THE FAMILY ALTAR
"The Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want." PSALMS 23:1.
"The twenty-third Psalm is the nightingale of Psalms. It is
small, of homely feather, singing shyly out of obscurity ; but, oh !
it has filled the air of the whole world with melodious joy, greater
than the heart can conceive. Blessed be the day on which that
Psalm was born ! It has charmed more griefs to rest than all
the philosophy of the world. It has remanded to their dark
dungeon more felon-thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving
sorrow than then? are sands on the seashore. It has comforted
the noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army of
the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the
hearts of the sick, of captives in their dungeons, of widows in
their pinching griefs, of orphans in their loneliness. Dying soldiers
have died easier as it was read to them; ghastly hospitals have
been illumined. It has visited the prisoner, and broken his chains,
and, like Peter's angel, led him forth in imagination, and sung
him back home again. . . . Nor is its work done. It will go on
singing to your children and my children, and to their children,
through all generations of time; nor will it fold its wings till
the last pilgrim is safe and time ended: and then it shall fly
back to the bosom of God, whence it issued, and sound on, mingled
with all those sounds of celestial joy which make heaven musical
forever." Can we say of the Lord Jesus, who calls Himself the
Good Shepherd, that He is my Shepherd? Whoever has been
called by Him into His fold and is fed and led by Him can
truthfully say: Jesus is my Shepherd, and I am His sheep, His
lamb. He can then also truthfully declare: "I shall not want";
for the Lord, my Shepherd, is the almighty God, merciful and
gracious, with whom nothing is impossible, who will never, never
let His blood-bought sheep die of want, but will deliver it from
all trouble, and show unto it His glorious salvation.
