The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-06-18

| one song which is universal. 1t was
not written in English, altho it is the
| best-beloved bit of English speech.
That, of course, is the Shepherd
| Psalm written by King David three
/ thousand years ago, which has been
/ singing its way thru the hearts of men
! ever since. Its atmosphere is not of
the court of Israel but of the open
fields, where the fIocks of Jesse were
! tended by a singing shepherd boy,
| pouring out on his reed flute melodies
which have since held the world in
thrall.
There is a clear reason for the SUI
| perlative popularity of this song, with
which millions of babes have been
sung to sleep, and other millions of
| the dying have crooned themselves
into the sleep that means an awaken
| ing upon the other side of the Dark
/ Valley. Whoever heard of a mother
i teaching her children Ibsen or Schop-
/ enhauer; or of the dying finding COM
/ fort in the writings of Spencer OF
/ Maeterlinck? In the ultimate expert
enee we go back to the simplicities.
The reason the Twenty-third psalm
| has heartened king and peasant alike
| is that it takes us down to that sub
stratum of life where all humanity
| has the fundamentals in common.
! The queen and the peasants wife
| share in common this basic sense of
| God, this sense of reliance upon the
| shepherd care of the Divine. What a
shepherd boy thought out on the hills
| of Bethlehem satisfies the profoundest
! spiritual desires of the race.
Where Are the Poets?
One who reads many modern poems
| feels strongly the lack of this great
/ simplicity and faith in modern verse.
We are weavers of words fanciful
| ingenious. self assertive. sophisticated;
| but the clarion note of utter reality,
and of the great integrities. is com
monty missing. Poets of today too
often miss what the shepherd lad pos
sessed. and so they do not lift the
hearts of men to high and holy en-
prise. or quiet them to 'trustful faith.
! To be really wise-here is a word
! for the thousands of boys and girls
who are graduating from our schools
/ this Spring-iS to lay firm hold of the
vast and elemental simplicities- There
was none of the worldly wise sophisti-
cation which every drummer possesses
about David or Peter the Hermit or
Cromwell or John Bright or Lincoln;
they only spoke what all men know.
only they spoke it with the conviction
of reality, with the driving force of
! life.
| Subtlety, astuteness, cunning, erudi-
! ton. all fail before simple candor and
/ faith. Wanting unbelef is often
merely absurd; they who believe are
wise with the wisdom and experience
of the race. There is more of pro-
found philosophy in David's familiar
I lines than in all the ponderous and
turgid tones of the delivers into the
deeps of human consciousness. The
| Revised Version arranges the Twenty
/ Third Psalm in metrical form:
Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall
| not want.
| He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures;
He leadeth me beside still waters.
! He TeStOrPtl soul:
He guideth me in the paths of
Righteousness for His names
! sake.
| Yea, tho walk thru the valley of
the shadow of death.
I will fear no evil; for Thou art
with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they COM
fort me.
Thou preparest table before me in
| the presence of mine enemies:
Thou hast anointed my head with
! oil;
| My cup runneth over.
| Surely goodness and loving kindness
shall follow me all the days of
And 1 shall dwell in the house of
Jehovah for ever"
The MosIem's Declaration.
| Every Moslem affirms, in public and
1 private. II testify that there is no God
but God, and Mohammed is His
Prophet" That is the Declaration
| that has won millions of followers to
the ruler of the desert peoples. In
somewhat the same fashion, this
! Psalm is David's declaration of faith.
1t is his expression of the highest,
| deepest truth he Knows. He is bear
| ing witness to the best that is in him.
/ Before ever it was meant to comfort
others this Psalm was one mans con-
| fession of faith Truth is the high
est thing a man can keep" herein
/ David fulfills a soufs loftiest function
of bearing witness to God. Primarily,
the Twenty-third Psalm is a magnifi-
| cent "Credo."
We seem to have receded far from
the high days of the war wherein all
of us were striving to bear testimony
| to the noblest of which we were ca
pable. The other day 1 was permitted
to read the last letter of North Car
| Dina boy to his mother, received by
her after the news of his death. In
exaltation of spirit that soldier was
| following the David example of testi-
| flying to the best that was in him. Let
me quote para graph:
Soon, very soon, 1 feel, We are
going hack into the line, and what
that holds for me God alone knows;
and 1 am going in with a singing
heart. | am not worrying. for 1 am
not making a sacrifice. 1t is the dear
mothers like you, and the wives and
the babies. that are making the sacri-
flee. We are granted a blessed priv
ilege of giving our pitiful little all. and
| cheerfully We are giving it. We will
not only give our lives. but we will
give them with a smile. for we know
that our gift will be made that you
mothers may never again look with
tearNdimmed eyes at the boys You once
! held so close to your breasts, and
whose tiny feet you led. and whose lit
tie lips you taught to say Now l lay
me- that you may never again watch
/ them march away TO war: that wives
may never again sit in fear dreading
the approach of the postman, lest he
| bring unwelcome news; that babies
may no more cry for the return of
! daddies who have died for the other
babies"
In life or in death. on the battle
field or in the clustered home. the