The only thing this sweet singer is discontented with is his own
contentment. He will not be content as long as he has a shadow of
discontent left in his heart. And how blessed is such holy discontent!
For, would you know, asks Law, who is the greatest saint in all the
world? Well, it is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who
gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice.
But it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God
willeth, who receives everything as an instance of God's goodness, and
has a heart always ready to praise God for it. "Perhaps the shepherd's
boy," says Thomas Scott, "may refer to the obscure and quiet stations of
some pastors over small congregations, who live almost unknown to their
brethren, but are in a measure useful and very comfortable." Perhaps he
does. And, whether he does or no, at any rate such a song will suit some
of our brethren very well as they go about among their few and far-off
flocks. They are not church leaders or popular preachers. There is not
much rattling with coaches or rumbling with wheels at their church door.
But, then, methinks, they have their compensation. They are without much
molestation. They can be all the more thinking what they are, whence
they came, and to what their King has called them. Let them be happy in
their shut-in valleys. For I will dare to say that they wear more of
that herb called Heart's-ease in their bosom than those ministers do they
are sometimes tempted to emulate. I will add in this place that to the
men who live and trace these grounds the Lord hath left a yearly revenue
to be faithfully paid them at certain seasons for their maintenance by
the way, and for their further encouragement to go on in their
pilgrimage.
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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