The Song of the Sheep (part 1)

Perhaps nineteenth century preacher Henry Ward Beecher said it best: The 23 Psalm is 'the nightengale of Psalms. It is small, of a homely feather...but oh! It has filled the air of the whole world with melodious joy, greater than the heart can conceive. Blessed be the day on which this psalm was born. It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophies of the world. It has sent to the dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows, than there are sands on the seashore...It has visited the prisoner, and broken his chains, and, like Peter's angel, led him forth in his imagination, and sung him back to his home again...Nor is its work done. It will go on singing to your children, and my children, and to their children, through all generations of time; nor will it fold its wings til the last pilgrim is safe, and time ended; and then it shall fly back to the bosom of God, whence it issued, and sound on, mingled with all those sounds of celestial joy which make heaven musical forever.'