Before I finish, let me remind you of the application of the words of my text, which we owe to the New Testament. The context runs, as you will remember, 'they shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the sun smite them. For He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them.' And you remember the beautiful variation and deepening of this promise in that great saying which the Seer in the Apocalypse gives us, when he speaks of those 'who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,' and are led 'by living fountains of water,' where 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' So we are entitled to believe that on the loftiest heights, far above this valley of weeping, there shall be immortal food, and that on the high places of the mountains of God there shall be pasture that never withers. The prophet Ezekiel has a similar variation of my text, and transfers it from the captives on their march homewards, to the happy pilgrims who have reached home, when he says: 'I will bring them unto their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel'--when they have reached them at last after the weary march--' I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the mountains of Israel shall their fold be; there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.' THE MOUNTAIN ROAD 'And I will make all My mountains a way, and My highways shall be exalted.'--ISAIAH xlix. 11. This grand prophecy is far too wide to be exhausted by the return of the exiles. There gleamed through it the wider redemption and the true return of the real captives. The previous promises all find their fulfilment in the experiences of the soul on its journey back to God. Here we have two characteristics of that journey. I. The Path through the mountains. '_My_ mountains.' That is the claim that all the world is His; and also the revelation that He is the Lord of Providence. He makes our difficult and steep places. Submission comes with that thought, and even 'for the strength of the hills we bless Thee.' There are mountains which are not His but ours, artificial difficulties of our own creating. 1. Our way does lie over the mountains. There are difficulties. The Christian course is like a Roman road which never turned aside, but went straight up and on. So much the better. A keener air blows, bracing and health-giving, up there. Mosquitoes and malaria keep to the lower levels. 2. There is always a path over the mountains. Some way opens when we get close up, like a path through heather, which is not seen till reached. We walk by faith. We foolishly forebode and fancy that we cannot live if something happens, but there is no _cul de sac_ in our paths if God's mountain-way is our way, nor does the faint track ever die out if our faith is keen-sighted and docile. II. The Pasture on the mountains--lit. 'bare heights.'