I walked long and far among the fields, in the fresh, sun-warmed air.  Ah! the sweet world!  Everything was at its barest and austerest—­the grass thin in the pastures, the copses leafless.  But such a sense of hidden life everywhere!  I stood long beside the gate to watch the new-born lambs, whose cries thrilled plaintively on the air, like the notes of a violin.  Little black-faced grey creatures, on their high, stilt-like legs—­a week or two old, and yet able to walk, to gambol, to rejoice, in their way, to reflect.  The bleating mothers moved about, divided between a deep desire to eat, and the anxious care of their younglings.  One of them stood over her sleeping lamb, stamping her feet, to dismay me, no doubt, while the little creature lay like a folded door-mat on the pasture.  Another brutally repelled the advances of a strange lamb, butting it over whenever it drew near; another chewed the cud, while its lamb sucked, its eyes half closed in contented joy, just turning from time to time to sniff at the little creature pressed close to its side.  I felt as if I had never seen the sight before, this wonderful and amazing drama of life, beginning again year after year, the same, yet not the same.

The old shepherd came out with his crook, said a few words to me, and moved off, the ewes following him, the lambs skipping behind.  “He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.”  How perfectly beautiful and tender the image, a thing seen how many hundred years ago on the hills of Bethlehem, and touching the old heart just as it touches me to-day!

And yet, alas, to me to-day the image seems to miss the one thing needful; how all the images of guide and guardian and shepherd fail when applied to God!  For here the shepherd is but a little wiser, a little stronger than his flock.  He sees their difficulties, he feels them himself.  But with God, He is at once the Guide, and the Creator of the very dangers past which He would lead us.  If we felt that God Himself were dismayed and sad in the presence of evils that He could not touch or remedy, we should turn to Him to help us as He best could.  But while we feel that the very perplexities and sufferings come from His hand, how can we sincerely ask Him to guard us from things which He originates, or at least permits?  Why should they be there at all, if His concern is to help us past them; or how can we think that He will lead us past them, when they are part of His wise and awful design?

And thus one plunges again into the darkness.  Can it indeed be that God, if He be all-embracing, all-loving, all-powerful, can create or allow to arise within Himself something that is not, Himself, alien to Him, hostile to Him?  How can we believe in Him and trust Him, if this indeed be so?

And yet, looking upon that little flock to-day, I did indeed feel the presence of a kind and fatherly heart, of something that grieved for my pain, and that laid a hand upon my shoulder, saying, “Son, endure for a little; be not so disquieted!”