Pastures in the East are down in bottoms, not, like ours, upon the hills. But this flock finds supplies on the barren hill-tops. Sustenance in Sorrow and Loss. 1. Promise that whatever be our trials and losses we shall be taken care of. Not, perhaps, as we should have liked, nor as abundantly fed as down in the valleys, but still not left to starve. No carcases strewed on the bleakest bit of road as one sees dead camels by the side of the tracks in the desert. 2. Promise of sustenance of a higher kind even in sorrow. The Alpine flora is specially beautiful, though minute. The blessings of affliction; the more intimate knowledge of His love, submission of will. 'Out of the eater came forth meat.' 'Passing through the valley of weeping they make it a well'; the tears shed in times of rightly borne sorrow are gathered into a reservoir from which refreshment, patience, trust and strength may be drawn in later days. But the perfect fulfilment of the promise lies beyond this life. 'On the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be,' and they who have found pasture on the barren heights of earthly sorrow shall 'summer high in bliss upon the hills of God,' and shall at once both lie 'for ever in a good fold,' and 'follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,' and find fountains of living water bursting forth for ever on these fertile heights. THE WRITING ON GOD'S HANDS 'Behold! I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually before Me.'--ISAIAH xlix. 16. In the preceding context we have the infinitely tender and beautiful words: 'Zion hath said, The Lord hath forsaken me. Can a woman forget her sucking child? ... yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.' There is more than a mother's love in the Father's heart. But wonderful in their revelation of God, and mighty to strengthen, calm, and comfort, as these transcendent words are, those of my text, which follow them, do not fall beneath their loftiness. They are a singularly bold metaphor, drawn from the strange and half-savage custom, which lingers still among sailors and others, of having beloved names or other tokens of affection and remembrance indelibly inscribed on parts of the body. Sometimes worshippers had the marks of the god thus set on their flesh; here God writes on His hands the name of the city of His worshippers. And it is not its name only, but its very likeness that He stamps there, that He may ever look on it, as those who love bear with them a picture of one dear face. The prophecy goes on: 'Thy walls are continually before Me,' but in the prophet's time the walls were in ruins, and yet they are present to the divine mind. I. Now, the first thought suggested by these great words is that here we have set forth for our strength and peace a divine remembrance, tender as--yea, more tender than--a mother's.