A CHARACTERIZATION OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM

HENRY WARD BEECHER

"The Twenty-third Psalm is the nightingale of the psalms. It is
small, of a homely feather, singing shyly out of obscurity; but,
oh, it has filled the air of the whole world with melodious joy,
greater than the heart can conceive! Blessed be the day on which
that psalm was born!

"What would you say of a pilgrim commissioned of God to travel up
and down the earth singing a strange melody, which, when once
heard, caused him to forget whatever sorrow he had? And so the
singing angel goes on his way through all lands, singing in the
language of every nation, driving away trouble by the pulses of the
air which his tongue moves with divine power. Behold just such an
one! This pilgrim God has sent to speak in every language on the
globe. It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophy
of the world. It has remanded to their dungeon more felon
thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows, than there are
sands on the seashore. It has comforted the noble host of the
poor. It has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It has
poured balm and consolation into the heart of the sick, of captives
in dungeons, of widows in their pinching griefs, of orphans in
their loneliness. Dying soldiers have died easier as it was read
to them; ghastly hospitals have been illuminated; it has visited
the prisoner and broken his chains, and, like Peter's angel, led
him forth in imagination, and sung him back to his home again. It
has made the dying Christian slave freer than his master, and