raise him from
sorrow, grow poor to enrich,
To fill up his life, starve my own out,
I would--knowing which
I know that my service is perfect.
Oh, speak through me now!
Would I suffer for him that I love?
So wouldst thou--so wilt thou!

Thus have felt and known the unselfish of all ages. It is not only from
their depths, but from their topmost heights--heaven still how far!--that
men cry out and say, _There is a rock higher than I!_ God is stronger than
their strength, more loving than their uttermost love, and in so far as
they have loved and sacrificed themselves for others, they have obtained
the infallible proof, that God too lives and loves and gives Himself away.
Nothing can shake that faith, for it rests on the best instincts of our
nature, and is the crown of all faithful life. He was no hireling herdsman
who wrote these verses, but one whose heart was in his work, who did
justly by it, magnifying his office, and who never scamped it, else had he
not dared to call his God a shepherd. And so in every relation of our own
lives. While insincerity and unfaithfulness to duty mean nothing less than
the loss of the clearness and sureness of our faith in God; duty nobly
done, love to the uttermost, are witnesses to God's love and ceaseless
care, witnesses which grow more convincing every day.

The second, third and fourth verses give the details. Each of them is
taken directly from the shepherd's custom, and applied without
interpretation to the care of man's soul by God. _He maketh me lie
down_--the verb is to bring the flocks to fold or couch--_on pastures of
green grass_--the young fresh grass of spring-time. _By waters of rest He
refresheth me_.[1] This last verb is difficult to render in English; the
original meaning was evidently to guide the flock to drink, from which it
came to have the more general force of sustaining or nourishing. _My life
He restoreth_--bringeth back again from death. _He leadeth me in paths
of righteousness for His name's sake_, not necessarily straight paths, but
paths that fulfil the duty of paths and lead to somewhere, unlike most
desert tracks which spring up, tempt your feet for a little, and then
disappear. _Yea, though I walk in a valley of deep darkness, I will fear
no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff_ are not synonymous,
for even the shepherd of to-day, though often armed with a gun, carries
two instruments of wood, his great oak club, thick enough