^ The highest courage has its root in faith. One may be bold because he is ignorant or because he lacks sensitiveness ; one may
1 W. G. Blaikie, David Broivn, D.D., LL.D., 36.
456 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
be indifferent to danger because he is indifferent to fate ; one may be brave from that instinctive pluck which focusses all a man's powers on the doing of the thing in hand, or the resolute holding of the place to which one has been assigned ; but the quality which sees with clear intelligence all the possibilities of peril, which is sensitive to pain and loss, which loves life and light and the chances of work, and yet calmly faces calamity and death, is born of faith, and grows to splendid maturity by the nurture of faith.^
^ Edward Irving returned to London to find himself forbidden to administer the Sacraments, for the act of deposition was a judicial act, depriving him of his authority as a minister. Though he was re-ordained by the apostles of his own Church, he never recovered from the blow. He accepted it with a humility which was the more touching from his confidence in his extraordinary powers. But his heart was broken. Slowly his life ebbed from him. His faith in his mission was unshaken ; he believed in it with all the fervour and strength of his soul, and toiled still to gain for it the ear of the world ; but in vain. In September 1834 he left London a dying man. Eiding through Shropshire and Wales, and visiting his scattered congregations as he went, he reached Liverpool. In his touching letters to his wife are messages to his little daughter, Maggie, sent in the simply-told stories that he gleaned on his way. When other comforts had failed, and fame had fled, he clung to his Bible, and made the Psalms his constant companions. " How in the night seasons," he writes on October 12th, " the Psalms have been my consolations against the faintings of flesh and spirit."
At Liverpool he took ship and sailed for Glasgow. The end was near. For a few weeks he was able to preach, though, at forty-two, his gaunt gigantic frame bore all the marks of age and weakness. His face was wasted, his hair white, his voice broken, his eyes restless and unquiet. As November drew to its close, his feebleness increased, till it was evident that his life was rapidly passing away. His mind began to wander. Those who watched at his bedside could not understand the broken utterances spoken in an unknown tongue by his faltering voice. But at last it was found that he w^as repeating to himself in Hebrew, Psalm xxiii., " The Lord is my Shepherd." It was with some- thing like its old power that the dying voice swelled as it uttered the glorious conviction, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." The last articulate words that fell from his lips were, " If I die, I die unto the
1 H. W. Mabie, Tlie Life of the Spirit, 120.
PSALM xxiii. 4 457
Lord. Amen." And with these he passed away at midnight on December 7th, 1834.i
II.
Companionship.
"For thou art with me."
1. Most men will agree that it is the loneliness of death that constitutes its chief dread. If we could die in families, in groups, in communities ; if hand in hand we could move down the dark valley, hand in hand breast the dark river, hand in hand pass into the Paradise of God, then death would indeed lose much of its terror and gloom. But, alas ! each must die for himself, even though he may die with others. Loved ones, however dear, can only see us off. The most they can do is to smooth our passage down to the edge of the shadow, and then wish us a good voyage as we embark. Last words have to be spoken, final leave has to be taken; and then alone, as far as human eye can see, and unattended, the soul must pass out into the night that men call death. So, indeed, it seems to our dull sight; but not to the Psalmist's. With a prophet's keen vision he pierces the veil, and, seeing no break in the sheltering care of the All-Fatherly hand, triumphantly declares that even the death-crisis cannot come between him and his Shepherd-Guide. " Thou art with me ! "
^ I remember being much struck with the remark made by a former Sabbath-school teacher of my own. His mother was a widow, and he lived with her. When the doctor told him he could not survive the night, he bade good-bye to all his friends ; and after they had left the house, turning to his mother he said, " We will meet the king of terrors alone." Yet even she had to leave him to die alone. But they who have God as their Shepherd are not even then alone. The Son of God has promised that He will come again to take them to Himself ; that where He is, there they may be also.2
^ " Thou art with me." I have eagerly seized on this ; for out of all the terrors which gather themselves into the name of