ner-stone, grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made a holy temple, acceptable to Him through Jesus Christ our Lord! I am, my dear Christian Friends and Brethren, Your affectionate Brother and Servant in Christ, THOMAS DALE. October 13, 1845. CONTENTS. 35 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, 103 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. CHAPTER I. The Recovery. THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD-I SHALL NOT WANT. HIS Psalm has always been re TH garded as a peculiarly attractive and interesting portion of Holy Writ. It is admired, by the mere lovers of nature, for its exquisite pastoral imagery: it is endeared to the children of grace, by its exact and consummate portraiture of the true Believer by the precision with which it delineates his dependence, his B a confidence, his privileges, and his prospects; by the fidelity with which it tracks his path through life, and by the clearness with which it declares and developes his triumphant passage through the " grave and gate of death." In a word, it exhibits, within the compass of a few short verses, a complete epitome of the believer's experience, from his first recovery by the gracious interposition of the Good Shepherd to his final attainment of an everlasting habitation in the temple of the Lord, which is “the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens !" b There is a sense, indeed, in which every professing member of the Church of Christ, nominal as well as real, can appropriate to himself the words with which the Psalm commences, "The a Collect for Easter Eve. b 2 Cor. v. 1. |