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 Ube Sbepberfc psalm 
 
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 THE NORTHFIELD EDITION 
 
 THE SHEPHERD PSALM 
 
 V, Jg. B. MEYER, B. A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE TRESENT TENSES OF THE BLESSED 
 LIFE," -'CHRISTIAN LIVING," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 MARY A. LATHBU1 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature. 
 

 
 n- vtyoz 
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 
 by 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company. 
 
^ 
 
 TO 
 
 D. L. MOODY, 
 
 WITH LOVE AND THANKFULNESS FOR 
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF HIS LIFE AND WORDS, FROM 
 
 THE FAR-AWAY DAYS OF MY 
 
 FIRST PASTORATE AT YORK, TO WEEKS OF 
 
 HAPPY FELLOWSHIP IN NORTHFIELD 
 
 CONVENTIONS. 
 
" The King of love my Shepherd is, 
 Whose goodness faileth never ; 
 I nothing lack if I am His, 
 And He is mine forever. 
 
 " Where streams of living water flow 
 My ransomed soul He leadeth ; 
 And where the verdant pastures grow, 
 With food celestial feedeth. 
 
 Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, 
 But yet in love He sought me, 
 
 And on His shoulder gently laid, 
 And home, rejoicing, brought me. 
 
 In death's dark vale I fear no ill 
 With Thee, dear Lord, beside me : 
 
 Thy rod and staff my comfort still, 
 Thy cross before to guide me. 
 
 Thou spread'st a table in my sight, 
 Thy unction grace bestoweth, 
 
 And, oh, what transport of delight 
 From Thy pure chalice floweth! 
 
 " And so through all the length of days 
 Thy goodness faileth never. 
 Good Shepherd! may I sing Thy praise 
 Within Thy house forever." 
 
 Henry W. Baker. 
 
preface to tl)e INortfjfidb (£bition 
 
 In issuing this new and beautiful 
 edition of " The Shepherd Psalm," my 
 publishers ask me to write a few ad- 
 ditional prefatory words. I do so with 
 the greater pleasure as its issue affords 
 me the opportunity of greeting my 
 many readers across the Atlantic. 
 
 Among the happiest reminiscences of 
 my life are the visits already paid to 
 America ; among the pleasantest an- 
 ticipations, the hope of again minister- 
 ing to God's children there. And it is 
 good to know that, in whatever country 
 we are found, under whatever sky, we 
 are, through faith in the divine Saviour, 
 members in the same body, sheep in the 
 same flock, children of the one home. 
 In this sense, already there is " no more 
 sea." 
 
 This little treatise has been specially 
 5 
 
6 preface to tbe IRortbfielo Boitton 
 
 used of God to comfort and help multi- 
 tudes, largely, as I believe, because it 
 lays so much stress on what the living 
 Saviour is prepared to be to t^ose who 
 know His voice and follow HimT^^^K 
 There is too great a tendency among 
 us to introspection, the minute scrutiny 
 of motive and emotion, the effort at 
 self-mortification and self-adjustment. 
 In this there is great peril and much dis- 
 couragement. It is happier and better 
 far to look away from ourselves to Him 
 on whom, as the divinely constituted 
 Shepherd, the entire responsibility rests 
 of bringing the weakest and most erring 
 of the flock through the perils of this 
 mortal life to the land where there is 
 neither drought, nor thirst, nor over- 
 shadowed gorge. 
 
 f. ft. ynjuifiA. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 Westminster Bridge Road, London 
 
 October i, 1895. *.-,<*- = 
 
Preface 
 
 To see a masterpiece of painting on ^ 
 the walls of an art-gallery while a throng 
 of conventional sight-seers is pressing 
 past is a very different matter to seeing 
 it quietly on the walls of some stately 
 mansion, when there is time to sit down 
 and drink in the artist's thought, or 
 catch the different lights of earlv morn- 
 ing, of noon, or of the fading da)'. 
 
 Perhaps the enjoyment is the more 
 complete when some devoted lover of 
 the work stands beside, telling the story 
 of its daily effect upon his mind, and 
 indicating subtle beauties which had 
 escaped the first superficial gaze. 
 7 
 
8 preface 
 
 It is with some such intention that 
 this book is sent forth — that, in the 
 quiet of the sick-chamber or of the 
 prayer-closet, attention may be again 
 concentrated on this inimitable psalm ; 
 that the familiar words may be consid- 
 ered in the light of growing Christian 
 experience ; and that perchance some 
 unnoticed beauty may be suggested by 
 one who seldom comes to it without 
 discerning some fresh reason to thank 
 the Spirit of Inspiration that He ever 
 led the sweet minstrel of Scripture to 
 indite the Shepherd Psalm. 
 
 F. B. Meyer. 
 
 W 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Psalm of Psalms n 
 
 II. The Shepherd Lord 23 
 
 III. Pastures of Tender Grass and 
 
 Waters of Rest 38 
 
 IV. " He Restoreth my Soul" 51 
 
 V. The Shepherd's Leading 65 
 
 VI. The Valley of Shadow 78 
 
 VII. Comfort through the Rod and the 
 
 Staff 94 
 
 VIII. The Banquet 109 
 
 IX. "Thou Anointest my Head with 
 
 Oil" 127 
 
 X. The Overflowing Cup 144 
 
 XL The Cflestial Escort 162 
 
 XII. "The House of the Lord Forever" 175 
 
■' ^■S' 
 
 Gbe Xoro is mv. sbepbero; 1f sbail not 
 want, 1be maketb me to lie oown in green 
 pastures: be leaoetb me besioe tbe still 
 waters. 1be restoretb mv. soul : be leaoetb 
 me in tbe patbs ot rigbteousness tor bis 
 name's sake. Uea, tbougb 11 walk tbrougb 
 tbe valley of tbe sbaoow of oeatb, H will 
 fear no evil: for tbou art witb me; tb£ 
 roo ano tbg staff tbeg comfort me. Gbou 
 preparest a table before me in tbe presence 
 of mine enemies : tbou anointest tug beao 
 witb oil; mg cup runnetb over. Surelg 
 goooness ano mercv. sball follow me all 
 tbe oa^s of tug life: ano 1f will owell in 
 tbe bouse of tbe Xoro forever. 
 
 
QLijc |3salm of psalms 
 
 This psalm has sometimes been called 
 the Psalm of the Crook. It lies between 
 the Psalm of the Cross and the Psalm 
 of the Crown. If the Twenty-second 
 tells of the Good Shepherd, who died, 
 and if the Twenty-fourth tells of the 
 Chief Shepherd, who is coming again, 
 the Twenty-third tells of the Great 
 Shepherd, who keeps His flock with 
 unerring sagacity and untiring devotion. 
 No hireling is He. He asks no wage ; 
 He takes no reward. He counts not 
 the cost. The sheep are His own. 
 And in these sweet words we learn*-^ 
 
Gbe Sbepberfc jpsalm 
 
 what He is toward them to-day, in all 
 His shepherd tenderness and love. 
 
 Some have spoken of this psalm as a 
 creed. I have it on good authority that 
 one thinker at least, wearied with the 
 perplexing questions that agitate so 
 many hearts and brains in this strange 
 questioning age, and pressed to give 
 some positive affirmation of his creed, 
 began reciting these words with solemn 
 pathos of voice and kindling rapture of 
 eye. And when he had finished the 
 whole psalm he added : " That is my 
 creed. I need, I desire no other. I 
 learned it from my mother's lips. I 
 have repeated it every morning when I 
 awoke for the last twenty years. Yet 
 I do not half understand it ; I am only 
 beginning now to spell out its infinite 
 death will come on me 
 with the task unfinished. But, by the 
 
Gbe psalm of psalms 
 
 13 
 
 grace of Jesus, I will hold on by this 
 psalm as my creed, and will strive to 
 believe it and to live it ; for I know that 
 it will lead me to the cross, it will^guide 
 me to glory." 
 
 Yes, the testimony is true. And as' 
 one looking into some priceless gem 
 may see fountains of color welling up- 
 ward from its depths, so, as we shall 
 gaze into these verses, simple as child- 
 hood's rhymes, but deep as an arch- 
 angel's anthem, we shall see in them 
 the gospel in miniature, the grace of 
 God reflected as the sun in a dewdrop, 
 and things which eye hath not seen, nor 
 ear heard, nor the heart of man con- 
 ceived. Read into these words the 
 meaning of the Gospels, and you have 
 an unrivaled creed, to which all Chris- 
 tians may unhesitatingly assent. 
 
 Others have spoken of it as a minstrel. 
 
 f / 
 
^5> 
 
 
 14 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc fl>6alm 
 
 Before me lies a page that describes it 
 in some such terms as these : that it is 
 a pilgrim minstrel commissioned of God 
 to travel up and down through the 
 world, singing so sweet a strain that 
 none who hear it can remember what- 
 soever sorrow has been rending and 
 tearing at the heart ! This, too, is true. 
 This psalm speaks in language that the 
 universal heart of man can comprehend. 
 It exercises a spell that can charm away 
 the griefs that bid a bold defiance to 
 philosophy and mirth. 
 
 " It has remanded to their dungeon 
 more felon thoughts, more black doubts, 
 more thieving sorrows, than there are 
 sands on the sea-shore. It has com- 
 forted the noble host of the poor. It 
 has sung courage to the army of the 
 I ^^disappointed. It has poured balm and 
 // /(/consolation into the heart of the sick. 
 
 **.i 
 
 h.^ 
 
 
 
 K'Hl 
 
& 
 ^ 
 
 Zbc fl>salm of psalms is 
 
 It has visited the prisoner and broken 
 his chains, and, like Peter's angel, has 
 led him forth in imagination, and sung 
 him back to his home again. It has 
 made the dying Christian slave freer 
 than his master, and consoled those 
 whom, dying, he left behind mourning, 
 not so much that he was gone as be- 
 cause they were left. Nor is its work 
 done. It will go singing on through all 
 the generations of time, and it will not 
 fold its wings till the last pilgrim is safe 
 and time ended ; then it shall fly back 
 to the bosom of God, whence it issued, 
 and sound on, mingled with all those 
 harmonies of celestial joy which make 
 heaven musical forever." 
 
 But it may also be compared to the 
 holy of holies of old — the inner shrine of 
 that splendid temple which rose, noise- 
 less as some tall palm, at the bidding of 
 
XLbc Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 Solomon. However eager or noisy 
 might be the tide of human life that 
 throbbed and surged through the narrow 
 streets of the Holy City, or even pulsed 
 in the temple courts, yet there was 
 always one quiet and undisturbed in- 
 closure where angel guardians stretched 
 out their wings in calm repose over the 
 ark of God. There at least was rest ; 
 and if the priestly occupants had only 
 been allowed to tarry in that secret 
 place of the Most High, surely they had 
 forgotten the fret and rush of life under 
 the spell of that unutterable repose. 
 Dusty haste and restless anxiety must 
 doff their garments and shoes ere they 
 could enter there. 
 
 And all this is the psalm before us. 
 It is an oasis in the desert ; it is a bower 
 on a hill of arduous climbing ; it is a 
 grotto in a scorching noon ; it is a 
 
 
Zbc fl>salm of psalms 
 
 17 
 
 sequestered arbor for calm and heavenly 
 meditation ; it is one of the most holy 
 places in the temple of Scripture. 
 Come hither, weary ones, restless ones, 
 heavy-laden ones ; sit down in this cool 
 and calm resort, while the music of its 
 rhythm charms away the thoughts that 
 break your peace. How safe and blessed 
 are you to whom the Lord is Shepherd ! 
 Put down this volume and repeat again, 
 in holy reverie, the well-known words 
 to the end, and see if they do not build 
 themselves into a refuge on which the 
 storms may break in vain. 
 
 There is no question as to who wrote 
 it — David's autograph is on every verse. 
 But when and where did it first utter 
 itself upon the ear of man? Was it 
 sung first amid the hills of Bethlehem, 
 as the sheep were grazing over the 
 wolds, dotting them like chalkstones? 
 
18 
 
 Gbe SbepberD ft>salm 
 
 Or was it poured first upon the ear of 
 the moody king, whose furrowed brow 
 made so great a contrast to the fresh 
 and lovely face of the shepherd lad, 
 who was " withal of a beautiful counte- 
 nance, and goodly to look to " ? It 
 may have been. But there is a strength, 
 a maturity, a depth, which are not 
 wholly compatible with tender youth, 
 and seem rather to betoken the touch 
 of the man who has learned good by 
 knowing evil, and who, amid the many 
 varied experiences of human life, has 
 fully tested the shepherd graces of the 
 Lord of whom he sings. 
 
 These words were surely first sung 
 by one who had suffered deeply ; who 
 had tasted many a bitter cup ; who had 
 been compelled to thread his way 
 through many a labyrinth and beneath 
 many an overhanging, low-browed rock. 
 
Gbe psalm of psalms 19 
 
 We are told, in Persian story, of a 
 vizir who dedicated one apartment in 
 his palace to the memory of earlier days, 
 ere royal caprice had lifted him from 
 lowliness to honor. There, in a tiny 
 room with bare floors, was the simple 
 equipment of shepherd life — the crook, 
 the wallet, the coarse dress, the water- 
 cruse ; and there he spent a part of each 
 day, remembering what he had been, as 
 an antidote to those temptations which 
 beset men in the dazzling light of royal 
 or popular favor. So David the king 
 did not forget David the shepherd boy. 
 There was a chamber in his heart 
 whither he was wont to retire to medi- 
 tate and pray ; and there it was that he 
 composed this psalm, in which the 
 mature experience of his manhood 
 blends with the vivid memory of a boy- 
 hood spent among the sheep. 
 
 ■MW 
 
£be SbepberO ipsalm 
 
 This only we say further, as we close 
 this meditation : that as this psalm hath 
 7 irtue, which streams to heal those who 
 touch, so it is true that its power lies in 
 dwelling so little upon man and so much 
 on God. See how every verse tells us 
 what He is doing. This is the true 
 policy of life. Unbelief puts circum- 
 stances between itself and Christ, so as 
 not to see Him; as the disciples did, 
 through the mist, " and they cried out 
 for fear." Faith puts Christ between 
 itself and circumstances, so that it can- 
 not see them " for the glory of that 
 light." Unbelief fixes its gaze on men 
 and things and likelihoods and possibil- 
 ities and circumstances. Faith will not 
 concern herself with these ; she refuses 
 to spend her time and waste her strength 
 in considering them. Her eye is fixed 
 steadfastly on her Lord, and she is per- 
 
Gbe fl>salm of ftsalms 
 
 2] 
 
 suaded that He is well able to supply 
 all her need and to carry her through 
 all difficulties and straits. 
 
 O trembling heart, look away and 
 
 look 
 
 up 
 
 Your sorrows have been 
 
 multiplied indeed by looking at difficul- 
 ties and second causes. Now cease 
 from all this. Talk no more about the 
 walled cities and giants, about the 
 rugged paths and dark valleys, about 
 lions and robbers ; but think of the 
 love, the might, and the wisdom of the 
 Shepherd. Love that spared not its 
 blood ! Might that made the worlds ! 
 Wisdom that named the stars! Your 
 salvation does not depend on what you 
 are, but on what He is. For every look 
 at self take ten looks at Christ. Cease 
 using the first pronoun, and substitute 
 for it the third. 
 
 Tell us no more of your tears, yotj 
 
 
22 Gbe SbepbetO (psalm 
 
 failures, or your sins ; but tell us, oh, 
 tell us, of the all-sufficiency of Jesus, 
 and how your needs have been the foil 
 of His deliverances. Sing again the old 
 song of how all wants are swallowed up 
 in the shepherd love of God. And 
 emphasize each " He " as you say again 
 the psalm of childhood and of age. 
 
II 
 
 ' The Lord is my Shepherd 
 I shall not want." 
 
 \ N V 
 
 
 Three thousand years have passed 
 away since the sweet singer of Israel 
 first sang this psalm about the shep- 
 herd care of God. Thirty centuries! 
 It is a long time. And in that vast 
 abyss all the material relics of his life, 
 however carefully treasured, have mol- 
 dered into dust. 
 
 The harp, from the strings of which 
 
 his fingers swept celestial melody ; the 
 
 tattered banner, which he was wont to 
 
 23 
 
24 
 
 Zbe SbepberD pealm 
 
 uplift in the name of the Lord ; the 
 well-worn book of the law, which was 
 his meditation day and night ; the huge 
 sword, with which he slew the giant ; 
 the palace chamber, from which his 
 spirit passed away to join the harpers 
 harping with their harps — all these lie 
 deep amid the debris of the ages. 
 
 But this psalm — though old as the 
 time when Homer sang or Solon gave 
 his laws, and though trodden by the 
 myriads of men in every succeeding 
 age — is as fresh to-day as though it 
 were just composed. Precious words! 
 They are the first taught to our children, 
 and perhaps the Holy Child Himself 
 first learned to repeat them in the old 
 Hebrew tongue beside His mother's 
 knee in Nazareth ; and they are among 
 the last that we whisper in the ear of 
 our beloved ones, standing in the twi- 
 
Gbe SbcpberD XorD 
 
 light between the darkening day of 
 earth and the breaking day of heaven. 
 The sufferer in the sick-chamber; the 
 martyr at the stake ; the soldier on his 
 sentry duty ; the traveler amid many 
 perils; the Covenanter ; the Huguenot; 
 the Vaudois — these, and a multitude 
 which no man can number, have found 
 in these words a lullaby for fear, an in- 
 spiration to new life and hope. " The 
 Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not 
 want." 
 
 " The Lord." It is printed in small 
 capital letters, and wherever that is the 
 case we know that it stands for the 
 mystic word JEHOVAH. And so much 
 in awe did the Jews stand of that awful 
 name that they substituted for it some 
 lesser word for God wherever it occurred 
 in their public reading of sacred Scrip- 
 
 ^ — 
 
 «H*#S&te^ 
 
Gbe SbepberD f>salm 
 
 ture. Only once a year was it pro- 
 nounced, and that on the great day of 
 Atonement, by the high priest in the 
 most holy place. 
 
 Jehovah means the Living One, the 
 self- existent Being, the I AM ; He who 
 was and is and is to come, who inhab- 
 iteth eternity, who hath life in Himself. 
 All other life, from the aphid on the 
 rose-leaf to the archangel before the 
 throne, is dependent and derived. All 
 others waste and change and grow old ; 
 He only is unchangeably the same. 
 All others are fires, which He supplies 
 with fuel ; He alone is self-sustained. 
 This mighty Being is our Shepherd. 
 Lift up your heart to Him in lowly 
 adoration, and say, " Give ear, O Shep- 
 herd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph 
 like a flock ; Thou that dwellest between 
 the cherubim, shine forth." 
 
Cbe SbepbetD XcrD 27 
 
 But as we travel in thought down the 
 ages we meet a gentle, weary Man on 
 whom the shadow of coming sorrow 
 hangs darkly. He is speaking within a 
 few miles of the spot where these words 
 had been first uttered some twelve hun- 
 dred years before. Is it treason? Is it 
 blasphemy ? Is it the raving of lunacy ? 
 No ; with all the marks of self-possession 
 and sober truth He takes up these very 
 words, and applying them to Himself, 
 He says, " I am the Good Shep- 
 herd." 
 
 Combine these two — the august word 
 for the everlasting God and the tender 
 word for the Saviour — and we have a 
 worthy title for our Lord, Jehovah- 
 Jesus. Let us read it into our psalm, 
 and say, with a new appreciation of its 
 meaning, " Jehovah-Jesus is my Shep- 
 herd." What need can we have which 
 
 5y*g^5^ 
 
Gbe SbepbevD ipsalm 
 
 may not be met by this twofold na- 
 ture? As Jehovah He has all power; 
 as Jesus all sympathy. As Jehovah He 
 sustains all worlds ; as Jesus He ever 
 liveth to make intercession. As Jehovah 
 He is sovereign Lord of all ; as Jesus 
 He still treads the pathways of this 
 world by our side, whispering sweetly 
 and softly in our ears, " Fear not, little 
 flock." 
 
 "Shepherd." That precious word 
 for God was uttered first by Jacob — him- 
 self once a shepherd — as he lay a-dying 
 in his hieroglyphed chamber, and with 
 the long thoughts of old age went back 
 to the imagery of his early life, speaking 
 of God as having " shepherded him all 
 his life long." All through the Bible 
 the golden thread runs, until in its clos- 
 ing pages we read of the Lamb who 
 
XZbe Sbepberd %ovt> 
 
 29 
 
 leads His flock to the river of water 
 of life. 
 
 The Eastern shepherd Occupied quite 
 a unique position toward his flock, and 
 a friendship sprang up between him and 
 the dumb creatures of his care to which 
 there is no counterpart among ourselves. 
 Let us think ourselves into that rela- 
 tionship. In the early morning he 
 would lead his flock from their fold to 
 the pasture-lands. All day he must 
 closely watch, lest harm should come to 
 them from prowling beasts of prey or 
 robber hordes. To the still waters he 
 must lead them, that they may drink 
 where no current shall frighten or en- 
 danger them. And at night he must 
 conduct them back to the security of 
 the fold. At a certain season of the 
 year he must lead them yet farther 
 afield, far away from his own home and 
 
30 Gbe Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 the haunts of men, where he will live 
 among them, scorched by the heat at 
 noon and drenched by the dews at 
 night. Should one of the lambs be 
 unable to keep pace with the rest of the 
 flock he must carry it in his bosom. 
 Should one of his flock go astray he 
 must search for it until he finds it, 
 tracking it by the tufts of wool left in 
 the briers and thorns. Should danger 
 assail he must be prepared to risk his 
 life. Shepherds in the East look like 
 warriors armed for fight — the gun slung 
 over the shoulder, pistols at the belt, 
 and club in hand. ^*" 
 
 Living on such terms, the shepherd 
 and his flock are almost friends. They^ 
 know him and answer to their names. 
 Some always follow close behind him, 
 as his especial favorites, sure of his love. 
 He can do .almost as he wills with anv 
 
Cbe SbepberD %ovb 
 
 of them, going freely in and out among 
 them without exciting the slightest 
 symptom of alarm. 
 
 Now all this is true of our Lord Jesus, 
 that Great Shepherd of the sheep. He 
 has a shepherd's heart, beating with 
 pure and generous love that counted 
 not His life-blood too dear a price to 
 pay down as our ransom. He has a 
 shepherd's eye, that takes in the whole 
 flock, and misses not even the poor 
 sheep wandering away on the mountains 
 cold. He has a shepherd' s faithfuhiess, 
 which will never fail nor forsake, nor 
 leave us comfortless, nor flee when He 
 seeth the wolf coming. He has a shep- 
 herd's strength, so that He is well able 
 to deliver us from the jaw of the lion or 
 the paw of the bear. He has a shep- 
 herd's tenderness — no lamb so tiny that 
 He will not carry it ; no saint so weak 
 
 .-Jk " S 
 
 ^ 
 
Cbe Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 that He will not gently lead ; no soul 
 so faint that He will not give it rest. 
 He pities as a father. He comforts as 
 a mother. His gentleness makes great. 
 He covers us with His feathers, soft and 
 warm and downy ; and under His wings 
 do we trust. "^^^^ 
 
 Ah, He has done more! "All we 
 like sheep have gone astray ; we have 
 turned every one to his own way." 
 Punishment and disaster were immi- 
 nent ; but Jesus, from His throne in 
 eternity, saw the danger and was filled 
 with compassion for the multitudes 
 which were as sheep not having a shep- 
 herd. Therefore, because He w r as the 
 Shepherd, He offered to give His own 
 life as the substitute; and God laid on 
 Him the iniquity of us all. Then was 
 heard the terrible summons, " Awake, O 
 sword, against My Shepherd, and against 
 
£be SbepberD XorD 
 
 the Man that is My fellow, saith the 
 Lord of hosts: smite the Shepherd." 
 " He laid down His life for the sheep," 
 and thus redeemed the flock by the 
 blood of the everlasting covenant. 
 Praise Him! Praise Him! 
 
 " My." What a difference comes 
 in with that little word my ! " The 
 child is dead! " said one of the farm- 
 servants who had carried the sick boy 
 to his mother; "My child is dead! " 
 said the mother. " This estate is well 
 known to me ; I have trodden every 
 mile of it from childhood./' so speaks 
 the gray-headed bailiff; " This is my 
 estate," thus speaks the heir. So in 
 religion the difference between know- 
 ledge and appropriation is simply infi- 
 nite. It makes all the difference between 
 being saved or lost whether you say, 
 
Zhc Sbepberfc ipsalm 
 
 " Jesus is a Saviour " or " Jesus has saved 
 me"; whether you say, "The Lord is 
 a Shepherd " or " The Lord is my 
 Shepherd; I shall not want." Even if, 
 like Thomas, you could see the Saviour 
 in the clear light of reality, and have 
 every doubt removed, and His hands 
 offered to your touch, yet it would avail 
 you but little unless you could appro- 
 priate Him by saying, " My Lord and 
 my God." 
 
 Jesus waits to be appropriated. He 
 is not content to be a Shepherd, a Good 
 Shepherd, the Shepherd of the holy 
 angels, the Shepherd and Bishop of 
 countless redeemed ones. His travail 
 over you will not be satisfied till you 
 put your hand on Him and say, " My 
 Shepherd." And you may do that if 
 you will. There is nothing to hinder 
 you. Do not tarry to inquire if you 
 
Gbe SbepberD %ort> 
 
 35 
 
 are one of His sheep ; look away from 
 yourself to Him, and see if He be not 
 well qualified to be your Shepherd. 
 And the first cry of "Mine!" on 
 your part will be a certain indication 
 that you are included in that flock which 
 He is leading through many a tangled 
 brake to the one fold of heaven. " The 
 Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want." 
 
 '' I SHALL NOT WANT." Amid all 
 the sorrow and want of the world the 
 Lord's sheep are well supplied. The 
 cry of the worldling is contained m the 
 weary confession, " I perish with hun- 
 ger." But the boast of the saint rings 
 through the glad assurance, " My God 
 shall supply all your need according to 
 His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." 
 His hired servants have bread enough 
 and to spare ; how much more His own ! 
 
Gbe SbepberO psalm 
 
 " The young lions do lack, and suffer 
 hunger: but they that seek the Lord 
 shall not want any good thing." 
 
 Your experiences may seem to con- 
 tradict that glad announcement ; but 
 perhaps you have not by faith sought 
 and appropriated the supplies which 
 have been placed ready to your hand ; 
 or you have not made your requests 
 known unto God with prayer and sup- 
 plication ; or your hour of need has not 
 yet fully come ; or you have misunder- 
 stood your real need, and are asking for 
 something which would do you harm. 
 In one of these directions you must seek 
 the reason of the apparent disparity 
 between these glad, triumphant words 
 and your own experience. For it is 
 true forevermore that " there is no want 
 to them that fear Him." He is able to 
 make all grace abound, and He does 
 
 Sifiira 
 
 ff^m 
 
 .w 
 
 j i 
 
Gbe Sbepberfc 3LorD 
 
 make all grace abound. To Him be the 
 glory for ever and ever! 
 
 Oh, bind this bright assurance to 
 your heart; and whatever perils may 
 menace and threaten you, whatever 
 wants may assail, go forward, stepping 
 out into the dark, encouraging your 
 heart by this sweet refrain : " The Lord 
 is my Shepherd; I shall not want." 
 

 r 
 
 ^-rt&toM&edffih- * ' : -~ 
 
 y 
 
 in 
 
 Postures of (ftenber (Srass ana 
 tOatcrs of ttcst 
 
 " He maketh me to lie down 
 In green pastures : 
 
 He leadeth me beside the still waters." 
 
 In this sweet pastoral symphony, the 
 first verse gives the air, when it tells us 
 that there is no want to the man who 
 lives under the shepherd care of God. 
 In the succeeding verses the harmony 
 is worked out, and the music in all its 
 completeness is rendered effectively. 
 V The first want which, according to 
 this verse, he who belongs to Christ 
 shall never know is the want of rest. 
 38 
 
Ipastures of Genoer Grass 
 
 3D 
 
 This verse breathes the very spirit of 
 rest, as is even more apparent in a more 
 literal rendering of the words. It may 
 be rendered thus: " He maketh me to 
 lie down in pastures of tender grass : 
 He leadeth me f rJeside the waters of 
 rest." 
 
 What a delightful scene is thus con- 
 jured up before our fancy ! It is the 
 scorching hour of an Eastern noon. 
 The air is stifling with fever-heat, and 
 all the landscape is baking in the awful 
 glare. The very stones upon the hills 
 burn the feet that touch them. At 
 such a time woe be to the flock without 
 a shepherd ; and to the shepherd who 
 cannot find the blue shade of some 
 great rock, the shelter of some bushy 
 dell, or the rich and luscious pasturage 
 of some lowland vale ! 
 
 But there is no such failure here. 
 
40 
 
 Gbe SbepberD fl>salm 
 
 See where the pellucid stream is rolling 
 its tide through the level plain. Higher 
 upward in its bed, when it was starting 
 on its course, it foamed and fretted over 
 its rocky channel, leaped from ledge to 
 ledge, chafed against its restraining 
 banks, and dashed itself into a mass of 
 froth and foam. No sheep would have 
 drank of it then ; for the flocks will 
 never drink of turbid or ruffled streams. 
 But now it sweeps quietly onward as if 
 it were asleep — there is hardly a ripple 
 on its face ; every flower and tree and 
 sedge, as well as the overhanging banks, 
 is clearly mirrored on its surface, and 
 every stone in its bed may be clearly 
 seen ; on its banks the pasture is always 
 green and luxuriant, carpeted in spring 
 by a thousand flowers ; the very air is 
 cooled by its refreshing presence, and 
 the ear is charmed by the music of its 
 
pastures ot GenDer (Brass "41 
 
 purling waters. No drought can come 
 where that river flows ; and the flocks, 
 satisfied by browsing on the tender 
 »s, lie down satisfied and at rest. 
 
 We ALL NEED rest. There must 
 be pauses and parentheses in all our 
 lives. The hand cannot ever be plying 
 its toils. The brain cannot always be 
 elaborating trains of thought. The 
 faculties and senses cannot always be 
 on the strain. To work without rest is 
 like overwinding a watch ; the main- 
 spring snaps and the machinery stands 
 still. There must be a pause frequently 
 interposed in life's busy rush wherein 
 we can recuperate exhausted nerves and 
 lowered vitality. There is more per- 
 manence than many think in the com- 
 mandment which bids us rest one day 
 in seven. 
 
42 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc fl>aalm 
 
 But there is no part of our nature 
 that cries more urgently for rest, than 
 our spiritual life. The spirit of man, 
 like the dove, cannot always be wander- 
 ing with unresting wing ; it must alight. 
 We cannot ever be traveling up the 
 rugged mountain pass of difficulty, or 
 traversing the burning marl of discon- 
 tent. We must be able to lie down in 
 green pastures or to pass gently along 
 the waters of rest. There are three 
 things needed ere sheep or human 
 spirits can rest. 
 
 i. A consciousness of safety. The 
 growl of a lion, the bark of a dog, the 
 presence of a little child, will be quite 
 sufficient to spoil the rest of a flock of 
 sheep and to drive them trembling and 
 timid into an affrighted group. And 
 how can we rest so long as we feel our- 
 selves liable to the attack of the roaring 
 
pastures of Eenoer Grass 
 
 4:) 
 
 lion of the pit? Who can rest so long 
 as eternal destinies lie uncertainly in the 
 balance? 
 
 Against all this our Shepherd Jesus 
 has provided. He has Himself met the 
 great adversary of our souls, and has 
 forever broken his power. We can 
 never forget that fearful conflict be- 
 tween the two — the malice of the one ; 
 the strong cryings and tears, the anguish 
 and bloody sweat, of the other. It was 
 not a time when we could throw the 
 balance of our weight into one scale or 
 the other ; we were rather the prize for 
 which the battle was fought through the 
 long and weary hours. On the one 
 hand stood cruel hate and bloodthirsty 
 destruction ; on the other was mercy 
 yearning to deliver, although at the cost 
 of bitter agony and wounds, of which 
 the scars shall remain forever. In the 
 
 I 
 
44 Zbe SbepbcrD psalm 
 
 end the Good Shepherd gave His life 
 for the sheep. No hireling coward He! 
 His all was at stake. The flock was 
 His own, given Him by His Father; 
 and He laid down His life for it. 
 
 But in that death He slew our 
 enemy ; as two antlered champions of 
 the woods have sometimes been discov- 
 ered side by side in death, because the 
 one, in his own death-throes, had struck 
 the other with a mortal wound. But 
 God " brought again from the dead our 
 Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the 
 sheep, through the blood of the ever- 
 lasting covenant." And now He lives 
 to guarantee our safety. He has suf- 
 fered all that there is to suffer. He has 
 mastered all the opposition that there 
 is to encounter. He has secured us ever- 
 lasting deliverance from the slaughter- 
 knife, from the demands of the divine 
 
pastures of Senoer (Srass 
 
 45 
 
 law, and from the consequences of our 
 own sins. ''Who is He that condemn- 
 eth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, 
 that is risen again." 
 
 And now, O timid soul, be at rest! 
 The blood-red brand which is upon thee 
 is a sure token that thou art safe. He 
 cannot have done so much for thee to 
 lose thee now. In all moments of peril 
 or dread softly murmur his name, Jesus! 
 Jesus! and He will at once comfort thee 
 by His presence and by His voice, which 
 all the sheep know ; and this shall be 
 His assurance: "My sheep shall never 
 perish, neither shall any man pluck 
 them out of My hand." 
 
 "The Lord is thy Keeper." "We 
 know that whosoever is begotten of God 
 sinneth not ; but he that was begotten 
 of God keepeth him, and the evil one 
 toucheth him not" (i John v. i8,R.V.). 
 
 *K -. 
 
£be SbepbevD ipsalm 
 
 2. Sufficiency of food. A hungry 
 sheep will not lie down. Main force 
 will fail in making it do so. But the 
 shepherd who can provide it with plenty 
 of good pasturage will soon bring the 
 most restless animal to lie contentedly 
 among the fragrant herbage, while birds 
 may settle on its woolly back and bees 
 murmur drowsily around. 
 
 We can never rest so long as the 
 hunger of the spirit is unappeased and 
 its thirst unslaked. Strange that men 
 are so slow to realize this! Yet the 
 whole drift of human life seems impelled 
 by the aching void within. Conscious 
 of their hunger, men try to satisfy it 
 with the husks that the swine eat ; but 
 they try in vain. And there is no 
 answer to the unrest of the inward man 
 - until the voice of Jesus is heard saying, 
 

 % 
 
 4 
 
 pastures ot Genfcec <3rass 
 
 " He that cometh to Me shall never 
 hunger ; and He that believeth on Me 
 shall never thirst." 
 
 Oh to eat of the flesh of the Son of 
 man and to drink His blood — in hours 
 of devout reverie, in moments of rapt 
 and intimate communion ! This is life. 
 This is eternal satisfaction. Here are 
 pasture-lands indeed, and the rivers of 
 His pleasures. 
 
 The Word of God may fitly be com- 
 pared to green pastures. There is 
 nourishment there for all hungry hearts 
 — " enough and to spare." Nor do these 
 pastures ever become barren or sear. 
 They are as green and fresh to-day as 
 when they were first issued by the Holy 
 Spirit. Though multitudes of com- 
 mentators have considered them, and 
 myriads of Christians have studied and 
 
48 
 
 Gbe SbepberD jpsalm 
 
 conned them, they cannot be pondered 
 by a loving and obedient heart without 
 yielding nutriment and strength. 
 
 There are many spiritual realities 
 corresponding to the waters of rest. 
 What is the Lord's day but a water of 
 rest ; or the hour of worship ; or the 
 long period of illness and convalescence ; 
 or the summer holiday ; or the long- 
 halcyon period of spiritual prosperity, 
 when it would almost seem as though 
 Satan had forgotten to tempt? At 
 such times it is sweet to know that He 
 who anon led to war or work is now^lC 
 leading to rest. 
 
 And in some cases, in the midst of 
 life's rush and pleasure, He beckons us 
 aside to rest with Him awhile, that we 
 may have leisure to eat. He causes 
 our hearts to keep Sabbath and be at 
 peace. He makes us drink of the brook 
 
 V 
 
pastures of Genoa* (Brass 
 
 49 
 
 M 
 
 WW 
 
 by the way, and at noon we rest with 
 His flock in the blue shade of the Rock ,1 
 
 in the weary land 
 
 3. Obedience to the Shepherd' 's lead. 
 The tenderest shepherd cannot bring 
 a flock of sheep to rest unless they 
 follow him. If they lag far behind 
 him, if they go astray from him, if they 
 take their own several ways, then, how- 
 ever good the shepherd's intentions, 
 they cannot but be thwarted and frus- 
 trated. " My sheep," said Christ, " hear 
 My voice, and I know them, and they 
 follow Me." 
 
 This test of following the Shepherd's 
 lead is most important. It is by no 
 means wonderful that we lose our rest 
 when we run hither and thither, follow- 
 ing the devices and desires of our own y 
 evil hearts. We substitute our plansv • 
 for His. We insist on our schemes and <A 
 
 ... ^-f^ 
 
Cbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 stratagems. We crowd our days with 
 much of our own, in addition to some- 
 thing of His. We do not look up often 
 enough to see which way He is going 
 and what He would have us to do. 
 And so our rest is broken and lost. 
 We must follow the Lamb whitherso- 
 ever He goeth if we would be led to 
 the living fountains of waters, which are 
 fed from heavenly springs. 
 
 Oh, sigh not for the rest of God as if 
 it were impossible for thee ! The Good 
 Shepherd waits to make thee lie down, 
 and to give thee to drink long, deep 
 drafts of rest. Only trust Him! Hand 
 over to Him all that breaks the stillness 
 of thy spirit, though it be but a gnat- 
 sting; and take from Him His own 
 deep, sweet rest. Claim that He should 
 make thee lie down by the arts of His 
 gentle compulsion. 
 
 ^n^ 
 

 
 IV 
 
 "§t ftestoret!) tttg Soul 
 
 THESE words are among the most 
 precious in this priceless psalm. They 
 speak to the experience of many chil- 
 dren of God, who are deeply conscious 
 of the need of the restoring grace of the 
 Good Shepherd. If He were alone to 
 be followed, and if His influences upon 
 us were always instantly and wholly 
 obeyed, there would be no need of 
 restoration. But we are not always 
 susceptible and obedient to the heavenly 
 leadings ; we easily relapse into states 
 of lethargy and indifference, and it is 
 necessary that we should be restored. 
 
52 Gbe SbepberD jpsalm 
 
 The most fruitful source of spiritual 
 declension is the neglect of the Word of 
 God and of private devotion. Just so 
 long as the spirit of man keeps on terms 
 of intimacy with the loving Spirit of 
 God, while the Bible is regularly and 
 prayerfully studied and the habit of 
 retirement is maintained, there will be 
 a regular growth in grace and in the 
 knowledge and love of God. 
 
 If only the golden pipes are kept free 
 and unclogged, there will be an uninter- 
 rupted flow of the golden oil to feed 
 the flame of a holy life. We know all 
 this. Our hearts have often tasted the 
 sweet refreshment and holy encourage- 
 ment which are found in these quiet, 
 blessed hours spent in the most holy 
 place. We know that there is nothing 
 which is more productive of all that 
 makes life worth having than commu- 
 
 i 
 
"1be IRestoretf m£ Soul" 53 
 
 nion with God. And yet this is the one 
 ^exercise which we are most prone to 
 - hurry or neglect. The chapters of the 
 Word of God are skimmed as a duty, 
 as the surface of a mountain lake is 
 touched here and there by the breast 
 of the wild-fowl ; while the morning or 
 evening prayer is uttered so coldly and 
 perfunctorily that it had almost better 
 have been unsaid. Is it, then, to be 
 wondered at that the energies of the 
 spiritual life decline, and sadly need the 
 interposition of some strong, wise hand 
 to restore? 
 
 Unconfessed sin is another cause of 
 swift spiritual decline. If there be a 
 cause of disagreement, however trivial, 
 among friends, they shrink from meet- 
 ing ; or if they meet, there is a coldness 
 and restraint which is the more evident 
 and painful in proportion to the warmth 
 
Cbe SbepberD pealm 
 
 and intimacy of their previous attach- 
 ment. There can be no more heart- 
 union till the cause of estrangement has 
 been probed, and the wrong confessed 
 or the misunderstanding explained. 
 And the same principle obtains in the 
 relationship of the soul with God. 
 When we sin there is generally a ten- 
 dency to imitate Adam and Eve in their 
 concealment beneath the foliage of the 
 garden. Before that sad yielding is the 
 temptation of the devil. The happiest 
 hour in all the day was that in which, 
 as the evening breeze shed a delicious 
 cool on the tropic heat, the voice of the 
 Lord God was heard summoning them 
 to commune with Him. But that sin 
 makes the thought of fellowship unwel- 
 come. Similarly we have learned again 
 and again that unconfessed sin casts a 
 dark shadow over our fellowship with 
 
1be IRestoretb mg Sour' 
 
 God, and makes it irksome or perfunc- 
 tory. Then we begin to exchange the 
 open heart for the averted one, and put 
 on the shy look and the formal phrase. 
 And if the sin is not instantly confessed 
 and put away, the little rift within the lute 
 will widen, until it make the music mute. 
 Worldly society, with all its accesso- 
 ries, is another fruitful source of spiritual 
 decline. It is impossible to spend much 
 time amid the trifling talk, the inane 
 conversation, the banter, the ridicule, 
 the empty literature, the frivolous pur- 
 suits of what is called " society," with- 
 out losing much of the fine edge, the 
 holy temper of the soul. Man cannot 
 touch a butterfly's wing without rubbing 
 away some of the delicate down that 
 covers it with microscopic feathers ; and 
 we are equally unable to be constantly 
 living in the atmosphere of the salons 
 
Gbe Sbepberfc ipsalm 
 
 of this world without sacrificing r that 
 indescribable delicacy and holiness of 
 character which is God's choicest gift. 
 
 Of course, if the Lord Jesus sends us 
 into the world to work for Him He will 
 keep us there. But we shall soon de- 
 cline in spiritual health if we choose to 
 live there ; just as the country maiden 
 will lose her bright, healthy color, and 
 show signs of consumption, if she always 
 lives in the stifling atmosphere of the 
 overcrowded room and amid the un- 
 wholesome conditions of our city life. 
 
 Neglect of some known command will 
 also soon pull down the strongest spirit- 
 ual health into the weakness of disease 
 and decline. If only all the Christians 
 who are now fencing with some known 
 command of Christ would dare to obey 
 it there would be one of the greatest 
 revivals that we have ever seen. You 
 
u 1be IRestoretb mg Sour* 
 
 57 
 
 sometimes meet Christians who tell you 
 that they used to be deeply " exercised " 
 on certain matters 
 
 What does that word " exercr^ 
 mean? Does it not mean that Christ 
 was testing them by a certain definite 
 command, and that they were, in point 
 of fact, resisting Him, choosing their 
 own way rather than His? And if this 
 " exercise " of soul has stayed, what is 
 the cause save this? — that the gracious 
 Master has had the direct negative so 
 clearly given Him that it is of no further 
 use for Him to ply the disobedient 
 spirit, and so He has withdrawn from it. 
 It may be saved, " so as by fire." But 
 it can never know His tenderest love, 
 or be used by Him for His loftiest 
 ministry. 
 
 There are many signs of the declen- 
 sion of the soul : its restlessness ; its 
 
 &If~ ■ 
 
 ft?- 
 
 ft 
 
 oS^i 
 
 <^^5^ 
 
58 
 
 Cbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 V 
 
 -*t* 
 
 spirit of captious complaining ; its want 
 of interest in the concerns of Christ's 
 kingdom ; its inability to testify for 
 Christ or against sin ; its unwillingness 
 to admit that it is any different to what 
 it used to be ; its wincing beneath con- 
 tact with the Word of God faithfully 
 preached, and with the experience of 
 others who are living in soul-health and 
 in happy fellowship with God. Just as 
 we have met with people afflicted with 
 an insidious and dangerous disease who 
 yet refuse to consider themselves so, 
 and who fight against the desire of their 
 friends to summon medical aid, so one 
 phase of spiritual decline is the attempt 
 to turn aside all suggestions of its pres- 
 ence, although gnawing the vitals of the 
 heart. Then follows the sad admission, 
 extorted as the years go on, that things 
 
\i 
 
 % 
 
 "1be IRestoretb m^ Soul" 
 
 are not as they were ; which is followed 
 by the hopeless conclusion that they 
 cannot now be mended. 
 
 How welcome it is to turn to the re- 
 storing grace of the Saviour/ Nature 
 is full of great restorative processes. 
 Directly a rent is made in her hillsides 
 she begins to festoon it with grasses, 
 ferns, and creepers. When a wound is 
 caused in our flesh, and the red blood 
 breaks through the broken rampart as 
 it passes, it begins to build up the 
 breach, so that presently soundness 
 takes the place of the lacerated aperture. 
 Even when a rent is caused in our 
 families by the death of some dear in- 
 valid, whose presence had given a new 
 thoughtfulness to all the inmates, and 
 whose death makes a breach almost 
 irreparable to the survivors, then time 
 
60 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc ipsalm 
 
 with its healing influences begins to 
 repair the yawning void. 
 
 So, spiritually, the blessed Spirit of 
 God is ever brooding over human hearts 
 to do His choice and beloved work of 
 reparation and restoration. When the 
 sheep is missing from the flock He goes 
 after the truant until He finds it, and 
 restores it to its place among the rest. 
 When one piece is missing from the 
 completed circle of His crown, one jewel 
 from His breastplate, He rests not till it 
 is replaced. When one child is away 
 in a far country His own joy is at an end 
 till he is back. 
 
 O gentle, tender-hearted, pitiful Sav- 
 iour, how eager Thou art in pursuing 
 these Thy chosen ministries to Thy 
 weak and unworthy children! 
 
 Christ uses many restorative minis- 
 tries. Sometimes it is the word of a 
 
 ,. .s# : 
 
 
"1be IRestoretb nig Sour* 
 
 friend or minister. Or it may be a 
 hymn breathing the fragrance of a holy 
 heart and speaking of a happier past. 
 Or it may be a paragraph, a sentence, 
 in some biography or religious treatise. 
 Not unfrequently it happens in this 
 wise : you are away in the country, 
 walking solitarily and moodily, when 
 there is a burst of sunbeams, or of song- 
 notes from the brake ; or, without any 
 natural cause, you are suddenly aware 
 of the gentle, thawing, all-pervasive in- 
 fluence of the grace of God, which 
 touches the deepest springs of the heart, 
 and softens it, and leads it to contrition 
 and prayer. Is not this experience 
 something like that resulting from the 
 look which Jesus cast at Peter, and 
 which sent him out to weep bitterly, 
 and was the first stage in his restora- *jk J^ 
 tion? 
 
Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 Let those who want to understand 
 the whole philosophy of restoration read 
 the marvelous story of the way in which 
 the Good Shepherd restored the soul of 
 His erring apostle. We can only enu- 
 merate the stages here. He prayed for 
 him and warned him. From the midst of 
 the rough crew that did their will on Him, 
 " He turned, and looked upon Peter " 
 — not angrily nor harshly, but with the 
 tenderest reproach. He gave a special 
 message to the angels that they should 
 bid the women summon Peter amid the 
 rest on the resurrection morning, show- 
 ing how constantly he had been in the 
 Saviour's heart all through His sorrows. 
 He met him alone on the world's first 
 Easter day, and permitted him to pour 
 out the story of his sorrow unrestrained 
 by the presence of any besides them- 
 selves. He gave him an opportunity of 
 
" 1be IRestoretb m£ Soul 
 
 63 
 
 thrice attesting his love, to wipe out the 
 memory of the thrice denial. And this 
 is not more than He will do for any of 
 us. 
 
 Oh, do not wait for days or weeks to 
 elapse ere you apply to Him for His 
 restoring grace; but just as you are, 
 dare to trust Him to do it now. While 
 the throb of passion is still beating high, 
 and the deed of shame is recent, look 
 up to Him, and claim forgiveness first, 
 and in the same breath ask Him to put 
 you back immediately in the very place 
 which you occupied before you fell. 
 And then, though as yet no answering 
 joy thrills your heart, you will be able 
 to exclaim, in the assurance of faith, 
 '' He restoreth my soul." 
 
 Yes, and for those who dare to claim 
 
 ', it there is another promise still more 
 
 reassuring, which tells us that " He will 
 
64 
 
 Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 restore the years that the canker-worm 
 has eaten " — giving back to us oppor- 
 tunities and privileges which we ma\ 
 seem to have forfeited forever. 
 
fL'Wvte 
 
 '*£&■'-■ 
 
 -ffft 
 
 V 
 
 He leadeth me in the path of righteousness 
 For His name's sake." 
 
 " He leadeth me." What a wondrous 
 link between those two personal pro- 
 nouns ! The chasm between the Shep- 
 herd in glory and His poor sheep might 
 seem to be an infinite one ; but it is 
 bridged by this one sweet, tender word 
 " leadeth." As in the East the shep- 
 herd always precedes the flock, to dis- 
 cover the greenest patches of grass and 
 the least stony path, so does Jesus ever 
 keep in front of the soul that trusts and 
 65 
 
^£? 
 
 X 
 
 06 Zbe SbepberO jpsalm 
 
 loves Him. And it is our art to allow 
 as small a space as possible to intervene 
 between His footsteps and our own. 
 
 We must be willing to be led. There 
 is so much natural impetuosity in us to 
 shoot on in front and "prospect" for 
 ourselves. Is that not so? And out 
 of this restlessness there arises so much 
 of the fret and chafe and disappointment 
 of life. We think we can do so much 
 better for ourselves than Christ can do 
 for us. We doubt whether there is not 
 something outside the limit of His will 
 which it might be worth our while to 
 snatch at. We are inclined to run be- 
 fore or linger behind, or go off to forage 
 on the right and left. We take a long 
 time ere we learn that the place of use- 
 fulness and blessedness is in following 
 the lead of Jesus. We are much more 
 liable to imitate some scheme which our 
 
 i 
 
Gbe SbepberO's^Xeafcing 
 
 judgment may have passed after a hur- 
 ried hearing of its claims than to ask 
 where Christ wants us to be and whither 
 He is leading. 
 
 The one ambition of our being should 
 be to be sure that we are resolutely 
 following the Shepherd whithersoever 
 He goeth ; according to His own assur- 
 ance, when He putteth forth His own 
 sheep, " He goeth before them, and the 
 sheep follow Him." 
 
 These words make a considerable de 
 maud upon our fait Ji. Of old the apos- 
 tles could see Him in front of them as 
 He went up to Jerusalem, and they 
 followed Him in fear. But that is 
 impossible now. We cannot see that 
 gracious form treading earth's dreary 
 pathways and casting its shadow upon 
 the sands of time. We love Him whom 
 we have not seen. We follow Him 
 
Cbe Sbepberfc ipsalm 
 
 whom we cannot behold. But though 
 He be viewless as the air, or as the 
 attraction by which the sun conducts 
 the worlds through space, yet His lead- 
 ings are distinctly discernible by the 
 trusting, loving heart. 
 
 We detect His leadings in many ways. 
 In the drift of His example and in the 
 direction of His advice contained in the 
 Gospels ; in the counsel of a friend, the 
 
 <<*- .'f#2?3 message of a sermon, the monition of a 
 text flashed into our memories ; as well 
 as in those inner promptings of His 
 Spirit which come we know not whence, 
 and bear us we know not whither. 
 Sometimes the way opens up before us 
 quite marvelously where it had seemed 
 closed ; as when a vessel, threading her 
 way through a labyrinth of rock, finds 
 a space of shining water beckoning it 
 from the jaws of reef which threatened 
 
 S^ 
 
Cbe SbepberD's Ueafctng 
 
 69 
 
 it. At other times a strange impulse 
 seizes us, which, after due thought and 
 prayer, we are constrained to follow. 
 
 This only we would insist upon: if 
 you do not know which way to go, wait 
 till you are sensible of the leadings of 
 the Good Shepherd. Your life is won- 
 derfully interesting to Him ; every step 
 of it is the subject of His thought. It 
 will be a sore mistake and wrong for 
 you to act without being sure of what 
 He wishes you to do. And if you are 
 not sure what that is, it is evident that 
 the time has not yet come for you to 
 move. Stay just where you are. If 
 you dare to wait you will be clearly 
 shown your path, and the revelation 
 will not come a moment too late. 
 
 Oh, do not say that you are so stupid 
 that you can never know His will. You 
 always were dull of apprehension, and 
 
Cbe SbcpberD fl>ealm 
 
 your very nervousness to understand 
 aright has sometimes made you too 
 flurried clearly to apprehend the sim- 
 plest directions. But obtuseness of the 
 intellect matters little to Christ. He 
 can deal with that, and He will. If He 
 cannot make you understand in one 
 way, He will in another. It is the busi- 
 ness of the Shepherd to lead the willing 
 sheep aright. The only thing which 
 obstructs His guidance is the obtuseness 
 of the heart and will ; we are frequently 
 too self-willed or too impetuous to await 
 His time. 
 
 In the previous verse the psalmist 
 declared that the Shepherd led beside 
 still waters ; and the inference might 
 have been that when the feet w T ere cut 
 
 £ \ or the muscles strained by the clamber 
 ^V, up the rocky mountain track, or that 
 
 {/ 'If when the course lay amid deep, damp 
 
 
 mh& 
 
 m 
 
 iM 
 
Gbe Sbepberfc's XeaDtng 
 
 71 
 
 glens overshadowed by heavy forests 
 
 and overhanging rocks — that at such 
 
 times the sheep was following" its own tw^^& 
 
 wild way, outside the tender guidance 
 
 of its Lord. And so the psalmist takes 
 
 up the metaphor again, and tells us that 
 
 there are other walks by which the 
 
 Shepherd is leading us to our home. 
 
 Not always beside the gentle streamlet 
 
 flow, but sometimes by the foaming 
 
 torrent. Not always over the delicate 
 
 grass, but sometimes up the stony 
 
 mountain track. Not always in the 
 
 sunshine, but sometimes through the 
 
 valley of the shadow of death. But 
 
 whichever way it is, it is the right way, 
 
 and it is the way home. 
 
 Christ's leadings are always along 
 "paths of righteousness." And what 
 are these but right paths? They are 
 not only consistent with the divine rec- 
 
y 
 
 Zbe SbepberD ipsalm 
 
 titude, but they are justified by the 
 review of the spirit, when in after-days, 
 looking back on them from the eminence 
 to which they have led, it confesses that 
 they were right paths. 
 
 You hesitate at this. You say that 
 you cannot feel that God's ways with 
 you have been right. You are puzzled 
 by their mystery. You are almost 
 driven to despair by their mazy difficul- 
 ties, their inexorable demands. Such 
 feelings are not to be marveled at as 
 you sob them out in the ear of God. 
 And He is very pitiful ; " for He know- 
 eth our frame ; He remembereth that 
 we are dust." 
 
 Only do not judge God's ways while 
 they are in progress. Wait till the plan 
 is complete. Wait till the tapestry is 
 finished, and you can see the other side 
 
Ibe SbepbetO's XeaDJng 
 
 V 
 
 where the pattern will be worked out. 
 Wait till the silver-paper is torn off the 
 worsted-work and the blending of the 
 ^J/ colors is disclosed. Wait till you have 
 got out of the vale to the mountain 
 brow. Wait till, in the light of eternity, 
 God can call you aside and reveal to 
 you His purposes. 
 
 Meanwhile, trust! " All His paths 
 drop fatness." " All the paths of the 
 Lord are mercy and truth." If it is 
 true that " His path is in the mighty 
 waters," it is also true that He leads 
 " by a right way to the city of habita- 
 tion." Let us not judge God by an 
 incomplete or unfinished scheme ; let us 
 have patience till the end shall justify 
 the path by which we came. In the 
 breaking dawn of eternity we shall dis- 
 cover that God could not have brought 
 
Gbe SbepberO ipsalm 
 
 us by another route which would have 
 been as expeditious or as safe as the one 
 by which we have come. 
 
 Would that we had the faith to look 
 up from every trying circumstance, from 
 every fretting worry, from every annoy- 
 ance and temptation, into the face of 
 our Guide, and say, " It is the right 
 way, Thou great Shepherd of the sheej 
 lead Thou me on i 
 
 " Lead Thou me on, 
 O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
 The night is gone ! " 
 
 But we do not need to plead with 
 Him for this. He is pledged to do it 
 for the sake of His own great name. 
 " He leadeth me in the paths of right- 
 eousness for His name s sake." Re- 
 member how eager Moses was for the 
 honor of the name of God 
 
Zbc SbepberD's Xeafctng 
 
 many a saintly lip have the words 
 broken, " What wilt Thou do for Thy 
 great name?" The name denotes the 
 honor and character of God. These are 
 implicated ; these are at stake ; the right 
 leading of the saint is guaranteed by 
 their immutability. 
 
 What is His name ? " Wonderful " ? 
 Then there is a claim on the marvelous 
 working of His power to overrule every- 
 thing to our highest good. " Coun- 
 selor " ? Then there is a claim upon 
 His unerring wisdom to work out a 
 scheme which will fill heaven with 
 admiration. " The mighty God"? 
 Then there is a claim upon Him to do 
 nothing inconsistent with divine integ- 
 rity and glory. " The everlasting 
 Father"? Then there is a claim on 
 Him to deal no less tenderly than a 
 father with his child. " The Prince of 
 
 tt 
 
 <r<!&*yyZ, 
 
^0W^ 
 
 76 Zbc SbepberO ipsalm 
 
 Peace " ? Then there is a claim on Him 
 in accordance with the sweetness and 
 loveliness of His heart, the memories of 
 His cross, and the tenderness of His 
 benediction of peace. ^s^v*5^- 
 
 " For His name's sake." Wmit a 
 plea that, to look right up from the 
 heart of man to the heart of Christ, sure 
 that He will not deny Himself, or belie 
 His character, or do aught inconsistent 
 with His tender love to those for whom 
 He died! 
 
 Tell us Thy name, O wondrous Shep- 
 herd, going on before, and leading us 
 by way of Gethsemane and Calvary to 
 the garden of the Easter morn and the 
 sward of the ascension mount! And 
 as we catch Thine answer, melodious 
 with love, we will trust and not be 
 afraid ; we will follow Thee whitherso- 
 ever Thou goest ; and we believe that 
 
V 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc's XeaDing 77 
 
 we shall find that no step of the path 
 was inconsistent with the leadings of a 
 Love wise and strong and tender as the 
 heart of God ! 
 
VI 
 ®l)e ballet of Sliaboto 
 
 Yea, though I walk through the valley 
 
 Of the shadow of death, 
 I will fear no evil : for thou art with me. 
 
 In all Scripture there is no verse 
 more familiar than this. No Bible figure 
 has made a more lasting or indelible 
 impression. This picture of the close 
 of our lives, with a dark valley at the 
 end of their sunny pathway, was hung 
 up long ago in the halls of memory, as 
 we first learned to lisp these venerable 
 words ; and though much has happened 
 since then, it holds its place, and will 
 while memory endures. In millions of 
 78 
 
^- : 
 
 ■§3k£ 
 
 Cbe Dalles of Sbaoovv ^^^fe^l 
 
 cases these have been the last words 
 uttered by dying saints ; and it is in the 
 highest degree probable that they will 
 be gently uttered by many of those 
 who read these words, as the spirit 
 passes the borderland into " its ain 
 countrie " ; unless the Lord come first, 
 and we miss the passage of the valley, 
 being caught up to meet Him in the air. 
 Methinks I see that valley now. The 
 Shepherd is conducting His flock to- 
 ward their fold in luxuriant pastures 
 and in quiet resting-places. But sud- 
 denly the path turns downward and 
 begins to wind toward the ravine below. 
 On the one side is a precipice, yawning 
 in sheer descent to the steep river-bed, 
 where the water foams and roars, torn 
 by jagged rocks. On the other side 
 the mountain-firs cast a somber shadow 
 in the deepening twilight. The path 
 
so 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc jpsalm 
 
 still plunges downward until it passes 
 into a deep and narrow gorge overhung 
 by the frowning battlements of rock, 
 which almost touch overhead ; while 
 the trees join hands, bough enclasping 
 bough. It would be dark there in the 
 most brilliant noon. To linger there 
 after sundown would be to court the 
 ague. All along its course are the lairs 
 and haunts of ravenous beasts. Such 
 is the valley of the shadow of death ; 
 through which the Great Shepherd once 
 went alone, and by which He now con- 
 ducts all His flock to their home. The 
 foremost ranks have long ago emerged 
 into the sunshine ; others are now pass- 
 ing through its dark shadows ; and ere 
 long we too may be beneath them. 
 
 This figure gives us some comforting 
 thoughts about death. It is not a state, 
 an enduring condition, or an abiding- 
 
 4 
 
 
 * 
 
Gbe Dalles ot SbaDow 
 
 place. It is a passage, a transition, a 
 valley through which we walk. The 
 valley may be darksome and lonely and 
 infested with evil things ; but we do not 
 pitch our tent there ; we pass through 
 it to our rest. In death the spirit leaves 
 the body and passes out; just as an 
 artisan will leave the workshop at the 
 evening hour, shutting blinds and doors 
 as he passes out to his home, and leaves 
 it deserted and still ; but his voice is to 
 be heard in his home circle, as he makes 
 glad the wistful hearts that had waited 
 for him, and whose joy had been in- 
 complete till he came. 
 
 In Damascus there is a long, dark, 
 narrow lane, ending in a tunnel. It has 
 been there for ages. The traveler 
 descends and passes through ; but on 
 the other side he emerges into the 
 courtyard of an Oriental palace, flash- 
 
82 
 
 Cbe SbepberD ipsalm 
 
 V 
 
 ing with color and sunlight. This is a 
 figure of a believer's death. Christ is 
 called the first-born from the dead. 
 Dying is being born out of the confine- 
 ment and darkness of earth into the 
 glorious light and liberty of the heavenly 
 life. It is a physical act which affects 
 the body, but does not touch the facul- 
 ties or acquirements of the individual 
 soul. " Absent from the body, present 
 with the Lord." No staying in a state 
 of unconsciousness ; but an exodus, a 
 passage, a walking through a brief val- 
 ley, sunshine on this side, sunshine on 
 that, and just a moment, a parenthesis, 
 a handbreadth of gloom. 
 
 Death is t lie gate to life. Our beloved 
 are not dead ; they are the living, who 
 have passed through death into the 
 presence of the King. And whensoever 
 we stand beside our dear ones, called 
 
 «$£** 
 
£be Dalleg of Sbaoow 83 ( 
 
 to this exodus, of which the Apostle 
 Peter speaks,* we may address them 
 with words of comfort and of hope : 
 " Go forth, O Christian soul, from this 
 world, in the name of God Almighty, 
 who created thee ; in the name of Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of the living God, who 
 suffered for thee ; in the name of the 
 Holy Ghost, who was poured out for 
 thee! " 
 
 Yet the valley is dark. The pain of 
 the body often depresses the spirit and 
 overcasts it with a gloom, which is 
 often erroneously attributed to spiritual 
 causes. It is hard to part without sad- 
 ness from those who have been the 
 beloved fellow-pilgrims of the march. 
 There is, moreover, a sense of loneli- 
 ness ; for though it is peopled with 
 
 * 2 Peter i. 15 (exodus). The word occurs in one' 
 other instance in the New Testament (Luke ix. 31). 
 
 
£be SbepberC* fl>salm 
 
 pilgrims — three thousand each hour — 
 yet each goes alone. i( Je mourrai seal.'" 
 Nor are elements of darkness wanting 
 through the machinations of our direst 
 foe, who delights in the moment of 
 mortal weakness to accumulate objects 
 of dread before our failing sight. 
 
 At the best it is a solemn thing to 
 die. The hardened desperado may 
 meet his end without a shudder. 
 "There are no bands in his death: his 
 strength is firm." But in proportion to 
 the nurture of the spirit in all refined 
 and tender feeling it is impossible to 
 quit the receding shore, and make for 
 the sea, darkling under the clouds of 
 night, without a sense of seriousness 
 and sobriety. The befitting pace is 
 aptly described as a walk : " Yea, 
 though I walk" 
 
 But at the worst death is only a 
 
Gbe IDalleg of Sbaoow 
 
 shadow. It is " the valley of the 
 shadow of death." Christ met the sub- 
 stance, we encounter but the shadow. 
 The monster is deprived of teeth and 
 claws. Our Theseus has destroyed him 
 who had the power of death, that is, 
 the devil; and has delivered them who 
 through fear of death were all their life- 
 time subject to bondage. He has 
 abolished death. And we who belong 
 to Him may boldly cry, " O death, 
 where is thy sting?" Ah, the wasp 
 stung the Good Shepherd to death, and 
 has left his sting fixed in that cross 
 where He died. 
 
 A shadow is the exact counterpart of 
 its substance. But it is not in itself 
 harmful. The shadow of a dog cannot 
 bite ; of a giant cannot kill ; of death 
 cannot destroy. The prophet says that 
 death is a veil cast over the face of all 
 
-0 
 
 Cbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 nations ; but a veil is harmless enough. 
 Besides, you cannot have a shadow 
 unless there be a bright light shining 
 somewhere. The shadow is temporary, 
 the light eternal ; for " God is light, and 
 in Him is no darkness at all." 
 
 But this imagery may stand for other 
 experiences besides dying. We have 
 often to pass through dark valleys on 
 our way home. The road to the 
 heavenly Jerusalem lies through the 
 valleys of Baca, where eyes wax red 
 with weeping and tears brim into pools. 
 The great dreamer, in his description of 
 the Pilgrim's Progress, places the pas- 
 sage of the valley of the shadow in 
 the middle of his course. Between the 
 House Beautiful and Vanity Fair there 
 lies such a description of this valley as 
 
 .v *£'£-.' could onlv have been written bv one 
 
 - k x 
 
 y who had passed through its ravines. 
 
 
XLhc Dalles of Sbaoow 
 
 " Now morning being come, he looked back, not 
 out of any desire to return, but to see, by the light ^ 
 of the day, what hazards he bad gone through in the 
 dark. So he saw more perfectly the ditch that was 
 on the one hand, and the quag that was on the other ; 
 also how narrow the way was which lay betwixt them 
 both ; also now he saw the hobgoblins and satyrs and 
 dragons of the pit, but all afar off (for after the break 
 of day they came not nigh) ; yet they were discovered 
 to him, according to that which is written : ' He dis- 
 covered deep things out of darkness, and bringeth 
 out to light the shadow of death.' " 
 
 We pass through many a valley of 
 shadow ere we reach THE valley. And 
 whenever we feel our souls overcast we 
 should stay to consider if there be a 
 cause arising from our neglect or sin. 
 If there be, a moment's confession will 
 bring us out again into the light. But 
 if there be none, so far as we can tell, 
 then let us be brave to plod on. Every 
 step has been measured out for us, even 
 as it has been trodden before us. And 
 God is testing us to see whether we can 
 
88 XLbc SbepberD ipsalm 
 
 trust Him in the dark as well as in the 
 light, and whether we can be as true to 
 Him when all pleasurable emotions have 
 faded off our hearts as when we walked 
 with Him in the light. 
 
 There is a good purpose in all these 
 shadowed valleys. They test the qual- 
 ity of the soul. They reveal our weak 
 places. They unveil the stars that peer 
 down through the interspaces of rock 
 and tree. They make us follow the 
 Shepherd closely, lest we lose Him. 
 They teach us to value as never before 
 the rod and staff. Blessed are those 
 that do not see, but who yet believe ; 
 and who are content to be stripped of 
 all joy and comfort and ecstasy, if it be 
 the Shepherd's will, so long as there is 
 left to them the sound of His voice and 
 the knowledge that He is near. 
 
 Listen to the courageous declaration of 
 
XLbc Waller ot Sbafcow 
 
 89 
 
 the saintly soul, boasting of its fearless- 
 ness: " I will fear no evil." There is 
 no fear in love. Perfect love casteth 
 out fear. Nothing else can do it. You 
 may argue against fear. You may 
 deride it. You may try and shame it. 
 But all will be in vain. If you would 
 master it you must expel it by the trust 
 which is born of love. A man comes 
 home faint and famished, his nature 
 craves for food ; but as he enters into 
 his house he learns that his child, sud- 
 denly stricken with fever, is lying at the 
 point of death ; and in a moment he has 
 forgotten his hunger in the paroxysm 
 of love and grief with which he bends 
 over the tiny feverish form and hastens 
 to moisten the dry lips. Thus the lower 
 passions are subdued in the soul by the 
 higher. And so it happens that the 
 most timid spirit which is conscious of 
 
90 
 
 Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 the presence of the Good Shepherd can 
 sing as it passes onward through the 
 gloom, and its notes vibrate with the 
 buoyancy of a courage which cannot 
 flinch or falter. " Yea, though I walk 
 through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, I will fear no evil." "God is 
 our refuge and strength, a very present 
 help in trouble. Therefore will not we 
 fear." 
 
 It is very well to say, " What time I 
 am afraid, I will trust in Thee; " but it 
 is still better to say, " I will trust, and 
 not be afraid." 
 
 Son r ozv and dying make Christ's pres- 
 ence real. Have you ever noticed the 
 change in the pronoun? Hitherto the 
 psalmist has spoken of the Lord in the 
 third person ; but now, as he moves 
 down into the dark, he draws closer to 
 the divine Leader and Guide, speaking 
 
 % 
 
Cbe IDalleg of Sbaoow 
 
 91 
 
 to Him in a whisper, and saying Thou. 
 In the green pastures it was enough to 
 speak of " He " ; but now there is need 
 for the closer, tender address. When 
 things are going well with us we may 
 content ourselves with talking about the 
 Lord ; but when the sky darkens we 
 hasten to deal with Him and talk to 
 Him directly. The child which had 
 been playing about the room will run 
 to your knee and cling closely to your 
 bosom as soon as the thunder-clouds 
 gather and the wind moans through the 
 house. In this way death-chambers 
 become presence-chambers. 
 
 The darkness is sometimes too dense 
 for us to be able to see Christ. But 
 faith can always be sure that He is 
 there; not because of the evidence of 
 sense or feeling, but because He has 
 said, " I will never leave thee, nor for 
 
w m % 
 
 --. 92 
 
 Zhc Sbepberfc fl>salm 
 
 \ 
 
 sake thee." He cannot break His word. 
 He has not left us alone. He is looking 
 down on us with unabated tenderness. 
 The depths may sever Him from the 
 apprehension of our love ; but neither 
 death nor life, nor height nor depth, can 
 separate us from the strong grasp of His 
 faithful and unchanging affection. Yea, 
 " the mountains may depart, and the 
 hills be removed ; but His kindness will 
 not depart from thee, neither will the 
 covenant of His peace be removed." 
 
 " The darkness and the light are both 
 alike to Thee," O Christ, who didst 
 tread the dense darkness of Gethsemane 
 and Calvary — alone, desolate, and for- 
 saken of Thy Father. But Thou know- 
 est the way, since Thou hast trodden 
 it. rhou art as near to us as when we 
 lee near. And Thou 
 never be 
 
 \|vast lonely that we 
 
 might 
 
£be IMleg of Sbaoovv 
 
 93 
 
 lonely ; Thou wast forsaken that we 
 might never be forsaken ; Thou didst 
 tread the wine-press alone that each 
 poor timid child of Thine in all future 
 ages might be able to sing the words of 
 undying comfort : " I will fear no evil : 
 for Thou art with me." 
 
am 
 
 «a&^ 
 
 VII 
 
 Comfort tljrotTig!) tl)c ftoo anb Staff 
 
 " Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. 
 
 WHATEVER the valley of the shadow 
 of death may stand for in our Christian 
 experience, there is no doubt that the 
 lonely spirit in its passage through it 
 stands in .urgent need of comfort. From 
 the beginning to the end of Scripture 
 there is no refrain more frequent or 
 more consolatory than the thought 
 embodied in the words, " Comfort ye, 
 comfort ye My people, saith your God." 
 Indeed, it would almost appear as if the 
 eternal God had set to Himself the task 
 
 94 
 
XLbe IRod an£> tbe Staff 
 
 of comforting His people as a mother 
 comforteth her first-born. 
 
 All true comfort emanates from God, 
 through the work of the Holy Spirit, 
 whose comfort is especially mentioned 
 in Acts ix. 3 I ; and any who would ex- 
 perience God's comfort in all its tender 
 helpfulness, let them read perpetually 
 in the Word of God, ' that through 
 patience and comfort of the Scriptures 
 they may have hope (Rom. xv. 4). 
 
 It would sometimes appear, indeed, 
 that God puts us into special circum- 
 stances of difficulty and trial in order 
 that He may make manifest to us the 
 infinite resources of His consolation ; 
 just as we need to go out into the dark 
 night in order to behold the stars. But 
 the great point brought out in these 
 words is that the Almighty God, our 
 Shepherd, comforts us by His rod and 
 
yo XLhc SbepberD ipealm 
 
 His staff. How is it that these two 
 badges of the Shepherd's office, which 
 seem rather to speak of discipline, can 
 possibly bring comfort to tried believers? 
 It is this point which we desire for a 
 moment to elucidate ; and may we not 
 hope that the God of all comfort will 
 reveal to us fresh sources of comfort, 
 that we may be able to comfort others 
 with the comfort wherewith we our- 
 selves have been comforted of God? 
 
 What is the Shepherd's rod? It is 
 surely the symbol of His defending 
 power. It is the scepter which He car- 
 ries as the supreme Shepherd-King. 
 It is the weapon by which He strikes 
 down our adversaries, even though it be 
 heavy with chastisement for ourselves. 
 In passing through some rocky fastness 
 or shadowed valley where wild beasts 
 have their lair and hill-robbers hide in 
 
Zbe 1Ro£> an& tbe Staff 
 
 many a darkened cave, a shepherd needs 
 to be well armed with heavy club or 
 ponderous rod, that he may deal death- 
 giving blows to lion or bear or stealthy 
 thief imperiling the safety of one of his 
 charge. And does not this suggest the 
 protecting grace of Christ our Lord, 
 who is ever on the alert to ward off 
 from us threatening ills, whether they 
 emanate from the prince of the power 
 of the air, or from those malicious 
 human foes to whose presence in this 
 life our psalmist so often alludes, and 
 who have their counterpart more or less 
 in the lives of us all? 
 
 Many who may read these words 
 spend all their lives under the shadow 
 of a great fear. They dread the outset 
 of temptation, before which they feel 
 themselves as impotent as the withered 
 leaves of autumn before the gusty gale ; 
 
 
Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 they fear that one day they will become 
 the prey of the lion, or fall into the 
 hands of a Saul. Would that they 
 might transfer the responsibility of 
 keeping their souls into the hands of 
 their faithful Redeemer, confident that 
 He will be about their path and their 
 lying down, so that they may " dwell 
 safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the 
 woods." The Breaker goes before the 
 flock, smiting down all opposition with 
 irresistible might ; and God Himself is 
 at the rearward of the flock, defending 
 it from all attack from behind. 
 
 O timid hearts, dreading every spirit- 
 ual and temporal evil — like children 
 going down a dark lane, in dread lest at 
 every turn they should meet some ter- 
 rible ogre or object of dread ; startled 
 by the sigh of every breeze, and by the 
 whitened bole of every hollow tree — 
 
TLbc IRoD anD tbe Staff 
 
 would that you could realize how abso- 
 lutely Christ assumes the care of all 
 who trust Him! The one question is 
 whether you have so completely handed 
 over the responsibility of your lives to 
 Him as to make Him the sole custodian 
 and safeguard of your being, both for 
 this world and the next. From the 
 defending rod or club of the Great 
 Shepherd we may derive abundant 
 comfort; because it is written, " My 
 sheep shall never perish, neither shall 
 any [man or devil] pluck them out of 
 My hand." 
 
 What is the staff? We would rather 
 call it the shepherd's crook, which is 
 often bent or hooked at one end. It is 
 '- associated as inseparably with the shep- 
 herd as the goad is with the plowman. 
 Beneath it the sheep pass one by one to 
 be numbered or told. By it the shep- 
 
^. 
 
 
 g^ioo Cbe Sbepberfc ipealm 
 
 herd restrains them from wandering, or 
 hooks them out of holes into which they 
 may fall ; by it, also, he corrects them 
 when they are disobedient. In each of 
 these thoughts there is comfort for the 
 tried children of God. 
 
 We are numbered among God 's sheep 
 as we pass one by one beneath the touch 
 of the Shepherd's crook. Our names 
 may be unknown among the great and 
 learned, but they are written in heaven. 
 Our dwelling-places may be lowly and 
 ungarnished among the mansions and 
 palaces of the rich, but we have " houses 
 not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens." Our sphere of ministry may 
 be limited, and our work in the trenches, 
 preparing for the foundations, far away 
 from the shoutings with which the top- 
 stone is placed upon a finished pile in 
 the sunny air; but we shine as stars of 
 
Cbe IRoD anD tbe Staff 
 
 the first magnitude in the sight of God. 
 We are accounted as the small dust in 
 the balance, as smoking flax or bruised 
 reeds ; but in the eye of our Heavenly 
 Father we are prized as very precious 
 jewels, entered in His inventory, and 
 destined to shine in the regalia of. His 
 Son before the gaze of all worlds. 
 
 Words were spoken once among the 
 exiles in Babylon which we may fitly 
 apply to ourselves in this connection. 
 Gathering at night by the waters of 
 Babylon, they hanged their harps upon 
 the pliant branches of the willows, as 
 they swept in the current of the stream 
 beneath, and they wept as they remem- 
 bered the ruins of their beloved Jerusa- 
 lem. Then in their midst the prophet 
 voice was heard bidding them lift up 
 their eyes on high, and behold the starry 
 hosts ; also they were reminded that 
 
^^VJcfe 
 
 4%mw 
 
 102 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc ipsalm 
 
 God called all these by names by the 
 greatness of His might ; and then 
 followed the magnificent apostrophe : 
 " Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and 
 speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from 
 the Lord, and my judgment is passed 
 over from my God?" And to each 
 weary heart treading the dark valley of 
 sorrow I would speak comfort in the 
 selfsame words. 
 
 The myriad stars of heaven seem to 
 make up one huge flock. Their Shep- 
 herd is God, who is driving them 
 through space ; or who watches them, 
 as it were, resting on the heavenly slopes 
 as a flock of sheep on the downs at 
 night. And He has a name for each of 
 them. Is it therefore to be supposed 
 that He will not be as minute in His 
 care of each one of us? Will He not 
 have a name for each of us? Will He 
 
 V 
 
Ube IRofc anD tbe Staff 
 
 not number us when He tells the tale 
 of His sheep, even as He numbers the 
 hairs of our heads? This very morn 
 He touched you with His staff and 
 counted you. You are the destined 
 object of His care. Is it likely, then, 
 that He will suffer you to perish, or 
 want any good thing? 
 
 By the Shepherd 's staff we are also 
 extricated from circumstances of peril 
 and disaster into which we may have 
 fallen through our own folly and sin. 
 When Peter through his unbelief began 
 to sink in the waves, the Saviour caught 
 him and supported him, so that they 
 walked together to the boat. And this 
 is only a sample case of our Shepherd's 
 tender care ; for very often sin not only 
 grieves Him, but it plunges us into cir- 
 cumstances of misery and trouble which 
 threaten to overwhelm us. 
 
104 Cbe SbepberD ipsalm 
 
 At such times He is not unmindful 
 of His own ; and though we may seem 
 to have forfeited all claim to His care, 
 yet He is " a very present help in time 
 of trouble." He does not permit us to 
 reap as we have sown. He averts the 
 full penalty of our own mistakes and 
 misdeeds. He comes after us in the 
 wilderness, not staying His foot until 
 He has discovered the pit into which 
 we have fallen, from which He does not 
 fail to drag us forth ; placing us on His 
 shoulders if we are too weak to walk, 
 and bringing us back ; satisfied with no 
 other recompense than that we are safe. 
 " Thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, I, 
 even I, will both search My sheep, and 
 seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh 
 out his flock in the day that he is among 
 his sheep that are scattered ; so will I 
 seek out My sheep, and will deliver 
 
 J 
 
 
Cbe IRofc anfc tbe Staff 
 
 105 
 
 them out of all places where they have 
 been scattered in the cloudy and dark 
 day." Oh, the long-suffering patience 
 of Christ, who will not permit us to be 
 overwhelmed by the sorrows and pen- 
 alties which we may have incurred, 
 but will reach out His crook to drag 
 us back from the death that we had. 
 courted! 
 
 By the staff the Shepherd also corrects 
 His sheep. At first there seems but little 
 comfort here. It is not pleasant to any 
 one of us to be corrected. The smart 
 stroke of the staff is painful. Yet there 
 is consolation in the reflection that God 
 must care for us, or He would not think 
 it worth His while to expend time and 
 thought upon our chastisement. Who 
 troubles to take to the lapidary's wheel 
 common flints and stones of the beach? 
 The stone that is deeply cut, the dia- 
 
 ■*M1/!^ 
 
Cbe Sbepberd psalm 
 
 mond which is carefully polished, the 
 metal which is plied with intense heat 
 for weeks and even months, must have 
 proved themselves to be of excellent 
 worth. What gardener would spend 
 time and pains over a tree which, after 
 repeated trial, had refused to bear fruit ? 
 Is it not the bough which has already- 
 borne luxuriant clusters that receives 
 the incessant attention of the husband- 
 man? "Whom the Lord loveth He 
 chasteneth, and scourgeth every son 
 whom He receiveth. If ye endure 
 chastening, God dealeth with you as 
 with sons." Welcome, then, O children 
 of God, each stroke of the Shepherd's 
 staff! Get comfort out of every smart 
 by the thought : (< My Shepherd must 
 love me tenderly, or He would never 
 treat me thus;" and then turn the heart 
 toward Him in eaeer desire to know the 
 
 mm 
 
Gbe 1Ro& anfc tbe Staff 
 
 107 
 
 lesson He would teach, and to miss 
 nothing of the benefits which He in- 
 tends. 
 
 So we journey slowly through the 
 valley, learning many a lesson of com- 
 fort which we hide in our hearts. We 
 are almost content to suffer because of 
 the rich revenue of blessing which 
 accrues. With us, as with the oyster, 
 every wound becomes the origin of a 
 pearl. And there is this also: that our 
 own experiences make us very tender 
 toward the failures and sorrows of 
 others, and we are able to join in the 
 glad outburst of the Apostle who said, 
 " Blessed be God, even the Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
 mercies, and the God of all comfort ; 
 who comforteth us in all our tribulation, 
 that we may be able to comfort therm 
 which are in any trouble, by the comfort 
 
 <?<&*&£' 
 
£be SbepberD ipealm 
 
 wherewith we ourselves are comforted 
 of God. For as the sufferings of Christ 
 abound in us, so our consolation also 
 aboundeth by Christ." 
 
 at 
 
^ 
 
 VIII 
 &[)c Banquet 
 
 " Thou preparest a table before me 
 In the presence of mine enemies." 
 
 At first it seems difficult to catch the 
 exact sequence of the psalmist's thought, 
 as he turns from the sheep-cotes to the 
 festal board. And yet the demands of 
 the spiritual life so far transcend all 
 earthly analogies as to demand that 
 more than one metaphor should be 
 employed, one supplying what the other 
 lacks, so that the true conception of our 
 relationship to God may be complete. 
 
 Now it is of course very helpful to 
 
 think of one's self as a sheep, and of 
 
 T09 
 
110 
 
 Gbe SbepberO psalm 
 
 Christ as a Shepherd ; but there can be 
 no fellowship between the dumb animals 
 and their watchful keeper. The little 
 child that comes from the shepherd's 
 shealing to meet its father has more in- 
 timate fellowship with him, though it 
 can hardly articulate its words, than the 
 dumb creatures of his care. 
 
 The psalmist, therefore, seems to say, 
 " I am more than Jehovah's sheep ; I 
 am Jehovah's guest." It is a mark of 
 great intimacy to sit with a man at his 
 table ; in the East it is essentially so. 
 It is not only a means of satisfying 
 hunger, but of intimate and affectionate 
 love. Hence the aggravation of the 
 psalmist's sorrow, as he said, " He that 
 breaketh bread with me is he that lifteth 
 up his heel against me." Xor was it 
 possible for our Lord to give any more 
 touching proof of His love for His way- 
 
£be banquet 
 
 ward follower than to dip a sop andv 
 pass it to his hands. Here, then, arises 
 before us a rich theme for meditation 
 while we compare life to a seat at God's 
 banquet- table, eating the things which 
 He has prepared. 
 
 We sit at the table of God's daily 
 providence. Our Heavenly Father has 
 a great family. He is weighted with 
 the concerns of a universe. All sentient 
 things depend upon His sustaining 
 power. Not a seraph cleaves the air 
 but what derives his power of obedience 
 from his sovereign Lord ; and not a 
 mote of life floats in the sunbeam, flash- 
 ing in the light, but it is dependent upon 
 the light and life of the central Sun, 
 before whom angels veil their faces. 
 
 And yet, amid all the infinite variety 
 of nature which God is supplying con- 
 stantly, He is surely most attentive to 
 
 =2^? 
 
112 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc jpsalm 
 
 the needs of those who, in an especial 
 sense, call Him "Our Father." We 
 are His pensioners ; nay, better — we are 
 His children ! All the stores of His 
 divine provision must fail before He can 
 suffer us to want. He may sometimes 
 keep us waiting until His hour has 
 struck; but just as He will never be one 
 moment too soon, so He will not be 
 a moment too late. He will cause a 
 widow woman to sustain us with the 
 barrel of meal, which, however often 
 scraped, will yield a fresh supply. He 
 will rain bread from heaven, so that 
 man may eat angels' food. He will 
 multiply the slender store of the boy's 
 wallet, so that present need may be met, 
 and stores accumulated for the future. 
 
 On a recent Sunday evening a sick 
 member of a congregation, debarred 
 from attending her customary place of 
 
 k 
 
Gbe ^Banquet 
 
 worship, intrusted to the hand of the 
 minister a two-shilling piece, which he 
 was to hand to a poor widow known to 
 them both. It so happened that he 
 encountered her slowly making her way 
 to the church, and at once handed to 
 her the coin. But he was hardly pre- 
 pared for the immediate response : " I 
 did not think that He would have sent 
 it so soon." On further inquiry he dis- 
 covered that she had placed her last 
 coin that day in the collection, and was 
 entirely dependent upon such answer as 
 her Heavenly Father might send to her 
 trustful prayer that He would provide 
 for her next meal. Evidently she had 
 been accustomed to close dealings with 
 God, and had learned that His deliver- 
 ance is timed to arrive " when the morn- 
 ing breaks " — the morning of direst 
 ..;> need ; the hour when pride and self- 
 
114 Gbe Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 sufficiency have expired, but when faith 
 and hope stand expectant at the portals 
 of the soul, looking for the deliverance 
 which cannot be long delayed. 
 
 I never shall forget the story of an 
 old man discovered sitting in one of the 
 seats of York Minster, within a short 
 period of closing-time, and who had 
 been sitting there since the early morn- 
 ing, waiting. He had come to the city 
 to find his daughter; but, having missed 
 her, had found himself without friends 
 or food, and with his last coin spent. 
 Not knowing whither to turn, he had 
 found his way into the splendid minster, 
 and had sat there the livelong day ; be- 
 cause, as he said, he thought the likeliest 
 place to find his Father's table was in 
 his Father's house. Need I add that 
 his need was fully satisfied? 
 r ' God's children seem to think that 
 
 * 
 
 S 
 
Zftc banquet ns 
 
 they are no better off than men of the 
 world. And according to their faith, 
 so it is done unto them. If we do not 
 exercise faith and claim God's provisions, 
 ought we to be surprised when we do 
 not receive them ? If, on the other 
 hand, we would dare to put our finger 
 upon His promises, which bind Him to 
 meet His children's need, though the 
 young lions lack and suffer hunger, we 
 should find that our God would be equal 
 to all our emergencies, and that not one 
 good thing would fail of all His prom- 
 ises. When men indicate certain cases 
 in which God's children have pined to 
 death, it is always wise to inquire 
 whether they were living in believing 
 fellowship with Him, and whether they 
 had claimed the fulfilment of His spe- 
 cific pledges. It is very unbecoming, to 
 say the least, that God's children should 
 
116 Cbe Sbepberfc Realm 
 
 be as fretful about their daily bread, sup- 
 posing they are using all lawful methods 
 to obtain it, as the children of men. 
 Was it not with a tone of reproach that 
 our Lord said, "After all these things do 
 the Gentiles seek"? What could be 
 more assuring than His own words, 
 backed by the experience of His own 
 life? — "Your Heavenly Father knoweth 
 that ye have need of all these things." 
 
 What would you say if, when school- 
 time came to-morrow morning, your 
 little boy, before he started with un- 
 willing feet to school, entered your 
 larder and busied himself in examining 
 its contents, with especial reference to 
 your provision for dinner? Would he 
 not legitimately incur your displeasure? 
 Would you not say, " Be off to school, 
 and leave me to care while you are 
 ould you not rebuke him 
 
^r 
 
 £be banquet 117 
 
 for his want of simple trust? Oh that 
 we might learn lessons from our babes, 
 and believe that life is one long residence 
 in one of the mansions of our Father's 
 home ; and that the time can never 
 come when the table is quite bare, and 
 when there is nothing for our need ! 
 He may suffer you to hunger, because 
 there are some devils which will only 
 go forth by prayer and fasting; but, 
 sooner or later, His angel will touch 
 you, saying, "Arise and eat;" and on 
 the desert floor you will find, spread by 
 angel hands, a banquet, though it be 
 nothing more than a cruse of water at 
 your head, and cakes baked on the hot 
 stones of the wilderness, for your repast. 
 God also prepares the table of spiritual 
 refreshment. Can we ever forget that 
 episode — among the most charming in- 
 cidents in the forty days — in which, as 
 
118 
 
 £be Sbcpber^ psalm 
 
 the weary fishers emerged with empty 
 boats from a long, toilsome night, they 
 found a banquet spread for them, by the 
 tender thoughtfulness of their Lord, 
 upon the strand of the lake? As soon 
 as they touched land they saw a fire of 
 coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread. 
 And is not this an emblem of our Lord's 
 perpetual treatment of His children? 
 Tired, disappointed with fruitless toils, 
 agitated by conflicting hopes and fears, 
 we often pull to the shore trodden by 
 His blessed feet ; nor do we ever ap- 
 proach Him without finding that He 
 has anticipated our spiritual require- 
 ments, and that " His flesh is meat in- 
 deed, and His blood drink indeed." 
 
 Writing to the Corinthian Christians, 
 the Apostle Paul said that, inasmuch as 
 Christ had been slain as our Passover 
 Lamb, we must imitate the children of 
 
 "*r- 
 
 -*** 
 
Gbe banquet 
 
 119 
 
 Israel, who, with closed doors and girded 
 loins and sandaled feet, stood around 
 the table eating of the flesh of the 
 lamb, whose blood on the exterior of 
 their houses demanded their deliverance. 
 " Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us : 
 therefore let us keep the feast." The 
 life of the church between the first and 
 second advents is symbolized by the 
 feast on that memorable night. With 
 joy in our voices and triumph in our 
 mien, we stand around the table where 
 Christ's flesh is the nourishment of all 
 true hearts, straining our ear for the 
 first clarion notes which will tell that 
 the time of our exodus has come. 
 Christian people are very much too 
 thoughtless of the necessity of feeding 
 off God's table for the nourishment of 
 spiritual life. There is plenty of work 
 being done ; much attendance at con- 
 
 ,1 
 
Gbe SbepbciD ipsalm 
 
 f erences and special missions ; diligent 
 reading of religious books ; but there is 
 a great and fatal lack of the holy medi- 
 tation upon the person, the words, and 
 the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Will each reader of these lines stay 
 here for a moment and ask if he knows 
 anything of the interior life of medita- 
 tion which is ever deriving fresh suste- 
 nance from a consideration of the Lord ? 
 
 It was only the other day that I was 
 rebuked by the habit of a well-known 
 Roman Catholic bishop of whom it is 
 said : " The first point of his rule was 
 early rising, which he faithfully practised 
 to the last day of his life, and often 
 recommended to others. He was the 
 first on foot at his palace, and began 
 his prayers and meditation between four 
 and five o'clock in the morning, and 
 never spent less at them than an hour. 
 
 
i±SKfc 
 
 y 
 
 Gbe ^Banquet 
 
 He often did this with his memoranda 
 in his hand, so as to recall past graces 
 and thus rekindle the flame. Nor did 
 it seem as if any hour passed in his 
 crowded and stirring life without by 
 some direct act refreshing his soul by 
 communion with God." 
 
 And, in addition to this daily practice, 
 he set apart one or two weeks in every 
 year that he might quietly meditate more 
 patiently upon the great mysteries of re- 
 demption. This is what he said : " One 
 must, by constant meditation on the great 
 mysteries of incarnation and the redemp- 
 tion, plunge one's self more and more in 
 the love of God, which is the greatest 
 grace of one's life. I will occupy myself 
 more and more with our Lord, with His 
 earthly and divine life, with His hidden, 
 suffering, and glorious life. May my 
 own be hidden in God in Jesus Christ!" 
 
 
>5f 
 
 122 
 
 Zhc SbepberD psalm 
 
 We may specially apply these words 
 also to the table of the Lord's Supper. 
 This is emphatically a table which God 
 has prepared ; which not only perpetu- 
 ates the memory of the night in which 
 our Lord was betrayed, but which 
 enables us to raise our wandering 
 thoughts, and to fix them on Him 
 where He is now seated. There is no 
 mystic change made in the bread or in 
 the wine. The bread remains bread, 
 and the wine wine, to the end of the 
 simple feast ; and yet, at the moment 
 of partaking of these elements, the pious 
 heart does realize that, by its faith and 
 holy thought, a distinct blessing is com- 
 municated to its invigoration and com- 
 fort. It is well, of course, at that solemn 
 moment to recall the agony and bloody 
 sweat, the cross and passion, the pre- 
 cious death and burial ; but it is equally 
 
Cbe banquet 
 
 123 
 
 incumbent to look through the azure 
 depths and to follow the Master through 
 their parted folds, so as to feed upon His 
 resurrection life and to participate in the 
 perpetual Easter-tide of His existence. 
 
 It is very helpful, where possible, to 
 communicate at least once a week, that 
 we may clearly learn to lift all life to 
 the level of the Lord's table, to be at 
 every meal as at a sacrament, and to 
 use all the emblems of nature as means 
 of holy fellowship with Him. How can 
 we enough thank God that in this sense 
 also He has prepared a table before us ? 
 
 There is much comfort in the three 
 words " prepared for me," because it 
 would seem to indicate the anticipatory 
 care of God. He does not allow us to 
 be taken by surprise. He does not let 
 His children ask for anything the need 
 of which He has not foreseen. Just as 
 
 %^ 
 
Gbe Sbepberfc fl>salm 
 
 He has prepared beforehand the good 
 works in which we are to walk, so has 
 He prepared beforehand the food by 
 which His workers shall be nourished. 
 All our life's path is lined by cairns 
 beneath which our Forerunner has 
 placed the victuals which we shall 
 require. "Thou preventest me with 
 the blessings of Thy goodness." The 
 table is spread before the hunger comes. 
 The spring is bubbling in the shade 
 before mother and child sink fainting 
 on the sand. The angel of the Lord's 
 host has not only taken possession of 
 the hostile country, but has provided of 
 the old corn of the land. God provisions 
 His castles before they are besieged. 
 " Thou preparcst a table before me." 
 
 That is a very significant addition — in 
 the presence of mine enemies. We surely 
 are to understand by it that all around 
 
Zbe banquet 
 
 125 
 
 us may stand our opponents — pledged 
 to do us harm ; to cut off our supplies ; 
 to starve us out. See that ring of hos- 
 tile faces, darting fierce glances and 
 chafing to rush upon the beleaguered 
 soul! But they cannot cut off the 
 supplies that come hourly from above. 
 They cannot hinder the angel ministers 
 who spread the table and heap it up, 
 and then form themselves into an inner 
 ring of defense. They may gnash their 
 teeth at the vanity and futility of their 
 rage ; but when God elects to feed a 
 soul, fed that soul shall be, though all 
 hell attempt to say it nay! Many a 
 time in David's life he ate his food in 
 quietness and confidence, while Saul's 
 hostile bands swept down the valleys 
 and searched the caves to find him. 
 As it was with David, so it has been 
 often since. 
 
Gbe Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 Yes, soul, God bids thee feast : " Eat, 
 O beloved ; yea, eat and drink abun- 
 dantly. " The King doth bring thee into 
 His banqueting-house, and His banner 
 over thee is love. Thou shalt eat of 
 the hidden manna, and drink of the 
 secret spring which bubbles up in the 
 beleaguered city, enabling it to defy the 
 encircling lines of its foes. Nor is the 
 time far distant when we shall sit with 
 Christ in His kingdom ; and as the far- 
 traveled, footsore brethren of Joseph ate 
 with the prince who once lay in the pit, 
 so shall we sit down at the prepared 
 table of the marriage supper, and Christ 
 will gird Himself and come forth to 
 serve us, and the festivities of an eter- 
 nity, which shall never know penury or 
 want, shall obliterate the memory of 
 the sorrows of time. 
 
w 
 
 "®l)0tt &nointest inn tytab tmtt) (DU 1 ' 
 
 This similitude is borrowed from the 
 usage of an Eastern feast, in which the 
 welcome of the host to his guests is 
 expressed by the precious unguents 
 with which he anoints them on their 
 entrance into his home. If they were 
 as little welcome as Jesus was in the 
 house of Simon, this act of courtesy 
 would be omitted ; and the failure would 
 be at once noticed, and perhaps referred 
 to, as when the Master recalled it, say- 
 ing, " My head with oil thou didst not 
 anoint." 
 
 Love and respect could hardly mani- 
 127 
 
£be SbepberD jpsalm 
 
 fest themselves more tenderly than by 
 the costliness of the materials which 
 were compounded to compose the oil to 
 be lavishly poured upon the head of the 
 beloved guest. Myrrh, aloes, and cassia 
 would scent the garments with fragrance 
 for many days, and would be a grateful 
 memento of happy bygone hours. The 
 lavish anointing which Mary of Bethany 
 shed on the head of her Lord must have 
 refreshed Him during the weary hours 
 that followed, as the delicious scent 
 stole up to Him from His dress and 
 reminded Him of the affection of one 
 true heart. 
 
 These unguents, so grateful and 
 refreshing to the scorched flesh and 
 heated brow, seem to have been kept in 
 cruses of alabaster, which were easily 
 broken, so that their contents miffht 
 be poured forth in lavish prodigality. 
 
 V 
 
 V 
 
 
Cbou Bnointest m£ 1beafc" 
 
 How little does love reck of cost! 
 When once much forgiveness has started 
 the flow of much love, then in the first 
 rapturous moments of conscious accep- 
 tance sinners will not count it waste 
 to express their tumultuous emotions 
 in the expenditure of the contents of 
 precious vases, as well as in tears and 
 kisses and acts of tender thoughtfulness 
 (Luke vii. 38). ^%p"" 
 
 When the psalmist says that God 
 Plimself anoints him with oil, does he 
 not mean us to infer that life is a feast, 
 in which we are guests and God is 
 Host? And does he also mean to teach 
 that God greets us in love and welcome ? 
 He is not niggardly or churlish, but glad 
 to see us glad, and to make us happy ; 
 conferring on us luxuries as well as 
 necessaries ; and taking pains, at great 
 cost to Himself, to show us that He is 
 
1-30 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc pealm 
 
 well pleased to accept us and show us 
 grace in the Beloved. 
 
 There are many proofs of this tender 
 grace to mankind in general. There 
 are gleams of light in most human lives 
 — in the love of tender friends, or in 
 congenial surroundings — which speak 
 God's welcome. To most men entering 
 on life there is the counterpart of the 
 Eastern oil of welcome shed on the 
 guest entering the festal chamber. 
 Each human life is greeted as it steps 
 across the mystic threshold from the 
 unseen. There is at least the mother's 
 kiss, the elasticity of youth, the keen 
 sense of enjoyment in natural scenes, 
 and the absence of foreboding care. 
 
 And the blessed God has so contrived 
 and adapted our nature to the world in 
 which we live that there is a very 
 ecstasy in life, and an abundance of 
 
 .. 
 
 ^jpr 
 
 ^ 
 
"Zhou Bnotntest m& 1beaD" 
 
 natural joy and gladness, save where 
 man has by sin vitiated and marred the 
 intentions of his Creator. " How ex- 
 cellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! 
 therefore the children of men put their 
 trust under the shadow of Thy wings. 
 They shall be abundantly satisfied with 
 the fatness of Thy house ; and Thou 
 shalt make them drink of the river of 
 Thy pleasures." "Wine that maketh 
 glad the heart of man, oil to make his 
 face to shine." " Likewise of the fishes 
 as much as they would." 
 
 But though this is true of men gener- 
 ally, yet there is an especial anointing 
 in which they can have no part. In the 
 Book of Exodus (xxx. 23-25) we have 
 a description of a special kind of oil, 
 " an oil of holy ointment," which was to 
 be used to anoint the tabernacle and 
 the ark and the holy vessels, and also ( 
 
*K 
 
 -*?* 
 
 132 Zhc SbepberD jpealm 
 
 to consecrate Aaron and his sons, the 
 priests. But there were two special 
 provisions attached to it : first, that it 
 should not be imitated ; secondly, that 
 it should not be poured " upon man's 
 flesh." Each of these restrictions is 
 worthy of note. That it was not to be 
 imitated surely teaches that it sets forth 
 some special holy unguent in the divine 
 chemistry which has no counterpart 
 in human experience. And when we 
 further search into the sacred text we 
 find that throughout Scripture oil is 
 the symbol of the blessed Holy Spirit. 
 And we are justified by many passages 
 in reading this thought into the glad 
 exclamation of the psalmist. Oh that 
 we might realize more constantly that 
 our gracious Host, at whose table we 
 sit, is constantly engaged in anointing 
 us with the oil of the Holy Spirit! 
 
 ffi^fe 
 
 '■■Y 
 
 W% : 
 
"Cbou Bnotntest ni£ 1bea£>" 133 
 
 These words with deepest significance 
 might have been appropriated by our 
 blessed Lord. " Unto the Son He saith, 
 God, even Thy God, hath anointed 
 Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy 
 fellows." And the Apostle Peter, in 
 the house of Cornelius, distinctly as- 
 serted such an anointing to have been 
 communicated by the Father to the 
 Son. " God anointed Jesus of Nazareth 
 with the Holy Ghost and with power." 
 And with this the united voice of the 
 persecuted but jubilant church accords, 
 when it rises around the person of " Thy 
 holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast 
 anointed." Yes, and the Father did 
 not give the Spirit by measure, but in 
 unstinted abundance ; the heavens were 
 opened — as in after-days the cruses of 
 alabaster were broken — and the Holy 
 Ghost descended (Luke iii. 22). 
 
134 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc ipsalm 
 
 There never was a time when Jesus 
 was not filled with the Holy Ghost. 
 But who can read the Scriptures atten- 
 tively and thoughtfully without discov- 
 ering that the anointing of the Lord 
 Jesus at the waters of baptism endued 
 Him with special ministerial qualifica- 
 tions? " The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
 Me, because He hath anointed Me." 
 " I cast out devils by the Spirit of God." 
 Onr Lord was anointed as priest. 
 Every priest must be anointed with the 
 sacred oil (Exod. xxix. 21), and our 
 High Priest, though not after the order 
 \oi Aaron, must not be without so sacred 
 a designation to His office ; and thus the 
 blessed Spirit descended and abode on 
 Him " like the precious ointment upon 
 the head, that ran down upon the beard, 
 even Aaron's beard : that went down to 
 the skirts of his garments." We are 
 
 
 if 
 
 m 
 
"Gbou Bnointest m^ Ibeafc" 
 
 but as the skirts of His garments, near 8*?! 
 His feet, where the pomegranates glisten-, 
 amid the tinkle of the golden bells 
 (Exod. xxviii. $$). Yet may we not 
 claim and expect that as the skirts of 
 His robes we shall receive the sacred 
 chrism ? 
 
 Our Lord was anointed as king. 
 " Messiah " means Anointed. " We 
 have found the Messiah (which is, the 
 Anointed)." And in that magnificent 
 Messianic psalm, in which, amid the 
 rage of His foes, the Almighty desig- 
 nates His Son to be the true King of 
 men, it is distinctly stated, " Yet have I 
 anointed My King upon My holy hill 
 of Zion." Is there not in these glowing 
 \vords»a resemblance to the scene when 
 into the midst of the merrymaking of 
 Adonijah and his fellow- conspirators, 
 by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by 
 
Gbe SbepberO jpealm 
 
 Enrogel, there broke a breathless mes- 
 senger with the tidings, " Verily our 
 lord King David hath made Solomon 
 king. And Zadok the priest and 
 Nathan the prophet have anointed him 
 king in Gihon : and they are come up 
 from thence rejoicing, so that the city 
 
 rang again 
 
 Halleluiah : for the Lord 
 
 God omnipotent reigneth." The Man 
 of Love is God's anointed Sovereign, 
 and though we see not yet all things 
 put under Him, they shall be, and the v - 
 world shall come to respect the power 
 of God's irrevocable decrees. 
 
 We too are anointed priests and kings. 
 Blood and oil were, as we have seen, 
 used in the act of consecration. Our 
 Lord, therefore, having purchased us 
 and washed us in His blood, hath 
 anointed us to be kings and priests unto 
 ^f God and His Father by the renewing 
 
"Gbou Bnointest m^ 1foeat>" im 
 
 of the Holy Ghost, " which He shed on 
 us abundantly." Hast thou experienced 
 it, my reader? Or is this the bitter 
 lack of thy life ? Ah, there is no favor- 
 itism or partiality with our God! That 
 anointing is thine in the mind and in- 
 tention of God ; it is for thee to seek 
 it, to appropriate it, and to allow it to 
 be the one blessed consciousness of thy 
 life ; so that thou mayest be able to 
 adopt the Apostle's unhesitating assur- 
 ance : "He which stablisheth us with 
 you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is 
 God ; who hath also sealed us, and given 
 the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." 
 Let us never attempt to perform the 
 work of priests in offering the sacrifice 
 of praise or prayer or devotion without 
 having sought for and obtained a fresh 
 anointing. And let us be sure that it 
 will be impossible for us to exercise any 
 
Gbe Sbepberfc ipealm 
 
 kingly function — ruling over our inner 
 T ) nature, or sitting in conscious royalty 
 with Christ on His throne — unless we 
 are perpetually conscious of the anoint- 
 ing grace of the blessed Holy Spirit. 
 
 // is our privilege to be anointed with 
 fresh oil (Ps. xcii. 10). Such was the 
 glad assurance of the man after God's 
 own heart. There is nothing stale in 
 God's household economy. We do not 
 need to live on dried fruits because 
 winter has stripped the trees. The 
 power and joy of other days should be 
 no subject for lingering regret; for our 
 gracious Host is able and willing to do 
 as much for us, and more also, on each 
 succeeding day of our life as in any day 
 of the past. Sigh not for the grace of 
 a day that is fled as if it will never come 
 back. There are eternal stores and 
 reservoirs of golden oil in God's olive- 
 
Zhou Bnointest m£ Ibeafc" 
 
 139 
 
 trees, which shall pour down the golden 
 pipes of faith, ministering nutriment to 
 the lamp of holy living ; so that it shall 
 not flicker throughout the long night, 
 but even grow in brilliance and radiating 
 glory (Zech. iv. 12). Claim each morn- 
 ing to be anew^anointed — and with 
 
 TJiese anointings will make us glad. 
 It is "the oil of gladness." "How 
 great is His goodness, and how T great is 
 His beauty ! corn shall make the young 
 men cheerful, and new wine the maids." 
 " Oil to make the face to shine." " Let 
 Asher be blessed, and let him dip his 
 foot in oil." The need of the world is 
 — shining faces ; glad smiles ; hopeful 
 words ; cheering toilers through the 
 night; and feet elastic with joy, as if 
 bathed in its very fullness. To be with- 
 out these is to miss the seal of sonship, 
 
140 
 
 XLhc SbepberD psalm 
 
 \./ 
 
 which shall most surely authenticate it 
 before the eyes of all men, and to be- 
 come a standing libel on the gospel of 
 Christ. But if only we acquire them — 
 as we most certainly shall when we are 
 daily anointed by the Holy Ghost — our 
 fellows will be attracted by something 
 in our demeanor or looks which they 
 cannot emulate or understand ; and they 
 will ask us to tell them the secret of a 
 joy which the world cannot touch be- 
 cause its springs are hidden in a land 
 where winter's frost is unknown. 
 
 These anointings will teach us as no 
 human teacher could. " Ye need not 
 that any man teach you," wrote the 
 beloved disciple to his little children : 
 " but the same anointing teacheth you 
 of all things." Fret and impatience are 
 often connected with the attainment of 
 earthly learning from the lips of human 
 
 
"Cbou Bnomtest m£ 1bea0" ui 
 
 instructors; and often we miss the 
 things we would most like to know. 
 But there is nothing like this with our 
 God. All His children are conscious 
 that when He teaches them their peace 
 is great. No one instructs as He does. 
 And when He undertakes the tuition of 
 the soul there is no item in all the 
 sacred lore of heavenly divinity which 
 is omitted. 
 
 The effect of these anointings will be 
 abiding. " The anointing which ye re- 
 ceived of Him abideth in you." Food 
 which we have eaten abides in us, and 
 when we are quite unconscious of its 
 presence it is doing its work in building 
 up the fabric of our being. In some 
 such way it must happen that the effect 
 of a mighty spiritual blessing does not 
 pass away with the moment of its first 
 advent to the soul ; but it abides. And 
 
XLbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 amid the pressure of daily circumstance 
 and toil and engagement, when the 
 mind seems too set on its necessary 
 work to have leisure for upward spring- 
 ing, then the Spirit will pursue His 
 chosen office of ministering grace and 
 strength within. In other words, we 
 receive benefit from the anointing of 
 the Holy Ghost long after the imme- 
 diate moment of receiving it; the fra- 
 grance still clings about our garments, 
 the mollifying softness still lingers on 
 
 ° Ur faCG ' ^^^^^^^ 
 
 Let us never rest satisfied with any- 
 thing less than that indefinable and 
 sacred grace called "unction." We 
 cannot analyze it or understand why it 
 effects what learning and eloquence fail 
 to accomplish. But we detect it when 
 it is present, we miss it when absent. 
 With this the slightest words strike 
 
"£bou Bnofntest m^ IfoeaD" 
 
 home to the hearers' hearts as the mes- 
 sage of God. Without it the most 
 eloquent sentences are like unfeathered 
 arrows, which fall useless at the archer's 
 feet. Withhold what Thou wilt, O God, 
 but give us the unction — i.e., the 
 anointing — of the Holy Spirit! " Thou 
 anointest my head with oil." "Lord, 
 not my head only, but also my hands 
 and my feet!" 
 
X 
 
 
 ®l)e (Duerfloimng (Hup 
 
 "My cup runneth over." 
 
 Glad and festal moments come to 
 
 the saddest and most weary hearts. At 
 the close of a prolonged strain of anxiety, 
 when lying exhausted on the desert sand, 
 sleep casts its spell over the tired nature ; 
 angels spread the refreshing banquet ; 
 and the soul awakes beneath the celes- 
 tial touch, invigorated for new toils. 
 
 We cannot always tell whence such 
 experiences come ; this is all we know : 
 that the step is more elastic, the heart 
 swells with buoyant hope, songs break 
 
 from the lips 
 
 and the whole 
 144 
 
 bcim 
 
 Ql.-Ss 
 
£be ©vetflowing Cup 145 
 
 thrills, as nature does on some lovely 
 day of spring. " When the Lord turns 
 again our captivity, the mouth is filled 
 with laughter, and the tongue with 
 singing : then we say among the heathen, 
 The Lord hath done great things for 
 us; whereof we are glad." 
 
 At such hours life seems to us like a 
 chalice mixed by the loving hand of 
 God, and overflowing with His mercy 
 and loving-kindness. And with tears 
 struggling with smiles for the mastery, 
 as rain and sunbeams on an x\pril day, 
 we lift the brimming cup to our lips and 
 cry, " My cup runneth over." 
 
 A similar experience is unfolded in 
 another psalm, which, like so many of 
 its character, touches the lowest depths 
 and springs as well as the topmost 
 heights of human experience. It beginsv 
 with the plaintive notes of trouble, " the 
 
 -^-*$£— 3 
 
 
Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 sorrows of death, and the pains of hell," 
 and with rash imputations upon the 
 truth of all men. It tells how in his 
 need the psalmist called upon the name 
 of the Lord. It recounts the glorious 
 deliverance there was wrought on his 
 behalf. And now, as he reviews his 
 lot, it seems like a cup full of salvation, 
 charged with the prompt, gentle, and 
 sufficient deliverance wrought for him 
 by the Almighty (Ps. cxvi. 12, 13). 
 
 We have nothing to say now about 
 the texture of life's cups. They may 
 be of gold or silver or tin or alabaster 
 or glass. There is an infinite variety in 
 the raw material of which our lives are 
 made. We have to deal only with in- 
 gredients, which will taste as sweet from 
 the earthen mug as from the golden 
 goblet. And, after all, the great differ- 
 ences that come to men's lives are much 
 
 V& ; • 
 
tlbe ©verflowfns Cup 147 
 
 more in their contents than in their 
 outward seeming. Cease looking dis- 
 consolately on the outside of thy cup 
 and platter, but look thankfully on the 
 contents, which may be sweeter and 
 richer for thee, albeit that they are held 
 in a cup of common texture, than are * 
 the contents of other lives which thou 
 dost envy, not knowing how bitter is 
 the draft contained within. 
 
 It becomes us to remember that " the 
 cup of blessing'' of which we drink was 
 once filled with a bitter curse. We read 
 in Scripture of the cup of trembling and 
 of the cup of God's wrath ; and as we 
 read the words we know that our lives 
 might well have been filled with trem- 
 bling and with wrath, as the just reward 
 of our deeds ; not that God is vindictive, 
 or that He rejoices in the death of the 
 sinner; but that His holy nature cannot 
 
us Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 but be roused into antagonism whenever 
 He comes into contact with evil and 
 impurity. If we had been left to drink 
 the bitter results of our sin, it would 
 have been as when Moses ground the 
 calf to powder and strewed it upon the 
 waters and made the people drink. 
 And if it be asked how it is that we 
 have escaped so bitter an experience 
 the answer is given in His words who 
 
 '/ has pleaded the cause of His people : 
 " Behold, I have taken out of thine 
 
 1, hand the cup of trembling, even the 
 dregs of the cup of My fury ; thou shalt 
 no more drink it again." And when 
 He took it out of our hands, He poured 
 \, its contents into the cup mixed for 
 Himself, returning it to us emptied even 
 to the dregs ; nay, better, filled with the 
 wine of His love and life; while He 
 drank our potion of wrath and woe. 
 
 m 
 
Gbe Overflowing Cup 149 
 
 Remember His own words in the 
 garden when His agony had passed and 
 the ruffian band was about to bind Him, 
 and Peter impetuously and character- 
 istically drew his sword : l< Then said 
 Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into 
 the sheath : the cup which My Father 
 hath given Me, shall I not drink it? " 
 
 Consider the ingredients of Christ's 
 cup — the shame and spitting ; the pain 
 and anguish ; the physical torture ; and, 
 above all, the bitterness of our sins, 
 which were made to meet in Him ; the 
 guilt of our curse, which He voluntarily 
 assumed ; the equivalent of our punish- 
 ment, which was imputed to Him. If 
 we may so put it, the human race stood 
 in one long line, each with a cup of 
 hemlock in his hand ; and Christ, pass- if 
 ing along, took from each his cup and '.' 
 poured its contents into the vast beaker! 
 
 <T <&&?$* 
 
150 
 
 Gbe SbepberD lpsalm 
 
 $?? 
 
 n»* 
 
 which He carried ; so that on the cross 
 He "tasted death for every man." 
 Thus our lives brim with salvation, be- 
 cause His brimmed with condemnation. 
 Our cup is one of joy, because His cup 
 was one of sorrow. Our cup is one of 
 blessedness, because His was one of 
 God-forsakenness. 
 
 Oh that we might in our moments 
 of gladness imitate the blessed in 
 heaven, who, amid their greatest joys, 
 ever associate their happiness with the 
 death of Christ ! Never forget the cost 
 at which your brightest moments have 
 been made possible. 
 
 LET US ENUMERATE SOME OF THE 
 INGREDIENTS OF OUR LIFE-CUP. 
 
 I. Good JicaltJi is one of the chief. A 
 man might have everything calculated 
 to promote human happiness, but if all 
 
 
Zbc ©petflowing Cup 
 
 151 
 
 were tinged with the pain and weariness 
 of constant illness, what joy could he 
 have? Our sad days, when all sur- 
 rounding objects are draped in somber 
 hues, are, as often as not, due to bodily 
 weakness ; and the ecstasy of our glad 
 days, when sunny light lies upon the 
 lawn of life, is generally coincident with 
 a sense of vigorous health. If, then, 
 your life-cup seems sweet and refresh- 
 ing to your taste, you may calculate 
 pretty shrewdly that good health is a 
 main ingredient ; though we can form 
 no estimate of its im^ortajice until it is 
 withdrawn. «^ Saa ^ r ^£k*!P 
 
 2. Then there are human friendships 
 and affections, the absence of which 
 makes the greatest prosperity a dreary- 
 desert, so that even golden streets blister 
 and weary the feet as if they were arid 
 sands ; but whose presence will gladden 
 
152 
 
 Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 the meanest lot, so that even a garden of 
 herbs will gleam with the glow of heaven. 
 
 3. There are also the comforts of 
 home life, to say nothing of the neces- 
 saries. What a rich admixture of these 
 do most of us enjoy ! Soft pillows, 
 carpeted floors, warm, weather-tight 
 rooms, likewise furniture rich and plenti- 
 ful ; and variety of food, sufficient and 
 comely garments, attendants who save 
 us from harder and rougher toil. The 
 Stoic may discipline himself to do with- 
 out many of these things, and may even 
 try to convince us that life is easier 
 without than with them ; but, neverthe- 
 less, it is undeniable that much of the 
 enjoyment of our daily lives arises from 
 the presence of these amenities to which 
 we have become habituated by lfing 
 custom and use. ^SOifS 
 
 4. There are also the foj>s of the mind. 
 
Gbe Overflowing Gup 
 
 153 
 
 Each can draw up from the crypt of the 
 past the treasure in which lies the learn- 
 
 ing of the ancient and modern world ; 
 each can collect the thoughts of poets 
 and philosophers flung upon the strand 
 of time as driftweed on the beach, torn 
 by storms from ocean depths ; each can 
 search out and drink in the wonders and 
 beauties of nature from the wild-flowers 
 of the forest glade ; 
 
 "And those outlying worlds of many mooned spheres ; 
 And that great store of stars more thickly strown 
 
 in yonder sky 
 Than dust upon the pale leaves of the auricula." 
 
 5. Now and again there is a dash of 
 extra sweetness poured into life's cup — 
 some special deliverance, some un- 
 looked-for interposition, some unde- 
 served and unusual benediction — sent 
 apparently for no other object than to 
 satisfy God's passion for giving. And _.^44k^5££=. 
 
154 
 
 £be SbepberD psalm 
 
 here I must renounce my task — no 
 human pencil can describe all that God 
 pours into the lot of our life ; many 
 of the constituents are too subtle for 
 detection ; many are too divine for 
 comprehension ; many are too numerous 
 for computation. Besides, no life-cup 
 is mixed in quite the same proportions. 
 Our Father carefully studies our consti- 
 tution, and then suits His preparation 
 to our need ; and since we are infinitely 
 various in our make, there is an infinite 
 diversity in the drafts which He sets 
 before us on the table which He spreads. 
 Bat whatever blessing is in our cup y 
 it is sure to run over. With Him the 
 calf is always the fatted calf; the robe 
 is always the best robe ; the joy is 
 unspeakable ; the peace passeth under- 
 standing ; the grace is so abundant that 
 the recipient has all-sufficiency for all 
 
n*- Gbe QvextloxQinQ Cup 155 
 
 v v . 
 
 ^r things, and abounds in every good work. 
 ^a^> There is no grudging in God's benevo- 
 lence ; He does not measure out His 
 goodness as the apothecary counts his 
 drops and measures his drams, slowly 
 and exactly, drop by drop. God's way 
 is always characterized by multitudinous 
 and overflowing bounty ; like that in 
 nature, which is so profuse with beauty 
 and life that every drop of the ocean, 
 and every square inch of the forest 
 glade, and every molecule of matter 
 teems with marvels, and defies the 
 research and investigation of man. 
 Well may we each cry with the Apostle, 
 " I have all, and abound." ^^ 
 
 On the shore of one of tHir vast' 
 fresh-water lakes of America stands a 
 humble log-built cabin occupied by a 
 family of settlers from the old country. 
 A little child which has been playing 
 
 -===ss^^'$fof> 
 
V 
 
 156 
 
 £be SbepberD psalm 
 
 around all the morning and has become 
 tired and thirsty goes within to ask its 
 mother for water; and the mother, tak- 
 ing a cup, goes with it down to the 
 white sands on which the mimic break- 
 ers dash with musical cadence, dips it 
 in, and lifts it, brimming and dripping 
 with a stream of crystal drops, to her 
 darling's lips. That is the way in which 
 God deals with us. He gives to all 
 liberally, and does not upbraid. There 
 is more in Him than we can ever need ; 
 and He gives us more than we really 
 can use for ourselves. Let us see to it 
 that we so hold our cups as that their 
 overflowings may not run to waste, but 
 may drop into other cups, the cups of 
 those that have not so much as we have. 
 Oh that our paths might be like the 
 paths of God, which, when they drop 
 fatness, drop upon the parched pastures 
 
Zbc Overflowing Cup 
 
 of the wilderness, so that the little hills 
 are girded about with joy, and become 
 at last covered with flocks ! " They 
 shout for joy, they also sing." 
 
 But it is especially in connection with 
 spiritual blessing that the cup most often 
 seems to overflow. This has been the 
 experience of many eminent saints. In 
 one of his seasons of rapt communion 
 John Welch, of Scotland, cried, "O Lord, 
 hold Thy hand; it is enough. Thy 
 servant is a clay vessel, and can contain 
 no more!" And John Flavel tells us 
 that once when he was alone on a jour- 
 ney his thoughts began to swell and 
 rise higher and higher, till at last they 
 became an overwhelming flood. Such 
 was the attitude of his mind, such the 
 refreshing taste of heavenly joys, and 
 such the full assurance of his interest 
 therein, that he truly lost the sight and 
 
 c^ 
 
 >*k*} 
 
Gbe SbepberD ipaalm 
 
 sense of this world, and of the concerns 
 thereof. Many years after he called 
 that day one of the days of heaven, and 
 professed that he understood more of 
 the life of heaven by it than by all the 
 books he ever read or sermons he ever 
 heard about it. 
 
 Certain it is that our Lord Jesus 
 meant us to have a more abiding expe- 
 rience of such joys. He not only came 
 to give us life, but life more abundantly . 
 He spake unto us His inimitable words, 
 that our joy might be full. He meant 
 our hearts to delight themselves with 
 fatness, and to be satisfied with the favor 
 of the Lord. His ideal for us may be 
 compared to those rocky basins hollowed 
 out by a perpetual fall of water, and 
 lined by an infinite variety of exquisite 
 vegetation, into which the fullness of 
 the river, fed from perennial springs, is 
 
Gbe ©verflowin^ Cup 
 
 ever overflowing; and from which the 
 overflow is ever passing out in a con- 
 stant stream to join the eddying currents, 
 to fill some lesser bowl beneath, or to 
 play some part in fertilizing the mul- 
 titudinous flowers and plants which 
 stretch out eager roots to its nourishing 
 tide. Let us not hoard what we have 
 got. Let us freely permit our cups to 
 run over. Far from us be the niggard- 
 liness of the miser who dares not give 
 because he fears he will not get. Let 
 us be prodigal and spendthrift of our 
 wealth ; for we know that it is inex- 
 haustible, being supplied from our 
 Father's hand ; and one of the laws of 
 His kingdom is that we receive in the 
 precise proportion with which we give. 
 One last word : be sure to take the C7ip 
 of salvation. There can be no greater 
 slight to a giver than to have his gifts 
 
Cbe Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 
 v 
 
 neglected. Yet how many cups God 
 sets before us which we refuse to taste ! 
 Some appear to think that God does 
 not mean them to be thoroughly happy ; 
 and if they drink their cups of joy, it 
 must be on the sly or with words of 
 apology. Some only drink half; or if 
 they drink all they instil some bitter 
 ingredient of their own, lest the draft 
 should be too delicious. How often 
 we forget that God has given us all 
 things richly to enjoy ! And when we 
 are sure that He has given us aught, let 
 us not shrink from taking the cup from 
 His hand. Sometimes we have not 
 because we are too blind to see, or too 
 slow to take the cups which God is pre- 
 paring for us. 
 
 And as we drink let us be sure to 
 call u 'pon the name of the Lord. Full 
 often, if we dare to do so, we shall find 
 
Zbe Overflowing Cup 
 
 ^a# 
 
 that the bitter medicine which fright 
 us has been suddenly changed into the^ 
 very wine of life. There is an old 
 legend of an ancient cup filled with 
 poison and treacherously placed into the 
 king's hand. He signed the sign of the 
 cross, and named the name of God, and 
 it shivered at his feet. So take the 
 name of God as your test. Name it 
 over the cups which allure you ere you 
 raise them to your lips, be they friend- 
 ships, schemes, plans, business. That 
 name will either show the adder that 
 lurks in their heart, as in the goblet of 
 the old Egyptian feast, or it will trans- 
 mute common things to sacramental 
 use, and make ordinary cups like that 
 which we use at the table of our Lord,\\\ 
 when over it have been spoken jtrK^e 
 memorable words, " This do in 
 brance of Me." 
 
XI 
 
 ®l)e (tdestial Escort 
 
 " Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me 
 All the days of my life." 
 
 "All the days." What days may 
 not come ? Spring days, when all the 
 world shall be full of glad young life — 
 
 licking in the fields ; caroling in the 
 skies ; bursting into leaf and flower at 
 our feet. Summer days, in which the 
 year shall have reached its glorious 
 prime, with golden light and long- 
 drawn-out evenings and balmy nights. 
 Autumn days, when the fields shall be 
 filled with sheaves of corn, while busy 
 hands tear from orchard boughs and 
 162 
 
ftbe Celestial Bscort 
 
 trailing vines and towering hop-plants 
 the rich produce of the year. Winter 
 days, in which the foot shall tread down 
 the crackling leaves that carpet the for- 
 est glade ; days of mist and rain and 
 somber light, when we gather round the 
 bier of the departed glory of the year, 
 and lay it to the dust. 
 
 We sometimes stand, as it were, on 
 the brow of an overhanging hill, peering 
 wonderingly into the valley at our feet, 
 and asking what kind of days lie there, 
 enveloped in the impenetrable mists, 
 which only part as we advance. What 
 lies in the course of the years? Will 
 the days be golden, lit by heaven's 
 warm, sunny glow? Will they be red- 
 letter, not only in the usual sense of the 
 word, but because stained with the 
 blood of suffering and sacrifice? Will 
 they be drab, attired in somber tints, 
 
164 
 
 Gbe SbepberD ipealm 
 
 dark and sad ? Birthdays ; death-days ; 
 marriage- days ; anniversaries of a dead 
 past, which refuses to be forgotten ; 
 fast-days; feast-days; saint-days, be- 
 cause associated with some whom we 
 have known and loved as the very elect 
 of God. Only a few short hours — like 
 the flash of a revolving light seen far 
 out at sea between tw T o long pauses of 
 black darkness ; or like a diamond set 
 in ebony — and yet how much of weal 
 or woe, of bitter memory or eager 
 foreboding, may be crowded into one 
 brief space of time which we call a 
 
 But there never will come a day 
 throughout all the future in which we 
 shall not have the two guardian angels, 
 heavenly escorts, and God-sent mes- 
 sengers, Goodness and Mercy, who have 
 been told off and commissioned to at- 
 
Gbe Celestial Bscort 
 
 165 
 
 tend the believer during all the days of 
 his earthly pilgrimage. 
 
 When, benumbed with cold and be- 
 wildered with the mist which has sud- 
 denly settled down upon his track, the 
 traveler across the highland moor sinks 
 down exhausted on the drenched her- 
 bage, what an infinite comfort it is, 
 through a momentary rent in the mist, 
 to get a glimpse of the plaided figure 
 of a shepherd close beside him ; or to 
 discover two servants from the distant 
 paternal home, sent out to scour the 
 hills in search of the missing one, and 
 to bring him safely to its shelter and 
 warmth ! But it is in some such way 
 as this that the eye of the believer may 
 detect, in moments of weariness and 
 solitude, the presence of those twin 
 angels of God, GOODNESS and Mercy. 
 
 We have never seen angels like the 
 
166 
 
 Zbc Sbepberfc ftsalm 
 
 two that came to Sodom ; nor even 
 their effigies, like the two angelic forms 
 which bent over the ark in the inner 
 shrine of the holy tent. But we can 
 imagine their pure faces, their ethereal 
 forms, their gentle ways. But here is 
 something better than angel help : the 
 personified attributes of God, His good- 
 ness, His mercy ; that is, Himself, in all 
 the tenderest manifestations of His love 
 and pity toward men. 
 
 Goodness AND Mercy. Not goodness 
 alone, for we are sinners needing for- 
 giveness. Not mercy alone, for we 
 need many things besides forgiveness. 
 But each with the other linked. Good- 
 ness to supply every want, mercy to 
 ^forgive every sin ; goodness to provide, 
 ||3Tiercy to pardon. David often links 
 ese two together, as when he says, 
 " The Lord is good ; His mercy is ever- 
 
XLhe Celestial Bscort 
 
 161 
 
 lasting." What shall we say of these 
 blessed attributes? Take Goodness. It 
 is laid up in vast reservoirs in the nature 
 of God ; prepared for the poor, the food 
 of the hungry, the lodge of the right- 
 eous, the crown of the year, the very 
 sun of life. " O taste and see that 
 the Lord is good." " How great is 
 His goodness, and how greatois^ His 
 beauty!" 
 
 Take Mercy. She is the daughter v~ v 
 God: His delight— "He delighteih fnp 
 mercy; " His wealth — "He is rich in^ 
 mercy; " His throne — "/ will commune 
 with thee from off the mercy-seat." 
 Who shall count the rays that sparkle 
 from this jewel! Tender, plenteous, 
 sure, everlasting. Truly our Lord might 
 say, "Your Father is merciful." 
 
 And they shall follow. In the East 
 the shepherd always goes in front. 
 
£be SbepberD jpsalm 
 
 And our Good Shepherd never puts us 
 forth to the work or warfare of any day 
 without going before us. But His 
 shepherd dogs bring up the rear. We 
 have a rear-guard against the attack of 
 our treacherous foes. We have two 
 strong helpers to lift us from tier to tier 
 of the pyramid of life, keeping us from 
 falling backward, whispering words of 
 comfort, and placing strong hands under 
 our arms in circumstances of difficulty 
 and stumbling. 
 
 In that word "follow" is it possible 
 that there is a suggestion that we are 
 going away from God, and that He 
 sends His goodness and mercy after us 
 to call us back? It may be so. If a 
 prodigal leaves a widowed mother for 
 the sea, she never forgets him ; her 
 prayers and tears and loving thoughts 
 follow him ; and to win him back she 
 
 ■u'<*. 
 
Gbe Celestial Bscort 
 
 169 
 
 sends out only the tenderest yearnings 
 of a heart almost crushed. Even so 
 with God and His own ; they may wan- 
 der from Him, but He follows them, He 
 sets Goodness and Mercy on their track. 
 Sometimes it seems as if disaster on 
 disaster, stroke on stroke, pursues them ; 
 but it is not really so. Things are not 
 always as they seem. And these are 
 but the disguises which Goodness and 
 Mercy assume ; their outer garb, pro- 
 tecting the delicate woolen garments 
 which are prepared for the weary head 
 and tired limbs of the wearied, wander- 
 ing, starved, and ragged prodigal. He 
 will not break off His kindness, nor 
 suffer His faithfulness to fail, nor for- 
 sake the works of His hands ; for ff His 
 mercy endureth forever." 
 
 You have only to turn round, or to 
 swoon backward, and you will find 
 
170 
 
 Gbe SbepbecD psalm 
 
 yourself caught in the arms of God's 
 goodness and mercy, which are follow- 
 ing you always. You may not realize 
 that they are near ; you may feel lonely 
 and sad and desolate ; it may be one of 
 your bad days, sunless and dreary, with- 
 out a ray of comfort or a flash of hope, 
 surrounded by objects and forms of 
 dread. Yet there, close by you, evident 
 to God's angels though veiled from 
 your faithless sight, stand the glorious, 
 loving, pitying forms of God's infinite 
 goodness, which cannot fail, and His 
 tender mercy. They will spread you 
 a table in the desert as they did for 
 Elijah ; or they will flash through the 
 storm and stand beside you, bidding 
 you fear not, as they did for Paul. 
 
 " Though unperceived by mortal sense, 
 Faith sees them always near, 
 A Guide, a Glory, a Defense : 
 Then what have you to fear ? " 
 
 W *- 
 
 ^^ 
 
Gbe Celestial Bsccrt 
 
 171 
 
 And in such hopes there need be no 
 element of doubt. "Surely" says the 
 psalmist. Why so sure? Because God 
 is God, unchangeable and everlasting ; 
 He cannot withdraw what He has once 
 given. If we believe not, He abideth 
 faithful ; He cannot deny Himself. His 
 gifts are without repentance. The Giver 
 of every good and perfect gift is also 
 the Father of lights, with whom can be 
 no variation, neither shadow cast by 
 turning. And when once He has begun 
 to follow us in goodness and mercy we 
 may wander from His paths and neglect 
 His love and do despite to His Spirit, 
 ignore the presence of His messengers, 
 and bid them begone ; and yet they will 
 not remove. They may follow at a 
 greater distance, but they will follow 
 still, never satisfied till they have won 
 us back to Himself. 
 
172 
 
 Gbe Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 Surely, because God has never failed 
 in the past. Surely, because it would 
 not become Him to take in hand and 
 not complete. Surely, because He has 
 pledged Himself by exceeding great and 
 precious promises. Surely, because the 
 united testimony of all His saints attests 
 that He never fails or forsakes. Surely, 
 because if He has set His love on us in 
 eternit)/, He is not likely to forget us in 
 time. So surely shall never a day come 
 in our earthly pilgrimage in which God 
 shall not be at our side in goodnjsss and 
 
 mercy. 
 
 Instead of surely, some commentators 
 make it only. " Only goodness and 
 mercy shall follow me." Just as in the 
 Seventy-third Psalm they read, " God 
 is good, and only good " — nothing but 
 good — " to Israel, even to such as are 
 
Gbe Celestial JEscort 
 
 of a clean heart." It may be so; and 
 it is certainly a fact that God's dealings 
 with us are never anything less than 
 good and merciful. They may not 
 seem so ; but it is sometimes a greater 
 test of love to withhold than to give ; 
 to deny than to consent ; to take away 
 than to crowd the bosom full of over- 
 flowing benefits. 
 
 Fearful and fainting hearts, dreading 
 the dark way alone, take heart ; gird 
 yourselves with new courage ; lift up 
 the hands which hang down, and con- 
 firm the feeble knees ! God knows how 
 many days of life remain ; He knows 
 their needs, their temptations, and their 
 sorrows ; and He pledges Himself that 
 as the day, so shall be the strength ; that 
 the day shall never come which shall be 
 unblessed with His goodness and mercy ; 
 
174 
 
 Gbe Sbepbevfc psalm 
 
 and that He Himself, in the person of 
 the blessed Lord, will be with us all 
 the days, " even unto the end of the 
 
11 V 
 
 XII 
 
 "&t)t tyomc of t\)z £orb foxcvtx" 
 
 The passing of the years awakens in 
 our hearts the cry for permanence. Our 
 nature is keyed, not to the temporal, but 
 to the eternal. And as we see the 
 leaves falling before the autumn winds 
 or littering the forest glade down which 
 we walk in the short winter days, as 
 the changes of the natural world compel 
 us to remember the still greater ones 
 which are ever carrying us out of the 
 familiar world of our past into one as 
 strange and undiscovered as the new 
 world to which Columbus sailed, there 
 
% 
 
 w& 
 
 176 
 
 Gbe SbepbevD psalm 
 
 arises up within us a passionate desire 
 for a home which death cannot invade ; 
 friendships which time cannot impair ; 
 chaplets of never- withering flowers ; and 
 a condition of existence which is im- 
 pervious to change. 
 
 This permanence for which we wait 
 seems promised in the words with which 
 the shepherd minstrel closes the psalm, 
 which are simple as the words " home " 
 and " mother," and quite as full of 
 meaning. The course of the psalm is 
 as full of change as life itself. Every 
 sentence is a word-picture, painting in 
 strong and vivid outlines some new 
 scene in our earthly pilgrimage. But 
 here the troubled stream, broken over 
 many a stone, driven to and fro in man}- 
 a sinuous bend, seems to fall into the 
 great deep of the ocean, eternity, the 
 music of whose waves, as they break on 
 
Gbe Ibouse of tbe Xoro" 
 
 177 
 
 the shores of time, is always in the same 
 sweet monotone, "Forever." 
 
 No doubt the changes of our mortal 
 life are all needed to fit us for the 
 changeless. Time is the necessary 
 vestibule or robing- room for eternity. 
 Earth is the training-house for the real 
 life which awaits us when the last lesson 
 is learned and the school-bell rings. 
 But all that is, and has been, and shall 
 be, is just completing our character, 
 adding finishing touches to our sym- 
 metry ; and all shall be forgotten, as a 
 dream of the night, when once we have 
 entered on that eternity, which is per- 
 manent in the sense of never taking 
 from us any of our true possessions, 
 except to complete them ; or in the 
 same way that the seed is taken away, 
 when from it is developed a higher and 
 ever higher growth. 
 
J- 
 
 Cbe Sbepberfc psalm 
 
 But better than the thought of per- 
 manence is the thought that heaven is a 
 HOME — it is " the house of the Lord," 
 which is the nearest approach possible 
 in the Old Testament to the words of 
 Jesus : <f In My Father's house are 
 many mansions." 
 
 What a magic power there is in that 
 word " home " ! It will draw the wan- 
 derer from the ends of the earth. It 
 will nerve sailor and soldier and explorer 
 to heroic endurance. It will melt with 
 its dear memories the hardened criminal. 
 It will bring a film of tears over the 
 eyes of the man of the world. What 
 will not a charwoman do or bear if only 
 she can keep her little home together ? 
 
 " Be it ever so humble, 
 There's no place like home." 
 
 And what is our great Christmas 
 festival but the festival of home? 
 
Gbe Hxmse ot tbe XorO 
 
 179 
 
 
 
 9, 
 
 w* 
 
 Homes which have sprung into exis- 
 tence at the summons of One who was 
 homeless fitly celebrate their anniver- 
 sary on His natal day. 
 
 And what is it that makes the idea of 
 home so fond ? Xot the mere locality, 
 or the bricks and mortar ; the gardens 
 where childhood used to hide ; the fur- 
 niture which is associated with tender 
 memories — any of which the sight of it 
 will immediately educe. No ! it is not 
 these that make home. These without 
 the beloved forms which used to occupy 
 them would be a solitude in which the 
 survivor would find it impossible to 
 remain. We find our home where 
 father, mother, brothers, and sisters, the 
 wife and children are ; where the pres- 
 ence of the stranger throws no shadow 
 over the unrestrained play of family 
 life. 
 
 w 
 
 \4 
 
 ^ 
 

 180 
 
 Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 Now let us turn our thoughts to that 
 heaven of which we know comparatively 
 so little, except that our Good Shepherd 
 is gone thither; and see what light is 
 thrown upon it by the comparison insti- 
 tuted here between it and home. It is 
 surely home in the sense of its happy 
 social life. We shall be as free in the 
 presence of God as children are in the 
 presence of the father and mother whom 
 they tenderly love. We shall know 
 each other as well, and converse with 
 each other as freely, as we have done 
 with the merry throng of bright young- 
 hearts with whom we have sauntered in 
 the woodlands gathering wild- flowers ; 
 or have gathered around the blazing 
 fire, when the yule log crackled and the 
 Christmas glee was at its height. Think 
 of the large family of noble children of 
 all ages — from the little child of six up 
 
"Zhc Ibouse of tbe Xoro" 
 
 to the young man just beginning his 
 professional or city life in the great 
 metropolis — all gathering to spend a 
 time together in the ancestral hall, 
 standing amid its far-reaching grounds ; 
 and you will have some faint conception 
 of what the home-going will be, when, 
 amid the welcoming shouts and songs 
 of angel harps, the last child reaches 
 the Father's house, and the whole family 
 in heaven and earth is gathered in the 
 Father's house forever and forever. 
 Never again to part! Never again to 
 go out! Never again to break up the 
 long, happy, and glorious home festival! 
 These words may be read by lonely 
 ones in all parts of the world, over 
 whom there steals at times a strange 
 homesickness : 
 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! " *#§fi!Nt \ 
 
 " Oh for the touch of a vanished hand, ^ ? r\ 
 
 n-y 
 
182 
 
 " Oh to be little children again, and to 
 have others providing for our comfort 
 and our joy, instead of having to fend 
 for ourselves, and to be the source of 
 all to others!" And mingling with 
 such natural back-yearnings there may 
 be the tears of recent bereavement ; the 
 thought of graves so new that the flowers 
 have not had time to root themselves in 
 the fresh soil. Ja* 
 
 Come, it will not do for ust?> indulge 
 thoughts like these! Thev unfit us for 
 the stern realities of life. They unnerve 
 us. Let us not dwell on them. If the 
 paradise of the past is lost, so that an 
 angel stands with drawn sword forbid- 
 ding our return, there is another and a 
 better paradise before us, at whose gates 
 beckoning angels stand — the paradise of 
 our Father's home. Let us not think of 
 separation, but of reunion. In olden 
 
 ^ 
 
I 
 JUL 
 
 w 
 
 
 Ml 
 
 Gbe Ibouse of tbe Xoro 
 
 183 
 
 days the crews of outgoing vessels, till 
 they reached the line, used to toast 
 Friends behind; but as soon as they had 
 passed it they began to toast Friends 
 before. Let us set our thoughts on the 
 friends before us, who, thank God, are 
 those whom " we have loved long since 
 and lost awhile." 
 
 Blessed are the homesick, for they 
 shall reach home! 
 
 There is great certainty in these words. 
 The psalmist has no doubt that he will 
 be there. Yet he had been a wander- 
 ing sheep ; his record by no means 
 stainless ; his temper rather that of a 
 man of war and blood than that of peace 
 and gentleness and love which would 
 befit the meek denizen of heaven. How 
 should he come there ? And what made 
 him so sure? He doubtless felt the 
 the Good Shepherd could not be therej, ' ; * 
 
 £& 
 
 ■^ 
 
 <r<&xys£> 
 
184 
 
 4 
 
 Cbe SbepberD ipsalm 
 
 while the sheep was bleating piteously 
 without. " Where I am, there ye shall 
 be also." And we have a yet more 
 sure word of promise to which we may 
 joyfully take heed as to a light which 
 shines in a dark place. 
 
 Because we have trusted Christ and 
 are one with Him ; because we have 
 received into our hearts the germ of 
 eternal life, which carries with it heaven 
 in embryo ; because we have the earnest 
 of our inheritance already in the pres- 
 ence and witness of the Holy Ghost ; 
 because God's promise and oath assure 
 us of our eternal blessedness, two things 
 which make disappointment impossible 
 — for all these reasons and others the 
 humblest, most timid, and weakest be- 
 liever that reads these lines may dare 
 ^affirm, " I will dwell in the house of the 
 Lord forever." 
 
"Zbe Ibouse of tbe Xoro" i85 u 
 
 ^ — i; 
 
 There seems to have been a sense iiC~ O^SAp 
 
 which David enjoyed heaven before he 
 got there. To him the Lord's house 
 was not simply a thing of the future, 
 but a possibility for the present. In 
 another psalm he talks of dwelling in 
 the secret place of the Most High, and 
 in yet another he employs the noble 
 words, " One thing have I desired of 
 the Lord, that will I seek after; that I 
 may dwell in the house of the Lord all 
 the days of my life, to behold the beauty 
 of the Lord, and to inquire in His tem- 
 ple. ' ' The French version of Dr. Segond 
 is so beautiful that I am compelled to 
 quote it also : " Je demande a V Eternel 
 line chose, que je desire ardennnent Je 
 vondrais habiter toute ma vie dans la 
 maison de V Eternel, pour contempler la 
 magnificence de I Eternel et pour admirer 
 son temple." (Ps. xxvii. 4.) But this 
 
 i^& ; ■ 
 
^M: 
 
 Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 man was full of royal business ; he could 
 not literally dwell in the sacred courts, 
 for which he pined more than hart ever 
 panted for water-brooks, or doves for 
 their cotes. 
 
 Yet can we doubt that his fervent 
 
 prayer was answered, and that the fixed 
 
 purpose of his heart reached its ideal? 
 
 There was, no doubt, a sense in which, 
 
 whether at home in the palace of Mount 
 
 Zion, or away in the desolate wastes 
 
 beyond Jordan, he did dwell in the 
 
 house of the Lord, beholding His beauty 
 
 (j/f/ji and inquiring His will. What is the 
 
 W/ijlL house of God but the presence of God, 
 
 jjwir habitually recognized by the loving and 
 
 'i|f%^- believing spirit; all-encompassing, all- 
 
 '^tf J|r enve l P m g"> all-pervasive, like the genial 
 
 -atmosphere of spring! 
 
 Why should not we also begin to live 
 - in the ho?ise of God, in this hallowed 
 
 _5 
 
"Cbe Douse of tbe 3Loro" 
 
 181 
 
 and blessed sense ? Our heaven may 
 thus date, not from the moment in which 
 we first " enter the gates of the city," 
 but from that in which we first wash 
 our robes and make them white in the 
 blood of the Lamb. Always and every- 
 where we may find our dwelling-place 
 in God, who has been the home and 
 refuge and abiding-place of His people 
 in all generations. Always and every- 
 where we may retreat into Him from 
 the windy storm and tempest. Always 
 and everywhere we may make His 
 nature not only our fortress and strong 
 tower, but our oratory, our temple. 
 May the Holy Spirit make real to each 
 of us this possibility of living in the 
 house of the Lord hourly and daily ; 
 where all tears are wiped as soon as 
 shed ; whither cares cannot invade ; and 
 where the Good Shephejd leads His 
 
Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 flock ever into green pastures, so that 
 they cannot hunger; and beside still 
 waters, so that they cannot thirst; and 
 in cool, deep glens, so that the sun can- 
 not smite by day, nor the moon by 
 night ! Heaven before we reach heaven ! 
 
 Let us see to it that zve live on this 
 heavenly level. There are many possible 
 levels on which we may elect to live. 
 That, for instance, of the church to 
 which we belong, or the Christian society 
 in w T hich w r e mix. The conventional 
 level of doing what others do, and being 
 content with an average mediocrity. 
 This, however, ill becomes those who 
 follow on to apprehend that for which 
 Jesus Christ once apprehended them. 
 
 But there are two other levels which 
 especially claim our thought, and be- 
 tween which we must make our choice : 
 there is the level of our standing in 
 
 * 
 
"Gbe Ibouse of tbe Xoro 
 
 189 
 
 Jesus Christ, and there is the level of 
 our experience or emotional life. Ac- 
 cording to the first we have already 
 passed through death to the resurrection 
 and ascension side, and are already 
 seated in the golden light which beats 
 around the throne of Jesus. According 
 to the other, which fluctuates with every 
 atmospheric or physical change, we are 
 now lifted on the crest of the billow 
 into the sunny air, and anon flung, 
 weary and broken, on the sand, from 
 which the waves have ebbed, leaving us 
 beyond their reach. 
 
 The one is the level on which God 
 means us to live. The other is that 
 which we have selected for ourselves — 
 and a sorry change it is ! What wonder 
 that we are so disappointed and dis- 
 heartened ! We have put the bitter 
 for the sweet; the temporal for the, 
 
 
 ^M^^mk 
 
190 
 
 Gbe SbepberD psalm 
 
 Y> 
 
 eternal ; the fluctuating and transient 
 for God's unmoved and immovable 
 foundation, which is changeless as His 
 
 It is a serious question for each one 
 to ask, " What is the level of my life ? 
 Is it mine, or my neighbor's, or God's? 
 Am I living as a risen and ascended 
 one, behind whom is sin and death, 
 while above is the uncreated light of 
 eternity?" Alas! so many of us are 
 leveling our appreciation of our standing 
 down to the lowness of our experience, 
 instead of seeking to level our experience 
 and practice up to the height of our 
 standing in Jesus! 
 
 Now faith when in proper exercise 
 does two things. First, it reckons that 
 a position belongs to it which we do 
 not feel, but which it dares to claim on 
 the warrant of God's Word. Second, it 
 
 
"Zhe Ibouse of tbe Xoro 
 
 lays hold on the power of God to make 
 that position a reality in daily and 
 hourly experience. 
 
 We do not always feel that we are 
 where the burning words of the Apostle 
 declare us to be. In Romans vi., 
 Ephesians ii., and Colossians iii. he 
 affirms that we are risen and enthroned, 
 regnant with Jesus, while His foes and 
 ours are beneath our feet. But faith 
 lays hold of these clear teachings of the 
 Word of God and dares to call feeling 
 a liar, while it holds God's Word as 
 truth. Yea, and faith goes further. 
 Constantly it lays hold on the almighty 
 power of God, the power that raised 
 Jesus from the grave of Joseph to set 
 Him at the right hand of the Majesty in 
 the heavens. And in the might of that 
 power it walks across the unstable wave 
 and climbs the steeps of air, and holds 
 
192 Cbe Sbepberd fl>salm 
 
 its own, its position as on the throne, 
 against all the assaults of hell. It is 
 impossible to live the ascension or 
 heavenly life, which is certainly ours, 
 without ascension and divine power. 
 But that is within the reach of an 
 appropriating faith. (Eph. i. 19.) 
 
 It is very needful for us to invoke the 
 aid of the Holy Spirit to maintain us 
 ever in this attitude of surrender and 
 faith, drawing down into our lives God's 
 constant grace. He is the Spirit of 
 memory, who preserves us in a con- 
 tinual state of recollection, and who 
 prompts us at the hour of temptation, 
 *- bringingti^Ul thmg§_to our remem- 
 
 And if only we live thus, life will pass 
 on happily and usefully. Its stay will 
 shape itself into a psalm, like that which 
 David, the shepherd and king, sang cen- 
 
"Zhe Ibouse of tbe %ovb 
 
 193 
 
 turies ago. It may begin with the tale 
 of the shepherd's care for a lost and 
 truant sheep. But it will not stay ever 
 on that level ; it will mount and soar * 
 and sing near heaven's gate ; it will 
 spend its days on the level of those 
 shining table-lands where God Himself 
 is Sun ; and it will finally pass into that 
 holy and glorious home circle, each in- 
 habitant of which may affirm, without 
 the least shadow of presumption or of 
 fear, " I will dwell in the house of the 
 Lord forever." 
 
JOHN T. MILLER, PRINTER 
 
 52-54 LAFAYETTE PLACE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 

 
 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 II Mill I III I II 
 
 021 064 310 2 
 
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