"Psalmist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time between the Y.M.C.A. workers and the recognised army chaplains. I think that this is passing away. But when I first went to France the relations between the two organisations in no way suggested the ointment which ran down Aaron's beard to the skirts of his garment, the Psalmist's symbol of the unity in which ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... later service, when the autumn twilight lay heavy and sad upon the churchyard, and the peace of evening stole in through the windows of the church. Then, as the sublime poetry of psalmist or prophet rolled through the Norman arches, or the notes of the organ stole out of the shadowed chancel, a spirit of repose would creep into the heart of the listener, and the tired thoughts would take a more rhythmic ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... had achieved a feat of longevity. He was far from the Psalmist's limit. Nor was he one of those men whom one associates with the era in which they happened to be young. Indeed, if there was one man belonging less than any other to Mid-Victorian days, Swinburne was that man. But ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... recessisse in pace, "to have departed in peace." Still other forms are found, as, for instance, Vivas in pace, "Live in peace," or Suscipiatur in pace, "May he be received into peace,"—all being only variations of the expression of the Psalmist's trust, "I will lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." It is a curious fact, however, that on some of the Christian tablets the same letters which were used by the heathens have been found. One ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... supplant in them all motives that conflict against it, and be the inner principle, or necessity, of all their actions. Such complete devotion to the good is expressed, for instance, in the words of the Hebrew Psalmist: "Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever; for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have inclined mine heart to perform Thy statutes alway, even unto the end. I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do I love." "Nevertheless I live," said the ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... only one fault to find with the world in my sixty years of travel over it and that was it had treated me too well. In the ordinary course of events, and by the law of the Psalmist, I still had ten more years before me; but, according to my own calculations, life stretched brilliantly ahead of me as far as heart and mind could wish. There were many things to take into consideration. There was the purpose of the future, its obligations, its opportunities to adjust. My whole ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... those who will not bow to titular rank, will yet do homage to the gentleman. His qualities depend not upon fashion or manners, but upon moral worth—not on personal possessions, but on personal qualities. The Psalmist briefly describes him as one "that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... judgments at all times." Surely there is no dulness, no coldness, in such feelings as these. They accord with the spirit of the command, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." And this was not, with the Psalmist, an occasional lively frame. This soul-breaking longing was the habitual feeling of his heart; for he exercised it "at all times" And what was it that called forth these ardent longings? Was it the personal benefits which he had received or expected to receive from God? By no means. After ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... darkness that enfolds you, the Cloud of Unknowing into which you have plunged, you are sure that it is well to be here. A peculiar certitude which you cannot analyse, a strange satisfaction and peace, is distilled into you. You begin to understand what the Psalmist meant, when he said, "Be still, and know." You are lost in a wilderness, a solitude, a dim strange state of which you can say nothing, since it offers no ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... second, the third, and the fourth day of Nisan. On the fifth day of the month rain fell again. Eleven days later the grain was ripe, and the offering of the 'Omer could be brought at the appointed time, on the sixteenth of the month. Of this the Psalmist was thinking when he said, "They that sow in tears shall reap ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... "How deeply and warmly and spotlessly Earth's nakedness is clothed!—the 'wool' of the Psalmist nearly two feet deep. And as far as warmth and protection are concerned, there is a good deal of the virtue of wool in such a snow-fall. It is a veritable fleece, beneath which the shivering earth ('the frozen hills ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... such in that situation in Bordeaux, and no doubt they attribute to us their own thoughts and actions. Naturalists have depicted the habits and customs of many ferocious animals, but they have forgotten the mother and daughter in quest of a husband. Such women are hyenas, going about, as the Psalmist says, seeking whom they may devour, and adding to the instinct of the brute the intellect of man, and the genius of woman. I can understand that those little spiders, Mademoiselle de Belor, Mademoiselle de Trans, ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... to the commands of Sir Thomas, who had spoken thus kindly unto him, and had deigned to cast at him from his LORDLY DISH (as the Psalmist hath it) ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... sweet Psalmist of Israel, David, son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite. Now, who is the man that long ago published a book of jests, said to be greatly studied now-a-days by diners-out and professed wits, and endlessly copied into other works of a similar character. His reputation is so high, that many anecdotes ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... to live by faith, to be thrown back on our unseen protector, to feel with the psalmist, 'Thou, Lord, makest me to dwell in safety, though alone,' and to see the wall great and high that is drawn round our defenceless tent pitched on the sands of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... not have expressed himself in the words of the Psalmist, he recognised them. The most reliable tenor in the choir at Haileybury is necessarily familiar ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... such unchangeable, and as such, again, for ever unknowable underlying substance the modes of which alone change—wherein, except in mere verbal costume, does this differ from the conclusions arrived at by the psalmist? ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... and stood hesitant. Her lips moved rapidly, though no sound came from them. They were forming the words of the psalmist, "In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me." It was a verse Jose had taught her long since, when his own heart was ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the senior of his sister by three years, survived her the whole span of life allotted to man by the Psalmist. Malibran died in 1836; Garcia in 1906. He achieved nothing on the stage, which he abandoned in 1829. Thereafter his history belongs to that of pedagogy. Till 1848 his field of operations was Paris; afterward, till his death, London. Jenny Lind ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Hahn had desired. Finding that her son could understand more about the work, she became more particular and increased his tasks accordingly until it seemed that he could do nothing to suit her. Poor nervous child! if only he could have known the words of the Psalmist, what a comfort they would have been—"He shall deliver the needy ... and precious shall their blood be in his ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... a little gray priest in gold spectacles, in a skull-cap; a lanky, tall, thin-haired deacon with a sickly, strangely dark and yellow face, as though of terra-cotta; and a sprightly, long-skirted psalmist, animatedly exchanging on his way some gay, mysterious signs with ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... in his heart. The spectacle was one of the most painful he had ever witnessed. How was the mighty fallen!—the proud brought low! As he walked from the prison, the Psalmist's striking words passed through his mind—"I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree; yet he passed away, and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... its usual energy, and when he fell in with any of his old companions he would converse on the deeds of his more active life with all the vigour and animation of youth. Notwithstanding he had nearly attained the latest of those periods assigned by the Psalmist as the general boundary of human life, his children had still fondly hoped that he might yet have been spared a few years; neither had she, who for forty-eight years had been the joy and solace of his existence, and who had watched over him with the most sincere and devoted ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... there in their fair garments. The worshippers, however, on the women's side were all in black—black dresses, and black kerchiefs over the heads, like solemn, mourning penitents rather than followers of the Psalmist who could say, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." There were two exceptions ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... travel, was Bishop Bowne. His temper seemed unruffled by the vexations of the day as he remarked, "Magnificent scenery. Makes me think of Lake Como, only lacks the lake. Regular amphitheater of mountains. Reminds one of the Psalmist's description of Jerusalem." Darting here and there, trying to get snap-shots, were two "kodak fiends," two city girls who pointed the thing at you, bungled over it, reset it, pressed the button, and giggled as they flew off. They fairly bubbled over with delight as they saw Job, and debated how ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... advance, or an enchanted singer so lose all thought of time and place in the luxury of a closing cadence that he holds on to the last semibreve upon his private responsibility; but how much more of the spirit of the old Psalmist in the music of these imperfectly trained voices than in the academic niceties of the paid performers who take our musical worship out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... every nation, whether ancient or modern, poets stand almost preeminent. In the Old Testament history there is no one greater than "the sweet Psalmist of Israel." Homer stands in almost solitary grandeur in the early annals of Greece. In the history of Italy, what name is to be placed above that of Dante? In England there are, perhaps, no names to be ranked above those of Chaucer, Shakespeare, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... was found written in the Prophet Ezekiel: "Haec dicit Dominus Deus: Ista est Jerusalem, in medio gentium posui eam, et in circuitu ejus terras;"[2] a declaration supposed to be corroborated by the Psalmist's expression, regarded as prophetic of the death of Our Lord: "Deus autem, Rex noster, ante secula operatus est salutem in medio Terrae" (Ps. lxxiii. 12).[3] The Terrestrial Paradise was represented as occupying the extreme East, because it was found in Genesis that the Lord planted a garden ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... nor any thing else would have any life or reality. We are so fashioned that as soon as we awake we feel on all sides our dependence on something else; and all nations join in some way or another in the words of the Psalmist, 'It is He that made us, not we ourselves.' This is the first sense of the Godhead, the sensus numinis, as it has well been called; for it is a sensus, an immediate perception, not the result of reasoning ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... tower. This self-appointed world ruler is represented on the ceiling of the chapel of a building on Mount Olivet in a companion panel with the Deity. In this same building the ex-kaiser is represented as a crusader by a figure and the Psalmist is painted with the moustache of a German general. When the ex-kaiser entered the city of Jerusalem, a breach was made in the wall near the Jaffa Gate, so instead of entering through the gate like an ordinary mortal, he went in through a hole in the wall. He would no doubt be glad ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... artificial tumuli, pyramids, and pagodas in the same category, conceiving that all were transcripts of the holy mountain which was generally supposed to have stood in the centre of Eden; or, rather, as intimated in more than one place by the Psalmist, the garden itself was situated on an eminence. (Psalms, chap. iii., v. 4, and chap. ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... 15 is the Psalmist's grateful cry when his sin was forgiven and his praises began to ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... within a few moments entirely changed her course of action. She was almost moved to tears and her manner seemed to say, "Well, I suppose it is all for the best, come what will I am prepared for it." But might we not quote the words of the Psalmist, "The words of his mouth were sweeter than butter but ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... or aspect of the Bible which, at least to innumerable minds, brings the whole Book, in a sense so genuine, home; making it felt in the human heart as a friend truly conversant with our nature and our life. "Thy testimonies," writes the Bible-loving Psalmist (Ps. cxix. 24), "are the men of my counsel," an'shey 'atsathi; a pregnant phrase, which puts vividly before us "the human element" of the blessed Word, its varieties and individualities, its living voice, or rather voices, and the sympathetic confidence ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... years at least, and I think that, without presumption, I can count on that, strong and active as I feel, and still so far from the age of the Psalmist. ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... had been absent about three years his mother died. Her death was unexpected. She had not fulfilled two-thirds of the allotted period of the Psalmist, and in spite of many sorrows she was still beautiful. Glastonbury, who communicated to him the intelligence in a letter, in which he vainly attempted to suppress his own overwhelming affliction, counselled his immediate return to England, if but for a season; and the unhappy Ratcliffe followed ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... is said to have spent his time either in reading, praying, or serving his neighbour. Even during meals he used constantly to implore the Divine aid in the words of the Psalmist: "O God, come to my assistance." During labour his mind was always raised to God. So mortified was he that it was said that the impression of his ribs through his woollen tunic used to mark the sandy beach of Iona when he lay down to ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... "Lives" of Napoleon on which I could lay my hands, all the St. Helena Journals, and the commentaries which have been written since their publication. As my knowledge of the great drama increased, I found my pro-Napoleonic ideas increasing in fervour. Like the Psalmist when musing on the wickedness of man, "my heart was hot within me, and at the last I spake ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Like the Psalmist of old she leaned upon the arm of her God and as she thus approached the dark valley, the light of her ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... night is calmest, Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist, In a voice so sweet and clear That I could ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Himself speaks of it as no longer a reality, but a shadow—a phantom-foe from which we have nothing to dread. "Whosoever believeth in Me shall never die." "If a man keep My sayings, he shall never see death." These are an echo of the sweet Psalmist's beautiful words, a transcript of his expressive figure when he pictures the Dark Valley to the believer as the Valley of a "shadow." The substance is removed! When the gaunt spirit meets him on the midnight waters, he may, like the disciples at ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... designed for them, they should be mightily taken withal; the peculiar treasure of kings, the peculiar privilege of saints, oh, this should be affecting to us!-why, Christ, as an Advocate, is such. "Remember me, O Lord," said the Psalmist, "with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance" (Psa 106:4, 5). The Psalmist, you see here, is crying out for a share ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a tremulous motion felt throughout the vast building. It is the approach of PAREPA, who skips lightly—like the little hills mentioned by the Psalmist—across the stage. She curtseys, and her skirts expand in vast ripples like the waves of a placid sea when some huge line-of-battle ship sinks suddenly from sight. She smiles a sweet and ample smile. She ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... with those who complain of dryness and deadness in their worship. They are very unlike the Psalmist's picture of the "blessed man." "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither." This is a true picture of the Christian life. The soul should be as a watered garden—fresh ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... reproof, when he wept at the sad punishment of the soothsayers: 'Who is more wicked than he who feels compassion at the Divine Judgment.' Passionate love of God, Dante holds, implies passionate hatred of God's enemies. That is a thought expressed by the Psalmist. 'Lord, have I not hated them that hate thee and pined away because of thy enemies? I have hated them with a perfect hatred and they are become enemies to me' (CXXXVIII, 21). So it may be said that Dante has the spirit of ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... for you all with many tears." And then, speaking of some intimate friends who were impatient, (as I suppose by the connection) for his return to them, he takes occasion to observe the necessity of endeavouring to compose our minds, and say with the Psalmist, "My soul, wait thou only upon God." Afterwards, speaking of one of his children, who he heard had made a commendable progress in learning, he expresses his satisfaction, and adds; "But, how much ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... denouncing the negroes was too great for him to resist."[225] But it seems to me that something more deserves to be said on the subject. We do not know whether Williams' epigram was a sober opinion or merely one cast off in a fit of irritation, that moment of "haste," which even the Psalmist knew, when he was led to sweep all mankind in under the term of "liar." But, further, if Williams was the deliberate sycophant and racial toady Gardner strives to shelter behind his shield of excuse, how was it that he had not won from the planter ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and supports of united, trusting hearts, daring to face the perils of an ocean-passage of forty-six days' duration, and the new, strange life in the wilds of America, that they might prove their faith in each other, in their principles, and in God. "He setteth the solitary in families," says the Psalmist; and the truth was never better illustrated than in the isolated and weary life of our ancestry, two ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... insistent, just as certain of his concluding verdict as the Psalmist is the eighteenth-century engraver and humorist. Even his own day may already have seen "the ungodly" set high above men in social position, quoted with respect in financial circles, perhaps even a regular attendant at the local conventicle,—"flourishing," in short, to quote ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... see the suggestion of the picture? Man wakes up here on this planet what sort of a being? Not at first "a little lower than God," as the old Psalmist says of him, but only a little higher than the animals, ignorant of himself, ignorant of his surroundings, weak, undeveloped in every faculty and power. He begins, we say, to live; and what does that mean? He begins to explore this wonderful world, which is his heritage; ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... as in poetry, we may recognize the Psalmist's experience: "My heart burned within me, and at the last I ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... above, and the earth, that he may judge his people.' And again he saith, 'Arise, O God, judge thou the earth, because "the fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise." And thou shalt "reward every man according to his works."' And many other such things have been spoken by the Psalmist, and all the Prophets inspired by the Holy Ghost, concerning the judgement and the recompense to come. Their words also have been most surely confirmed by the Saviour who hath taught us to believe the resurrection of the dead, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... and perseverance will as amply reward the labourer in the northern lands as they have done in the south. The sight of this great crop of valuable maize, on land which a few months before was a mere waste, brings the words of the Psalmist forcibly to one's thoughts, for surely of no country could it more truly be said than of the Argentine, "Dwell in the land, and be doing good, and, verily, thou shalt be fed"; and perhaps there are few countries in which there are less openings for the ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... first, that what you are now is the result of your actions in previous lives, and, secondly, that there are plenty more rebirths in which any merit you possess may have its just recompense of reward, the caste system has flourished like the Psalmist's green bay tree, though its influence has been more like ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... must be a diseased mind, where there is a failure of memory at seventy. A man's head, Sir, must be morbid, if he fails so soon.'[544] My friend, being now himself sixty-eight, might think thus: but I imagine, that threescore and ten, the Psalmist's period of sound human life in later ages, may have a failure, though there be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... forth before His people, they were fed with manna: they marched through the wilderness: they passed through the Red Sea, untouched by the bil- lows. At His command, the rock became a fountain; and the land of promise, green isles of refreshment. In [10] the words of the Psalmist, when "the Lord gave the word: great was the company ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... detailed examination of the statement just quoted, it is hardly necessary to discuss the astounding suggestion that man must not take himself too seriously by the side of the immensities of suns and stars. Such a view merely betrays a spiritual perception miles below that of the Psalmist, who saw man, to all appearance a negligible speck, yet in reality made by the Almighty little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honour. Neither need we combat at length the strangely superficial notion that such questions as unemployment, the Budget, etc., have little or no ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... is the picture of almost all human life. To some moods, and under some aspects, it seems, as it seemed to the psalmist, "Man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain." Go to any churchyard, and stand ten minutes among the grave-stones; read inscription after inscription recording the date of birth, and the date of death, of him who lies below, all ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... incident to life, we hear the Psalmist exclaim "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word." This seems to be the lamentable condition of man. When rolling in the calm tide of uninterrupted prosperity, and rejoicing in the vigor of health, he forgets there is a God, or becomes thoughtless that the heavens do ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... conscience, in which alone sin exists, and which alone can tell us the truth about it. The truth is that the spiritual being has no past. Just as he is continually with God, his sin is continually with him. He cannot escape it by not thinking. When he keeps silence, as the Psalmist says—and that is always his first resource, as though, if he were to say nothing about it, God might say nothing about it, and the whole thing blow over—it devours him like a fever within: his bones wax old with his moaning all day long. This sense of ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... we forget the wonderful thought, also mirrored in this piece of ancient ritual, that God delights in men's sacrifices and surrenders and services. 'If I were hungry, I would not tell thee,' said the Psalmist in God's name in regard to outward sacrifices; 'Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?' But he does 'eat' the better sacrifices that loving hearts or obedient wills lay on His altar. He seeks for these, and delights when they are offered ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... consequence of which his bowels gushed out.[4] According to others, he died of a kind of dropsy, accompanied by repulsive circumstances, which were regarded as a punishment from heaven.[5] The desire of showing in Judas the accomplishment of the menaces which the Psalmist pronounces against the perfidious friend[6] may have given rise to these legends. Perhaps, in the retirement of his field of Hakeldama, Judas led a quiet and obscure life; while his former friends conquered the world, and spread his infamy abroad. Perhaps, also, the ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... are inaccurate: "Solomon was wiser than Cicero was eloquent." "The principles of the reformation were deeper in the prince's mind than to be easily eradicated." This latter sentence contains no comparison at all; neither does it literally convey any meaning. Again, if the Psalmist had said, "I am the wisest of my teachers," he would have spoken absurdly, because the phrase would imply, that he was one of his teachers. But in saying, "I am wiser than my teachers," he does not consider himself one of them, but places ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... of God, not through the use of lexicons, or meditating upon critics, but because they had passed from death unto life. They highly reverence and excellently direct the true use of everything that is outward in religion; but, like the Psalmist's king's daughter, they are all glorious within. They are truly sons of thunder, and sons of consolation; they break open the whited sepulchres; they awaken the heart, and show it its filth and rottenness of death: but they leave it not till the kingdom of heaven is raised up within it. If a ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... I noticed the white woolly masses that filled the water. It was as if somebody upstream had been washing his sheep and the water had carried away all the wool, and I thought of the Psalmist's phrase, "He giveth snow like wool." On the river a heavy fall of snow simulates a thin layer of cotton batting. The tide drifts it along, and, where it meets with an obstruction alongshore, it folds up and becomes wrinkled or convoluted like a fabric, or like cotton sheeting. ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... labouring and straining through the heavy seas that raced after her as she ran before the wind, one every now and then outstripping its fellows and breaking over her quarter or stern-rail with a force that made her quiver from end to end, and "stagger like a drunken man," as the Psalmist has so aptly described it, the thud of the heavy waves playing a sort of deep bass accompaniment to the shrieking treble of the wind as it whistled and wailed through the shrouds and cordage, and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... over the crest, darted out and went careering over the gulches with perfect aplomb, while we watched them with envious eyes, wishing we too had wings like a leucosticte, not that we "might fly away," as the Psalmist longed to do, but that we might scale the mountains at our own sweet will. The favorite occupation of our little comrades, besides flying, was hopping about on the snow and picking up dainties that were evidently palatable. Afterwards we examined the snow, and found several kinds of small ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... Allegory is a continued narration of fictitious events, designed to represent and illustrate important realities. Thus the Psalmist represents the Jewish nation under the symbol of a vine: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root; and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... himself. And a conscientious mind will learn the practical lesson of exercising the most careful self-examination in reference to its doubts, and especially will use the utmost caution not to communicate them needlessly to others. The Hebrew Psalmist, instead of telling his painful misgivings, harboured them in God's presence until he found the solution.(88) The delicacy exhibited in forbearing unnecessarily to shake the faith of others is a measure of the disinterestedness of the doubter. "If I say, I ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... repeating this verse of the Psalmist, in order to gain spiritual strength, the gray roofs of La Thuiliere rose before him; he could hear the crowing of the cocks and the lowing of the cows in the stable. Five minutes after, he had pushed open the door of the kitchen where La Guite was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... likely to incur, and is embarrassed to find an apology for turning saint." His embarrassments, however, terminate in a highly poetical fancy. When will the golden age be restored? exclaims this lady's psalmist, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... bishop attending divine service in a church at Langley in Bucks, and hearing there a psalm sung, whose wretched expression, far from conveying the meaning of the Royal Psalmist, not only marred devotion, but turned what was excellent in the original into downright burlesque; he tried that evening if he could not easily, and with plainness suitable to the lowest understanding, deliver it from that garb which rendered it ridiculous. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... doubtful or debatable position. If the evil spirit, or the melancholy demon, that fitfully possessed the first king of Israel, was expelled by the skilful hand of his successor, even when his youthful fingers awoke the melodies of the lyre, how much more puissant the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired as they were with sentiments and views alike honorable to God and man, to elevate the conceptions, purify the heart, ennoble the aspirations, and adorn the life ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... ill-advised quotation, Captain, for the 'own familiar friend' of the Psalmist proved a false one. But ne'ertheless I'll wear the cap, and haply prove as true as another to my promise. What can I ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... enneorguioV, nine orgyae, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would, indeed, have excused the terror of the Greek. On this occasion, the historian seems fonder of the marvellous than of his country, or perhaps of truth. Baldwin exclaims in the words of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... work, "with sweat of thy face, even till thou returnest to the earth"; that is, all thy life time that thou losest no time in idleness. Idleness smites a man as if he were in a paralysis, and makes his limbs dry that he cannot work. Therefore says the Psalmist: "They have hands and handle not; feet have they but they walk not; mouths have they but they speak not; eyes have they and see not; ears have they and hear not"; for their limbs are so bound in sin, that to all good things, ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... Beauty remain subjective and ephemeral until they have received the "imprimatur" of some mysterious superhuman Being or Beings, such rebellious temperaments as I am speaking of might conceivably cry aloud for the Psalmist's ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... more of it now than I did at your age," Elsie returned in a reassuring tone, "and you, as well as I, have it at hand to turn to in every perplexity; and if you do so you will find the truth of the words of the Psalmist, 'Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... I hear the Psalmist's words again,[H] and now Their fuller meaning bursts upon my soul; Thou madest all the earth and heaven, Thou Dost hold the mighty seas within control; These lofty heights were form'd by Thy right-hand; Thou formedst all—all bow to ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... misfortune, that she was in no mood to enjoy the splendours around her. She crossed her hands on her bosom and, in the half-light of this mysterious subterranean cathedral, yielded to the awe-inspiring influence of the place and gave utterance, in a subdued chant, to these words of the psalmist: ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... life are protracted beyond the Psalmist's threescore and ten, even though the events that chance in the comparatively long future seethe and struggle as strenuously as those that befell in the eager, vivid procession of yesterdays which makes up my past, my memory's picture of this meeting will always hang where the lights cast ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... synagogue is repeatedly mentioned in the Talmud. Zunz (Note 255) omits mentioning Aboda Zarah, 43 b, where Rashi explains that Shafjathib was a place in the district of Nehardea, and that Jeconiah and his followers brought the holy earth thither, giving effect to the words of the Psalmist: "For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof" (Ps. ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... Babylonian period was ushered in. Some of the captives rose to positions of trust in the Babylonian government. Daniel and his three associates are examples. During this period Ezekiel was a prophet. No doubt the frame of mind of most of them is well expressed by the Psalmist: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... it was her disposition to be helpful and sustaining, rather than clinging and dependent. She had a heart "at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize." From the depths of her soul she pitied Gregory and wished to help him out of a state which the psalmist with quaint force describes as "a horrible pit and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... mustachios of his, and their mothers ceased to snatch them away when they learned to know him better. Sometimes in his leisure hours he pored over his tattered little Bible with muttering lips and found pleasure in the Psalmist's denunciation of his enemies who were undoubtedly Spaniards in some other guise. He puttered about the flower beds with spade and rake and kept the bowling green clipped close with a keen sickle. In short, there was ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... bare feet, had ample leisure to watch the break of day: the gradual lighting up of the zenith, the rosy tints gathering and growing upon the tiny, pearly trade-clouds of which I have spoken, the blue of the water gradually revealing itself, laughing with white-caps, like the Psalmist's valleys of corn; until at last the sun appeared, never direct from the sea, but from these white cloud banks which extend less than five degrees above it. Such a scene presents itself day after day, day after day, monotonous but never wearisome, to a vessel running down the trades; that is, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... have made to shelter us," he resumed, "brings to my mind what the Psalmist says about dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. Everyone who will, may there, like the swallow, make ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... not a man like other men. I can find in the biography of Jesus no trace of sin. In every other biography, oh, how many traces! There is no trace of repentance. The Hebrew Psalmist laments his iniquity. Paul confesses himself to be the chief of sinners. Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Edwards—go where I will, in the biography of all the saints there are signs of sin and iniquity. Never a trace of repentance or confession in Christ. In all others we see a struggle ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... with an humble confidence in the redeeming love of Christ, will banish that fearful dread which might otherwise obscure the closing scene. Even in that extremity, the true Christian has nothing to fear; he may say, with the Psalmist, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... dead bones live, whose sap is dried By twenty scorching centuries of wrong? Is this the House of Israel whose pride Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song? Are these ignoble relics all that live Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can the breath Of very heaven bid these bones revive, Open the graves, and clothe the ribs of death? Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said again: Say to the wind, come forth and breathe afresh, Even that they may live, upon these slain, And bone to bone ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... the way in which she bore her own personal troubles. If there was anyone who could say with the Psalmist, "All Thy waves and storms have gone over me," it was our late Queen. What the loss of her husband was to her, you may gather from this beautiful letter published in Lord Selborne's Life, which she addressed to him years afterwards on the loss of his own wife: "To lose the loved companion of one's ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... was a delightful employment to the Psalmist, who said: "Thy word have I hid in my heart," and again, "Let my heart be sound in thy statutes." "Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." "I will never forget thy precepts; for with them thou hast quickened ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... husbandman building a tower in his vineyard, and the beautiful expressions in Solomon's song,—"The tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus;" "I am a wall, and my breasts like towers;"—you recollect the Psalmist's expressions of love and delight, "Go ye round about Jerusalem; tell the towers thereof: mark ye well her bulwarks; consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following." You see in all these cases how ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... claims as our Creator, Preserver, and Lord. This state of mind, whether evinced by words or by actions, contains in it the essence of Atheism, and it is recognized in Scripture, in each of its two aspects, as an evil alike natural and prevalent. The words of the Psalmist, "The fool hath said in his heart, No God,"[10] whether they be interpreted as the expression of an opinion or of a wish, indicate in either case the existence of that state of mind which has just been described, and which ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... fire and stood by his side, silently taking in the beauties of the picture. Mr. Allen turned, and placing his arm on the boy's shoulder, said, "It's great, isn't it, boy? It takes a night like this to make a man realize what the psalmist meant when he said, 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills whence cometh my help.' Do you ever think of it when you ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... him. Now the jester thought he was in his element, and laid about him freely. 'Good friar,' said he, 'be not angry, for it is written, "In patience possess your soul."'—The friar answered (for I shall give you his own words), 'I am not angry, you hangman; at least I do not sin in it, for the Psalmist says, "Be ye angry, and sin not."'—Upon this the Cardinal admonished him gently, and wished him to govern his passions. 'No, my lord,' said he, 'I speak not but from a good zeal, which I ought to have; for holy men have had a good zeal, as it is said, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him?" So said the royal psalmist. And, in a sense, time should only have deepened the astonishment which this question expresses. For man's ideas of the magnificence of the heavens have grown with the course of ages; and though the stars in the transparent atmosphere of Palestine shone with a brilliancy unknown to us, our ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... that was wi' them in their strait, wad be wi' me in mine, an I could but watch the Lord's time and opportunity for delivering my feet from their snare; and I minded the Scripture of the blessed Psalmist, whilk he insisteth on, as weel in the forty-second as in the forty-third psalm—'Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... supposed to have been written by David, the son of Jesse, called the sweet psalmist of Israel. He had a taste for the arts, a real genius for poetry and song. Many of the poems are beautiful in sentiment and celebrated as specimens of literature, as are some passages in Job; but the general tone ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... replied her husband smiling, "and if you knew your Bible better, Mandy, you would have found excellent authority for your position in the words of the psalmist, 'The Lord taketh no pleasure in the legs of a man.' But, say, it is a joke," he added, "to think of this being ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... just made perfect, in singing, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." Truly, there is no individual who verifies the truth of the Psalmist's declaration,—"He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him,"—more frequently than does the pious Sunday-school teacher. Methinks I see him enter the paradise of God, met and ...
— The Village Sunday School - With brief sketches of three of its scholars • John C. Symons
... a struggle merely of economic theories, or of forms of government, or of military power. At issue is the true nature of man. Either man is the creature whom the Psalmist described as "a little lower than the angels," crowned with glory and honor, holding "dominion over the works" of his Creator; or man is a soulless, animated machine to be enslaved, used and consumed by the state for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... conception of religion whose germ lay seeded down in the Ten Words of Moses. In him worship and aspiration were one. He lived the ethical and spiritual religion after which the nation had patiently striven, through prophet and priest and sage, through psalmist and through scribe. He lived the vision of human goodness which holy men of old had never succeeded in bringing down into the flesh, beyond a blurred blocking in of the heavenly ideal. He lived man's ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... Donatello's and Verrocchio's David emphasizes is the gulf that was fixed between the Biblical and religious conception of the youthful psalmist and that of these sculptors of the Renaissance. One can, indeed, never think of Donatello as a religious artist. Serious, yes; but not religious, or at any rate not religious in the too common sense of the word, in the sense of appertaining to a special reverential ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... of the beginning of this period has drawn from the lips of Thomas of Celano a sort of canticle in honor of the monastic life. It is the burning and untranslatable commentary of the Psalmist's cry: "Behold how sweet and pleasant it is to be brethren and ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... 31. But the psalmist's additional words, "Refrain your lips that they speak no guile," refer, as I have said, primarily to confession of the doctrine; but there is another thought: When one is prompted to anger and to complaint about injury and wrong, in his impatience and irritation he ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... to the leader, "surely this day's march is done. It is time to rest, and eat, and sleep. If we press onward now, we cannot see our steps; and will not that be against the word of the psalmist David, who bids us not to put confidence in the legs ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... leisure. He is on the verge of fifty, and has recently undergone his metamorphosis into the clerical form. Rather a paradoxical specimen, if you observe him narrowly: a sort of cross between a sycophant and a psalmist; a poet whose imagination is alternately fired by the "Last Day" and by a creation of peers, who fluctuates between rhapsodic applause of King George and rhapsodic applause of Jehovah. After spending "a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets," ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... thoughts of God that are Borne inward unto souls afar, Along the Psalmist's music deep, Now tell me if that any is, For gift or grace, surpassing this— 'He giveth ...
— 'He Giveth His Beloved Sleep' • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... must come to pass with all sinners. For, unless by repentance you first come to God, and yourself confess your sin to God, God will surely come to you, to disclose your sin. For God cannot endure that any one should deny his sin. To this fact the psalmist testifies: "When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was changed as with the drouth of summer." Ps 32, 3-4. For, although sin ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... is rare that men and women live to celebrate their seventy-fifth birthday. The age allotted to mortals by the Psalmist is ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the Sabbath bell now collects an encouraging congregation; and some of us, I trust, could experimentally adopt the language of the Psalmist, in saying, "I was glad when they said unto us, let us go into the house of the Lord."—My earnest prayer to God is, that I may exercise a spiritual ministry; and faithfully preach those truths which give no hope to fallen man, but that which is founded on God's mercy in Christ. I often felt ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... word, a look of love, a little bit of kindness, will smooth down a roughened temper or a wry face, and soften a hard piece of work, and make all go easily. And so of reproving sinners. The Psalmist says, 'Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.' But you see the peacemaker must be righteous himself, or he hasn't the oil. Love is the oil; ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner |
