more of the supporting and consolatory influences of the Blessed Spirit, than we do in whole years of prosperity. And when God, after his benevolent purposes in afflicting us are accomplished, interposes in our favour and rescues us from misery, our hearts glow with much warmer gratitude than if we had always remained in felicity. It is for this reason that the most tender and affecting psalms of David were written, when he had just been delivered from some of those calamities of which his life was full. At such periods, with a heart overflowing with gratitude, he joyfully celebrated the mercies of God, acknowledged him as the only source of true felicity; and acquiring a firm trust in him from the past experience of his mercy, looked forward with confidence to the future, assured that this God who had already conferred so many blessings upon him, would never forsake him.

You perceive the truth of these observations in this delightful psalm, which is now to occupy your attention, and which was probably written at that period of his life when the rebellion of his son Absalom, obliged the royal psalmist to retire from Jerusalem and flee to the borders of Lebanon. Dispirited and hopeless, wounded by the ingratitude of his son, forsaken by his friends and driven to an uncultivated region, he was overwhelmed with sorrow, and trembled lest himself and the small remains of

his army should perish with famine; but the event was more happy: his veteran troops, acquainted with his virtues and personally attached to him, flocked to his standard, and the good and opulent citizens afforded him liberal support.

Full of gratitude to that God who had thus unexpectedly led his subjects to espouse his cause and supply his necessities, he exclaims, "The Lord is my shepherd." The sheep, a timid, defenceless animal, unable to foresee danger and incapable of resisting an assault, indebted for its preservation to the vigilance of the shepherd, was a fit emblem of David left without support, until the good providence of God interposed in his behalf. And on the other hand, the care of a tender shepherd beautifully shadowed forth the active beneficence of God towards his afflicted servant.

There were several circumstances that would naturally induce David to represent the Lord under this image. It was an image familiar to the Jewish people who were greatly employed in pastoral occupations; the trembling sheep and the attentive shepherd were immediately before the eyes of David on the mountains of Lebanon, at the time that he wrote this hymn of praise; and he knew the feelings of a shepherd, having himself in his youth watched over the flock, and been so solicitous for its preservation as to expose his own life in its behalf.

After he had considered God in this character he could not but conclude, "I shall not want." With so wise and powerful a protector I know that I shall enjoy every thing necessary for my support or defence. Unlike those earthly shepherds, who, notwithstanding the warmth of their affection for their flock, are often constrained to leave it in want through poverty, through weakness, through the sterility of their fields, or the rigour of the season; unlike these earthly shepherds, he to whom I belong is so rich and powerful, that I shall need nothing. He is the Master and Disposer of the universe and all that it contains, and his infinite love is sustained by infinite power. There is not a want of my heart which he cannot supply, not an inquietude of my spirit which he cannot relieve, not a desire of my soul which he cannot gratify. "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.”

Lebanon, on the borders of which as we have already said David now was, is in part rough, craggy, and barren; and from its top, at certain seasons, cataracts of melted snow descend, which render the water turbid and insalubrious. The psalmist contrasts the provision which the earthly shepherds who dwelt there made for their flocks, with that which his divine Shepherd made for him. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters." Bounteously providing for

me, he shelters me from the heat of the noon-day sun, where the pastures are, not like those before my eyes, craggy and barren, but green and fertile; and at night he leadeth me, not to troubled and impetuous torrents, but to pure and quiet waters that gently flow.

The paths conducting to the top of the mountain were devious and crooked, and in traversing them the sheep were exposed to many dangers, and were frequently bewildered and lost. But the Shepherd of Israel follows David in his wanderings; and causes him to walk in plain and secure paths: "He restoreth, or bringeth back my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness." When I wander from him the only preserver of my felicity, the only source of my safety, he doth not abandon me to misery and destruction; he tenderly seeks me, he snatches me from danger, he plucks me from the edge of the precipice to which I had thoughtlessly strayed, he saves me from the ferocious beasts of the desart that were ready to devour me, and compassionately guides me in those pleasant paths where no dangers need appal me, where no foes can injure me, where proceeding under his eye and secured by his care, I shall advance forward in safety and felicity. And this he does not through any interested motives, not for the sake of any profit that can be derived from me, or from any merit in me, but

from the impulse of his mercy, "for his name's 'sake."

In the mountain of Lebanon, as in almost all the mountains of Judæa, there are numberless dusky holes and caverns; some of which are natural and others artificial. Many of them were at different times devoted to the uses of war; of this we have several instances in the life of David himself, who more than once employed them as places of refuge and as strong fortresses.* Besides this use, these caves were ordinarily chosen by the Jews as the repósitories of the dead; and as from their construction they were peculiarly fitted for it, so they in reality became the haunts of the most ferocious animals, and the retirements of the most determined robbers. Nothing could be more terrifying than a valley skirted by such caverns; a person in passing through it would be perpetually pained by the recollection of the blood which once had stained it, by the sight of the mouldering carcases corrupting around it, and by the apprehension lest some ferocious beast or bloody assassin was lying in wait just

• Jofephus affords us feveral confirmations of the fame fact. I will quote a single example from him, in which he defcribes their conftruction. Speaking of those formed by Hyrcanus in Perea, he says: "In the rock that was against the mountain he formed caves of many furlongs long. He made their mouths fo narrow, that one only could enter at a time, and this he did for fecurity, and to avoid danger if he hould be befieged by his brethren."

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