Psalm 30:5 For his anger endures but a moment; in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Among the things on view at the Stanley Exhibition, held in London a few years ago, was a small MS. volume which will always be associated with the memory of an Englishman who went to the Dark Continent not to indulge a love of sport, or travel, or adventure, nor yet in order to make a fortune, but to preach the religion of Jesus Christ. The book was Bishop Hannington's diary. The handwriting, you may remember, was small and closely written, after the manner of a traveller who must get as much as possible into a small compass. And this was the entry on the last page, the last that the Bishop ever made: "I can hear no news, but was held up by Psalm 30., which came with great power. A hyena howled near me last night, smelling sick man, but I hope he is not to have me yet." The date of that entry was October 29, 1885, and it shows how the psalms are full of religious power, fit for every-day use even in our own time. Time and knowledge would fail one to tell of all the saints of God who have been helped by the 30th Psalm. Even at the stake, when the faggots have been piled all about, and fetters have weighted every limb, martyrs for the faith have sung with unfaltering voices its promises of sure and certain hope, and have passed away joyfully with its words upon their lips. One such was John Herwin, who suffered during Alva's persecutions of the Nether-landish Protestants. "At the place of execution," writes the chronicler of the time, "one gave him his hand and comforted him." Then "began he to sing the 30th Psalm"; and the 30th Psalm, in spite of interruptions, he sang through from beginning to end. (E. H. Eland, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. |
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