can speak its infinite value? What
treasure can be likened to it? Surely nothing that we know can surpass it
in worth. We might, indeed, enjoy all that life can give; we might possess
all riches, all health, all success; we might have honor, fame, glory,
power; the praise and love of men, the treasures of earthly friendship and
earthly affection--the whole world we might gain and enjoy; but if through
all these, or in spite of all, we should not be led to the love and
friendship of God, we should know only vanity, and life for us would in
its issue be nothing but a dismal failure.

But if, on the contrary, through the sufferings and losses, the
deficiencies and limitations of life, we have been led to make God our
dearest friend, if we have been taught, by the coldness and harshness of
men, to take refuge in His love, how blessed are we! how cheaply the
purchase has been made, even though it has meant the loss of every passing
good, of all that the world can give, even the pouring out of our own
life's blood!

Teach me, O my Master, in the day of sorrow and tribulation, to understand
the meaning of the cross, to know the value of my sufferings, to grasp the
power and the secret of Thy rod and Thy staff. Assist me to see Thee
through the darkness that surrounds me; and give me to feel, in the midst
of loneliness and perils, amid pain and desolation, the nearness to my
soul of Thy loving-kindness, and the strength of Thy merciful presence.

IX. THOU SPREADEST BEFORE ME A TABLE IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES.

In the preceding verses of the Shepherd Psalm the Psalmist has described
the constant care of the shepherd for his sheep--the rest and refreshment,
the protection and comfort he provides for them. And now, in the present
verse, he speaks of a feast he has prepared for them, which is to be
likened to a bountiful banquet--a banquet which they are to enjoy, a feast
which they are to consume, in the sight of their enemies, in the presence
of the evils that afflict them. He refers, at first, to the manner of
preparing or spreading a table in the Orient. Often the custom of olden
times was not much different from that which prevails among the Arabs even
today. To prepare a table means with them simply to spread a skin or a
cloth or a mat on the ground.

And it is to this kind of table that the Psalmist refers when he sings of
the feast of the sheep. He means nothing more than that he has provided
for his flo