It was late when they arrived.  Neither Yusuf nor Amzi was present to raise the hearts of their hearers with words of simple and earnest piety, no voice of Manasseh was there to lead in the songs of praise, but an old man with snowy hair and a saint-like face was standing behind a table, a volume of the Scriptures before him, and the voices of the congregation, some twenty in number, arose in the old, yet ever new words: 

“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.”

The Koreish woman listened.  She could not understand all this.  Yet it was beautiful,—­“green pastures,” “still waters.”  Could it be that these people knew of an Elysian spot, unknown to Meccans—­that their God led them to such favored retreats?  She could restrain her impatience no longer.

“Where are the green pastures and still waters?” she cried, impetuously, “that I too may go to them!”

The old man smiled with serene kindness.  “Daughter,” he said, “the green pastures and still waters are the pleasant places of the soul.  Hast thou never known what it was to have doubts and fears, restlessness and dissatisfaction in the present, uncertainty for the future, a feeling that there is little in life, and a great gulf in death?”

“I have felt so almost every day,” she replied, passionately.

“Hast thou not found comfort in thy gods?” he asked, gently.

“Alas, I fear to say that I have not!” she exclaimed.

“And why fearest thou thus?” he said.

“Ah, knowest thou not that the gods are gods of vengeance?” she replied in an awed whisper.

“I know naught of your gods,” he returned.  “Our God is a God of love.  He gives us the certainty of his presence ever with us in this life, his companionship in death, and the privilege of looking upon his face and being ‘forever with the Lord’ in the world to come.”

“And are you not afraid of death?” she asked.  “To me it seems a dreadful thing.  It makes me shudder to think that I too must one day suffer the struggle for breath, and then lie still and cold.”

“To those who love the Lord ‘to die is gain,’” he said.  “Have we not sung ’Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me’?  Surely one who believes that, and knows that he is going to be always with the Lord, always able to look on his face, need not fear death.”

“It is a beautiful thought,” the woman said, bowing her head on her hands.