As to the connection between psalm 1:1-3 and John 7:38, I think the first psalm is a delineation of the character, walk, and fruitfulness of the Lord Himself, the Man of God's delight. He neither walked in the counsels of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful; but His delight was in the law of the Lord, and in it He meditated day and night, according to psalm 119:97-100. In Him God saw, and sets before us for our imitation, a Man whose delight it was to do His will as revealed in His law-1:e., the Word of God. Hence His fruitful-ness; for the secret and power of fruitfulness is subjection to God (Jno. 15:). But psalm 1:presents Him to us rather, I think, as the corn of wheat, yet abiding alone. He was indeed the tree planted by the river of water, in constant, unbroken communion with God, whose leaf faded not, and which brought forth His fruit in season. Every thing in Him delighted God. He said the right thing at the right time and in the right place. God says to us, See the Man who always pleases Me; and see Him-how He does it. He knows how and when to speak, how and when to be silent, even though Himself is defamed; He knows what to do and what not to do, when to go and when not to go, what to say and what not to say. He is neither an enthusiast nor a mere reasoner, neither elated by acclamations of praise nor dejected by the scorn and contempt of those who felt His majesty and their own inferiority. He is superior to the world, to man, to Satan; and without sin, His branches are richly loaded with the fruit that God delights in. This is the Man whose springs are in God, whose strength and sufficiency God is, and in whom God delights. But in all this strength and majesty, this rich fruitfulness in living connection with its source for man (God), He stood alone,- Himself could drink to the full from the fountain of all joy and strength, and through Him indeed came blessing to others. Still He was pent up- straightened, because He had a baptism withal to be baptized. Yet so fixed was His purpose to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work, that He could anticipate that work in its blessed results to others. He stands up in that the last great day of the feast (strange feast where were those who were athirst!), in which there was indeed the outward form of approach to the source of blessing and refreshment, but no real approach, (and the form without reality is the saddest kind of poverty,) and cries, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink." If I mistake not, it is the only occasion (besides that on the cross) that He cries, as if the vehemence of His desire to impart blessing to those who are famishing for it while they are spending their labor for naught- as if that untellable burning love that yearned to give to the needy was only equaled in its vehemence and intensity by the intensity of the suffering that proved it to be stronger than death. " He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." I think the allusion here is to Isaiah 32:2, with possibly Isaiah 44:3. In the psalm, we have more the effect of the river in the fruitfulness of the Tree. It is planted by the water which nourishes it. In John 7:, it is the waters that are to flow out unchecked. The tree is always, I think, what the individual is in himself and for God; and that too, I think, in nature and under the law. Christ was fruitful there, but who else? The rivers of living water flowing out of the belly is what God does in grace for man and through man. It never existed before the exaltation of Christ. "This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive; for as yet the Holy Ghost was not, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." It had never been before. It was not a tree bearing fruit to God, but God opening up all the floodgates of blessing to man through man,-first, through the obedient, humbled, and now exalted Man, and in connection with Him, those who believe. Notice, the Lord does not say that every one who would like to be a fruitful tree, and would like to bring forth something for God; but seeing the real poverty and need, He says, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink," and he shall not only have what he needs for himself, but shall become a channel of richest blessing to others. W.W.