Psalm 144:12

David is not praying that the youth of the land should have any abnormal precociousness; the picture before his mind is that of vigorous, healthful, upright, manly and ingenuous youth.

I. A Healthful Frame; a Strong, Robust, Vigorous Physique.—It has been said that, as righteousness is the health of the soul, so health is the righteousness of the body. All very true; but we must not run into the opposite error of encouraging the notion that thoughtful, refined, cultured, religious men must be pale-faced and delicate, and with a supreme contempt of a sound physical development.

II. A Solid Character.—I know it has been said that the weak side of young men is very weak. Youth is prone to excess, and, on the sunny side of twenty, there is a tendency to carry more sail than ballast. It is a fine thing to see a young man with some solidity about him; some moral backbone; to see stamped upon such an one's face and gait and manner, the self-respect that accompanies truthfulness, integrity, and goodness.

III. A Hidden Life.—Doubtless, what chiefly struck the eye of the Psalmist, as he looked on those young trees, was their exuberant vitality. That life came from God. Man's power is marvellous, but it stops short of this. He can neither understand or impart life. Personal and saving religion is no development from within, no product of moral evolution; it is something whose germ must be imparted to you by the Holy Spirit; and without which germ you are, in the sight of God, absolutely dead. 'One thing thou lackest.' And that one thing God only can give you.

—J. Thain Davidson, The City Youth, p. 238.

References.—CXLIV. 12.—W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi. p. 338. CXLV. 1, 2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No. 1902.