The Christian Use of the Psalter. Whitham Arthur Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ an occasional obscurity may even have a humbling or awe-inspiring effect on the mind. The strange version of the Vulgate of Ps. lxxi. 14, though incorrect, is not without its point:

      Quoniam non cognovi litteraturam,

      introibo in potentias Domini.8

      Learning by itself can never lift the soul on the wings of devotion and worship. The unlearned, Christ's "little ones," have in every age found a voice that spoke to them in the liturgy of the Catholic Church, even though its accents were inarticulate, and its message music rather than words. Such considerations may prevent us distressing ourselves because something, perhaps much, in the Church's book of praise is unintelligible and must remain so.

      Two practical suggestions may be offered here to those who find themselves hindered in devotion by the difficulties of the Psalter, by its rapid transitions, or its constantly varying tone. The leading purpose of the Psalter in the Church's use is expressed in its Hebrew title, Tehillim, "praises." "We shall do well," says Dr. Cheyne, "to accustom ourselves to the intelligent use of this title, and to look out in every psalm for an element of praise." It is good to allow this thought to dominate our mind while the Psalms are being read or sung in the Church's service. For this and for that our fathers in the Faith thanked God; for what He had revealed, or promised or done. And He is the same, He changes not. Ever and anon as the service proceeds, a verse will suggest some ground of thanksgiving for ourselves or for the Church we love. We need to keep our minds, like our bodies, in the attitude of praise and aspiration, like that exiled lover of his nation who wrote Ps. cvi.:

      Remember me, O Lord, according to the favour that Thou

      bearest unto Thy people:

      O visit me with Thy salvation;

      That I may see the felicity of Thy chosen:

      And rejoice in the gladness of Thy people,

      And give thanks with Thine inheritance.

(cvi. 4, 5.)

      Not only the attitude of praise should be cultivated, but also that of sympathy. This will be especially fruitful as we take upon our lips these constantly recurring expressions of penitence, struggle, and sorrow. These are certain to be at times unreal to us, unless we can remember that we recite them not merely for ourselves, but as part of the Church's intercession for the world, in which it is our privilege to take part. Others are suffering under the burden of sin and grief, others are overwhelmed with sorrow, racked with pain, harried by the slanderer and the persecutor. It is such as these that we remember before God, as fellow-members of the one body. And will not such a remembrance, such sympathy, bring us very near to our blessed Lord's own use of the Psalter in His days on earth, Who "Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses"?

      Yet beyond all these difficulties of language, history, and modes of thought, whether they yield to study or not, there are outstanding moral difficulties of the Psalter. Some of the Psalms appear to be inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, or even with the moral sense of mankind, educated as it has been for so long in the Gospel-school. This objection seems at first sight a more serious difficulty than any of the others; but before it can be satisfactorily dealt with, another and more fundamental question must be faced. What is the attitude, as a whole, of the objector to the revealed word of God? There are those to whom the Psalms seem to speak altogether in an alien tongue, who find the recitation of them in the Church's service "tedious" (a reason alleged recently as one of those which keep people from attending church), to whom the 119th Psalm appears to be "mechanical and monotonous," whose very expression in church proclaims them "bored." Such feelings may be only the result of ignorance, or lack of effort, or inherited misconceptions. Or the reason may lie deeper. The worship of the Catholic Church can only be understood by those who are of the mind of the Church, who have learned to place themselves in the believer's attitude towards God and His revelation.

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      1

      Note A, p. 101.

      2

      Note B, p. 102.

      3

      "Concerning the Service of the Church," the original Preface to the Prayer Book.

1

Note A, p. 101.

2

Note B, p. 102.

3

"Concerning the Service of the Church," the original Preface to the Prayer Book.

4

xli. 13, lxxii. 18-19, lxxxix. 50, cvi. 46, cl.

5

Walter Pater, Gaston de Latour.

6

Virgil, eclogue iv.

7

Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 313, 314 (cf. Heb. xi. 13):

Praying, they stood with hands of love outspread,

If but that farther shore each might be first to tread.

8

"Inasmuch as I know not man's learning, I will enter into the mighty works of the Lord."