That is a jubilant bird note, but the bird is singing, not on some fair dewy spring morning, but in a cloudy heaven, and in the very midst of a destructive tempest.

A little while ago I listened to a concert of mingled thunder and birdsong. Between the crashing peals of thunder, I heard the clear thrilling note of the lark. The melody seemed to come out of the very heart of the tempest.

The environment of this Psalm is stormy. The sun is down. The stars are hid. The waters are out. The roads are broken up. And in the very midst of the darkness and desolation one hears the triumphant cry of the psalmist, “In the LORD I take refuge.”

The singer is a soul in difficulty. He is the victim of relentless antagonists. He is pursued by implacable foes. The fight would appear to be going against him. The enemies are overwhelming, and, just at this point of seeming defeat and imminent disaster, there emerges this note of joyful confidence in God. “In the LORD I take refuge.” It is a song in the night. J. H. JOWETT

There is a bird of the thrush family found in the South of Ireland, called the “Storm Thrush,” from its peculiar love of storms. In the wildest storms of rain and wind, it betakes itself to the very topmost twig of the highest tree and there pours out its beautiful song—its frail perch swaying in the wind.

A beautiful story is told of some little birds whose nest had been ruined. As the poet walked among the trees in his garden after the storm, he found a torn nest lying on the ground. He began to brood sadly over it, pitying the birds whose home had thus been wrecked. But as he stood there and mused, he heard a twittering and chattering over his head; looking up he saw the birds busy building again their ruined nest!

I heard a bird at break of day Sing from the autumn trees A song so musical and calm, So full of certainties, No man, I think, could listen long Except upon his knees. Yet this was but a simple bird Alone among dead trees.

Robert Louis Stevenson closes one of his prayers with these words: “Help us with the grace of courage that we be none of us cast down while we sit lamenting over the ruins of our happiness. Touch us with the fire of Thine altar, that we may be up and doing, to rebuild our city.”

Begin to build anew!