There are two verses in the Psalm referred to of very practical and general bearing: I refer to those in which the words occur, “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty.” Surely every disciple earnestly wishes to know what the principles of conduct are which lead—in any dispensation—to such a blissful and glorious result. Let us then deeply consider them. “Hearken, O daughter;” that is the first thing, not merely to hear casually but to listen definitely and specially: “and consider;” the complaint of Isaiah against Israel was that they would not consider, and their hope of future salvation is connected by Jeremiah with the statement that “in the latter day they shall consider;” it is a trait of the devout psalmist that he can say, “When I remember Thee upon my bed and meditate on Thee in the night watches, because Thou hast been my help therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice.” “I will meditate of Thy works.” “O how I love Thy law! it is my meditation all the day” — “day and night.”
“The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting," and the consequence may well be a crude and indigestible diet. A distinguished public man has just been saying that “one of the greatest faults of the age is that thinking is going out of fashion, and that people think less and less: that is partly due to the hurry of life.” Of course there is always a tendency to say, “the former times were better than these,” —in many things very untruly: but it can hardly be doubted that, speaking generally, we are not so rich in contemplative life as those who—like Moses in the desert of Midian, or Elijah at Cherith, or David at Adullam, or Ezekiel at Chebar, or Paul in Arabia, or John at Patmos spent months and years of the old dark ages in meditation. They indeed chewed the cud of spiritual rumination. Plato says that Socrates, when with the army, once stood for the whole day and far into the night wrapt in meditation on some particular thought. But that was a good while ago. If anyone did so now, he would be put in a lunatic asylum, or at the least, told to “Move on.”
Meditation, it must be allowed, is certainly not much in vogue, and many blame printing for it, but unjustly. No doubt printing is not an unqualified boon. When the writing of every book was a tedious and laborious process, when men wrote everything in imprinted capital letters all through, it is likely that they would have more time to think while they were writing. Then the extreme labor would compel them to condense as much as possible what they wrote. And again when men had to read these labored scrawls of drifting letters, without spaces between the words, they would have to take more time and thought to make them out. Besides which there was less tendency, by reason of this labor, either to write or read things of no consequence. But when all that is said, it must be admitted that the use of printing has been of immense service as a means of spiritual ministry since the extremely significant time of its discovery. It does not say that it is the “reading” man who roasteth not what he took, but the “slothful” man, and that indicates the main cause of the mischief.
Of course a great deal depends on what is read. “Beware of the man of one book,” said Thomas Aquinas; but it is certain that T. Aquinas did not keep to one book himself, nor is that the most desirable course. Paul sends to Troas for his “books but especially the parchments"; which signifies plurality and preference. Still it is true that a few books well chosen and well-studied are infinitely more beneficial than a prodigality of ill-judged or frivolous reading. And here is where the third injunction comes— “incline thine ear.” This exhortation recognizes that there are so many voices in the world clamoring for attention that a distinct earnest and continuous effort is looked for, that we may hear the voice of the Good Shepherd (to mingle the metaphors).
We see then how great an importance our Lord attaches to our hearing His voice. An ancient divine said that a man had two ears and only one mouth that he should hear twice as much as he should speak. This then is the significance of that word, “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty": not by reason of much intelligence or ability, for that is only within the reach of few; but by reason of that which is within the reach of all, the good part which the beloved disciple Mary chose to sit at His feet and hear His word; and this to the comparative oblivion of all else. “Forget also thine own people and thy father's house.”
“Comparative oblivion;” for there can be no doubt that such sentences as this are to be taken in a relative and not in an absolute sense, or we should not find so many precepts for us to show filial and family care and affection. We need to remember that the oriental character of language is much more absolute and antithetical than ours, or we shall misunderstand such a passage as “If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children he cannot be My disciple;” which simply means that his love and allegiance to Christ should be so great as that his attachment to all else is by comparison hatred. Taking too literal and unqualified a view of such passages is only logically carried out in the life of St. Theresa who denied herself all the claims and joys of kindred; or a St. Elizabeth of Thuringia who, though Landgravine, forsook her own children to wash the feet of beggars; or a St. Francis who, according to Dante, “wedded poverty.” Right noble were many such lives in motive though not in result: while we decline to accept their interpretation of precepts, we may well desire to be filled with their devotion and self-denial.