To be near unto God - pagina 395

a mountainous country. The Psalmists have dwelt and wandered in the mountains. Of itself, theretheir fertile minds would borrow images in the mountains by which to express the antitheses of life. And so the easy walk, with a light step, on a smooth, straight and even road suggested of itself to them the image of a life of which we would say, in the language of a sailor, that ''everything went before the wind." On the other hand, the exertion, which makes even breathing difficult on the way where there is for hours together a steep, downward grade and then for fore,

from

life

hours again the grade is equally steep upward, presented quite as naturally the image of a traveler of whom the Dutch people would say again in terms of the sea: "He can scarcely keep

Hence in the expression: foot standeth in an even place," the selfsufficiency can assert itself of the man who has succeeded in everything he undertook, who has never known real adversity, and who, weaned from carking care, has never seen anything but sunshine on the pathway of his life. his

head above water."

"My

These words, however, imply much more when they become the confession of a man who, disappointed every time, and foiled, saw all his efforts end in failure, but who kept on trying, would not give up, now fell and again climbed the steep

mountain side, until at length the point was reached where the straight road through the highland stretched out itself before his feet, and prosperity began, imparting to him a happy existence under the fulfilment of his ideals. But the phrase: "My foot standeth in an even place,"

attains

its

greatest 391

fullness

of

meaning

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