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To teach man of God is Nature's greatest work. She tells of His attributes, the nightly panorama of the starry heavens speaks His power, the tiny floweret His skill. But if there is one chord in Nature's song sung sweeter than the rest it is the "goodness of God."

I. GOD'S GOODNESS IS MANIFESTED IN THE HARVEST. Certain seasons speak to us and teach us lessons; and it is necessary, in the hurry and scurry of modern civilization, that something should remind us of the hereafter, or we might think, with the secularist, that this life only demands our attention. And in contemplating the harvest we are led to think of the goodness of God. The harvest is, as it were, the crowning point of God's goodness. "Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness." As if the psalmist would say that the goodness of God in preparing the ground and in blessing the springing of the seed reached its highest manifestation in the ingathering of the earth's increase. God's promise to Noah still stands secure, although our friends the farmers, with their usual characteristic, have prophesied with lugubrious faces the failure of the harvest. The goodness of God is further exhibited in the bountiful provision which He has made for all His creatures. So ample is it that even birds know how to get their food. He provides for man physically, intellectually, and spiritually. In the physical world man's wants are supplied, both for food and clothing, from the lower order of animals and from plants. In the intellectual sphere man finds food for his intellect in the realms of agriculture, astronomy, physics and metaphysics, arts and sciences, and in the more humble, and yet, perhaps, more useful occupations of the home life. But does God's goodness stop here? Oh, no. God has provided in His Word for all man's requirements in the spiritual world.

II. NOTE SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD'S GOODNESS. It is continuous. "The goodness of the Lord endureth continually." God's goodness is satisfying. "We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house." Nothing short of God and His goodness can satisfy the soul's deep longings. "None but Christ can satisfy." We cannot understand the soul's yearnings, but we know they are there. But, says somebody, God's goodness does not satisfy me. Then be assured that you are out of harmony with goodness and with God. A man who has no soul for the beautiful will spend a miserable half-hour if taken to the Royal Academy. One with no soul for music can see no beauty in the production of the "Elijah." God's goodness is universal. "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord." Why, then, so much misery and starvation in our streets? Because man has placed himself outside the pale of God's goodness by sin. If we could dig clown deep into the very cause of misery, we should find this true.

III. GOD'S GOODNESS DEMANDS MUCH OF US. What are we going to give Him? An adequate return? We cannot. At best we can but pay a few shillings in the pound. Shall we give Him our intellect, to think for Him, and use the best means of building up His kingdom? Shall we give Him our possessions, our riches, our wealth, to be used in His service? Shall we give Him our hearts, that He may rule and reign as Lord of every motion there? Shall we give Him our life — aye, and before the best of it is gone?

(H. M. Draper.)

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KJV: Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.

WEB: You crown the year with your bounty. Your carts overflow with abundance.