But I love not only to visit the old city of _Shechem_, and to think of Jesus bearing the guilt of His people on His _shoulders_, but I like to think of Him as the true SHECHEM _now_. He is our _Shechem_ at God's right hand. "The government is upon His SHOULDER."[27] The Church and the world are upheld by Him. Believers--the poorest, the weakest, the humblest--are on the _shoulders_ of Jesus. He is bearing the weight of them all; loving them all, attending to them all, interceding for them all. All that befalls me, Jesus orders. Food and raiment, health and strength, friends and home, are gifts from Him. Every tear I shed, He knows it, He appoints it. If he sends me sorrow and trial, I will go and enter the gates of this city SHECHEM, and remember, "_Jesus_ (Jesus, who died for me) bears me on his _shoulder_!" Moses speaks of God conducting the children of Israel through the wilderness of old as a kind father carries on his shoulder his weak and weary child. "_Thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son._"[28] And David says in an hour of trouble, "_I am poor and needy, yet the Lord_ (lit) _carries_ me on his heart."[29] I like to look at that New Testament picture--Jesus, the good Shepherd, carrying a bleating sheep or lamb back on His shoulder to the fold. That poor wanderer had gone astray on the dark mountains; but the great and gracious Shepherd had gone after it "until He found it; and when He _had_ found it, _He laid it on His SHOULDERS, rejoicing_."[30] Young reader, what _perfect_ security and safety you have in Jesus, and in His Gospel City! Far, far more so than the manslayer had of old in his. I daresay, even although he was delivered from the Avenger, the Hebrew refugee could not help at times dreading lest the other might come upon him secretly. I daresay, at night, on his lonely couch, he would sometimes dream of the Goel stealing beside his pillow, and he would start from his unquiet sleep at the scaring vision. Not so in the case of those who have fled to the "Gospel Refuge." They can say in sweet confidence, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; because thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety."[31] He who is their "_Keeper_" says of them, "_They shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of my hand._"[32] [Illustration: Hebron] Third City--Hebron.