^ J. E. McFadyen, The Divine Pursuit, 201.
8 Tlie Life of DwigU L. Moody, 127.
« Bishop H. C. G. Moule, All in Christ, 204.
PSALM XXIII. 6 505
mercies " of God, this word " prevent " formerly meaning not to hinder, as it does now, but simply to go before — God's mercies outrunning our necessities, going before them to anticipate and provide for them. It is in this sense that we usually think of the goodness and mercy of God, as going before us to prepare our way and provide for our wants. But in our deeper moods we feel that we need quite as much that goodness and mercy should follow us. Our greatest troubles are ever those which belong to our past, which come from the things that are behind us, which we are striving to forget. Our march through life is like the march of an army through a hostile region. While we are conquering and possessing the present, we are leaving unsubdued enemies, and unconquered fortresses, and old inveterate habits of sin behind us, that will assuredly rise up and trouble us again. Our past is not dead and buried; it is waiting for us in some future ambush of our life.
How precious in such an experience are the words of the text, assuring us that God is follov/ing us — not as the American Indian follows upon the trail of his enemy to slay him, not as the avenger of blood follows in his awful vendetta upon the track of the manslayer, but with goodness and mercy ! He cries to us as we hasten away from Him in the sullenness and unbelief which sin produces — " I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgres- sions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." He can cast our sins behind His back ; remove them as far as east is from the west. He can follow us as Jesus followed Peter when he cut off Malchus's ear with the sword, to heal the wounds we have inflicted, to redress the wrongs we have committed, to neutralize the consequences of our folly, ignorance, or sin. He can gather up all our woeful past in His boundless mercy, and enable us as little children to enter His kingdom again. He can separate us from the debasing associations of our sin, give us a sense of recovered freedom and enlargement of heart, and enable us to begin anew, without the disabilities of former days clinging like fetters about our feet and impeding our steps.
^ The Psalmist does not ask that blessings shall continue to lead him, but that goodness and mercy shall follow him. They are not to be the guides of his life, but the consequences of his life. He is to go his way as well as he can, through the pastures
5o6 PURSUIT AND PERMANENCE
and valleys of experience, and after him there are to follow more goodness and more mercy. Perhaps he is still thinking of the Oriental shepherd in whose name the Psalm began. " The Lord," he has said, "is my shepherd"; and in the East the shepherd goes before, and the sheep hear his voice and follow him. Thus the man who has been blessed of God is to go steadily on, and behind him, like a flock of sheep, will follow the good thoughts and merciful deeds of a better world.
Such is the Psalmist's picture of the blessed life. The man who thus goes his way up and down the hills of experience does not have to look behind him to watch for goodness and mercy ; they know his voice and follow him. He meets his obstacles and reverses, and as he looks ahead, life may not appear good or merciful ; but what he is concerned about is the consequence of his life, and he goes his way bravely to clear the path for good- ness and mercy to follow. Says Whittier —
The blessings of his quiet life,
Fell round us like the dew,
And kind thoughts where his footsteps pressed
Like fairy blossoms grew.
It was a figure which Jesus Himself liked to use. He did not expect to get much mercy from the world : He prayed that after Him might follow a world of mercy. " For their sakes," He said, " I sanctify myself ; that they also might be sanctified through the truth." " I am the good shepherd ; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Here is the self-respecting, rational end of any modern psalm of praise: "Thou hast led me through many blessings, among green pastures, and by still waters. I do not ask for more of this quiet peace. I ask for strength to go my way bravely along the path of duty, so that after me it shall be easier to do right and to be merciful, and goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." ^
I asked my God to go before To light with signs the unknown shore And lift the latch of every door; He said, " I follow thee."
I asked Him to prepare my way By kindling each uncertain ray And turning darkness into day; He said, " I follow thee." 1 F. G. Peabody, Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 36.