er to the obscure and quiet stations of
some pastors over small congregations, who live almost unknown to their
brethren, but are in a measure useful and very comfortable." Perhaps he
does. And, whether he does or no, at any rate such a song will suit some
of our brethren very well as they go about among their few and far-off
flocks. They are not church leaders or popular preachers. There is not
much rattling with coaches or rumbling with wheels at their church door.
But, then, methinks, they have their compensation. They are without much
molestation. They can be all the more thinking what they are, whence
they came, and to what their King has called them. Let them be happy in
their shut-in valleys. For I will dare to say that they wear more of
that herb called Heart's-ease in their bosom than those ministers do they
are sometimes tempted to emulate. I will add in this place that to the
men who live and trace these grounds the Lord hath left a yearly revenue
to be faithfully paid them at certain seasons for their maintenance by
the way, and for their further encouragement to go on in their
pilgrimage.

Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.

But, now, from the shepherd boy and from his valley and his song, let us
go on without any more poetry or parable to look our own selves full in
the face and to ask our own hearts whether they are the hearts of really
humble-minded and New Testament men or no. Dr. Newman, "that subtle,
devout man," as Dr. Duncan calls him, says that "humility is one of the
most difficult of virtues both to attain and to ascertain. It lies," he
says, "close upon the heart itself, and its tests are exceedingly
delicate and subtle. Its counterfeits abound." Most true. And yet
humility is not intended for experts in morals only, or for men of a rare
religious genius only. The plainest of men, the least skilled and the
most unlettered of men, may not only excel in humility, but may also be
permitted to know that they are indeed planted, and are growing slowly
but surely in that grace of all graces. No doubt our Lord had, so to
describe it, the most delicate and the most subtle of human minds; and,
no doubt whatever, He had the most practised skill in reading off what
lay closest to His own heart. And, then, it was just His attainment of
the most perfect humility, and then His absolute ascertainment of the
same, that enabled Him to say: Take My yoke upon you and