4. How is our cup to be kept overflowing ?
(1) By keeping it always under the spring. — The cup stands under the spring, and the spring keeps running into it, and so the cup runs over, but it will not run over long if you take it from where the springs pours into it. It is our unwisdom that we forsake the fountain of living waters and apply to the world's broken cisterns. We say in the old proverb, " Let well alone," but we forget this practical maxim with regard to the highest good. If your cup runs over, hear Christ say, " Abide in me." David had a mind to keep his cup where it was, and he said, " I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."
(2) By drinking fully. — " My cup runs over, then let me, at any rate, drink all I can. If I cannot drink it all as it flows away, let me get all I can." " Drink," said the spouse, " yea, drink abund- antly, 0 my beloved." The Master's message at the communion table always is, " Take, eat ! " and again, " Drink ye, drink ye all of it." Oftentimes, when the Lord saith to us, " Seek ye my face," we answer, " But, Lord, I am unworthy to do so." The proper answer is, " Thy face. Lord, will I seek."
^ W. L. Watkinson, Mistaken Signs, 165. ' Ibid. 168.
PSALM XXIII. 5 491
(3) By communicating to others. — If your cup runs over, call in your friends to get the overflow. Let others participate in that which you do not wish to monopolize or intercept. Christian people ought to be like the cascades seen in brooks and rivers, always running over and so causing other falls, which again by their joyful excess cause fresh cascades, and beauty is joyfully multiplied. Are not those fountains fair to look upon where the overflow of an upper basin causes the next to fall in a silver shower, and that again produces another glassy sheet of water ? If God fills one of us, it is that we may bless others ; if He gives His ministering servants sweet fellowship with Him, it is that their words may encourage others to seek the same fellowship ; and if their hearers get a portion of meat, it is that they may carry a portion home.
0 look, my soul, and see
How thy cup doth overflow ! Think of the love so free
Which fills it for thee so !
Let fall no tears therein
Of self-will or of doubt; There may be tears for sin,
But sinful tears keep out.
What lies within ? Life, health,
Friends — here, or gone before; Promise of heavenly wealth,
Of earthly, some small store;
Power to act thy part
In earth's great labour-field; Grace which should make thy heart
An hundred-fold to yield.
The drops that overflow
Shine in the morning sun, And catch the evening glow,
When each day's work is done.
And if there mingle there
Some drops of darker hue, What colour would all bear
If all were but thy due ?
492 ENTERTAINMENT, ENRICHMENT
What God's own wisdom planned,
Is it not right and meet ? Shall aught come from His hand,
And not to thee seem sweet ?
Pursuit and Permanence.
Literature.
Binney (T.), in The Pulpit, Ixvii. 29. Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 308. Culross (J.), God's Shepherd Care, 141. Cunningham (W.), Sermons, 1. Duflf (R. S.), The So7uj of the Shepherd, 157. Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 113, 131. Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalm, 91, 98, 105. Landels (W.), Until the Day Break, 33. McFadyen (J. E.), The Divine Pursuit, 201. Macmillan (H.), The Mystery of Grace, 135. Matlieson (G.), Rests by the River, 50. Melvill (H.), Fifty Sermons, 31. Hunger (T. T.), The Apinal to Life, 67. Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 142. Pike (J. K.), Unfailing Goodness and Mercy, 1. Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vii. 169. Stalker (J.), TJie Psalm of Psalms, 107. Tipple (S. A.), Sunday Mornings at Norwood, 233. British Weekly Pulpit, i. 597 (Macmillan). Christian World Pulpit, xx. 123 (Hammond).
494
Pursuit and Permanence.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life : And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. — Ps. xxiii. 6.
1. The phrase of the poet, that " this wise world is mainly right," has no better illustration than the use it makes of this 23rd Psalm. There is no other form of words which it holds so dear, except perhaps the Lord's Prayer ; but if that has a superior majesty, this has a deeper tenderness ; if one is Divine, the other is perfectly human, and its "touch of nature makes the whole world kin."
2. It was probably written by David, not while he was a shepherd-boy, but after an experience of life, and perhaps during the very stress of it. For a shepherd-boy does not sing of flocks and pastures, even if he be a true poet, but of things that he has dreamed yet not seen, imagined but not realized. Hence youth- ful poetry is of things afar off, while the poetry of men is of things near at hand and close to their life — the daisies under their feet, and the hills that rise from their doors. The young, when they express themselves, are full of sentimentality ; that is, feeling not yet turned into reality under experience; but there is no sentimentality here — only solid wisdom, won by experience and poured out as feeling. The shepherd-boy becomes a warrior and king ; life presses hard on him ; he covers it in its widest extremes, tastes all its joy and bitterness ; his heart is full and empty ; he loves and loves ; he is hunted like a partridge and he rules over nations ; he digs deep pits for himself into which he falls, but rises out of them and soars to heaven. David's nature was broad and apparently contradictory, and every phase of his character, every impulse of his heart, had its outward history. Into but few lives was so much life crowded ; few have touched it at so many points.