The wind is chill, the hour is late; Haste thee, dear Lord, undo the gate; For grim wolf-sorrows prowling range These bitter hills of chance and change:
And from the barren wilderness With homeward face Thy flocks do press: Their worn bells ring a jangled chime — Shepherd, come forth, 'tis eventime ! ^ 1 May Byron, The Wind on the Heath, 28.
Kest, Refreshment, Restokation.
JOB-PS. XXX. — 26
Literature.
Armstrong (R. A.), Memoir and Sermons, 160.
Austin (G. B.), 2'he Beauty of Goodness, 50, 98.
Banks (L. A.), Sermons which have Won Souls, 397.
Brooke (S. A.), Sermons in St. James's Chapel, 56.
Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 281.
Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 105.
Culross (J.), God's Sliepherd Care, 28.
Gumming (J. E.), Consecrated Work, 43.
Darlow (T. H.), Via Sacra, 205.
Fairbaixn (A. M.), Christ in the Centuries, 69, 83.
Finlayson (T. C), The Divine Gentleness, 223.
Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 1.
Gray (W. H.), Our Divine Shepherd, 1.
Griffin (E. D.), Plain Practical Sermons, ii. 230,
Home (C. S.), The Soul's Aivahcnivg, 131.
Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalm, 1.
Jerdan (C.), Pastures of Tender Grass, 37.
Jones (J. M.), The Cup of Cold Water, 17.
Knight (W. A.), The Song of Our Syrucii Guest, 1,
Levens (J. T.), Clean Hands, 92.
McFadyen (J. E.), The City ivith Foundations, 201.
„ „ Ten Studies in the Psabns, 23.
Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, i. 307. McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, i. 241. Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 77. Parker (J.), City Temple Pulpit, vii. 270.
„ „ Studies in Texts, iv. 183. Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, i. 257, Robertson (P. W.), The Sacrament Sabbath, 211. Robertson (S.), The Rope of Hair, 79. Sadler (T.), Sermons for Children, 180. Smellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 142. Smith (G. A.), Four Psahns, 1.
„ „ The Forgiveness of Sins, 238,
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xix. (1873) No. 1149. Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms, 37. Talniagc (T. De Witt), Fifty Sermons, ii. 151.
Vauglian (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xii. (1875) Nos. 900, 901. Watt (L. M.), The Communion Table, 137. Christian Age, liii. 2 (Hepworth), 244 (Talmage).
Christian World Pulpit, xi. 401 (Bainton) ; xii. 5 (Baintou) ; xxi. 387 (Haines); xxxiii. 82 (Daruton) ; Ixv. 232 (Parker); Ixvii. 193 (Aked) ; Ixxv. 36 (Balgarnie). Church of England Magaeine, Ixix. 56 (Morton).
Rest, Refreshment, Restoration.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures : He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. — Ps. xxiii. 2, 3.
1. We are apt to think about the Old Testament as if it were hard and rigid and rugged and severe and stern. Some people say, " I like the New Testament very much, but I do not care to read the Old Testament"; but right in the middle of the Old Testament shines the Twenty-third Psalm, as if it were put there in order that men might never dare to call that book harsh and hard and severe and stern. This Psalm is an outpouring of the soul to God, never matched in all the riches of the Christian day. It is the utterance of a soul absolutely unshaken and perfectly serene. There are times when everything in God's dealings with us seems to be stern and hard and bitter ; then, just as we are ready to cast ourselves away in despair, and feel toward God as toward a ruler whom we can simply fear but never love, there comes some manifestation of God that sets our soul to singing. The hardest and severest passages in the Old Testament find relief if we let the light shine on them from the Twenty- third Psalm.^
2. In the New Testament many of the expressions of deepest faith have their origin in this Psalm. " The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." See how one of the words which afterwards became the inheritance of the race first came to be used. Many words have passed into common use and are now used without any feeling of their sacred origin in the local circumstances out of which the Bible was first written. This is the case with the word " shepherd." David, the shepherd boy, had been back and
^ Philliiis Brooks, The Spiritual Man, 288. 403
404 REST. REFRESHMENT, RESTORATION
forth over the fields of Judaea, and, in the care of those dependent on him, had learned to feel the care of the heavenly Father. It is a beautiful thing when the soul, from its own relationship towards dependent ones, comes to recognize the care of God. Taking up the lamb in his arms, David thought : So my heavenly Father will carry me through all the days of my life. Our Saviour said, " I am the good shepherd." He took the figure from the Old Testament, and when His disciples came to do the work He had done, the title " shepherd," or " pastor," became universal in Christian history. The pastors of the flock are they who try, in their weakness and inability, to do that which Christ did perfectly. David could find no word to describe more fully to his own mind the richness of the care that God had for his life, the absolute dependence of his life upon God's love, than that taken from his own daily occupation.