The hart and the water-brooks Author:John Ross Macduff Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m. A PECULIAR EXPERIENCE. Although this Psalm, in bold and striking figure, presents a faithful miniature picture of the Believer's life, we must regard it... more » as depicting an extraordinary experience at a peculiar passage of David's history, and which has its counterpart still in that of many of God's children. The writer of the Psalm was evidently undergoing "spiritual depression"—what is sometimes spoken of as "spiritual desertion,"—that sorrow, awful in its reality—too deep for utterance—deeper than the yawning chasm made by family bereavement—the sorrow of all sorrows, the loss of God in the soul! There is much caution needed in speaking of this. There are causes which lead to spiritual depression which are purely physical, arising from a diseased body, an overstrung mind—a succession of calamities weakening and impairing the nervous system. We know how susceptible are the body and mind together, of being affected by external influences." We are," says an able analyser of human emotions, "fearfully and wonderfully made. Of that constitution which in our ignorance we call union of soul and body, we know little respecting what is cause, and what effect. We would fain believe that the mind has power over the body; but it is just as true that the body rules the mind. Causes apparently the most trivial—a heated room, want of exercise— a sunless day, a northern aspect—will make all the difference between happiness and unhappiness; between faith and doubt; between courage and indecision. To our fancy there is something humiliating in being thus at the mercy of our animal organism. We would fain find nobler causes for our emotions." Yes—many of those sighs and tears, and morbid, depressed feelings, which Christians speak of as the result of spiritual darkness and the desertio...« less