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The Song of our Syrian Guest

William Allen Knight

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

To the hand that held the tea-ball and the faces of two little maids

Salutation

Three months have gone by since this little child of my heart went out into the world, a strayling in the scanty dress of a booklet. In that time many thousands have looked kindly on the little wanderer and welcomed it into their homes. Letters from everywhere have come in, saying in effect: "It came to my door yesterday, and its voice has been sweet to me, and I am glad to have it stay with me." For all this I am most thankful. But it is hard to realize that the small circle of those who loved this story a few months ago has grown now to a multitude.

Surely none of us ought to be surprised that our story has itself grown under all this kindness, after the manner of children. Indeed, as we are sending it forth newly clothed, I find that it is larger by half than when I last prepared it for journeying.

I am set to wondering whether it will not grow quite away from me and have a life of its own. Healthy children do that very thing usually, and wise parents are willing to have it so.

But I cannot cease to remember that this story is out of my own life. It lay in my heart unborn for long. It came forth in a time of shock and pain. There is One who knows why its face is unmarred and bright with the gladness of trust. I think God has let it speak to so many hearts for this reason.

Go then, little story; be bearer of thy message of cheer and glad restfulness. I cannot follow thee into lives that need to hear thy voice; but speak thou to them, and I shall be content.

Yet I know, friends of mine, that as you look up somewhere in the world from these pages, you will want to ask me a question.

It has been asked and answered many times already. Because I know some of you are in sick-rooms, some are lonely and some companioned by grief, some are poor and some for the time are misunderstood, some are discouraged and some feel themselves little loved, some are young and cannot find their way, and some are old and wayworn,--because I know all of you have need of the Shepherd's watch, I want to answer your question. Yes, we did indeed have such a guest, a man whose home was among the Syrian shepherds, a man who well knew the life which rightly interprets the Shepherd Psalm.

I give my word that this story's message about the Psalm's meaning is straight from David's land. We had such a guest and he told us these things out of the life of his people, as we sat together one night over fragrant cups of tea.

W. A. K.

Boston, January, 1904.

Can there be anything more poetic than this life of the Syrian shepherd? It ought to be religious, too. Far, far away, out on the lone mountain, with the everlasting hills around, and heaven above, pure, blue, and high, and still. There go and worship in solemn silence and soul-subduing solitude, worship the Most High God in his temple not made with hands.

And now the lights are out in the village, the shepherds are asleep by the side of their flocks, the tinkling bell from the fold falls faintly on the still night air, and the watch-dog bays drowsily from his kennel at the gate. Good night, fair world; 'tis time to seek repose. Let us first read and meditate upon that delightful chapter, the tenth of St. John, where our blessed Saviour appropriates all these characters of a good shepherd to himself.

"The Land and the Book."

"Faduel Moghabghab," said our guest, laughing as he leaned over the tea-table toward two little maids, vainly trying to beguile their willing and sweetly puckered lips into pronouncing his name. "Faduel Moghabghab," he repeated in syllables, pointing to the card he had passed to them. "Accent the u and drop those g's which your little throats cannot manage," he went on kindly, while the merriment sparkled in his dark eyes, and his milk-white teeth, seen through his black moustache as he laughed, added beauty to his delicate and vivacious face.

He was a man of winsome mind, this Syrian guest of ours, and the spirituality of his culture was as marked as the refinement of his manners. We shall long remember him for the tales told that evening of his home in Ainzehalta on the slope of the Syrian mountains, but longest of all for what he said out of the memories of his youth about a shepherd song.

"It was out of the shepherd life of my country," he remarked, "that there came long ago that sweetest religious song ever written--the Twenty-third Psalm."

After the ripple of his merriment with the children had passed he turned to me with a face now serious and pensive, and said: "Ah, so many things familiar to us are strange to you of America."

"Yes," I answered, "and no doubt because of this we often make mistakes which are more serious than mispronunciation of your modern names."

He smiled pleasantly, then with earnestness said: "So many things in the life of my people, the same now as in the days of old, have been woven into the words of the Bible and into the conceptions of religious ideas as expressed there; you of the Western world, not knowing these things as they are, often misunderstand what is written, or at least fail to get a correct impression from it."

"Tell us about some of these," I ventured, with a parental glance at two listening little faces.

After mentioning several instances, he went on: "And there is the shepherd psalm: I find that it is taken among you as having two parts, the first under the figure of shepherd life, the second turning to the figure of a banquet with the host and the guest."

"Oh, we have talked about that," said my lady of the teacups as she dangled the tea-ball with a connoisseur's fondness, "and we have even said that we wished the wonderful little psalm could have been finished in the one figure of shepherd life."

"It seems to us," I added, wishing to give suitable support to my lady's rather brave declaration of our sense of a literary flaw in the matchless psalm, "it seems to us to lose the sweet, simple melody and to close with strange, heavy chords when it changes to a scene of banquet hospitality. Do you mean that it actually keeps the shepherd figure to the end?"

"Certainly, good friends."

With keen personal interest I asked him to tell us how we might see it as a shepherd psalm throughout. So we listened and he talked, over the cooling teacups.

"It is all, all a simple shepherd psalm," he began. "See how it runs through the round of shepherd life from first word to last."

"There is the opening strain of its music; in that chord is sounded the keynote which is never lost till the plaintive melody dies away at the song's end. All that follows is that thought put in varying light."

I wish it were possible to reproduce here the light in his face and the interchange of tones in his mellow voice as he went on. He talked of how the varied needs of the sheep and the many-sided care of the shepherd are pictured with masterly touch in the short sentences of the psalm.

"Each is distinct and adds something too precious to be merged and lost," he said.

"Would you get the shepherd meaning here? Then remember that streams are few in the shepherd country of Bible lands. The shepherds do not rely on them. Even where streams are found, their beds and banks are usually broken and their flow rough. Sheep are timid and fear a current of water, as they well may for they are easily carried down stream because of their wool."

"Poor things, how do they ever get a good drink?" exclaimed one of the two little maids, whose heart was always open lovingly to animals.

"The shepherd sees to that, doesn't he?" said the other timidly, with earnest eyes set on our guest.

His face beamed with winsome relish of these tributes to his success. "Yes, the sheep would indeed have a hard time finding water to drink, were it not that the shepherd sees to that."

The playfulness faded from his eyes and the shadow of manhood's years was there as he said to me: "Brother, you and I have learned how much is in that question and answer. How would we get the refreshment we need in the rough world, if the Shepherd did not see to that? But he does, he does!"

His face brightened again as he turned to the four blue eyes across the table.

"Shall I tell you how the shepherd sees to it that the sheep have a good drink every day? Listen:

"The shepherd makes a certain sound; all his sheep lie down and are quiet. Then he fills the drinking-troughs. The bubbling of the fountain, or the current, if it be by a stream, is no longer there to trouble the sheep. They can drink now undisturbed. This is the delicate meaning of that word 'still.' As the Hebrew words put it, 'He leadeth beside the waters of quietness.'

After a pause, with a far-off look in his eyes, he said, "It is a beautiful scene, so beautiful that St. John has used it in picturing heaven." A smile broke over his face as he quoted: "'The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life.'"

No one spoke as he sat turning his teacup. A tear started from his dropped eyes. Presently he seemed to recall himself.

While our thoughts were carried away to these scenes of thirsty flocks drinking, I chanced to notice that the tea-ball was again quietly at work. As we sat thinking on that picture up in the mountain, a good hand offered our guest a fresh cup. He received it with a low bow, sipped it in quiet, then with a grateful smile began speaking again:

Then addressing us all he went on: "There are perilous places for the sheep on all sides, and they seem never to learn to avoid them. The shepherd must ever be on the watch. And there are private fields and sometimes gardens and vineyards here and there in the shepherd country; if the sheep stray into them and be caught there it is forfeited to the owner of the land. So, 'he restoreth my soul' means, 'The shepherd brings me back and rescues me from fatal and forbidden places.'"

"'Restores me when wandering,' is the way it is put in one of our hymns," I interposed.

"Ah, sir, that is it exactly," he answered, "'restores me when wandering!'

"'For thou art with me.' Ah, how could more be put into few words! With the sheep, it matters not what the surroundings are, nor how great the perils and hardships; if only the shepherd is with them, they are content. There is no finer picture of the way of peace for the troubled in all the world.

"To show how much the presence of the shepherd counts for the welfare of the sheep I can think of nothing better than the strange thing I now tell you. It is quite beyond the usual, daily care on which the flock depends so fondly. But I have seen it more than once.

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