I hope there are many. So the last head is, the scholar-where is he? the scholar-where is she?

Pass those questions all round the building, and I hope there are many who will be able to say, “O God, thou hast taught me,”-Mary, Jane, Thomas, William,-“Thou hast taught me from my youth.” I do not suppose you could make much of a speech to-night if you were on this platform; but, do you know, if I could have my choice between being able to speak as well as Mr. Gladstone, who spoke so grandly last night, or only be able to say, “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth,”-if I could only have one of the two, I should certainly choose the latter? There is more music in that sentence than in all the eloquence of the greatest orator.

I shall now ask a question or two, and then I shall have done. All the children here believe that, when we have gone from this life, we shall go into another world; and you are all hoping, I am sure, that, when you die, you will go to that happy land of which we sometimes sing,-

“There is a happy land,

Far, far away,

Where saints in glory stand,

Bright, bright as day;

Oh, how they sweetly sing,

Worthy is our Saviour King,

Loud let his praises ring,

Praise, praise for aye.

“Come to this happy land,

Come, come away:

Why will you doubting stand?

Why still delay?

Oh, we shall happy be,

When from sin and sorrow free;

Lord, we shall live with thee,

Blest, blest for aye!

“Bright in that happy land

Beams every eye;

Kept by a Father’s hand,

Love cannot die.

On then to glory run,

Be a crown, and kingdom, won;

And bright above the sun,

Reign, reign for aye.”

May we have that crown and kingdom! That is what we are looking for. A little girl came home one Sunday, and asked her mother a question. Little boys and girls will sometimes ask questions which cannot be very easily answered. She said, “Mother, do you believe what teacher told me to-day?” “What’s that, dear?” “Why, she says that we are only going to stop in this world for a little while, and that we are going to another world; do you believe it, mother?” “Oh, yes, my dear, of course I do; the Bible says so!” Then, mother, you know aunt Eliza is going to Australia.” “Yes, what about that?” “She is getting ready, is she not?” “Yes; she is packing up her trunks, and getting ready.” “Then, mother, if you are going into another world, why don’t you get ready, too?” A very proper question for a child to put, and a very proper question for me to put to you here. If you are going to another world, dear children, may God’s Holy Spirit help you to get ready to go!

Dear children, I hope you will be scholars who will learn that the next world is the one for us to look for.

This world is but a very poor thing at the best. A great man, a very rich man, and a mighty emperor, invited a friend of his youth to come and stay with him; and this friend, when he entered into the palace, was quite dazzled by the marble, and ivory, and gold, and silver, and gems on every side, and he said to the great man, “How happy you must be with all this wealth! I never saw such a palace, nor such servants in livery, nor such gardens!” “Ah!” said the other, “I will one of these evenings tell you what I think of all I have.” So, one evening, a servant brought to this gentleman, on a golden dish, an apple so lovely that it seemed as if such an apple never grew; it was, as we sometimes say, like wax, perfect. He took it off the golden dish, but put it back again, and the servant took a knife, and cut it down the middle, and inside it was full of black dust, and a great worm dropped out of it. The emperor said nothing, but looked at his friend, and his friend knew that he meant, “That is like my life; all outside looks very beautiful, but inside there is a worm.” Now, in all the joy that this world ever gives to us there is a worm. The only apples that have no worms grow only in Paradise; and there, dear children, if God shall teach us, we shall sit and pluck new fruit from the celestial tree. Let us go there, and leave this poor world behind, seeking a better rest, where fruits immortal grow.

Mr. Spurgeon then went over the heads of the sermon with the children. The latter, having omitted one point in their replies, Mr. Spurgeon added:-

That is just like most people; they forgot the time, that is, now, now, now; and I must just say this one sentence or so. The way to go to God’s school is this,-Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, died on the cross to open the door into that great school; and if any of you, my dear young friends, will trust in Jesus Christ to save you, because he died for sinners, you are then inside his school, and you shall be taught and trained, and as I told you about the little ichneumon that ate the grass, and healed all its wounds, so shall you have all your sins forgiven, and your soul-wounds healed, and you shall go on your way rejoicing.