The Shepherd Psalm

I have seen a woman take some querulous, fretful child, oh, when the little thing was just a bundle of crossness, and, instead of thrashing it-you cannot do without thrashing sometimes, but it does not do always —instead of taking the cross little thing and thrashing it, she just lifted that little bundle of wretchedness, and laid it on her lap and drew it into her bosom, and just hummed away. Do you know what happened? In about ten minutes that little bundle of wretchedness was lying straightened out, drowned in a blissful sleep.

Appendix III Oh, that God the Holy Ghost, that nursing mother in God’s household, would take somebody to-night that is tired, and weary, and cross, and wretched, and miserable, just draw you into it, and croon, croon into your ear the matchless music of the twenty-third Psalm! (Ps. xxiii. 1).