In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.—Ps. 94: 19.

The psalmist has been reviewing the conquests and oppressions of wicked despots. What he saw grieved his soul. The thoughts of these things weighed heavily upon his heart. But into his mind came a multitude of other thoughts in which he found comfort and abiding reasons for delight in life.

The experience of this psalmist has something to say to us in the midst of these tragic days. Because of the dreadful things we see in the world—wars, ruthless aggressions, persecutions, cruelties—dark and oppressive thoughts are constantly obtruding into our minds. They are grievous, and we cannot avoid feeling the weight of them upon our hearts. But we must not let them get us down. There are evidences of God’s goodness and redeeming work to be seen on the other wide of the world’s balance sheet. On that other side, if we look for it, we may discover still a vast amount of goodness and beauty in human life.

You may see, any day and in any community, many and varying pictures of life on the better and more hopeful side of things.

You may see many a budding romance.

You may still hear wedding bells ringing.

You may go into many a home, and see parents carefully tending growing little bodies to make them into strong and healthy men and women; directing young, inquiring minds and leading them along the path of knowledge of good and evil, turning young hearts to that faith in the eternal verities, without which all of man’s pride and ambition and strength and earthly victory is but a vanishing vanity.

In spite of all the wickedness and brutal tyranny you see in the world today, in spite of the hydrogen bomb which hangs over heads like a Damoclean sword, life still goes on, shielded under the watchful providence of heaven and hallowed with love and grace and tenderness.

Black shadows lie across the world, but there are many things to comfort us, and abiding reasons for delight in life.