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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 Excerpt:...turn themselves to Thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation! That my tongue may sing aloud of Thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, And my mouth will show forth Thy praise. For Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it; In burnt-offering Thou hast no delight. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and crushed heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Do good, in Thy good pleasure, unto Zion; Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.26 Then wilt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt-offerings of part, and burnt-offerings of the whole victim; Then young oxen shall be laid on Thine altar." No truer conceptions of religion than those embodied in this Psalm can be found. Surrounded by priests; accustomed to ritual offerings and sacrifices, he sets the merely outward and ceremonial at its true value, and recognizes the broken and crushed heart as alone of weight with the Eternal. The Soul, not the external form, is with him the essential. He has caught the spirit of Samuel and the prophets, and sees in religion not an act but a life.27 Loathing the sin he had committed, he yearns after a better future in which it will be seen how thoroughly he has forsaken evil, and returned to a pure, just and godly spirit. In the 32nd Psalm the heavens began to clear. He has confessed his sin and forsaken it, and has found mercy. His health had given way through the long anguish of his spirit, hut at last, he could believe that even so great a sinner as he had been could be restored to God's favor. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom Jehovah does not impute iniquity, In whose spirit is no self-deception. While I had kept silent (and ha...