The Stranger's Prayer
T. Kidd. Psalm 119:19 I am a stranger in the earth: hide not your commandments from me. I. A REMARKABLE CONFESSION. 1. A stranger is absent from home. 2. A stranger has no fixed residence where he is liable to remove, he looks for changes, and meets them without surprise. 3. A stranger feels no particular interest in the place through which he passes, or in the events which transpire around him: he is not wholly unaffected by them; yet many things which concern a resident are of little or no consequence to a traveller: his home is elsewhere, and his main business lies in another quarter. 4. A stranger forms no intimate connection with the society among whom he is cast. He converses with them; he shows to all civility and respect; but as a stranger he never thinks of close alliance and lasting friendship. 5. A stranger reckons on inconveniences, and prepares to meet them. If he cannot have things altogether to his mind, he submits: if he be treated with neglect, it gives him not much concern: direct affronts do not deeply affect him — he is but "a stranger," and he looks forward to home as the seat of comfort, and the place of rest. II. AN APPROPRIATE PRAYER. 1. The Word of God is the stranger's best companion. 2. It is his kindest comforter. It makes up for all he needs, and supports under all he endures. III. CONCLUSION. 1. The delusion of ungodly men. They are "strangers on the earth" in regard to the fluctuations that await them, but too much at home in the temper of their minds. What awful surprise will such feel when the summons of departure comes! Go they must, however reluctant, however unprepared! 2. The importance of a right spirit in professors of religion. And what is this, but a spirit of abstraction from a polluting world, of holy indifference to its fascinating smiles, and of noble superiority to its forbidding frowns? (T. Kidd.) Parallel Verses KJV: I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me. WEB: I am a stranger on the earth. Don't hide your commandments from me.