And then how strange to see this beautiful and delicate confession put into so narrow and constrained a shape!  It is the most artificial by far of all the psalms.  The writer has chosen deliberately one of the most cramping and confining forms that could be devised.  Each of the eight verses that form the separate stanzas begins with the same letter of the alphabet, and each of the letters is used in turn.  Think of attempting to do the same in English—­it could not be done at all.  And then in every single verse, except in one, where the word has probably disappeared in translation, by a mistake, there is a mention of the law of God.  Infinite pains must have gone to the slow building of this curious structure; stone by stone must have been carved and lifted to its place.  And yet the art is so great that I know no composition of the same length that has so perfect a unity of mood and atmosphere.  There is never a false or alien note struck.  It is never jubilant or contentious or assertive—­and, best of all, it is wholly free from any touch of that complacency which is the shadow of virtue.  The writer never takes any credit to himself for his firm adherence to the truth; he writes rather as one who has had a gift of immeasurable value entrusted to unworthy hands, who hardly dares to believe that it has been granted him, and who still speaks as though he might at any time prove unfaithful, as though his weakness might suddenly betray him, and who therefore has little temptation to exult in the possession of anything which his own frail nature might at any moment forfeit.

And thus, from its humility, its sense of weakness and weariness, its consciousness of sin and failure, combined with its deep apprehension of the stainless beauty of the moral law, this lyric has found its way to the hearts of all who find the world and temptation and fear too strong, all who through repeated failure have learned that they cannot even be true to what they so pathetically desire and admire; who would be brave and vigorous if they could, but, as it is, can only hope to be just led step by step, helped over the immediate difficulty, past the dreaded moment; whose heart often fails them, and who have little of the joy of God; who can only trust that, if they go astray, the mercy of God will yet go out to seek them; who cannot even hope to run in the way of God’s beloved commandments, till He has set their heart at liberty.

March 8, 1889.

I went to see Darell, my old schoolfellow, a few days ago; he wrote to say that he would much like to see me, but that he was ill and unable to leave home—­could I possibly come to see him?