'Like sheep they are laid in the grave; Death shall feed on them.'
--PSALM xlix. 14.
'The Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them.'
--REV. vii. 17.
These two verses have a much closer parallelism in expression than
appears in our Authorised Version. If you turn to the Revised Version
you will find that it rightly renders the former of my texts, 'Death
shall be their shepherd,' and the latter, 'The Lamb which is in the
midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd.' The Old Testament Psalmist
and the New Testament Seer have fallen upon the same image to describe
death and the future, but with how different a use! The one paints a
grim picture, all sunless and full of shadow; the other dips his pencil
in brilliant colours, and suffuses his canvas with a glow as of molten
sunlight. The difference between the two is partly due to the progress
of revelation and the light cast on life and immortality by Christ
through the Gospel. But it is much more due to the fact that the two
writers have different classes in view. The one is speaking of men whose
portion is in this life, the other of men who have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And it is the characters
of the persons concerned, much more than the degree of enlightenment
possessed by the writers, that makes the difference between these two
pictures. Life and death and the future are what each man makes of them
for himself. We shall best deal with these two pictures if we take them
separately, and let the gloom of the one enhance the glory of the other.
They hang side by side, like a Rembrandt beside a Claude or a Turner,
each intensifying by contrast the characteristics of the other. So let
us look at the two--first, the grim picture drawn by the Psalmist;
second, the sunny one drawn by the Seer. Now, with regard to the former,