The Progress. (Shreveport, La.) 1892-1900, 1898-03-05
HEAVENLY SHEPHERD.
DR.. Talmage Delivers a Glowing
Pastoral Sermon.
Plain Raiment of Humanity-The Crook
In the Hands Of Christ-In the Pas
ture Ground-The ShearinG
and the New Fold.

Rev. r. Dewitt Talmage in the FOL
lowing sermon presents glowing pas
toral scene to the minds eye. The
text is:
The Lord Is my shepherd. xiii, l.
What with post and rail fences, and
our pride in Southdown, Astrakhan
and Flemish varieties of sheep, there
is no Use now of the oldtime shepherd.
Such an one had abundance of oppor-
lunity of becoming poet, being out OF
doors II hours the day and oft-times
waking up in the night on the hills.
If the stars, or the TO, hts, or the sun,
or the flowers had any 1g to say, he
was very apt to hear The Ettrick
shepherd of Scotland, who afterwards
took his seat in the brilliant circle of
Wilson and Lockhart, got his wonder
full poetic inspiration in the ten years
IN which he was watching the hocks OF
Mr. Laidlaw. There is often sweet
poetry in the rugged prose of the
Scotch shepherd. One of these Scotch
shepherds lost his only son, and he
knelt down in prayer, and was over
heard to say: "Oh, Lord, it has seemed
good in Thy province to take from me
the staff of my right hand at the time
when to US sand blind mortals seemed
to be most in need of it; and how
shall climb up the hill of sorrow and
aud age without it, Thou mayst ken,
but dinna."
David. the shepherd boy, il watch
ing his fathers sheep. They are past
uring on the very hills where after
ward Lamb was born of which you
have heard much: THE Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the
world" David, the shepherd boy, was
beautiful, brave, musical and poetic.
think he often forgot the sheep in his
rev cries. There in the solitude he
struck the harp string that is thrilling
through all ages. David, the boy, was
gathering the material for David the
poet and David the man. Like other
boys, David was fond Of using his
noticed the exuding of the juice of the
said: 1.-The trees of the Lord are full
of sap" David, the boy, like other
boys, had been fond Of hun ting the
bir,ls nests, and he had driven the old
stos.s off the nest to find how many
eggs were under her; and when he
beca me man he said: ''As for the
storl<, the Ar trees are her house. 4"
In his boyhood he had heard tho
terrific thunder storm that frightened
the red deer into premature sickness;
and when he became a man he said:
i''The voice of the Lord maketh the
minds to calve." David, the boy, had
lain y pom his back looking up at the
stars and examining the sky, and to
his boyish imagination the sky seemed
like a piece of divine embroidery, the
divine fingers working in the threads
of i:,ht and the beads of stars; and he
became a man and wrote: ''When
consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy
fingers" When he became an old man,
thinking of the goodness of God, he
seemed to hear the bleating of his
fathers sheep across many years, and
TO think of the time when he tended
them on the Bethlehem hills, and he
cries out in the text: THE Lord is my
shep herd."
Ii God will help me, will talk to
you Of the shepherds plaid, the shep-
,herj's crook, the shepherds dogs, the
shepherds pasture grounds, and the