Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 119:158

The day when I first met Colonel Gardiner at Leicester, I happened to preach a lecture from Psalms 114:158: "I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word." I was large in describing that mixture of indignation and grief, strongly expressed by the original word there, with which a good man looks on the varying transgressors of the divine law; and in tracing the causes of that grief, as arising, from a regard to the divine honour, and the interest of a Redeemer, and a compassionate concern for the misery such offenders bring on themselves, and for the mischief they do to the world about them. I little thought how exactly I was drawing Colonel Gardiner's character under each of those heads; and I have often reflected upon it as a happy providence, which opened a much speedier way than I could have expected, to the breast of one of the most amiable and useful friends which I ever expect to find upon earth. We afterwards sung a hymn, which brought over again some of the leading thoughts in the sermon, and struck him so strongly, that on obtaining a copy of it, he committed it to his memory, and used to repeat it with so forcible an accent, as showed how much every line expressed of his very soul. In this view the reader will pardon my inserting it; especially as I know not when I may get time to publish a volume of these serious though artless compositions, which I sent him in manuscript some years ago, and to which I have since made very large additions:

Arise, my tenderest thoughts, arise,

To torrents melt my streaming eyes;

And thou, my heart, with anguish feel

Those evils which thou canst not heal.

See human nature sunk in shame;

See scandals pour'd on Jesus' name;

The Father wounded through the Son;

The world abused, and souls undone.

See the short course of vain delight

Closing in everlasting night;

In flames that no abatement know,

Though briny tears for ever flow.

My God, I feel the mournful scene;

My bowels yearn o'er dying men,

And fain my pity would reclaim,

And snatch the firebrands from the flame.

But feeble my compassion proves,

And can but weep where most it loves;

Thy own all saving arm employ,

And turn these drops of grief to joy.

Philip Doddridge, in "The Life of Colonel Garainer."

HINTS TO PREACHERS.