THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP
Millions have lived and died in faith in that word, The Lord is my Shepherd; nations have sung its strain into the strength of their being. The picture of the one who leads His flock, who carries the lambs in His arms, appeals to all; yet who has not some time, perhaps often, questioned: After all, is there any one who cares; is there any eye to see or heart to heed if I—or, indeed, all men—should faint or fall by the way?
Perhaps there are some who no longer find aught beyond an imagery of poetic beauty in the old strain, who even feel that it would be retreating intellectually to conceive of an infinite heart that broods over men or a hand that helps. They tell us that science has wiped out the possibility of such an one as this great Shepherd of the flock of humanity. Yet even they are not dead to this great thought that so long stirred men's souls and made them brave, ready to sacrifice, to die.
The truth is, the singer of long ago was but giving expression, in figures familiar to him, of a truth we all apprehend with greater or less clearness, one that alone gives strength, hope, and faith to our hearts, the conviction that back of all the warring purposes and jangling discords of our lives and our world there is reason, and order, and beneficence.
The science that seemed to wipe out the conception of a mighty Creator who fashioned the first man with His fingers, but emphasizes with a stress that grows from day to day the fact that this universe is not without order, its forces as sheep without a shepherd; that the stars are not wandering, nor the least atom without guidance; that, as one put it long ago, all things work together for good.
If the remotest particle of matter is bound up with the mighty laws of the universe, guided, governed, led to its appointed end, bound to serve its purpose, shall we not have faith that the law that guides the atom and holds the planet, pervades all the universe and takes us in its mighty grasp?
Not with doubt but with larger meaning and deeper assurance may I sing, "The Lord is my shepherd," thinking not only of one who takes up my little life and carries it, but of the great fact of all life under law, law divine, all pervading, moving in majesty on to the completion of its purposes. I may not know what the Shepherd looks like; I may have lost my old simple pictures of personality and appearance; the larger fact grows too great for fixed words.
This is to see the guidance of the Shepherd in the great things of our world as well as in the little. It is a strange, a poor religion that believes that providence will send a man his dinner but never gives a thought to the great purposes working out through all the strife of our common life, through our industrial, social, and political problems, nor remembers that life is more than meals or millinery.
There is the large faith which we need for all times, to believe that a plan is being wrought out behind all the seeming chaos, that there is a purpose even though we cannot yet trace its lines, to be willing to go on doing our work, laying down our lives, because the great world needs us; the Shepherd cannot bring His flock to the green pastures and the still waters unless we live and labour and die.
There is only one solution to all the mystery of our lives, the riddle of history and the universe; it is the spirit solution, that we are but the offspring, as all things are but the creation of Spiritual forces; that we are working out spiritual destinies, the green pastures and the still waters are but emblems of felicities and beauties beyond our tongue, the full orbed glory of the soul to which the Shepherd leads by toilsome mountain ways or dreary desert trails; but at last we come to the house of the Lord, where we may dwell forever.