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 AN INTERPRETATION OF 
 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 
 
 BY 
 
 J. D. FREEMAN 
 
 Of PRii 
 
 FEB 22 xh 
 
 NEW YORK 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 
 
 3 and 5 We«t Eliehteenth Street 
 Neai Fifth Avenue 
 
 1907 
 
Copyright, 1907, by 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 
 
 Published, February, 1907 
 
Co m^ piot^n 
 
' If Thou vvould'st have me speak, Lord give 
 
 me speech! 
 So many cries are uttered nowadays, 
 That scarce a song, however clear or true, 
 Can thread the jostling tumult safe and reach 
 The ears of men, buzz-filled with poor denays: 
 Barb Thou my words with light! Make my 
 
 song new! 
 And men will hear, whether I sing or preach." 
 — George MacDonald. 
 
Contents 
 
 I. A Life in a Love ii 
 
 II. A Morning Meal on the Meadows 25 
 
 III. A Midday Drink from the Well . . 35 
 
 IV. A Noontide Rest in the Shade . . 49 
 V. An Afternoon Climb on the Paths 63 
 
 VI. Adventures in the Shadowed Glen 79 
 
 VII. Supper on the Darkening Wold . . 91 
 
 VIII. Twilight at the Sheepfold Door . loi 
 
 IX. Night Within the Gates . . . .113 
 
 X. Foregleams of the Heavenly Dawn 131 
 
"All's love, yet all's law." 
 
 — Browning. 
 
Life on ti^e aplanDjs 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A LIFE IN A LOVE 
 
 "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not 
 want." 
 
 Had David done nothing more in 
 his Ufetime than teach mankind to 
 say "The Lord is my Shepherd," 
 he would have conferred an inesti- 
 mable boon. In this single sentence 
 he has given to the world a concep- 
 tion of God that floods the spiritual 
 imagination with ruddy light. It is 
 a great rose window set in the tem- 
 ple of truth, through which "the 
 white radiance of eternity" streams 
 in and falls with softened splendor 
 upon the minds of men. 
 
 The vital centre of each man's 
 religion is his conviction regarding 
 God's relation to his individual life. 
 II 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 Does God care for me? Am I of 
 any consequence to Him? Will He 
 hear me if I pray to Him? Will He 
 come to me if I call to Him? Will 
 He lead me if I look to Him ? Will 
 He save me if I trust in Him ? Upon 
 the answers to these questions de- 
 pends the character of his reUgious 
 life. 
 
 If one must think of God as a 
 deity seated beyond the stars, un- 
 conscious of and unconcerned for 
 him, too much engrossed with the 
 multitude to single out the man — 
 viewing humanity as one might view 
 a forest from some far-off hilltop, 
 seeing only the outline dark against 
 the horizon, but distinguishing no 
 separate tree, much less the single 
 leaf that flutters on the bough — then 
 the foundation of religion slips from 
 beneath his soul and the mainspring 
 of devotion breaks within his heart. 
 
 For religion is worship and trust 
 and love and obedience. And all 
 these are personal relations. They 
 can only be exercised towards a God 
 with whom we may commune, a God 
 
 12 
 
A Life in a Love 
 
 who places Himself in intimate, per- 
 sonal touch with individual hves. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no more serious 
 task set for the religious faith of our 
 own time than just this one of main- 
 taining within the soul a continuous 
 and vivid sense of God's personal 
 presence and individuahzing love. 
 
 The modern view of the universe 
 has created a new problem for faith. 
 While enhancing our appreciation 
 of Jehovah's majesty and power, it 
 tends to weaken our assurance of 
 His sympathetic concern for the 
 single lives of men. The telescope 
 has disclosed to our view a universe 
 enormously vaster than that which 
 the ancients knew. God has more 
 worlds to care for than they supposed 
 He had. "The wheel of nature" 
 is a bigger thing to turn, and a more 
 complicated machine to lubricate, 
 than they had thought. Moreover, 
 the study of physical phenomena has 
 wrought in us a deeper conviction of 
 the uniformity of nature's processes. 
 Through all her movements and 
 changes we now behold the reign of 
 13 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 one all-pervading, all-controlling sys- 
 tem of law. 
 
 With mind intent upon these facts 
 it is easy to drop from the soul the 
 sense of God's personal presence and 
 permit the thought of His special 
 providence to fade from our minds. 
 To many it seems as if science has 
 stolen away the Lord and they know 
 not where it has laid Him. For this 
 reason — because of this new burden 
 added to faith's task — we of to-day 
 have special need to fortify our hearts 
 with the strong assurances of spiritually 
 visioned men like David, to whom 
 the presence and companionship of 
 God was the most vivid reality of their 
 lives. The confession of faith which 
 such men give to the world is valid, 
 not merely for their own times, but 
 for all times. They were specialists 
 in the things of the spirit, experts in 
 "the practice of the presence of God," 
 and the findings of their experience 
 have permanent significance for man- 
 kind. They build a trelHs upon which 
 the faith of succeeding generations 
 may cUmb and lean and ripen. For, 
 14 
 
A Life in a Love 
 
 after all, we live in the same uni- 
 verse as David did. It was as spa- 
 cious then as now. Law was as rigid 
 then as now. It is but our thought 
 of these which has changed. The 
 modern view of the world has created 
 no fresh problems for Jehovah. His 
 tasks are no greater than of old. 
 His throne is no more distant. If He 
 was with men in the former days, 
 He is with us now. 
 
 It is in the strengthening of this 
 assurance that "The Shepherd Psalm" 
 renders its chiefest service to modern 
 life. Among all the declarations of 
 human confidence in the personaliz- 
 ing care of God, there is not another 
 which can rival this in strength, sim- 
 plicity, warmth and beauty. It is so 
 buoyant, so glad, so assured, so calm 
 in its conviction of God's watchful, 
 loving care, that it answers the most 
 anxious questionings of the human 
 heart. As we read it, the burdening 
 thoughts of far-flung space and circling 
 worlds and unbending laws roll from 
 our souls and God seems near to our 
 little lives in attentive interest and 
 
 15 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 sympathetic concern. At its magic 
 touch the universe seems to contract 
 to a sanctuary where God and the soul 
 meet each other in an intimacy and a 
 privacy that shut all else outside. The 
 psalm does not argue about God's 
 personality or His nearness or His 
 care, it simply sings out the glad- 
 ness of one hfe that God had shep- 
 herded. "Like some sweet, beguil- 
 ing melody," it steals into the reader's 
 heart and wraps about it the sense 
 of a Divine presence and encompass- 
 ment. 
 
 The psalm is clearly reminiscent 
 of David's own life on the uplands 
 when, as a young man, he was busied 
 with the care of sheep. 
 
 Its imagery is redolent of steam- 
 ing meadows, radiant with the light 
 of remembered morns and noons, and 
 tremulous with the excitement of un- 
 forgotten perils and adventures. 
 
 In the ripened spiritual thought of 
 David, that early shepherd life of his 
 has come to be viewed as sacramental. 
 The long years which have passed 
 since then have steeped the memories 
 i6 
 
A Life in a Love 
 
 of that life to such limpid clearness 
 in his soul that they now spread before 
 his mind a mirror in which he beholds 
 reflected the mercy and the wonder of 
 God's providential care for men. 
 
 Shepherd life, as David knew it, 
 was a life essentially emotional and 
 devotional. Shepherdhood, as David 
 exercised it, was a relation at once 
 so affectionately solicitous and so in- 
 geniously resourceful as to be akin 
 to motherhood. 
 
 For the sheep of Eastern lands live 
 in their shepherd. He is the centre 
 of their unity, the guarantee of their 
 security, the pledge of their prosperity. 
 For them, pastures and' wells and 
 paths and folds are all in him. Apart 
 from him their condition is one of 
 abject and pathetic helplessness. 
 Should any sudden calamity tear him 
 from them they arc forthwith undone. 
 Distressed and scattered, they stumble 
 among the rocks, or bleed in the thorn- 
 tangle, or flee, wild with fear, before 
 the terror of the wolf. Hence a good 
 shepherd never forsakes his sheep. 
 He accompanies them by day and 
 2 17 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 abides with them by night. In the 
 morning he goes before them to lead 
 them out, and in the evening, when 
 he has gathered them into the fold, 
 he lies down in their midst. Then as 
 he views their still, white forms clus- 
 tered about him in the darkness, his 
 heart brims with a brooding tender- 
 ness. 
 
 This shepherd life is one of such 
 continuous and loving devotement 
 that it readily lends itself to religious 
 impression. May we not trace some- 
 thing of that large capacity for spirit- 
 ual insight and feeling, something 
 of that tender mysticism so charac- 
 teristic of the best Scottish minds, to 
 the fact that they have sprung from 
 generations of contemplative shep- 
 herds accustomed to commune with 
 the Most High amid the solitudes, 
 and to carry with them the sense of a 
 divine presence as they led their flocks 
 from day to day upon the silent hills ? 
 
 Certain it is that the springs of 
 
 David's spiritual nature owed much 
 
 of their life-long force and freshness 
 
 to their infilling with the rehgious ideas 
 
 i8 
 
A Life in a Love 
 
 that flowed in upon them during those 
 brimming days of silence when he 
 plied a shepherd's crook amid the 
 lonely Judean hills. 
 
 It was then he came to realize that 
 though he was a helpless creature, 
 abroad in the great world-wilderness, 
 he was neither forsaken nor forgotten. 
 He, too, belonged to a tended and 
 guarded flock. Jehovah was his shep- 
 herd. His own life, like that of his de- 
 pendent sheep was "a life in a love." 
 
 Through many a troubled day of 
 his checkered career David must have 
 carried that precious thought within 
 his heart. In his poetic nature it was 
 the seed of a song. And it must often 
 have come to the verge of its unfolding. 
 He must often have felt within him 
 "the fire of the coming flower." Again 
 and again it must have trembled on the 
 verge of its apocalypse. One day, 
 we know not when, but it was a blessed 
 day for the world, a special inspira- 
 tion smote him and the seed burst into 
 blossom. On that day he gave the 
 world this perfect lyric of religious 
 trust, a lyric which has sung itself into 
 19 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 the hearts of a thousand generations 
 and will sing on until its music melts 
 away and blends with the harmonies 
 of heaven. 
 
 20 
 
TIME-NOTES 
 
 A remarkable feature of this psalm, but 
 one which seems to have been almost entirely 
 overlooked hitherto, is the Time-Notes which 
 are scattered through it. A careful study of 
 its structure has convinced me that these notes 
 occur at regular intervals throughout the psalm, 
 that they correspond to the successive periods 
 of the shepherd's day, and that they reflect the 
 whole round of the shepherd's work from the 
 morning to the evening hours. 
 
 Studied from this standpoint the psalm, 
 beginning with the second verse, presents a 
 series of dissolving views which shade into 
 one another with striking effect. By following 
 these Time-Notes it not only becomes apparent 
 that the figure of shepherdhood is carried 
 through the composition consistently to the 
 end, but the reader comes to appreciate the 
 progress of its doctrine and the growing force 
 and beauty of the teaching up to the last tri- 
 umphant word. 
 
 21 
 
"O Child! O new-born denizen 
 Of life's great city! On thy head 
 The glory of the morn is shed 
 Like a celestial benison! 
 Here at the portal thou dost stand, 
 And with thy little hand 
 Thou openest the mysterious gate 
 Into the future's undiscovered land." 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 23 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A MORNING MEAL ON THE 
 MEADOWS 
 
 'He maketh me to lie down in green past- 
 
 ures. 
 
 The shepherd is early astir. He 
 has his flock forth from the fold and 
 well out upon the feeding ground, 
 while yet 
 
 "Morning's at seven, 
 The hill-side's dew-pearl'd." 
 
 This is the ideal feeding time. The 
 flock is fresh, its hunger is keen, and 
 the pasture is moist and sweet. A 
 good shepherd always provides a full 
 feed early in the day. It is in conse- 
 quence of their hearty feeding that the 
 sheep "lie down." Not in weariness, 
 but in contentment, do they stretch 
 themselves upon the green. The pict- 
 ure here is not one of exhaustion, but 
 of satisfaction. The recumbence of 
 the flock proclaims the abundance of 
 the pasture. Tired sheep would be 
 25 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 better in a fold than in a field. They 
 would rather sleep than eat. To 
 them a bank of moss in the cool shadow 
 of a rock would be more welcome than 
 any pastures, however green. Clearly, 
 it is the fulness of the flock that is 
 suggested here. Cropping the sweet 
 grasses, they quickly feed to satisfac- 
 tion and he down content. 
 
 The psalm at this point reflects the 
 comfort and peace of those happy 
 souls who, in early Hfe, have tasted 
 and seen that God is good. Satisfied 
 in the morning with His mercy, they 
 rejoice and are glad all their days. To 
 make an ideal beginning of our life we 
 must go with the Good Shepherd early 
 and spend the dewy morn with Him 
 upon the meadows of His grace. For 
 then the spiritual appetite is keen and 
 the heart feeds hungrily on the fat 
 pastures of God's love until it is nour- 
 ished into a deep content. There are 
 no lives which dwell in such a pro- 
 fundity of peace or hold within them 
 such reserve and resource of spiritual 
 power as those who can say, "Thou 
 hast been my God from my youth." 
 26 
 
A Morning Meal on the Meadows 
 
 And this is the secret of life-long 
 security. The soul that is satisfied in 
 God is safe. Full-fed sheep abide on 
 the feeding ground, close to the shep- 
 herd's care. If any stray from him 
 and lose themselves in the wilderness, 
 it is because of the discontentment of 
 unsatisfied hunger. The stragglers 
 are the nibblers, not the hearty feed- 
 ers. They who abound in Christ 
 abide in Him. An early filling en- 
 sures a faithful following. To stand 
 against the fascinations of the world 
 we must rest in the satisfactions of 
 God. 
 
 The world is full of lean and fam- 
 ished spirits, men and women whose 
 souls are fainting in them, who might 
 now be vital and virile, with vigor for 
 righteousness and reserve power for 
 trial, had they but responded to the 
 Shepherd's call early in the morning. 
 
 It is pathetic to witness the multi- 
 tude of troubled lives that have slipped 
 away from the Good Shepherd's care 
 to be driven by the wolves of passion, 
 to be torn by the thorns of remorse, to 
 tramp the pathless sands of doubt and 
 27 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 to drink from the dead, salt sea of un- 
 belief, through the misfortune of hav- 
 ing missed the satisfaction of the morn- 
 ing meal upon the meadows. 
 
 No after-feeding can ever quite 
 compensate, in this life, for a spirit- 
 ually impoverished youth. The finer 
 nerves of the spirit atrophy if deprived 
 of their appropriate nourishment dur- 
 ing these halcyon days. Youth is par 
 excellence "the growing time" of the 
 religious nature. It needs to be richly 
 fed. All who have the care of grow- 
 ing children know the enormous de- 
 mands for food made by the physical 
 constitution until full stature is at- 
 tained. It is a cruelty and a crime to 
 arrest development by stinting the 
 nourishment at this critical stage of 
 life. 
 
 The same principle holds true with 
 reference to intellectual development. 
 We have witnessed a distinct renais- 
 sance of interest upon tliis point of late 
 in the pedagogical world. It is as- 
 serted now that one-half of all the 
 knowledge which the mind acquires 
 in this world comes into its possession 
 28 
 
A Morning Meal on the Meadows 
 
 by the seventh year. One is inclined 
 at first to dispute the accuracy of the 
 statement, but upon reflection it seems 
 justified. Let any one write down a 
 list of the facts concerning which the 
 child gains knowledge within that 
 period, facts concerning liis own being 
 and the universe about him and the 
 God above him, and he will be amazed 
 at the magnitude of the sum total. 
 
 And certainly the principle applies 
 in the spiritual realm. Indeed, it has 
 special application here. For, as a 
 rule, the spiritual faculty in childhood 
 outruns all other faculties in its de- 
 velopment. The capacity for God is 
 now at its zenith. In recepti\'ity, in 
 delicacy and sureness of intuition, in 
 the experience of wonder, the child is 
 peculiarly ready for the kingdom of 
 God. The church will need to learn 
 a little psychology before she will be 
 ready to do her whole duty by child 
 life. She must be made aware that 
 childhood has its pensive, meditative 
 moments. The child is a mystic. 
 Every child is essentially religious. 
 His spirit feels the wonder of the world 
 29 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 and is drenched with the sense of mys- 
 tery. He is full of questionings that 
 are big with spiritual significance. 
 
 The strongest guarantee we have of 
 the perpetuity of religion in the world 
 is the birth of children, the perpetual 
 renewal in humanity of the child nat- 
 ure. "Blessed be childhood," wrote 
 Amiel, "which brings down some- 
 thing of heaven into our rough earth- 
 liness. These eighty thousand daily 
 births, of which statistics tell us, rep- 
 resent, as it were, an effusion of inno- 
 cence and freshness, struggling not 
 only against the death of the race, but 
 against human corruption, and the uni- 
 versal gangrene of sin. All the good 
 and wholesome feeling which is inter- 
 twined vdth childhood and the cradle 
 is one of the secrets of the providential 
 government of the world. Suppress 
 this life-giving dew, and human soci- 
 ety would be scorched and devastated 
 by selfish passion. Supposing that 
 humanity had been composed of a 
 thousand milUons of immortal beings, 
 whose number could neither increase 
 nor diminish, where should we be, and 
 30 
 
A Morning Meal on the Meadows 
 
 what should we be? A thousand 
 times more learned, no doubt, but a 
 thousand times more evil." 
 
 Coincident with this essential re- 
 ligiousness of childhood should be 
 noted the affinity of child life for the 
 Christian faith. Nowhere does the 
 foot of childhood move with such free 
 and familiar step as in the pastures of 
 that Good Shepherd who said, "Suf- 
 fer the little children to come unto 
 me." One of the most unanswerable 
 arguments in favor of the universality 
 and finality of the Christian faith is to 
 be found in the fact that it so readily 
 relates itself to the spiritual instincts 
 of youth, and so firmly approves itself 
 in the heart of the little child. 
 
 In all this there is no thought of 
 forcing the religious development of 
 childhood. Far be it from any of us 
 to burden youth with an untimely 
 over-seriousness. Let it have its 
 May -day of mirthfulness and glee! 
 Let it have its songs and dreams! 
 These will perish soon enough in the 
 jostUng tumult of the world. It is a 
 duty to make childhood care-free and 
 
 31 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 happy; to keep the faces of the little 
 ones fresh and round and smooth. 
 But the surest way to do this very 
 thing is to minister to the spiritual 
 imagination. Let us remember that 
 other word of Amiel: "How enor- 
 mously important are these first con- 
 versations of childhood! I felt it this 
 morning with a sort of religious terror. 
 Innocence and childhood are sacred. 
 The father or mother casting in the 
 fruitful word are accomplishing a 
 pontifical act, and ought to perform 
 it with rehgious awe, with prayer and 
 gravity, for they are laboring at the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 May it be given to each of us to in- 
 terpret the wistfulness of the children 
 as their heart-cry for the Christ, and 
 to read in it their voiceless prayer to 
 the Good Shepherd: 
 
 "O satisfy us in the morning with Thy mercy; 
 That we may rejoice and be glad all our days." 
 
 32 
 
" In the poorest cottage is one Book, wherein 
 for several thousands of years the spirit of 
 man has found light and nourishment, and 
 an interpreting response to whatever is Deep- 
 est in him." — Carlyle. 
 
 33 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A MIDDAY DRINK FROM THE 
 WELL 
 
 "He leadeth me beside the still waters." 
 
 It is the noontide hour. "Sun- 
 beams like swords" are smiting the 
 sheep. They pant with heat and 
 burn with thirst. It is time for the 
 shepherd to lead them to the drink- 
 ing-place and cool them at the waters. 
 He knows the way. All over these 
 Judean hills, at frequent intervals, 
 there are deep, walled wells, whose 
 waters never fail. A good shepherd 
 carries in his mind a chart of every 
 well in all his grazing area. These 
 wells are his chief dependence. Were 
 it not for them the country would be 
 impossible for grazing purposes. For 
 though there are many streams the 
 sheep cannot safely drink from them. 
 Far different, remember, are these 
 rough hill-torrents of the Bible lands 
 from the gentle brooks that flow so 
 softly between their banks of green 
 
 35 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 through our meadows of the West. In 
 these watercourses of the East the 
 flow is inconstant. There is either a 
 drought, when the naked stones glow 
 hot and white in the brook's dry bed, 
 or a foaming freshet with wild waters 
 leaping tumultuously down the steep 
 incline. Often, too, the banks are 
 treacherous and crumble suddenly be- 
 neath the weight of an unwary foot. 
 
 No shepherd attempts to water his 
 flock at such a stream lest the sheep 
 break through and be swept away 
 and drowned. The sheep themselves 
 dread these rough waters and tremble 
 with excitement at a near approach. 
 They are waters of disquietude rather 
 than waters of rest. Mindful of their 
 awkwardness and timidity, the shep- 
 herd, therefore, selects for his flock a 
 safe drinking-place. He leads them 
 beside the still waters gathered in the 
 deep, cool cylinder of some neighboring 
 well. Here the sheep dispose them- 
 selves; the eager crowding of their 
 fleecy bodies foaming about the shep- 
 herd in a white, undulating circle of 
 appealing expectancy. At the well- 
 36 
 
A Midday Drink from the Well 
 
 mouth, with bared arms, the shepherd 
 stands and plunges the bucket far 
 down into the darkness, sinking it 
 beneath the waters and shattering the 
 stillness which till now has brood- 
 ed there. He plunges and draws. 
 Swiftly the rope coils at his feet 
 as the laden bucket rises respon- 
 sive to the rhythmic movements of his 
 sinewy arms. Into the trough he 
 pours the sparkling contents. Again 
 the bucket shoots into the darkness 
 of the well; again, and yet again, and 
 when the trough is filled he calls the 
 thirsty sheep to come in groups and 
 drink. The lambs first, afterwards 
 the older members of the flock, till all 
 are served and satisfied. 
 
 There are few lovelier sights than 
 this to be seen in any land. How 
 eagerly they drink! How grateful 
 the cold waters to their hot, dry throats! 
 What speedy relief they bring! What 
 a sweet sense of refreshment they 
 impart! For though these waters 
 are ''still," they are not stagnant. 
 The well is spring-fed. Down there 
 in those dim depths a fountain pul- 
 37 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 sates, ceaselessly pouring its contents 
 into the well in crystal jets. The 
 spring is the heart of the well, and 
 hence it is "living water" that the 
 shepherd gives. 
 
 The message here is to our soul- 
 thirst. And verily, the human soul 
 is a thirsty thing. It thirsts for knowl- 
 ledge. To satisfy this thirst man 
 ransacks the universe. He bores into 
 the bowels of the earth; he dives into 
 the depths of the sea; he builds ob- 
 servatories on mountain tops; he 
 lingers in the laboratory with scalpel, 
 microscope and retort; he immures 
 himself in musty libraries; his thirst 
 for knowledge lures him onward in 
 an endless quest. 
 
 And there is the thirst for right- 
 eousness. It is an intermittent thirst, 
 but when it springs up in the soul 
 it parches like a flame. David knew 
 the agony of this thirst when he cried, 
 "Wash me throughly from mine in- 
 iquity and cleanse me from my sin. 
 Purge me with hyssop and I shall be 
 clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter 
 than snow. Create in me a clean 
 38 
 
A Midday Drink from the Well 
 
 heart, O God, and renew a right spirit 
 within me." As shipwrecked sailors 
 cry to heaven for rain, so cried he to 
 God for righteousness. 
 
 But deeper than all, more universal 
 and more constant, is the thirst for 
 love. It never dies; not even in the 
 lowest and the worst. It is elemental, 
 ineradicable. Sin cannot pluck it out. 
 The fires of hell cannot burn it out. 
 "All the world loves a lover." He is 
 the centrepiece in every popular novel, 
 and in every successful play. The 
 crowd clamors for his entrance, and 
 will not be satisfied until he appears. 
 In love's absence "The palace of art" 
 becomes a prison, and the soul "a 
 spot of dull stagnation": 
 
 " A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand, 
 Left on the shore; that hears all night 
 The plunging seas draw backward from the 
 land 
 Their moon-led waters white." 
 
 And all these thirsts Christ satisfies. 
 The thirst for knowledge He satis- 
 fies by His revelation of God. That 
 is wisdom's sum. Until we come to 
 39 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 Him we are searchers after truth; we 
 find Him and henceforth are searchers 
 into truth. In Him "are all the riches 
 of wisdom and knowledge hid." 
 
 The thirst for righteousness He 
 satisfies by the reconciling grace of 
 His sacrifice and the cleansing power 
 of His spirit. To the thirsty con- 
 science the atonement of Christ is like 
 floods of water poured on sun-baked 
 earth. 
 
 "Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of 
 sin? 
 The blood of Jesus whispers peace within." 
 
 The thirst for love He answers with 
 the gift of "Love divine, all love ex- 
 celling." In that love is the "Joy 
 of heaven to earth come down." 
 
 "O Christ He is the fountain, 
 The deep, sweet well of love." 
 
 The joy of the soul at the well, when 
 deep answers unto calHng deep, is past 
 the telling. Then the soul sings the 
 song: "Spring up, O well! sing ye 
 unto it!" George Adam Smith, with 
 one of his master-touches, interprets 
 40 
 
A Midday Drink from the Well 
 
 for us this song at the well. "The 
 drawers who sang this song knew that 
 their well was alive. They called to 
 each other to sing back to it. The 
 verb means to sing in antiphon, to 
 answer the music of the w^aters with 
 their own. That spirt in the dark 
 hollow was not the only well-spring; 
 the men's hearts gushed back to it; 
 fountain called to fountain, Spring up, 
 
 well! Sing ye back to it." 
 
 The waters of our Shepherd's well 
 are not only satisfying but curative. 
 
 1 have not spoken of the soul's ignoble 
 thirsts — those raging passions that in- 
 flame and blight the life, the thirst for 
 wealth, for preferment, for revenge, 
 for gross and sensual pleasures — but 
 they are burning fiercely everywhere. 
 These Christ cures. All the foolish 
 discontent, the morbid thirst that has 
 become disease. He extinguishes. The 
 infiooding of His love and life puts 
 out these baleful flames as the rising 
 tide of ocean puts out the fires kindled 
 on the beach. 
 
 But there is more than the contents 
 of the well to attract us here. We are 
 41 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 reminded by the picture before us of 
 the security and accessibility of its 
 waters for the thirsty sheep that stay 
 by the shepherd's side. It speaks to 
 us of God's tender thoughtfulness for 
 the awkward and timid members of 
 His flock. He has graciously gathered 
 the water of Ufe for them into a safe 
 receptacle. He reserves it for them 
 in the deep, cool well of His word. 
 It is true, no doubt, that much good 
 water foams between the banks of 
 speculative systems of religious thought, 
 but multitudes of simple souls lack 
 the skill and courage necessary to 
 reach it there. It need not be denied 
 that much pure water rushes down 
 the steep ways of scientific and philo- 
 sophical learning, but it needs to be 
 gathered into quiet pools before the 
 flock can drink. As they fret their 
 course through much of the Uterature 
 of our time, these streams are too rough 
 and their banks too brittle to make 
 safe drinking-places for the humble, 
 timid souls which are God's chief care. 
 Men of tested faith and trained dia- 
 lectical skill may keep their footing 
 42 
 
A Midday Drink from the Well 
 
 in all these torrents, and drink from 
 all these troubled waters in security. 
 But a lamb will drown where a lion 
 may drink. And even for those who 
 are not swept away by them these 
 waters are but a second best. One 
 may shrewdly guess that it is mental 
 exercise they give rather than spiritual 
 refreshment. There is less comfort 
 in the drinking when one must fight 
 for footing while he drinks. He will 
 scarcely stay to drink his fill. I 
 have noticed that even the sturdiest 
 thoughted and clearest visioned Chris- 
 tians are glad to get away from the 
 torrent to the well. They find it 
 cooler there, and quieter, and more 
 refreshing. They prefer, above all 
 current Hterature, the "still waters" 
 poured out for them in the narratives, 
 the songs, the gospels and epistles of 
 the Bible. Equally with the artisan, 
 the merchant, the nurse, the school- 
 teacher, the tired mother, all the thirsty 
 souls who come in from the heated 
 fields of a workaday world, they thirst 
 for a message fresh from its fountain 
 in the living Word. 
 
 43 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 It is a great day in a Christian's 
 experience when he gets a taste of 
 new deeps of truth; when the line is 
 lengthened for him and the bucket 
 rises laden from some before unfath- 
 omed nook of Holy Writ. To get a 
 deeper view of God, of Christ, of the 
 Cross, of the Holy Spirit, of Christian 
 privilege and opportunity, is to get a 
 drink from "the northeast corner of 
 the well." And to receive this boon 
 direct from the hand of Christ, with 
 no water-carrier near but His blessed 
 Spirit, is to experience a joy and an 
 invigoration that repays long waiting 
 at the well. 
 
 There is no other way to get at the 
 heart of the well but to wait upon 
 Christ and bid Him draw for us. Our 
 rope is too short to sound the depths. 
 The most critical analysis of Scripture, 
 the most painstaking and accurate 
 examination of the hterary and histor- 
 ical setting, cannot sink our vessel for 
 us into its nether springs. To that 
 fact the great mass of scholarly but 
 sapless and uninspiring books about 
 the Bible, which loads the shelves of 
 44 
 
A Midday Drink from the Well 
 
 every studious pastor, bears abundant 
 testimony. There is but one way to 
 drink from the deeps, and that is to 
 keep in close, personal touch with 
 Him who gives the well its content, 
 and fills it from His own cxhaustless 
 spirit. One pull on the line by the 
 hand that was pierced will sink the 
 vessel lower than all the weights which 
 human scholarship can attach thereto. 
 I do not mean by these words to dis- 
 parage the critical study of the sacred 
 writings. That has a value, a high 
 value, in clearing the way to the well- 
 head. But it cannot sink the bucket 
 into its spiritual depths. I have 
 known unlettered men to whom the 
 well gave up its richest treasures, be- 
 cause of their patient, humble waiting 
 on the Shepherd. Clear and cool 
 and sparkling He poured out the water 
 of Ufe for them, and they drank and 
 were joyous and strong. And I know 
 other men whose accumulations of 
 scholarship seem to have worn out 
 their spiritual receptivity, and who 
 present to-day the sad spectacle of 
 thirsty spirits, 
 
 45 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 " Sinking leaky buckets into empty wells, 
 And growing old in drawing nothing up." 
 
 To all such thirsty ones the Master 
 of the well still speaks the word of in- 
 vitation: "Ask of me and I will give 
 thee living water." 
 
 46 
 
* Breathe through the heats of our desire 
 Thy coolness and Thy balm." 
 
 —John G. Whiitier. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A NOONTIDE REST IN THE 
 SHADE 
 
 "He restoreth my soul." 
 
 It is still too hot for the flock to be 
 exposed upon the sun-smit hills. The 
 noontide hour drags slowly by. The 
 Lord of Day seems to halt in the 
 heavens as he touches the meridian. 
 Ere he resumes his march he leans 
 from his blazing battlements and 
 shoots a quiver of fiery arrows into 
 the earth. With that fierce heat pelt- 
 ing down upon them the sheep would 
 faint if led forth into the open ways. 
 The shepherd, therefore, seeks a place 
 of shelter for them where they may 
 rest awhile, withdrawn from the piti- 
 less blaze. Now he leads them into 
 the shadow of a great rock and bids 
 them lie down in its welcome coolness. 
 Perhaps some old fold is near and he 
 guides them into its inviting shade. 
 Or it may be a stately, wide-branched 
 4 49 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 tree that stands, with its fluttering fo- 
 liage like a 
 
 "Fountain of green in summer air, 
 Whose tremulous spray cools the faint meadow, 
 And croons to all of a careless care." 
 
 Within such grateful shades the sheep 
 abide until the fiercest heat of noon is 
 past. Thus their strength is restored 
 and they rise rested and freshened for 
 the long tramp that lies before them. 
 
 How readily this scene translates 
 itself into terms of religious experi- 
 ence for those who have known the 
 Good Shepherd's care! Full well He 
 knows the fiery heats which we en- 
 counter during the days of our early 
 manhood : the flaming anger, the blaz- 
 ing conceit, the hot ambition, the burn- 
 ing pride, the consuming lust. Hours 
 there are, at this stage of our journey, 
 when all the atmosphere of the inner 
 life quivers with the heat of passion. 
 And the ministry which Christ per- 
 forms in these crisis hours of the soul 
 is one of the crowning mercies of our 
 lives. He calls us aside for a season 
 into a cooling shade. Nor does He 
 50 
 
A Noontide Rest in the Shade 
 
 put us forth again until the danger is 
 past, 
 
 Christ shelters us from the heats of 
 life in the shade of His own majestic 
 PersonaHty. The thought of restora- 
 tion in the protecting shade of the 
 divine presence occurs repeatedly 
 throughout the scriptures. It strikes 
 the key note of the ninety first psalm. 
 "He that dwelleth in the secret place 
 of the Most High shall abide under 
 the shadow of the Almighty." It is 
 the central idea in psalm One hundred 
 and twenty one. "The Lord is thy 
 shade upon thy right hand." It is in 
 view of this that the promise follows : — 
 "The sun shall not smite thee by day," 
 Isaiah dwells upon the thought with 
 evident dehght. "For thou hast been 
 a refuge from the storm, a shadow 
 from the heat." Again, with the 
 thought of the di\inc presence in his 
 mind he sings, "And there shall be a 
 pavillion for a shadow in the daytime 
 from the heat." It seems to have been 
 a favourite conception with the old 
 testament writers, f amiUar as they were 
 with the kiUing heats of the Syrian 
 
 51 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 plains, that the gracious Lord was as 
 a noontide shade to fainting pilgrims 
 on life's weary way. The thought is 
 even more familiar and more comfort- 
 ing to us who think of God as revealed 
 in the person of the incarnate Son. 
 Jesus Christ standing beside us calls 
 us into the sweetest, coolest shade 
 that was ever cast upon the heated 
 ways of Ufe. He is "as the shadow 
 of a great rock in a weary land." He 
 is like an umbrageous tree, laden with 
 refreshing fruit, inviting us to a de- 
 hcious banquet beneath its boughs. 
 He, too, is fold for us as well as shep- 
 herd. It seems to have been with the 
 thought of the noontide heat and the 
 noontide fold in His mind that He 
 said "I am the door: by me if any 
 man enter in, he shall be saved." 
 Saved from the noontide heat. 
 
 And the shade with which the pres- 
 ence of Christ envelopes the soul is 
 wondrously potent in restorative effi- 
 cacy. Even the sense of mystery 
 which He flings upon our hearts has a 
 healing coolness in it. There are 
 mysteries in the theanthropic person- 
 52 
 
A Noontide Rest in the Shade 
 
 ality of Christ which no metaphysi- 
 cian will ever solve. In the depths of 
 His being there are impenetrable 
 recesses. He towers above the plain 
 of human understanding as a great 
 rock of mystery. We should be very 
 thankful that it is so. This element 
 of mystery is wholesome for us. A 
 Christ whose personality presented no 
 unfathomable deeps, a Christ through 
 whom we could peer, with no sense 
 of mystery obstructing our human 
 vision, would be too thin and unsub- 
 stantial to cast the cooling shade. The 
 element of mystery in Christ inspires 
 reverence and awe. The airs which 
 blow into our faces from the abysmal 
 deeps of His inscrutable personality, 
 fan all the baneful fevers from our 
 blood. 
 
 Who can cherish hatred while he 
 kneels in the presence of the calm, 
 gentle, all-forgiving One whose love 
 passes understanding ? Who can cher- 
 ish pride or selfishness while he lies 
 at the foot of incarnate humility 
 and selflessness? Who can hold his 
 hot ambitions in his heart while he 
 53 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 looks up into the face of Him "who, 
 being in the form of God, counted it 
 not a prize to be on an equaUty with 
 God, but emptied himself, taking the 
 form of a servant, being made in the 
 likeness of men; and being found in 
 fashion as a man, he humbled him- 
 self, becoming obedient unto death, 
 yea, the death of the cross." Mys- 
 tery? Yes, the shade Christ casts 
 upon us is thick with it. But 
 it is a shade in which the soul 
 may sweetly rest. This element of 
 mystery is indeed, a prime condi- 
 tion for the restoration of fainting 
 human souls. Have you not observed 
 how Jesus, in the eleventh chapter of 
 Matthew, gives a background of mys- 
 tery to His blessed invitation to rest? 
 There is not another passage in the 
 Bible where the airs of heaven touch 
 the soul more wooingly than here. 
 Yet they issue from an impenetra- 
 ble deep. "No one knoweth the 
 Son, save the Father ; neither doth 
 any know the Father, save the Son, 
 and he to whomsoever the Son willeth 
 to reveal him." There glooms the 
 54 
 
A Noontide Rest in the Shade 
 
 rock of mystery. But in the shade of 
 it, what promise of restoration! "Come 
 unto me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
 Take my yoke upon you and learn of 
 me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : 
 and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 
 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is 
 light." 
 
 Furthermore, the shelter which 
 Christ affords is the shelter of His 
 Cross. Have you duly appreciated 
 the majesty of the cross and the cool- 
 ing shade it casts? Be not always 
 thinking of that thing of wood, that 
 accursed instrument of torture upon 
 which they crucified Him. The real 
 cross was the one He carried in His 
 heart. The uttermost cross was that 
 weight which pressed upon His spirit, 
 the agony, the shame, the horror, the 
 sense of abandonment which He en- 
 dured as sin-bearer for mankind. He 
 did not need to be murdered in order 
 to become the atoning sacrifice for sin. 
 The cross which He carried in His 
 heart would surely and speedily have 
 done its work and crushed Him into 
 55 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 death. That cry of anguish, "Now 
 is my soul troubled and what shall I 
 say ? Father save me from this hour ? ' ' 
 — that sobbing agony in the garden, 
 "Father if it be possible, let this 
 cup pass from me" — were premoni- 
 tions of approaching dissolution. They 
 tell us that the inner cross was press- 
 ing Him through the gates of death. 
 Had Judas never betrayed Him; had 
 Caiaphas not condemned Him; had 
 Pilate not released Him to the mob; 
 had Roman soldiers never stretched 
 Him on the wooden cross, nor pierced 
 His hands and feet with nails ; still the 
 cross would have killed Him. In- 
 deed, it was not the crucifixion that 
 put Him to death. He died of a broken 
 heart. No man took His life from 
 Him. His hour was come and though 
 He died upon the cross of wood. He 
 laid down His Hfe of Himself. He is 
 the Good Shepherd that gave His life 
 for the sheep. 
 
 The most awful and yet the most 
 comforting vision that a soul op- 
 pressed with sin can ever look upon is 
 that of the Son of God bearing the sin 
 56 
 
A Noontide Rest in the Shade 
 
 of the world. What mountains of in- 
 iquity were heaped upon Him! 
 
 " O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head ! 
 Our load was laid on Thee; 
 Thou stoodest in the sinner's stead. 
 Bearing all ill for me: 
 A victim led, Thy blood was shed; 
 Now there's no load for me." 
 
 Upon that load of iniquity the flames 
 of divine indignation were kindled. 
 That was the fiercest conflagration 
 this universe ever witnessed. The 
 fire burned through until it touched 
 the ocean fulness of righteousness in 
 Christ. Then it went out like a spark 
 in the sea. Yes, the burden broke His 
 heart but not before the fire had 
 burned itself to ashes. Hence it is 
 that in the shadow of the cross such 
 deep, sweet rest is found. It is cool 
 there, and safe because no fuel is left 
 for the flames to hght upon. And so 
 when conscience is aflame with the 
 sense of guilt, when the spirit burns 
 with remorse, when the fires of judg- 
 ment kindle all around us, we flee to 
 the cross and hide and arc saved. 
 57 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 Then, again, the shade in which 
 Christ restores the soul is the shade 
 of the Throne. The Great Shep- 
 herd who now leads the flock is King 
 of kings and Lord of lords. He shep- 
 herds stars as well as souls. He sits 
 at the apex of the universe and rules 
 all worlds. The lines of governance 
 are all gathered into the hands that 
 were pierced. And what a speedy 
 and sure restorative for the trembling 
 spirit is the sense of Christ's sovereign- 
 ty! When we move amid "the mad- 
 dening maze of things"; when the 
 world seems Uke an arena where blind 
 forces clash in gladiatorial contest; 
 when we are "heated hot with burn- 
 ing fears and dipt in baths of hissing 
 tears"; when there seems to be no 
 order or justice anywhere; when the 
 very earth seems to reel and totter be- 
 neath our unsteady feet; when we are 
 dizzy with bewilderment and numb 
 with dread; then there is rest and 
 restoration for us in the shadow of 
 Christ's throne. How majestic and 
 calm it stands! What gospels it pro- 
 claims! One steadfast look to the 
 
 58 
 
A Noontide Rest in the Shade 
 
 throne of grace and terror dies. It 
 tells us that all the forces of the uni- 
 verse are in leash to love. In that as- 
 surance the erstwhile fearful one can 
 say, "He restoreth my soul." 
 
 It was in order to administer this 
 comfort that Christ passed through the 
 heavens, and sat down on the right 
 hand of the Majesty on high. He 
 holds His throne for the succor of His 
 flock. It is a foretaste of heaven to 
 rest in the cool of the throne. There 
 shall be no alarms in that heavenly 
 life because, "He that sitteth on the 
 throne shall spread his tabernacle 
 over them. They shall hunger no 
 more, neither thirst any more; neither 
 shall the sun strike upon them, nor 
 any heat : for the Lamb which is in the 
 midst of the throne shall be their shep- 
 herd and shall lead them unto foun- 
 tains of waters of life: and God shall 
 wipe away every tear from their eyes." 
 
 59 
 
"Leader of faithful souls, and Guide 
 Of all who travel to the sky, 
 Come and with us, e'en us abide, 
 Who would on Thee alone rely; 
 On Thee alone our spirits stay, 
 While held in life's uneven way." 
 
 — Charles Wesley 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AN AFTERNOON CLIMB ON 
 THE PATHS 
 
 "He leadeth me in the paths of righteous- 
 ness for his name's sake." 
 
 Here and there in the grazing coun- 
 try of Judea the traveller will come 
 upon narrow, well-worn paths. Gen- 
 erations of shepherds and myriads of 
 flocks have trodden these old ways. 
 They are the recognized highways, 
 traversing the land from well to well 
 and from fold to fold. To come upon 
 one of these paths is to pick up a clue 
 that leads out from the mazes of 
 the wilderness to some familiar ren- 
 dezvous. A competent shepherd has 
 expert knowledge of all these paths. 
 Only with this knowledge can he plan 
 the day's pilgrimage with accuracy 
 and preclude the danger of being 
 overtaken with his flock by night in 
 wild and undefended places. 
 
 The picture which we have before 
 us now is that of the shepherd guiding 
 63 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 his rested and freshened flock along 
 one of these old paths. It was a for- 
 tunate thing for the sheep that they 
 had experienced the rest and refresh- 
 ment of the well before they attempted 
 the long strip of road that stretches 
 before them now. Restoration there 
 has conditioned them for sturdy cUmb- 
 ing here. For these paths are often 
 steep and stony, severely testing the 
 flock's strength. Before the day is 
 done and the night fold reached, they 
 must make heavy draught upon their 
 stored-up energy. 
 
 The teaching here has special ap- 
 plication to the strenuous side of 
 spiritual Kfe. That life is not all spent 
 in feeding in green pastures and drink- 
 ing from cool fountains. The greater 
 part of it consists in toilful tramping 
 on the flinty paths of duty. True, — 
 
 "The path of duty is the way to glory," 
 
 but to win that glory we must 
 
 '* On with toil of heart and knees and hands," 
 
 over long leagues of dusty road that 
 sorely test our staying power. 
 64 
 
An Afternoon Climb on the Paths 
 
 The period of middle life is a critical 
 and often perilous time in Christian 
 experience. It is on that hot, hard 
 stretch of the road between the years 
 of thirty-five and fifty that the reserve 
 force of the spirit is most severely taxed. 
 The way grows a little cooler, and, 
 perhaps, more level after that ; but on 
 these miles the grade is heavy and the 
 sun strikes hot. Here many a life 
 deteriorates. Its ideals droop. Its 
 enthusiasms wither. These are years 
 of disillusionment. Mirages fade. 
 Disguises are detected. The cos- 
 metic cracks. Veneers peel ofiF. The 
 siren's song, that to the unsuspecting 
 youth had sounded clear and true, 
 now ends in hollow, mocking laugh- 
 ter. Over the disillusioned soul there 
 spreads the pale cast of cynicism. The 
 mood grows pessimistic. The cup of 
 reverie has a bitter taste. Signs of 
 exhaustion appear. There is a sug- 
 gestion of autumn in the air. The 
 song-birds seem to have departed. In- 
 terests that once excited us become 
 suddenly puerile, frivolous and vain. 
 We grow analytical and introspective, 
 5 65 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 and life loses the billowy rush of those 
 tidal-waves of enthusiasm which once 
 swept so invincibly through the soul. 
 Where once there was an ardent flame 
 of hope burning in the soul, there is 
 nothing left but a poor smudge from 
 a smoking wick. 
 
 Is there no preventive against all 
 this? Is there no way to preserve 
 the virility and spontaneity of the 
 spirit through the trying years of mid- 
 dle Ufe? Must we all come to their 
 close with lowered ideals and burnt- 
 out hearts? The psalm gives answer. 
 And it is just the answer that we long 
 to hear. It assures us that in the 
 companionship of God there is a con- 
 tinuous renewal for us in the spirit of 
 the mind. "He restoreth my soul." 
 He carries on a process of recreation 
 that defies the ravages of time. As 
 the days go by new flowers spring up 
 within the soul and new song-birds 
 build their nests among its boughs. 
 This note of renewal is one upon which 
 the psalmist loves to dwell. He strikes 
 it again and again. Of the man who 
 lives in communion with God he 
 66 
 
An Afternoon Climb on the Paths 
 
 affirms that "his leaf shall not wither" ; 
 "he shall be full of sap and green;" 
 his "youth is renewed like the eagle's" ; 
 he shall " go from strength to strength." 
 The same assurance is repeated 
 in the New Testament, only in a 
 higher, clearer, sweeter strain. Jesus 
 said: "Whosoever drinketh of the 
 water that I shall give him shall never 
 thirst; but the water that I shall give 
 him shall become in him a well of 
 water springing up unto eternal Hfe." 
 The picture of an inextinguishable 
 vitality reappears again with height- 
 ened color upon the glowing canvas 
 of the Revelation. "And he showed 
 me a pure river of water of life, bright 
 as crystal, proceeding out of the throne 
 of God and of the Lamb. In the midst 
 of the street thereof . . . was the 
 tree of life." Mark those words, in 
 the midst of the street. The thronged, 
 trampled street! There, where the 
 crowds jostle! There, where traffic 
 goes! There, where the multitude 
 passes on heedless, hurraing feet! 
 It is the last place, one would think, 
 where verdure could appear. But 
 67 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 even there "the tree of life is bloom- 
 ing." It is the final word of inspira- 
 tion concerning the invincible virility 
 of the God-nourished soul. In such 
 a soul the verdure cannot be extermi- 
 nated. It cannot be trampled out, 
 whether by hoof, or heel, or wheel. It 
 does seem to us sometimes, in the busy 
 days of middle life, when we are 
 thronged with multitudinous duties 
 and cares and responsibilities, that 
 our souls become like the open city 
 streets. We seem to be without 
 "shelter to grow strong, or leisure to 
 grow wise." It looks to us, at these 
 times, as though the bloom of life had 
 gone forever. It is then we need the 
 message which is spoken here. Fed 
 from the fountain in the throne, 
 through the conduit of faith, the tree 
 of life springs up "in the midst of the 
 street." 
 
 Furthermore, the teaching here sets 
 forth a precious fact concerning God's 
 guidance of us through these strenu- 
 ous days of life. Sheep are proverbi- 
 ally witless creatures. They are al- 
 most utterly devoid of the sense of 
 68 
 
An Afternoon Climb on the Paths 
 
 direction, pathetically unable to choose 
 their path, and hence extremely liable 
 to lose their way if unattended by a 
 guide. 
 
 And we all, like sheep, do go astray 
 unless a divine pathfinder directs our 
 steps. No more mischievous halluci- 
 nation can beset a human soul than 
 that of a fancied self-sufficiency for 
 finding the true line of march. All 
 the native energy of mind will be 
 wasted, and all the acquired strength 
 of youth be frittered away in a blind 
 fumbhng for the path, if there be not 
 with us a guide who can overlook all 
 the ways and see through all our days 
 from the cradle to the grave. 
 
 But men will ask. Is not Conscience 
 an infalUble guide? Conscience, in- 
 deed, holds high office in the human 
 soul, but conscience is not pathfinder 
 for us. Conscience is the faculty of 
 moral discrimination, not of moral 
 discovery. Conscience approves or 
 disapproves of paths which are pointed 
 out to us, but conscience finds no path 
 of itself. Conscience is the command- 
 ing officer abiding in the tent and de- 
 69 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 ciding upon the movements of the 
 army according to reports which the 
 scouts bring in. Or we may say, con- 
 science is a judge adjudicating between 
 acts, motives, tendencies, when these 
 are submitted for trial before its court. 
 But it can only handle the case in view 
 of the evidence presented before it. 
 If the evidence is false or defective, the 
 verdict is correspondingly corrupted. 
 Hence it has come to pass that many 
 of the blackest crimes which have 
 stained the annals of the world have 
 been done in the name and under the 
 approval of conscience. Conscience 
 commands, but conscience cannot 
 guide. 
 
 But may we not fall back upon 
 Reason for our guide — reason, the 
 scout of the soul, its ranger and out- 
 rider? Here truly we have a power 
 of discovery, but of its sad incom- 
 petence to find the way of life and 
 peace the history of mankind gives 
 tragic and conclusive proof. ''There 
 is a way that seemeth right unto a 
 man, but the end thereof are the ways 
 of death." No keener intellects ever 
 70 
 
An Afternoon Climb on the Paths 
 
 grappled with the problems of duty 
 and of destiny than those whose names 
 appear in the best literature of Rome. 
 But the way of life they did not find. 
 In " Athens, the eye of Greece," the 
 light of reason shone with sparkling 
 brilliancy. Yet Athens rotted to the 
 bone. The vilest vices flourished in 
 the very shadow of its altar "to an 
 unknown God." And when has the 
 world witnessed a wilder orgy of lust, 
 a more unbridled carnival of crime, 
 than in that devil's dance of Paris 
 under the reign of "The Goddess of 
 Reason " ? Or look at things as they 
 are in India to-day. There are no 
 subtler minds thinking through human 
 brains than you may meet among the 
 educated Brahmins of Calcutta and 
 Madras. Yet the soul of a decent 
 man fairly swoons with disgust and 
 horror when a missionary whispers 
 into his ear the story of their lives. 
 
 But is there not in man, at least 
 in some men, an Intuitional Faculty 
 upon which they may depend for safe 
 guidance in the ordering of life ? It is 
 confidently afiirmed by modern repre- 
 71 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 sentatives of "the Greek spirit" that 
 in these naive intuitions of the heart 
 the true light of life is found. Live the 
 life, they tell us, of an unfettered earth- 
 child! Give free play to every im- 
 pulse as it rises! Let your life re- 
 spond to all the beauty and the music 
 and the gladness of the world! Set 
 yourself forth Uke an iEolian harp 
 where all the inspirations of the 
 lovely nature-world can touch you! 
 So shall you live ideally. So shall you 
 fulfil the purpose of your being and 
 achieve your appointed destiny. An 
 accepted apostle of this doctrine, now 
 so much in vogue in art salons and 
 circles of assthetical clubdom, appeared 
 some years ago in England. He — 
 I shall not stain these pages with his 
 name — claimed to be "a child of 
 nature," "a son of song and sun- 
 shine." He would teach a dull and 
 over-serious age the way to live. He 
 would be the harbinger of a bright 
 renaissance. With a graceful wave 
 of his lavender gloved hand, he dis- 
 missed all the commonly accepted 
 canons of conduct and relegated the 
 72 
 
An Afternoon Climb on the Paths 
 
 religious and ethical ideas of his time 
 to limbo. Poor, filthy fool, it was not 
 long before he trod a prison cell, clank- 
 ing the felon's ball and chain. The 
 light he followed was light from hell. 
 
 The guide we need is a guide from 
 heaven. Jesus Christ is the guide we 
 need. Above the intuitions, above the 
 reason, above the conscience, yet cor- 
 recting them and uniting them all in 
 coalescent action, He stands and points 
 our path. 
 
 "He leadeth me in the paths of 
 righteousness." 
 
 The very God, yet a man and our 
 Brother, stands in our midst and 
 cries, " He that followeth me shall 
 not walk in darkness, but shall have 
 the light of life." He was the one 
 man of all Time's millions who could 
 wrap the drapery of this psalm about 
 Him and say without the slightest 
 hint of egotism, as He shook out all 
 its shining folds — "I am the good 
 shepherd." Men have declared that 
 amid all the recorded words of Jesus 
 we can find no claim of His to Deity. 
 But what more definite claim could He 
 73 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 lay to Godhood than to lift from the 
 jewel case of the Psalter this diadem 
 of song, dedicated to Jehovah, and 
 calmly place it upon his own brow? 
 Unblushingly He appropriated to Him- 
 self this royal robe and crown. 
 The centuries have looked and con- 
 fessed that they are His own by every 
 right. The royal apparel befits His 
 regal form. Here is one who can 
 guide. He knows his sheep. He knows 
 the way. He sees through Hf e and death. 
 He sees through time and eternity. 
 He sees through the heart of God. 
 
 The shepherd guides his flock by 
 walking before them in the way. They 
 follow him, keeping his moving form 
 in view. 
 
 The secret of a right life for man 
 is in looking to Jesus, and keeping 
 Him in sight. He is not merely 
 geographer for us, but guide; not 
 merely chart-maker of the way, but 
 escort in the way. " When he putteth 
 forth his own he goeth before them." 
 Christ is ever a shining presence on 
 the paths of duty. Any gap in the 
 line of duty left unilluminated would 
 74 
 
An Afternoon Climb on the Paths 
 
 be for Him the graveyard of His repu- 
 tation. He must bring the flock 
 through in safety — " for his name's 
 sake." He always gives us light 
 enough to walk by. In following Him 
 the next step is always plain. If we 
 "ask to see the distant scene," the 
 request may be denied. If on the 
 march we halt to theorize upon the 
 myster}' of His personality, His form 
 may grow dim and indistinct. To 
 the speculative reason Christ may be- 
 come a spectral form, gUding ghostHke 
 through the gloom. But to earnest- 
 hearted seekers for guidance in the 
 way of righteousness He presently ap- 
 pears in radiancy. Yes, there is al- 
 ways light enough to walk by. There 
 always comes quick answer to our 
 heart cry, "What would Jesus do?" 
 
 "Stand ye in the ways and see, and 
 ask for the old paths, where is the 
 good way, and walk therein, and ye 
 shall find rest for your souls." 
 
 75 
 
" I do not ask, O Lord, that Thou shouldst shed 
 Full radiance here; 
 Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread 
 Without a fear." 
 
 — A. A. Procter. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ADVENTURES IN THE 
 SHADOWED GLEN 
 
 "Yea, though I walk through the valley of 
 the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for 
 thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they 
 comfort me." 
 
 The land of Judea is pierced in 
 every direction by deep and narrow 
 glens. In these the shadows gather 
 early in the afternoon. No sooner 
 does the sun begin its westering than 
 the glens commence to fill with gloom. 
 
 To lead a flock through one of these 
 sunless canyons is always an adventure 
 attended by grave peril. The shep- 
 herd here must be alert, with every 
 sense on guard. 
 
 Behold him now, as, gripping his 
 stout staff, and with every nerve at 
 tension, he warily enters the glen, the 
 flock following hard at his heels ! Cau- 
 tiously he threads the gloom, inter- 
 preting with practised eye and ear 
 each sight and sound and movement 
 79 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 in the enveloping shadows. With his 
 rod he smites the ground before him 
 and to right and left. There the soft 
 earth yields. It is the quaking bog 
 where a sheep may speedily be sucked 
 to death in the black ooze. He sig- 
 nals the flock to halt, thrusting back 
 the eager leaders with his body, or 
 smartly striking a too pushful one with 
 his staff. Nor does he put them forward 
 again until he has found the safe detour. 
 
 Now an ugly rock obstructs the 
 way. He must guide carefully here, 
 else its sharp points may disembowel 
 some hapless sheep crushed against 
 it in the eager crowding of the flock. 
 
 He keeps a keen lookout for wild 
 beasts, since in these shades a wolf 
 may lurk, or a panther make its lair. 
 Should he hear a growl, or find him- 
 self confronted by a pair of blazing 
 eyes, his shrill whistle sounds instant 
 alarm to stay the flock. Bravely then 
 he springs to battle, and with resound- 
 ing blows of his mighty staff drives 
 the brute before him until it sHnks 
 away bleeding in pain or foaming 
 with baffled rage. 
 
 80 
 
Adventures in the Shadowed Glen 
 
 Such are the adventures of the glen, 
 and in these adventures the shepherd 
 gives the crowning evidence of his 
 skill and heroism. 
 
 No portion of the psalm comes 
 closer home to personal experience 
 than this which we have before us 
 now. It is instinct with the romance 
 of religion — a-thrill with the spirit of 
 divine knight-errantry. 
 
 Shadows fall early into human life. 
 While yet we are far from "sunset 
 and evening star," our path dips down 
 into the glen that is filled with gloom. 
 "The shadow of death!" How many 
 deaths there are other than our own, 
 which fling their chilling shadows into 
 our hearts! The death of your friend, 
 your lover, your other-Ufe; the death 
 of your hope through the collapse of 
 some cherished plan; the death of 
 your personal ambitions amid "the 
 sUngs and arrows of outrageous for- 
 tune"; the death of your good name 
 under the assaults of slander — these 
 are but a few of the experiences which 
 may intercept the sunUght and fill your 
 glen vdth gloom. 
 6 8i 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 Commentators are fond of telling 
 us that the "shadows cannot hurt." 
 That is but a shallow optimism play- 
 ing with a poor platitude. It contra- 
 dicts the facts of experience. Ask 
 that worse than widowed wife, sitting 
 in the shadow of her husband's crime, 
 what she knows about it! Ask the 
 children walking in the shadow of 
 their parents' shame! Ask the hus- 
 band standing in the shadow cast by 
 the death of her who was the centre of 
 all his interests and the source of all 
 his comfort! Ask the multitude of 
 the incapacitated, broken ere their 
 prime — students, singers, artists, 
 preachers — ask them if the shadow 
 hurts! Nay, we do not need to ask. 
 The shadow does hurt. Sometimes it 
 kills. 
 
 And then the horrible things which 
 breed in the shadows and lurk and 
 raven there! Out of the shadow of 
 unhealth have we not seen the tiger 
 creep in the form of a craving for 
 nerve-stimulation ? It seemed a docile 
 creature as it followed at the elbow of 
 the jaded man of business, or purred 
 82 
 
Adventures in the Shadowed Glen 
 
 at the feet of an exhausted mother, or 
 awaited the brain-fagged professional 
 man at his office door. Fawning and 
 friendly it appeared, as it softly knelt 
 beside the couch of the tired toiler and 
 Ucked the hands which hung down 
 relaxed and Hstless, But once it got 
 the taste of blood it crouched for the 
 fatal spring. 
 
 In the shadow of their disappoint- 
 ment or bereavement, how many lose 
 their way, plunging into recklessness, 
 to be presently bogged in a hell- 
 hole of uncleanness. " Deceived — aban- 
 doned!" These two words tell the 
 story of countless castaways. We 
 know, nay, we do not know, how many 
 thousands of women go reeUng to de- 
 struction down the dim aisles of the 
 years made dark and hopeless for 
 them by the men who owed them rev- 
 erence and love. We remember, too, 
 another multitude of unfortunates 
 who in the shadow of financial ruin 
 grind their very souls out against the 
 jutting crags of poverty which now 
 obstruct their path! Few, indeed, 
 there are who emerge from the glen 
 83 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 with untom garments and shining face. 
 
 Far different is it with the souls 
 which keep close to Christ. In the 
 valley, dark with the piled -up black- 
 ness of all the shadows, they " fear no 
 evil." He who, vdih the pangs of the 
 cross upon Him, refused the drugged 
 wine, drives before them the wild 
 beasts of abnormal appetite. He who, 
 though abandoned and betrayed, 
 kept to love and faith and service 
 along the pain-path, leads them away 
 from the slough into which they would 
 otherwise stumble with careless feet. 
 He who maintained that brave, sweet 
 dignity and patience through the years 
 when He had not where to lay his head, 
 cushions for them the piercing points 
 of poverty. This is the testimony of 
 all who have followed Him "amid the 
 encircUng gloom." 
 
 "Thou art with me." These four 
 little monosyllables make a magic 
 charm to ward off fear of evil. They 
 are Hke a wall of steel around the soul. 
 This is the first time that the second 
 personal pronoun occurs in the psalm. 
 Up to this point the references to 
 84 
 
Adventures in the Shadowed Glen 
 
 Jehovah have all been in the third 
 person. " He " does all '' He " feeds, 
 refreshes, restores, and guides. But 
 now there is a change. "Thou" art 
 with mc. The new form of address 
 indicates a relation of increasing inti- 
 macy between the shepherd and the 
 sheep. It marks an advance from 
 the mood of reflection to that of com- 
 munion. The change of mood cor- 
 responds to changed conditions. It is 
 a 'significant fact that it is in the glen 
 the first "Thou" rings out. The 
 sheep crowd closest to their shepherd 
 in the darkness. He becomes eyes 
 for them. "He knoweth what is in 
 the darkness;" the darkness behind 
 them, the darkness around them, the 
 darkness before them. "The dark- 
 ness and the light are both alike" to 
 Him. His presence is their safety. 
 
 Not only is there safety in the glen, 
 but comfort also, for those who abide 
 by the shepherd. IVIanifold are the 
 comfortings of the shepherd's rod. It 
 comforts me when it tests the road 
 before me. It comforts me when it 
 fences me oflf from danger, though 
 
 85 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 then it may seem like an iron wall 
 across my path. It comforts me when 
 it lifts me from my fall. It comforts 
 me in beating back the foe. It com- 
 forts me even when it smites me. 
 Have you never thought that it is the 
 sheep nearest the shepherd which re- 
 ceives the warning blow when sud- 
 den danger threatens ? Think it not 
 strange if it falls on thee when thou 
 art following close! Thou art in the 
 very place to receive the stroke. Canst 
 thou not endure, yea, even welcome 
 it, for thy safety and the safety of 
 those who may be following thee ? It 
 is His recognition of thy nearness to 
 Him and of thy leadership among His 
 people. "Whom the Lord loveth he 
 chasteneth." 
 
 Sometimes the stroke is for correc- 
 tive ends. I once heard of a Scottish 
 shepherd who was sorely tried by the 
 frequent misadventures of one wild 
 lamb. It gave more trouble than all 
 the flock. It seemed incorrigible. 
 One day the shepherd took that lamb 
 and deliberately broke its leg. Cruel 
 shepherd ? Nay. Having broken the 
 86 
 
Adventures in the Shadowed Glen 
 
 leg, he carefully set it again, tenderly 
 bound it up, and then lovingly carried 
 the helpless creature in a sling about 
 his shoulders. Day after day, while 
 the healing was in process, the shep- 
 here bore the lamb, giving it food and 
 drink from his own hand. He nursed 
 it with a mother's tenderness. When 
 the healing was complete and the lamb 
 was placed upon its feet again, it was 
 seen to be the closest follower in the 
 flock. It never left the shepherd's 
 side again. 
 
 It was even thus that the Shepherd, 
 whom he now praises, treated David 
 in the days of his wild heart-wander- 
 ings. God broke that wanderer's leg 
 that He might carry him in His arms 
 for a season, until he should learn the 
 depths of grief and love divine. We 
 have the story of that experience in 
 the thirty-second psalm. He speaks 
 of the time when God's hand was 
 heavy upon him; when his bones 
 waxed old through his roaring all day 
 long; when his moisture was turned 
 into the drought of summer. And 
 then God took that fevered, sick, com- 
 87 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 plaining soul and shed upon it a great 
 and healing grace. In boundless mer- 
 cy He forgave the iniquity of his 
 sin. In the warm, close clasp of par- 
 doning love the Shepherd whispered 
 to His stricken one the inner meaning 
 of the stroke. *'I will instruct thee 
 and teach thee in the way which thou 
 shalt go: I will guide thee with mine 
 eye." David needed no bit or bridle 
 after that to keep him near. There- 
 after, God could lead him by a look. 
 
 "Come and let us return unto the 
 Lord: for he hath torn and he 
 will heal us; he hath smitten and 
 he will bind us up. After two days 
 he will revive us : on the third day he 
 will raise us up, and we shall live 
 before him. And let us know, let us 
 follow on to know the Lord." 
 
"Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging 
 round ? 
 On Jesus' bosom nought but calm is found. 
 
 "Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us 
 and ours? 
 Jesus hath vanquished death and all its 
 powers." 
 
 — E. H. Bickersteth, 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SUPPER ON THE DARKENING 
 WOLD 
 
 "Thou preparest a table before me in the 
 presence of mine enemies." 
 
 Now the flock emerges from the 
 glen. The sun is sinking toward the 
 west, and soon the darkness will come 
 drifting down. There is only time for 
 the evening meal before the flock is 
 folded for the night. 
 
 Several facts concerning this even- 
 ing meal arc specially worthy of con- 
 sideration. 
 
 A good shepherd seeks to make the 
 supper for his flock the sweetest meal 
 of the day. If there is one bit of past- 
 ure greener and richer than the rest, 
 he reserves that for the day's end. I 
 have seen a shepherd in the sunset 
 hour call his sheep from the commons 
 and turn them into the fenced field of 
 clover that they might go full-fed to 
 their rest. Herdmen do the same for 
 their cattle. 
 
 91 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 What a picture of peace it makes — 
 this supper on the darkening wold — 
 when the sheep feed richly on the 
 guarded green! For now the dew is 
 again upon the earth. The grass is 
 moist. The air is incense-laden from 
 the flowers which all day long have 
 been breathing forth their fragrance. 
 And the fold is near. 
 
 The analogy holds true in the ex- 
 perience of Christ's followers. The 
 ■Shepherd and Bishop of our souls re- 
 serves His choicest swards for the del- 
 ectation of our later days. Beulah 
 Land hes near the bounds of life. It 
 comes after the long march on the 
 roads and the adventures in the glen. 
 Let those who face the "sunset of life" 
 lay this comfort on their hearts! The 
 gospel is "a great supper," as well as 
 a satisfying breakfast, for the soul. 
 It opens into the richest enclosures 
 toward the day's end. Our Shepherd 
 surpasses Himself in the banquet which 
 He spreads for His followers on the 
 evening tablelands of life. 
 
 "In the presence of mine enemies." 
 The day's dangers are not ended with 
 92 
 
Supper on the Darkening Wold 
 
 the finding of the evening feeding- 
 ground. This period of the day has 
 its own pecuHar perils. This is the 
 hour when the wolf is emboldened in 
 its approach. It is the time when the 
 robber creeps near to mark his prey. 
 Now, too, the vulture eyes the scene. 
 They, as well as the sheep, are looking 
 for an evening meal. 
 
 A good shepherd will carefully in- 
 spect the evening pasture-ground be- 
 fore he calls his sheep to feed. He 
 scans the hillsides for any suspicious 
 movements that may betoken an 
 enemy's approach. With long knife 
 drawn and ready for use, should sud- 
 den need of it arise, he makes a care- 
 ful circuit of the feeding-ground, thus 
 by his precautionary movements de- 
 scribing a circle of safety within the 
 rim of danger. 
 
 The picture here is one of extraor- 
 dinary power. What an heroic figure 
 the shepherd makes as he thus stands 
 forth before the flock, and before their 
 enemies and his. He but needs to 
 show himself and enemies are cowed. 
 The lightnings of his eyes strike terror 
 93 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 to their hearts. At the menace of his 
 look they slink away. He who is all 
 gentleness towards the flock is an over- 
 whelming terror towards the foes 
 which threaten them. They do not 
 dare dispute the sward with him. 
 They have no courage to come to com- 
 bat here. They might risk an en- 
 counter in the shadowed glen, but not 
 here, where they can take the measure 
 of his form. It was conquest for the 
 shepherd there; it is a bloodless tri- 
 umph for him here. He stands the 
 undisputed master of the field. The 
 enemies may look upon it; they dare 
 not leap upon it. Thus the shepherd 
 makes a show of them openly by call- 
 ing the sheep to come and feast in 
 their very presence. 
 
 The scene at this point suggests an- 
 other impressive feature of Christ's 
 shepherding of men. There comes a 
 time in the experience of those who 
 closely follow Him when the very 
 majesty of His manifested presence 
 quells all foes and makes a place of 
 quiet feasting for the soul. There 
 comes a time when even Satan knows 
 94 
 
Supper on the Darkening Wold 
 
 that the soul has passed beyond his 
 power and he calls off his dogs of war. 
 Have you noticed the progress 
 towards this condition of unchallenged 
 security in the experience of St. Paul? 
 Compare again the seventh and eighth 
 chapters of his epistle to the Romans! 
 The seventh chapter is the shadowed 
 glen. It is thick with gloom. It re- 
 sounds with the din of warfare. The 
 panthers of evil passion snap and 
 snarl. Yet Christ is there, with rod 
 and staff, and so His follower goes for- 
 ward, though with stress and strain. 
 But in the eighth chapter the apostle 
 is with his Lord on higher ground. 
 He breathes another air, the air of the 
 wold. All now is quietness and con- 
 fidence and sense of restfulness. Not 
 that all enemies are slain, but all are 
 quelled before the presence of the sov- 
 ereign Christ. The heroic face of the 
 Son of God has been turned full on 
 the field and before the majesty of that 
 face all enemies retire awe-stricken 
 and undone. " We were accounted 
 as sheep for the slaughter." " Yet we 
 are more than conquerors through him 
 95 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 that loved us. For I am persuaded 
 that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
 nor principaUties, nor powers, nor 
 things present, nor things to come, nor 
 height, nor depth, nor any other crea- 
 ture, shall be able to separate us from 
 the love of God, which is in Christ 
 Jesus our Lord." 
 
 The consciousness of a table pre- 
 pared in the presence of his enemies 
 finds expression again in the closing 
 words of his epistle to the Galatians. 
 "From henceforth let no man trouble 
 me: for I bear branded on my body 
 the marks of Jesus." That he was 
 a Christ's man, henceforth and for- 
 ever, was past all peradventure. He 
 serves notice to that effect upon all 
 and sundry who might think it worth 
 their while to attempt a disturbance 
 of his relation to Christ, or to dispute 
 his privileges in grace. The attempt 
 would be absurd. He has gone too 
 far with Christ, grown too intimate 
 with Him, been too completely char- 
 actered by Him, for any separation 
 now. Let them face that fact. Here 
 is a man tattooed with Jesus. He is 
 96 
 
Supper on the Darkening Wold 
 
 Christ's slave. Let the world deal 
 with his Master who put the marks 
 upon him. For himself, he will walk 
 in peace by his Master's side. 
 
 What a glowing prospect this view 
 unfolds before the Christian as he ap- 
 proaches the maturity of his experi- 
 ence in the evening-time of life! It 
 may be for him not only the time of 
 richest feasting, but also of sweetest 
 serenity. The day comes to faithful 
 followers of the Lord when even the 
 enemy cannot look upon them and 
 not behold the Christ. 
 
 Yet one cannot but think with sor- 
 row of another condition suggested by 
 this picture; the condition of those 
 who are moving towards the evening 
 shadows without a sense of the Good 
 Shepherd's care. For such the late 
 afternoon of Ufe is a cheerless time. 
 For them there is no supper on the 
 darkening wold. The evening hills 
 are bare. They feed on ashes. They 
 themselves become food for vultures. 
 For there are certain forms of evil 
 which, like coward beasts of prey, 
 hide from the tell-tale blaze of day 
 7 97 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 and only creep out in the evening 
 shadows for their drink of blood. 
 While fleshly passions burn themselves 
 out in the course of years, the spiritual 
 passions flare up into hotter flame. 
 Avarice is one of these. It bites deeper 
 and deeper into the soul as the years 
 go by. Envy is another foe that leaps 
 upon the field where no shepherd 
 guards. Malice and wrath and rail- 
 ing are there to rend the soul. But 
 why elaborate the picture? A life 
 unshepherded at evening-time is a 
 tragedy too dark for words. 
 
 98 
 
"Far, far away, like bells at evening pealing, 
 The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and 
 sea, 
 And laden souls, by thousands meekly steal- 
 ing, 
 Kind shepherd, turn their weary steps to 
 Thee." 
 
 —F. W. Fader 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TWILIGHT AT THE SHEEPFOLD 
 DOOR 
 
 "Thou anointest ray head with oil; my cup 
 runneth over." 
 
 The picture here is rich in oriental 
 coloring. It is twilight now, and the 
 "evening bcU" is tinkling within the 
 fold, calling the weary flock to rest. 
 At the sheepfold door the shepherd 
 stands in the fading light to inspect the 
 sheep as they pass in single file to find 
 their places for the night. 
 
 The aflfectionate solicitude of the 
 shepherd now finds expression in a 
 singularly beautiful and beneficent 
 ministry. He remembers how long 
 the day has been; how hot and dusty 
 the roads; how exhausting to the 
 sheep the excitements and struggles 
 of the way. Hence he prepares a 
 special benediction to be bestowed 
 at the moment of their retirement to 
 the fold. 
 
 Yonder comes a sheep whose head 
 
 101 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 is drooping low. Its slow, uncertain 
 movements speak of utter weariness. 
 Its strength is almost spent. With 
 languid wistfulness the sheep lifts up 
 its tired, dust-stained face in answer 
 to the shepherd's call, and lo! it re- 
 ceives an anointing, fragrant and re- 
 freshing. For the shepherd, quick 
 to note the signs of exhaustion, fills 
 the hollow of his hand with olive oil 
 from the horn at his side, and gently 
 bathes the face now gratefully uplifted 
 to him. And when this is done, he 
 extends the cup filled from the well 
 by the fold, that the thirsty one may 
 drink. 
 
 It is an exquisite picture of Christ's 
 tender grace as He stands to anoint 
 and refresh the souls of believers when, 
 weary and worn, they look up to Him 
 in the gloaming of life's little day. 
 No office which our Saviour performs 
 is more precious and beautiful than 
 this in which He touches His weary 
 ones with balm, that they may retire 
 with cool, clean souls to rest. 
 
 There is a pensiveness about the 
 twilight hour which every sensitive 
 
 I02 
 
Twilight at the Sheepfold Door 
 
 soul must keenly feel. It is an hour 
 for retrospection and reflection. The 
 labor of the day is ended, and the 
 time for judgment upon its quality 
 has come. Has life been worth the liv- 
 ing ? Is there any profit from its toil ? 
 Have we gathered diamonds or dust ? 
 Happy is he who can see a straight 
 string of purpose running through 
 the years, binding them all together 
 like a rope of pearls. Too often the 
 years God gives us are allowed to pass 
 unstrung, slipping through our fingers 
 like loose beads. 
 
 But even those who live the noblest 
 must suffer the distinctive pain of the 
 tvvdlight. It is no light matter for one 
 who has loved his work to lay it down or 
 relinquish it to other hands. If a man 
 puts conscience and imagination and 
 sympathy into his work there must 
 come a sharp pang to his heart in the 
 hour when he definitely retires from 
 it. Do you wonder that a look of 
 suffering comes into the dim eyes of 
 him who has cleared the land and 
 drained the fields and planted the 
 orchard and sunk the well and built 
 103 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 the house, when the day comes for 
 him to give the deed of it all into 
 younger and stronger hands? Do 
 you wonder that the heart of the 
 prima-donna bleeds when she faces 
 her last audience to sing her swan- 
 song? Do you wonder that the 
 Christian pastor who has loved the 
 souls of men, and found it ecstasy 
 to preach the Gospel, deems the day 
 of his superannuation the saddest 
 day of all his life? If the thought 
 of rest is sweet, 'tis bitter-sweet when 
 we realize that the outgoings of life 
 are ended. When the door shuts that 
 cuts us off from our loved toil, it 
 shuts upon the heart and cuts it to the 
 quick. In that hour there is but one 
 who can give the "oil of joy for mourn- 
 ing and the garment of praise for 
 the spirit of heaviness" — the Shepherd 
 who stands at the twilight door, 
 hands dipped in balm, to bestow His 
 evening benediction. He, with His 
 hand upon our hearts, is the "Pilot 
 of the purple twilight," guiding, and 
 soothing as He guides, to rest. 
 
 One cannot but think of brilliant 
 104 
 
Twilight at the Sheepfold Door 
 
 lives that tragically missed the evening 
 blessing. In the great French drama 
 the aged cardinal is asked, "Art thou 
 Richelieu?" And he replies, "Yes- 
 terday I was Richelieu, to-day I am 
 a poor, old man; to-morrow I know 
 not what." And there was Cardinal 
 Wolsey, staggering in disgrace and 
 disease to the Abbey of Leicester, 
 and moaning on his deathbed, "Had 
 I but served God as diligently as I 
 have served the King, He would not 
 have given me over in my gray hairs." 
 What a contrast between the twilight 
 of their day and that of Shaftesbury 
 or Gladstone! The former passed 
 from picturesque and impressive man- 
 hood into wretchedness and feeble- 
 ness and gloom. The latter passed, 
 through faith and righteousness and 
 unselfish service, into the dignities 
 and compensating comforts of "a 
 good old age." 
 
 There come to mind two men of 
 my acquaintance, men who honored 
 me with their friendship, who were 
 notable exhibitors of the reviving in- 
 fluences of a twilight anointing. One 
 105 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 was an educationist. In the realms 
 both of secondary and of higher educa- 
 tion, he was a master. He wrought 
 out for and established in two Cana- 
 dian provinces their splendid system 
 of free schools. In a third province he 
 gave great impetus to the thought that 
 resulted in the creation of a vigor- 
 ous Christian university. For a brief 
 period he stood at its head. Then, 
 realizing that his strength was broken, 
 he suddenly stepped aside. With a 
 single step he passed from noon to 
 twilight. Those of us who knew him 
 intimately knew that the pain of the 
 twihght was acute in his heart. But 
 the compensations were sweet and 
 satisfying. The Master held out to 
 him the brimming cup of joy. 
 
 "Then purged with euphrasy and rue 
 The visual nerve, for he had much to see." 
 
 And he told us what he saw in 
 kindling speech. The fountain of 
 song was unsealed within his heart. 
 For the few years that were left to him 
 he moved among us like a winged 
 io6 
 
Twilight at the Sheepfold Door 
 
 spirit. He was our nightingale sing- 
 ing in the twilight. He was our in- 
 spirationist, our prophet, our guide, 
 philosopher and friend. The beauty, 
 the richness, the literary fruitfulness 
 of those years were the marvel and 
 dehght of all who saw. In the twi- 
 light of his day God crowned him 
 with loving-kindness and tender mer- 
 cies; he satisfied his mouth with good 
 things, so that his youth was renewed 
 Uke the eagle's. 
 
 The other man was a merchant. 
 Remembering his great humility I 
 must not write his name. He was a 
 kingly man. And he was intensely 
 in love with life. He had great capa- 
 city for business, which he pushed 
 with enthusiastic but aseptically clean 
 hands. He revelled in benevolences. 
 He was fond of social life. He loved 
 good books. He was enamored of the 
 beauties and sublimities of the nat- 
 ure-world around him. On every 
 side of him he was tinglingly alive. 
 But for him the twilight came, as it 
 seemed to us, all too soon. For several 
 years before his death he was an 
 107 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 invalid. All the interests that had 
 been so dear to him, except such 
 benevolences as he could direct from 
 his bedside, were shut out from his 
 life. Yet he never lived so deeply, 
 so joyously, so triumphantly as in those 
 years. His spirit was charged with a 
 divine power that thrilled you the 
 moment you came into his room. He 
 seemed more than human in the glow- 
 ing beauty and entrancing sweetness 
 of his character. I have waited at his 
 bedside to see him wake from sleep, 
 and it seemed Hke the waking of an 
 angel. Some who will read this book 
 will know that there is no extrava- 
 gance of statement here. That name 
 is cherished in many hearts to-day 
 as their sweetest memory. I shall 
 never cease to thank God that I was 
 permitted to be near and witness the 
 anointing of that life in the twilight 
 hour. 
 
 The oil and the cup! It seems to 
 me that at this point the psalm reaches 
 a climax in the celebration of the inti- 
 macy between the shepherd and the 
 sheep. For now the Shepherd's hand 
 108 
 
Twilight at the Sheepfold Door 
 
 rests caressingly upon His follower's 
 head and they come face to face in a 
 fellowship which kindles joy unspeak- 
 able and full of glory. Indeed, it 
 seems almost too sacred a thing to 
 speak about. We can scarcely handle 
 it at all with our clumsy words and 
 not bruise its exquisite bloom. Only 
 let us pray that "Love Divine" may 
 keep tryst with us in the twilight hour 
 when we stagger in wounds and weari- 
 ness to life's evening couch ! 
 
 109 
 
"Twilight and evening bell 
 And after that the dark." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 NIGHT WITHIN THE GATES 
 
 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow 
 me all the days of my life." 
 
 Hitherto the song has been all 
 of love's leadings. The shepherd has 
 gone before the sheep, feeding, lead- 
 ing, clearing the way. Now there 
 is a change of view and he is seen, 
 in the guise of "goodness and mercy," 
 following after the flock and per- 
 forming the office of impregnable rear- 
 guard. 
 
 The series of pictures would not 
 be artistically complete, nor adequate 
 to practical Ufe-needs, without this 
 added scene. For not always can 
 the perils of our lives be fronted. 
 Frequently they camp upon our rear. 
 They rise up out of the past and 
 persistently dog our steps. Apart 
 from a shepherding that renders the 
 soul inviolable from the rear, we should 
 speedily be hunted down to death. 
 
 There are the bloodhounds of he- 
 8 113 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 reditary taint and constitutional de- 
 fect and transmitted tendency. They 
 are a hungry and vicious pack. And 
 they follow us "all the days" of our 
 lives. We can never shake them off. 
 Travel as fast and as far as we may, 
 we cannot outfoot them. Even while 
 we congratulate ourselves that we 
 have distanced them, and that they 
 have lost the scent, we hear them 
 growling at our heels. So powerful 
 and persistent is the force of inherited 
 tendency that many observant stu- 
 dents of life have declared it to be 
 the determining factor in human 
 destiny. We are familiar with the 
 testimony of criminal statistics upon 
 this point. Criminal instincts run 
 in the blood from generation to 
 generation. There are multitudes 
 of human wrecks grinding upon the 
 rocks to-day because the rudder of 
 their will was set and lashed to lee- 
 ward by a foolish or vicious ancestry, 
 and the offspring lack the moral force 
 to cut the cords and release the wheel. 
 We know, too, how many sensualists 
 excuse themselves and cast the blame 
 114 
 
Night Within the Gates 
 
 of their unclean lives upon the forces 
 of heredity that pushed them into the 
 ditch. Unquestionably, it is a dark 
 fact that the evil which men do lives 
 after them in the form of a relent- 
 lessly pursuing force upon the path of 
 their descendants. 
 
 We are foUovi^ed, too, "all the 
 days" of our life by the sins of our 
 youth. We remember them and they 
 are remembered by others. Long 
 after we have set our faces toward 
 the better life, and after we have 
 walked the clean, straight paths of 
 righteousness, these old sins lift up 
 their voice and warn us that they 
 are follovidng still. The hostile shapes 
 they take are legion. Gaunt, gray 
 wolves they are, pressing on and 
 ever on. 
 
 We are pursued also by the accumu- 
 lating sorrows of the years. There 
 are some lives which seem to be 
 specially marked for misfortune. They 
 are hounded through their days 
 by "black disaster, following fast 
 and following faster." Bereavement 
 bites early into their hearts, and as 
 115 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 their way advances "sorrows still in- 
 crease." On the later stages of the 
 journey accumulated sorrows some- 
 times sweep down upon the soul like 
 an avalanche. 
 
 But over against these dark facts 
 the bright fact rises, that between 
 our souls and these hard-following 
 foes Christ stands, our constant and 
 competent Rear-guard. He is "the 
 Alpha and the Omega, the beginning 
 and the end, the first and the last" 
 of faith's pilgrim journey. He comes 
 between us and the foe, whether the 
 foe be at the front or rear. 
 
 He comes between us and the de- 
 structive power of a bad heredity. 
 By His enabling grace He "breaks 
 our birth's invidious bar," and gives 
 us strength to "grapple with our evil 
 star, to grasp the skirts of happy 
 chance, and breast the waves of cir- 
 cumstance." In His "goodness and 
 mercy" He secures for each human 
 soul that looks to him the way of re- 
 turn to holiness and God. The knowl- 
 edge of a man's ancestry is not suffi- 
 cient data upon which to base a proph- 
 ii6 
 
Night Within the Gates 
 
 ecy concerning his career. Heredity 
 is not the only fact to be considered. 
 It does not hold the rear-ground of life 
 exclusively. There is the fact of a 
 divine intervention. God steps in 
 there to file His claim upon the soul. 
 He fathers it in grace; not, in- 
 deed, to the annihilation of inher- 
 ited tendency, but to the deHver- 
 ance of the soul from its enslaving 
 power. 
 
 This v^^as the distinctive message 
 of the prophet Ezekiel * : 
 
 "What mean ye, that ye use this 
 proverb concerning the land of Israel, 
 saying, The fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes, and the children's teeth are 
 set on edge ? As I live, saith the Lord 
 God, ye shall not have occasion any 
 more to use this proverb in Israel. 
 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul 
 of the father, so also the soul of the 
 son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it 
 shall die." Thus goodness and mercy 
 draw the teeth of this grim law of 
 heredity, and make it an incentive 
 toward righteousness. God takes the 
 
 ♦Ezek. i8: 2-4. 
 
 117 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 rudder in His own hand and steers 
 each soul that yields to Him. 
 
 He comes between us and the sins 
 of our youth. In my experience as a 
 pastor I have found many men and 
 women who were held back from an 
 open avowal of the Christian life by 
 memories of their past transgressions. 
 It was the thing that had been done 
 they feared, not what they might do 
 in the future. It was the wolf behind, 
 not the lion before, that held the terror 
 over them. It is easier for some peo- 
 ple to beHeve in the conquering power 
 of " the cross of Jesus going on before" 
 than in a goodness and mercy that 
 can defend them from a pursuing past. 
 But the scepticism is unwarranted 
 by experience. Old sins do follow, 
 but He follows closer. They may 
 chase us, but they cannot capture us 
 while He stands between. The foam 
 of their rage falls harmlessly at His 
 feet. He vrill not give us "as a prey 
 to their teeth." With Him as rear- 
 ward, "Our soul is escaped as a bird 
 out of the snare of the fowlers; the 
 snare is broken and we are escaped." 
 ii8 
 
Night Within the Gates 
 
 The facts of David's own life give 
 a special piquancy to the teaching here. 
 There was a dark time in his life when 
 the wolves of evil passion tore him. 
 But the Good Shepherd plucked him 
 from the pack, and set him on a clean 
 straight path. Did the royal peni- 
 tent sometimes hear the baying of the 
 pack upon his rear? Undoubtedly 
 he did. But when he turned and 
 looked in terror, lo! between him 
 and their gleaming fangs the Shep- 
 herd stood. To see Him there re- 
 stored the rhythm to his heart. 
 
 There is no more painful experi- 
 ence in Ufe than to be torn and stung 
 by excoriating recollections of old 
 sins. To open the book of memory 
 and scan the black pages, to have the 
 old scars wake and burn again, is a 
 torture. Many of the noblest spirits 
 have felt it: David and Paul, and 
 Peter and Augustine. The moan of 
 that anguish resounds throughout our 
 greatest Uterature. Listen to the 
 plaint of Lancelot : 
 
 "For what am I? what profits me my 
 name 
 
 119 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and 
 
 have it; 
 Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, 
 
 pain; 
 Now grown a part of me: but what use 
 
 in it? 
 To make men worse by making my sin 
 
 known ? 
 Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming 
 
 great? 
 Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 
 Not after Arthur's heart." 
 
 Hear, also, the despairing cry of 
 Guinevere, his partner in guilt : 
 
 "Shall I kill myself? 
 What help in that? I cannot kill my sin, 
 If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame; 
 No, nor by living can I live it down. 
 The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to 
 
 months. 
 The months will add themselves and make 
 
 the years, 
 The years will roll into the centuries. 
 And mine shall ever be a name of scorn." 
 
 It is all heart-breaking in its hope- 
 less sadness. But the sequel showed 
 that both for Lancelot and Guinevere 
 there was glorious deliverance. "So 
 groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful 
 
 I20 
 
Night Within the Gates 
 
 pain, not knowing he should die a holy 
 man.^^ As for Guinevere, to her came 
 Arthur in forgiving grace and assur- 
 ance of undying love. Between her 
 and the shameful past he planted 
 as rear-guard his own pure love 
 and quenchless faith. Thus he 
 beat back from her soul the tor- 
 ments of despair and won her to a 
 holy life. 
 
 The Good Shepherd comes between 
 us and the sorrows of the past. Christ's 
 treatment of sorrows is unique and 
 wonderful. He takes them into His 
 own hands and their power for injury 
 is never the same again. He wipes 
 the poison from every blade. Sorrow, 
 after Christ has touched it, becomes 
 a minister of good. It is transmuted 
 from bane to blessing. He makes it 
 possible for us to rejoice not only in 
 spite of tribulations, but even because 
 of them ; as he sang to us, whose voice 
 but yesterday was stilled * : 
 
 "O joy that seekest me through pain, 
 I cannot close my heart to Thee; 
 I trace the rainbow through the rain, 
 
 * Dr. George Mathcson. 
 121 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 And feel the promise is not vain 
 That morn shall tearless be." 
 
 And amid all the pain Christ gives us 
 the comfort of His exquisite sympa- 
 thy. We can never forget that " Jesus 
 wept." 
 
 "To forge a sun, to rivet myriad stars, 
 
 Through serried veins to pour earth's 
 flashing rills, 
 To kennel hungry seas in granite bars, 
 
 To whet the lightnings on the rock-brow'd 
 hills, 
 Majestic wonders! But sweet to be kept, 
 And crowning wonder of them all — God 
 wept! 
 
 "Lo! Our humanity has touched God's 
 crown. 
 As some frail leaf might touch the bend- 
 ing spheres; 
 And from the heights of Godship He stooped 
 down 
 To bathe His forehead in a brine of tears. 
 He lived and talked with men, He toiled 
 
 and slept, 
 But struck our human key-note when — 
 He wept. 
 
 "Weep, burdened soul, let fall thy tears like 
 rain! 
 God counts the drops in which thy slow 
 years steep, 
 
 122 
 
Night Within the Gates 
 
 He gathers them like mountain dew 
 
 again, 
 Transformed to pearls which seraphim 
 
 shall keep 
 For thy soul's crowning when, by cares 
 
 unswept, 
 It leans upon the breast of Him who wept." 
 
 But all this gospel of the rear-guard 
 has special signification for old age. 
 The scene which the psalm presents 
 at this point is the closing scene of the 
 day. The journeyings of the flock 
 are ended. The door of the fold is 
 shut. It is night and the time of stars. 
 The sheep lie down in their quiet rest- 
 ing-places. The chief need now is for 
 a night patrol to sentinel the flock and 
 protect their rest. In the thought of 
 the psalmist the sentinel is placed. 
 The guard is at the door. The shep- 
 herd himself is there. The flock may 
 rest in peace. 
 
 It will help us to a better apprecia- 
 tion of this strain of the song if we call 
 to mind the characteristic Jewish feel- 
 ing for old age. Not only had the 
 pious Jew a tender reverence for the 
 aged, but he hoped for himself that he 
 123 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 might live to be old. He had an am- 
 bition to see his seed unto the third 
 and fourth generation. A great age 
 was an occasion of pride to him. The 
 feeling was inextricably interwoven 
 vdth his reHgion. A long life, with 
 a quiet resting time at its close, when 
 he might be surrounded by a circle of 
 devoted descendants, was to him an 
 unmistakable mark of divine favor. 
 It was one of the covenant blessings. 
 Then, too, we must remember that the 
 Jew of David's time had no clear out- 
 look into the future beyond the grave. 
 For him death meant an interruption, 
 even an interception of relations with 
 Jehovah. Whatever God would do 
 for him so he believed, must be done 
 in this life. It was natural, therefore, 
 that he should fervently desire length 
 of days on earth. 
 
 All this, of course, is vastly different 
 from the prevailing modern mood. 
 We speak now as though it were a mis- 
 fortune to live to a great age. We 
 hope to die in the harness. We would 
 "cease at once to labor and to live." 
 We dread to "lag superfluous" on the 
 124 
 
Night Within the Gates 
 
 stage. To outlive activity seems a 
 curse. 
 
 The change in view is partly due, 
 no doubt, to our brighter thought of 
 what awaits us beyond the Great 
 Divide. "Jesus Christ has brought 
 life and immortahty to Hght through 
 the Gospel." To the Christian "the 
 best is yet to be" in the land beyond 
 the flood. That is the Eldorado of 
 his hopes. He knows that "to die is 
 gain." 
 
 Yet the modern recoil from the idea 
 of old age is not wholly due to this 
 brighter thought of the hereafter. It 
 is characteristic even of those whose 
 hopes do not turn to heaven. It is 
 partly to be accounted for by a dimin- 
 ished sense of the beauty of old age and 
 partly by a slackening of the family 
 bond. 
 
 This is the day of the young man. 
 He must make his fortune by the time 
 he is forty, and be ready for the chloro- 
 form at sixty! The popular ideal of 
 life to-day is to rush early into your 
 chosen career, climb swiftly to success, 
 wave your flag for a brief moment on 
 125 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 the summit of the hill, and then make 
 way for the generation pushing up 
 breathlessly behind. 
 
 It is all a sad mistake. We are 
 missing the best this life can give in 
 thus galloping pell-mell through our 
 years and dropping in sudden exhaus- 
 tion in the early evening-time of life. 
 For, 
 
 "Age is opportunity no less 
 Than youth itself, tho' in another dress, 
 And as the evening twilight fades away 
 The sky is filled with stars invisible by day." 
 
 It is out of a typical Jewish reverence 
 for the dignities and amenities of old 
 age that Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra 
 sings : 
 
 "Grow old along with me! 
 The best is yet to be. 
 
 The last of life for which the first was made; 
 Our times are in His hand 
 Who saith, a whole I planned! 
 Youth shows but halfj trust God! see all 
 nor be afraid." 
 
 And it was out of such a fine and 
 
 tender feeling for old age that David 
 
 uttered these glowing words of thank- 
 
 126 
 
Night Within the Gates 
 
 ful trust. "Surely goodness and mer- 
 cy shall follow me all the days of 
 my life." He hoped his days might 
 be many ; he knew they would all be 
 good if God was in them. 
 
 Observe how the close of the psalm 
 bends back and touches its beginning! 
 Leadings and followings, these form 
 the perfect circle of God's Shepherd- 
 hood. Within that circle the believer 
 may safely abide till travelling days, 
 yes, and till resting days are done. 
 
 127 
 
"And may there be no sadness of farewell 
 When I embark; 
 For tho' from out our bourne of Time and 
 Place 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crost the bar." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 FO REG LEA MS OF THE 
 HEAVENLY DAWN 
 
 "And I w-ill dwell in the house of the Lord 
 forever." 
 
 In this assurance the faith of David 
 vaults clear above the common con- 
 ception of his time regarding the life 
 beyond. 
 
 Though the Jew of that time be- 
 lieved in an existence of the soul after 
 death, he cherished no clear hope of 
 blessedness beyond the grave. 
 
 His soul, so he beUeved, would pass 
 into Sheol, the general receptacle of 
 human spirits. Sheol, to him, was a 
 dim, vague, unorganized realm. It 
 was a land of darkness. There the 
 soul retained but a flickering outline 
 of its former personality. Existence 
 there was regarded as a nerveless, 
 feeble reflection of life on earth, a state 
 of silence and forgetfulness. In Sheol 
 the relation between the dead person 
 and God was supposed to be cut off. 
 131 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 Fellowship with God came to an end. 
 "In death there is no remembrance of 
 thee; in Sheol who shall give thee 
 thanks? For Sheol cannot praise 
 thee, and they that go down to the pit 
 cannot hope for thy truth." Thus the 
 forward-looking Jew "dreed his weird" 
 concerning the hereafter. 
 
 But mark how David's faith by the 
 vitality and vigor of its content rises 
 above all this! The ultimate disclos- 
 ure to his heart of the innermost 
 meaning of Jehovah's Shepherdhood 
 reveals a relation so intimate, so per- 
 sonal, so spiritual, that — he is per- 
 suaded — not even death itself can 
 break it. He is "bound in the bundle 
 of life" with God; it is unthinkable 
 to him that the bundle can ever be un- 
 tied. God cannot be in heaven and 
 leave him behind. Where the shep- 
 herd is the sheep must surely be. No 
 member of Jehovah's flock can ever 
 be banished to dim Sheol. That dark 
 doom is reserved for the ungodly. 
 "They are appointed as a flock for 
 Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd 
 . . . and their beauty shall be for 
 132 
 
Foregleams of the Heavenly Dawn 
 
 Sheol to consume. But God will re- 
 deem my soul from the power of Sheol ; 
 for he shall receive me."* Thus he 
 presently unfolds the faith which his 
 experience of God's shepherdhood has 
 nourished in his heart. In his firm 
 conviction concerning the vital, spirit- 
 ual union which now exists between 
 his life and God, he finds assurance 
 of uninterrupted and everlasting bless- 
 edness. 
 
 This, surely, is a notable achieve- 
 ment of faith. Achievement, do I 
 say? Yes, for a confident and satis- 
 fying hope of blessedness beyond this 
 fife must always be achieved. No 
 external word of revelation, however 
 authoritative it may be, can fling it 
 ready-made upon the soul. It must 
 be wrought within, through conscious 
 fellowship with God. As one has 
 said, "We must get over upon the di- 
 vine side of life before we can be as- 
 sured of eternal life." That is to say, 
 we must feel about our spirits the en- 
 foldment of the infinite and eternal 
 personality before we can be certain 
 
 ♦Psalm 49: 14-15. 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 that death shall not bring us harm. 
 It was thus that the apostles came to 
 be inheritors of "the blessed hope." 
 For while they had certain knowledge 
 of Christ's resurrection from the grave 
 and ascension to the Father and ses- 
 sion in glory, it was not these facts 
 alone which gave them confidence con- 
 cerning their own destiny, but the fact 
 of their personal fellowship with Him 
 in His shepherding of their souls. 
 Their hope for the future, like that of 
 David, rose winged and radiant from 
 the ground of their personal relations 
 to Him who was "alive forevermore." 
 This truth has a serious implication 
 for all questers after light upon the 
 hereafter. The plain fact is, that no 
 clear Ught concerning what awaits us 
 in the great beyond can be carried 
 from the intellect to the heart. The 
 light expires in the passage. The 
 movement must be in the opposite di- 
 rection; from the heart to the intel- 
 lect. Reason is a great light-carrier, 
 but its hand trembles here and its 
 candle is blown out on the way. 
 It arrives with but a smoking wick, 
 
 134 
 
Foregleams of the Heavenly Dawn 
 
 I know there are many indications 
 of the soul's uninterrupted progress 
 through the eternal years. I know 
 there are strong presumptions and 
 arguments in favor of that belief; but 
 the heart wants certainty. And the 
 only certainty comes through the con- 
 sciousness of personal union with the 
 Redeemer. We cannot be argued 
 into this hope; but we may be "be- 
 gotten unto" it by the regenerating 
 grace of Christ. When Christ comes 
 into our hearts through faith, then to 
 those who sat in the darkness a light 
 springs up, a light that cannot be 
 blown out. Even on the brink of the 
 grave, where the winds "from un- 
 sunned spaces" of eternity blow over 
 it, that hope bums clear and steady. 
 It is worth repeating, that out of his 
 intimate, personal relations with the 
 Shepherd David drew the boldness to 
 affirm, "I will dwell in the house of 
 the Lord forever." 
 
 The song ends upon this grand 
 
 finale. And the end crowns all. Like 
 
 a diamond smitten by a shaft of 
 
 sunlight, the whole psalm leaps into 
 
 ^35 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 sparkling splendor in the glory of its last 
 triumphant words. Strike out these 
 words and the diamond immediately 
 deteriorates into common carbon, dull 
 and opaque. It is this grand "for- 
 ever" of the sweet relationship be- 
 tween God and the soul that sets each 
 line and word of the psalm to music. 
 It is this grand "forever" that gives 
 meaning and magnitude to human life. 
 It is this grand "forever" that makes 
 it worth while to live and love and 
 labor. Blot out this last effulgent 
 word and you tear the sun and moon 
 from the firmament of the soul. If 
 there is nothing for us beyond the little 
 fragment of years spent here in this 
 time-life, does it matter so very much 
 how we live? Shall man, who stands 
 at nature's apex, find himself at last 
 her prey? Shall 
 
 "Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 
 
 "Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 136 
 
Foregleams of the Heavenly Dawn 
 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 Or seal'd within the iron hills? 
 
 "No more? A monster, then, a dream, 
 A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
 That tear each other in their slime. 
 Were mellow music match'd with him." 
 
 Why should we love, if all we love 
 and love itseh must perish? Why 
 should we labor, if all the fruit of labor 
 must end in dust and ashes? Shall 
 we write Iliads on rose leaves, paint 
 Sistine Madonnas on tissue paper, or 
 carve Apollo Belvideres in wax? It 
 scarcely would be worth while. But 
 to live and love and serve and suffer 
 and achieve in view of that "forever" 
 makes it a glorious thing to have been 
 born a human soul. 
 
 Yes, it was a notable achievement 
 of David's faith when he uttered these 
 last triumphant words. The utter- 
 ance not only crowns the psalm with 
 splendor, but constitutes the richest 
 fruitage from David's reUgious expe- 
 rience, and his chiefest contribution 
 to the religious thinking of mankind. 
 So the psalm closes with the singer's 
 137 
 
Life on the Uplands 
 
 face shining in the Foregleams of the. 
 Heavenly Dawn, When next the fold- 
 door opens he will be in God's house, 
 there to dwell forever. 
 
 "For ever with the Lord! 
 
 Amen, so let it be; 
 Life from the dead is in that word, 
 
 'Tis immortahty. 
 Here in the body pent, 
 
 Absent from Him I roam. 
 Yet nightly pitch my moving tent 
 
 A day's march nearer home. 
 
 "My Father's house on high, 
 
 Home of my soul, how near 
 At times to faith's foreseeing eye 
 
 Thy golden gates appear! 
 Ah! then my spirit faints 
 
 To reach the land I love. 
 The bright inheritance of saints, 
 
 Jerusalem above. 
 
 "For ever with the Lord! 
 
 Father, if 'tis Thy will. 
 The promise of that faithful word 
 
 E'en here to me fulfil. 
 Be Thou at my right hand. 
 
 Then can I never fail; 
 Uphold Thou me, and I shall stand; 
 
 Fight, and I must prevail. 
 
 "So when my latest breath 
 Shall rend the veil in twain, 
 
Foregleams of the Heavenly Dawn 
 
 By death I shall escape from death, 
 
 And Ufe eternal gain. 
 Knowing as I am known, 
 
 How shall I love that word, 
 And oft repeat before the throne, 
 
 For ever with the Lord." 
 
 139 
 
Date Due 
 
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 Life on the uplands; 
 
 Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library 
 
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