Death! I know not if my small barque be nearing you;
But if you are at sea.
Still there my sails float free;
" What is to be will be." Nor will I mar the happy voyage by fearing you.
Death ! I know not what hour or spot you wait for me ;
My days untroubled flow,
Just trusting on I go,
For oh, I know, I know, Death is but Life that holds some glad new fate for me. ^
^ There came a critical moment in my life when I was sadly in need of comfort, but could see none anywhere. I could not at the moment lay my hands on my Bible, and I cast about in my mind for some passage of Scripture that would help me. Imme- diately there flashed into my mind the words, " The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." At first I turned from it almost with scorn. " Such a common text as that," I said to myself, " is not likely to do me any good." I tried hard to think of a more rechercM one ; but none would come, and at last it almost seemed as if there were no other text in the whole Bible. And finally I was reduced to saying, " Well, if I cannot think of any
^ A. F. Mamreov, A Day with the Good Shepherd, 72. ' Ella Wheeler "Wilcox, Poems of Experience, 29.
PSALM XXIII. 4 463
other text, I must try to get what little good I can out of this one," and I began to repeat to myself over and over, " The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want." Suddenly, as I did so, the words were illuminated, and there poured out upon me such floods of comfort that I felt as if I could never have a trouble again.^
5. " They comfort me." " They " is emphatic, because they are thy rod and thy staff, says Perowne. Here we must regard " they," not as the personal pronoun, but as a survival of the older function of the word, i.e. as a demonstrative. It would be a good practice if we followed an example which has been set by some of the Germans, and printed such latent demonstratives in spaced type. This " they " is so essential, it is so distinct and emphatic in the Hebrew, Septuagint, Vulgate, and Jerome, that it is strange Coverdale should have overlooked it.^
6. And they bring me through. " Though I walk through the valley," says David. There are words, says Pearse, that are like the shells to which children listen, hearing the roll and murmur- ing of the sea ; words like the crystal stones within whose depths are a thousand mysteries of beauty. Such is this word through. I listen — it is the music of the angels that I hear, faint and afar off. I look into the word, and the light breaks, soft and pure, the light of heaven. Through, — it is as when one goes through some Alpine tunnel — on this side the bleak heights, the glaciers, the snows and solitude of an eternal winter ; then the darkness, on and on, until at last we come forth from the gloom. Suddenly about us breaks the light of Italy, the green slopes that face the sunny south, the olive trees, the vineyards, the pastures gay with a thousand flowers, the hills all musical with waterfalls, the fertile plains rich with all kinds of crops. Through, — there is a way out, another side.
^ It is a tunnel, but only a tunnel, and, like all tunnels, it has light at both ends, and certainly it has light at that end to which you are travelling. Most of the railway stations, I notice, are entered through tunnels. I do not know why, but it so happens that coming into most of our London termini you shoot through a long, dreary, ghostly, rattling tunnel, and then there is the terminus, and your father there, or your wife there on the plat-
^ Mrs. Pearsall Smith, The God of all Comfort, 45. 2 J. Earle, The Psalter of 1539, 267.
464 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
form, and then the embrace and the kiss and the hearty welcome. We are going through the tunnel, and at the end of it is the terminus, and, please God, we shall soon be there. It is dark and noisome and spectral, and a little awesome and fearsome just now. Sing. Sing this Psalm of heart-confidence, and the shadows will become somewhat luminous with the light that is about to reveal itself — the light of heaven, our eternal home.^
How should it be a fear To leave the spirit's house Where is our certain pain ? The wide path waits and here We dully pine and drowse.
The Fields, the illimitable Seas, The Snows and Storms and Suns Are for our own soul's foot. With them will be our ease When the free spirit runs
Out from the gate at last. —
0 halting soul, to yield
Unto this lovely change !
To let the lot be cast —
Be bold — and sure — and yield ! ^
^ When a child is born into the world, one of the most wonderful things to watch is how utterly it takes its surroundings for granted; it nestles to its mother's breast, it does not doubt that it is welcome ; then, as it begins to perceive what is happen- ing to it, to look round it with intelligence, it smiles, it under- stands love, it imitates words, it claims the rights of home and family ; it has not the least sense of being a stranger or a sad exile ; all that it sees belongs to it and is its own. So will it be with the new birth, I make no doubt ; we shall enter upon the unseen world with the same sense of ease and security and possession ; there will even be nothing to learn at first, nothing to inquire about, nothing to wonder at. We shall just fall into our new place unquestioning and unquestioned ; it will be familiar and dear, our own place, our own circle. The child is never in any doubt as to who it is and where it is ; and in the vast scheme of things, our little space of experience is assured to us for ever.=^