The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-07-04

ate. sympathetic, loving Father, whose ma
ture Is most truly revealed in the person
of the suffering Saviour.
LESSONS FROM AN ANCIENT
TeYse Comments on the Christian Endeavor
Topic for July 8. Lessons from Great
Lives. VII: David" /. Sam. i7:se-5l.
BY WILLIAM T.. ELLIS.
Dayid'S lot in life, his speech, his
clothes. his environment. were all utterly
different from our own; yet he was Il
human spirit, voicing his experience of
life and OF God, and when we approach
these soul levels. all men are kindred.
The men who wrote the Psalms dipped
their pens into the blood of their own
hearts and only literature SO written is
forever read.
Who can remember the best selling
books Of Il year ago? Where are the vol
umes that were hailed as epoch making,
and the teachers who were to revolutionize
thought? Forgotten and neglected, most
of them. But still in increasing numbers
the world is buying and reading the
poems penned by Hebrew poets three
| thousand years ago. Favored though they
are by the open air of Judean hills. by
the court of an Oriental king. by the trials
of wilderness wanderings and by the fiery
furnace of slavery. exile and persecution,
the Psalms still sound a universal note.
They are eternally contemporanous. The
heart Of humanity everywhere responds TO
them. They voice the deepest sentiments
of mankind's soul.
The greatest truth concerning any man
or people is his or its thought of God.
In every valley of the shadow Of death
there is a song which may be learned by
the singer who knows that jehovah is
my shepherd"
When we would pray we find that David
has better words than our own: when we
would be grateful and glad. his strains be-
come ours; when we are beset by fears
and enemies again we discover that he
experienced our exact case, and has ex-
pressed it; when a sensee of our sin over
whelms US, we find no words to voice the
souls cry like Dayid's; and when our
panteth after the waterbrooks. then we
instictively turn to these ancient medita-
tons to give articulation to our profound
to which the human spirit IS subject that
is not perfectly mirrored in this most won
derful book of poems in all the world,
SO long as man lives in a world Of
trouble he will need a refuge above and
heart, from the Psalmist's day till the
present finds III God.
Human spirits like musical instruments,
need to be tuned up No better method
OF getting the soul into key has been dis
covered than the Reading Of the Psalms.
They bring the heart into harmony with
thoughts of God.
David's figures are full and rich. There
is nothing meagre Or Scanty or occasional
in his conception Of Divine Providence.
II maketh me to lie down in green pas
lures There they are, fertile. abundant
and succulent; and the sheep. fulfilled
and contented. is in them, pre-
pared to enjoy them indefinitely.
II will fear no evil said David. OF
course there is evil in the world the Good
Shepherd himself lkened this to a void
world. The invertebrate optimism which
d1sresards the bad in humanity is no
true philosophy, Evil does exist. But it
need not conquer. Why not? Let David
answer: "For thou art with me; thy rod
and thy staff they comfort me-" The
greatest factor in life is not fear, but
God.
The twenty third Psalm is truly a
Song of the heart" 1t is as nearly a
universal bit Of literature as there is in
the world Wherever men and women
know the true God and the Book that
reveals Him. there men and women are
accustomed to express their highest ex-
periences of faith in these few simple
David, Israel's shepherd king.
A good creed for childhood and old
age. and for all the periods in between
Is this one of David's: The Lord is my
shepherd" There come periods in every
persons existence when he no longer
want; to be counted brave and strong and
masterfu>-he wants simply to be pro
tected. To give over all care and respon-
sibflity to the power of the loving Lord
that is peace. And it is an ideal of com
fort and protection which is to be found
nowhere but in the Hebrew or Christian
conception of God.
SEVEN SENTENCE SERMONS.
A mind content both crown ard king
dom is.-GOethe.