refresheth me_.[1] This last verb is difficult to render in English; the
original meaning was evidently to guide the flock to drink, from which it
came to have the more general force of sustaining or nourishing. _My life
He restoreth_--bringeth back again from death. _He leadeth me in paths
of righteousness for His name's sake_, not necessarily straight paths, but
paths that fulfil the duty of paths and lead to somewhere, unlike most
desert tracks which spring up, tempt your feet for a little, and then
disappear. _Yea, though I walk in a valley of deep darkness, I will fear
no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff_ are not synonymous,
for even the shepherd of to-day, though often armed with a gun, carries
two instruments of wood, his great oak club, thick enough to brain a wild
beast, and his staff to lean upon or to touch his sheep, while the ancient
shepherd without firearms would surely still more require both. _They will
comfort me_--a very beautiful verb, the literal meaning of which is to
help another, choked with grief or fear, to breathe freely, and give his
heart air.

[Footnote 1: The Greek reads: epi hudatos anapauseôs exethrepse me]

These simple figures of the conduct of the soul by God are their own
interpretation. Who, from his experience, cannot read into them more than
any other may help him to find? Only on two points is a word required.
_Righteousness_ has no theological meaning. The Psalmist, as the above
exposition has stated, is thinking of such desert paths as have an end and
goal, to which they faultlessly lead the traveller: and in God's care of
man their analogy is not the experience of justification and forgiveness,
but the wider assurance that he who follows the will of God walks not in
vain, that in the end he arrives, for all God's paths lead onward and lead
home. This thought is clinched with an expression which would not have the
same force if righteousness were taken in a theological sense: _for His