The following Sunday the elder and the minister again crossed the moor and came to the cottage on the hillside. As the mother opened the door to admit them they saw by the expression on her face that a deeper sorrow had fallen on her heart since they last saw her. She took them, silently and solemnly, into a little room, and there, covered with a snow-white sheet, lay the lifeless form of the shepherd laddie, her only child. As the minister took the white sheet and passed it from forehead to chin, from chin to breast, and from breast to waist, he saw, frozen stiff in death, the second finger of the right hand on the fourth of the left hand, which was fastened in death over his heart. The mother exclaimed amid her tears, "He died saying, 'The +LORD+ is _my_ Shepherd.'" What a world of difference that little word _my_ makes, does it not? As a pastor I have often stood by the open grave that was to receive the body of someone's beloved daughter, the light and joy of some heart. I sought to be deeply sympathetic with those who were suffering bereavement. I tried to mourn with those who mourned, and weep with those who wept, and I think I did, so far as it is possible for a friend to sympathize. But one day I stood by an open grave when _my_ daughter, _my_ child, _my own_ darling girl, _my_ Dorothy, was placed beneath the sod. Ah! then I knew what grief was. Ah, what a world of difference that little word _my_ makes! It will not profit you much, my friend, to be able to say, "The +LORD+ is _a_ Shepherd"; you must be more personal; you must say, "The +LORD+ is _my_ Shepherd." A Shepherd who giveth His life for the sheep, A Shepherd both mighty to save and to keep-- Yes, this is the Shepherd, the Shepherd we need, And He is a Shepherd indeed! Is He yours? Is He yours? Is this Shepherd, who loves you, _yours_? --_Ada R. Habershon_ CHAPTER TWO [Illustration] ="He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters."= They tell us that it is a very difficult and well-nigh impossible thing to get a sheep that is hungry to lie down in a pasture, or that is thirsty to drink by turbulent waters. A hungry dog will, but not a hungry sheep. The sheep described in this verse, then, are such as have been fed and satisfied in richest pastures, and whose thirst have been slaked in quiet waters. Doubtless the mind of the Psalmist is going back to such scenes in his own shepherd life when he had led his flock into rich, green pastures, sought out for his sheep some quiet watering-place, or had so manipulated the flow of turbulent waters as to make them flow smoothly.