Four Psalms | Page 4

This thought is clinched with an
expression which would not have the same force if righteousness were
taken in a theological sense: _for His name's sake._ No being has the
right to the name of guide or shepherd unless the paths by which he
takes the flock do bring them to their pasture and rest. The other
ambiguous phrase is the vale of deep darkness. As is well known, the
letters of the word may be made to spell _shadow of death_; but the
other way of taking them is the more probable. This, however, need not
lead us away from the associations with which our old translation has
invested them. It is not only darkness that the poet is describing, but the
darkness where death lurks for the poor sheep,--the gorges, in whose
deep shadows are the lairs of wild beasts, and the shepherd and his club
are needed. It stands thus for every dismal and deadly passage through
which the soul may pass, and, most of all, it is the Valley of the
Shadow of Death. There God is with men no less than by the waters of
repose, or along the successful paths of active life. Was He able to
recover the soul from life's wayside weariness and hunger?--He will
equally defend and keep it amid life's deadliest dangers.
II. But the Psalm is not only theology. It is personal religion. Whether
the Psalmist sang it first of the Church of God as a whole, or of the
individual, the Church herself has sung it, through all generations, of
the individual. By the natural progress of religion from the universal to
the particular; by the authority of the Lord Jesus, who calls men singly
to the Father, and one by one assures them of God's Providence, Grace
and Glory; by the millions who have taken Him at His word, and every
man of them in the loneliness of temptation and duty and death proved
His promise--we also in our turn dare to believe that this Psalm is a
psalm for the individual. The Lord is my shepherd: He maketh me to lie
down: He leadeth _me_: He restoreth my soul. Lay your attention upon
the little word. Ask yourself, if since it was first put upon your lips you
have ever used it with anything more than the lips: if you have any

right to use it: if you have ever taken any steps towards winning the
right to use it. To claim God for our own, to have and enjoy Him as
ours, means, as Christ our Master said over and over again, that we
give ourselves to Him, and take Him to our hearts. Sheep do not choose
their shepherd, but man has to choose--else the peace and the fulness of
life which are here figured remain a dream and become no experience
for him.
Do not say that this talk of surrender to God is unreal to you. Happiness,
contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have
proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single
turning of the soul. Lives are changed by a moment's listening to
conscience, by a single and quiet inclination of the mind. We must
submit ourselves to God. We must bring our wills under His. Here and
now we can do this by resolution and effort, in the strength of His
Spirit, which is nearer us than we know. The thing is no mystery, and
not at all vague. The mistake people make about it is to seek for it in
some artificial and conventional form. We have it travestied to-day
under many forms--under the form of throwing open the heart to
excitement in an atmosphere removed from real life as far as possible:
under the form of assent to a dogma: under the form of adherence to a
church.
But do you summon up the most real things in your life--the duty that is
a disgust: the sacrifice for others from which you shrink. Summon up
your besetting sin--the temptation which, for all your present peace,
you know will be upon you before twenty-four hours are past. Summon
up these grim realities of your life,--and in face of them give yourself to
God's will, put your weakness into the keeping of His grace. He is as
real as they are, and the act of will by which you give yourself to Him
and His Service will be as true and as solid an experience as the many
acts of will by which you have so often yielded to them.
Otherwise this beautiful name, this name Shepherd, must remain to you
the emptiest of metaphors: this Psalm only a fair song instead of the
indestructible experience which both Name and Psalm become to