Eest.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."
1. The green pastures, says Delitzsch, are pasture-grounds of fresh tender soft grass, where one lies at ease, and rest and enjoyment are combined. The word rendered " pastures " is the plural of a word which is used for a dwelling or homestead. In six of the twelve places where the word occurs, it is coupled with "wilderness"; and in three more it refers to pasturage. It evidently denotes, therefore, the richer, oasis-like spots, where a homestead would be fixed in a generally barren tract of land. We must banish from our minds the green fields of our country, enclosed with hedges or stone walls. In the East the barren uplands are all open and vmfenced ; and you never see a flock of sheep without the shepherd in charge of them. Everything depends upon the shepherd ; he has to find out where the thin grass lurks beneath the rocks, where the precious fountain bubbles into the cistern, where shelter may be had from the scorching sun at noonday.
PSALM XXIII. 2, 3 405
^ Some time since I was driving across the Cornish moors, when my friend who was with me pointed to a greener slope between the rocky hills. " My father owned some land here when I was a boy," said he, " and many a time I have ridden over these moors looking for the sheep; I generally found them on that slope." " Why there ? " I asked. Then he showed me how two high hills rose up and sheltered it from the north and east, and how the slope faced the south, so that they found it warmer, and the early young green grass grew there. Some time afterwards that pleasant picture of the hills happened to come back to my mind, and I turned wondering as to where His flock finds its resting- place. Very beautiful for situation is this Twenty-third Psalm. The Psalm before it begins with that dreadful cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " Here is the hill of Calvary, with its mocking crowd, " They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." His sheep have come over Calvary ; they have passed under the Cross. Behind them rises that hill which for ever breaks the fierce storms that beat upon us. " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ " : here is the calm, and overhead the blue sky where no storms gather. Then immediately after the Twenty- third Psalm comes that which tells of the hill of Zion with its splendours and shouts of triumph. "Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in." So sheltered lies the flock of the Good Shepherd, betwixt Calvary and Heaven, shut in from the angrier blasts, and dwelling in a land that looks towards the sunny south.^
2. Here is a promise, then, to the weary, of repose. Thank God this is not an age of idleness. Can we equally say. Thank God this is not an age of repose ? It is almost the prevailing stamp which defines the character of the present day — its rest- lessness. Call it, if you will, impatience ; call it hurry ; certainly whatever is the opposite to repose.
We see all sights from pole to pole,
And glance and rush and bustle by, And never once possess our soul Before we die.
There is a deep craving within our spiritual nature for a true spiritual rest ; not the rest of inactivity or sloth, but a calm, ^ M. G. Pearse, in The Sunday Magazine, 1884, p. 605.
4o6 REST, REFRESHMENT, RESTORATION
abiding peace, wliicli shall be within us even in the midst of our labour. The full satisfaction of this craving is reserved for the future : " There remaineth a rest for the people of God." But there are seasons and opportunities of repose vouchsafed to us even now. Kesting-days are given us, on which we may gather in our thoughts from the excitement of the world, and receive into our hearts that " peace which passeth under- standing."
"^ There is probably no necessity more imperatively felt by the artist, no test more unfailing of the greatness of artistical treatment, than tliat of the appearance of repose ; yet there is no quality whose semblance in matter is more difficult to define or illustrate. As opposed to passion, change, fulness, or laborious exertion, Eepose is the especial and separating characteristic of the eternal mind and power. It is the " I am " of the Creator opposed to the " I become " of all creatures ; it is the sign alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power which is incapable of labour, the supreme volition which is incapable of change ; it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of ministering creatures.^
^ I began Miss Martineau's book (Feats on the Fiord) at sun- rise, and finished it a little after breakfast-time. It gave me a healthy glow of feeling, a more cheerful view of life. I believe the writer of that book would rejoice that she had soothed and invigorated one day of a wayworn, tired being in his path to the Still Country, where the heaviest-laden lays down his burden at last, and has rest. Yes, thank God ! there is rest — many an interval of saddest, sweetest rest — even here, when it seems as if evening breezes from that other land, laden with fragrance, played upon the cheeks and lulled the heart. There are times, even on the stormy sea, when a gentle whisper breathes softly as of heaven, and sends into the soul a dream of ecstasy which can never again wholly die, even amidst the jar and whirl of waking life. How such whispers make the blood stop and the very flesh creep with a sense of mysterious communion ! How singularly such moments are the epochs of life — the few points that stand out prominently in the recollection after the flood of years has buried all the rest, as all the low shore disappears, leaving only a few rock-points visible at high tide ! ^