The Power of David’s Psalms
By Giles
PSALMS OF DAVID.—Great has been their power in the world. They resounded amidst the courts of the tabernacle; they floated through the lofty and solemn spaces of the temple. They were sung with glory in the halls of Zion; they were sung with sorrow by the streams of Babel. And when Israel had passed away, the harp of David was still awakened in the Church of Christ, in all the ages of that Church, from the hymn which it first whispered in an upper chamber until its anthems filled the earth, the inspiration of the royal prophet has enraptured its devotions and ennobled its rituals. Chorussed by the winds of heaven, they have swelled throughout God’s own holy temple of skies and stars; they have rolled over the broad deserts of Asia, in the matins and vespers of ten thousand hermits. They have rung through the deep valleys of the Alps, in the sobbing voices of the forlorn Waldenses, through the deep sand caves of the Scottish Highlanders, in the rude chanting of the Scottish Covenanters; through the woods and winds of primitive America, in the heroic hallelujahs of the early pilgrims.—Giles.