The Song of our Syrian Guest | Page 5

comfort God gives to souls that heed his voice; and those sounds have been heard in my country this day as they were the day this shepherd psalm was written!"
He sat in silence a moment musing as if the sound were in his ear.
With quiet animation he lifted his thin hand and continued: "Now here is where you drop the shepherd figure and put in a banquet and so lose the fine climax of completeness in the shepherd's care."
It need not be said that we were eager listeners now, for our guest was all aglow with memories of his far-off homeland and we felt that we were about to see new rays of light flash from this rarest gem in the song-treasury of the world.
"'Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.'" In the same hushed voice in which he quoted these words he added: "Ah, to think that the shepherd's highest skill and heroism should be lost from view as the psalm begins to sing of it, and only an indoor banquet thought of!" Again he sat a little time in quiet. Then he said:
"The word for table here means simply 'something spread out' and so a prepared meal, however it is set forth. There is no higher task of the shepherd in my country than to go from time to time to study places and examine the grass and find a good and safe feeding-place for his sheep. All his skill and often great heroism are called for. There are many poisonous plants in the grass and the shepherd must find and avoid them. The sheep will not eat certain poisonous things, but there are some which they will eat, one kind of poisonous grass in particular. A cousin of mine once lost three hundred sheep by a mistake in this hard task.
"Then there are snake holes in some kinds of ground, and, if they be not driven away, the snakes bite the noses of the sheep. The shepherd sometimes burns the fat of hogs along the ground to do this. Sometimes the shepherd finds ground where moles have worked their holes just under the surface. Snakes lie in these holes with their heads sticking up ready to bite the grazing sheep. The shepherds know how to drive them away as they go along ahead of the sheep.
"And around the feeding-ground which the shepherd thus prepares, in holes and caves in the hillsides there are jackals, wolves, hyenas, and panthers, too, and the bravery and skill of the shepherd are at the highest point in closing up these dens with stones or slaying the wild beasts with his long-bladed knife. Of nothing do you hear shepherds boasting more proudly than of their achievements in this part of their care of flocks.
"And now," he exclaimed with a beaming countenance and suppressed feeling, as if pleading for recognition of the lone shepherd's bravest act of devotion to his sheep, "and now do you not see the shepherd figure in that quaint line, '_Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies_'?"
"Yes," I answered; "and I see that God's care of a man out in the world is a grander thought than that of seating him at an indoor banquet-table."
"But what about anointing the head with oil and the cup running over? Go on, my friend."
"Oh, there begins the beautiful picture at the end of the day. The psalm has sung of the whole round of the day's wandering, all the needs of the sheep, all the care of the shepherd. Now the psalm closes with the last scene of the day. At the door, of the sheepfold the shepherd stands and 'the rodding of the sheep' takes place. The shepherd stands, turning his body to let the sheep pass; he is the door, as Christ said of himself. With his rod he holds back the sheep while he inspects them one by, one as they pass into the fold. He has the horn filled with olive-oil and he has cedar-tar, and he anoints a knee bruised on the rocks or a side scratched by thorns. And here comes one that is not bruised but is simply worn and exhausted; he bathes its face and head with the refreshing olive-oil and he takes the large two-handled cup and dips it brimming full from the vessel of water provided for that purpose, and he lets the weary sheep drink.
"There is nothing finer in the psalm than this. God's care is not for the wounded only, but for the worn and weary also. '_Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over_.'
"And then, when the day is done and the sheep are snug within the fold, what contentment, what rest under the starry sky! Then