the clouds of evil gather round your head, lift up your eyes in trust and confidence to the radiance that lies beyond the gloom and say, "All is well, for even now, let appearances be what they may, mine angel doth behold the face of my Father. Nothing that comes to me can do other than help me. Shadows cannot frighten me, and evil is powerless to crush me. My home is God."

THE VALLEY OF BACA

"Who passing through the valley of Baca make

it a well (R.V. 'a place of springs')." — PSALM
lxxxiv. 6.

THERE is a certain obscurity surrounding this familiar passage which has never been wholly dissipated. Most of us, I suppose, have chanted it in public worship without pausing to ask ourselves what it really meant. It is the same with the Christian use of a great many of these songs of ancient Israel; we appropriate the words without being always aware of the depth and beauty of the images. they suggest. I think it is so with the passage which forms our text. Every one knows it, but what idea does it convey to the mind? What does it symbolise? What is the particular spiritual experience thus described?

We may as well recognise at the outset of our examination into this subject that it is impossible to say with absolute certainty what the valley of Baca really was, and therefore we cannot be too confident as to the meaning of the figure suggested by the use of the name. But for all that I think we have ground for believing that the truth thus indicated is fairly obvious. You will see presently what I mean by saying this. The traditional interpreta

tion of this passage has been "the valley of weeping," but why the valley of weeping no one seems to know. There have been a good many attempts to identify the place thus referred to. The Psalm suggests that it was a locality through which pilgrims had to pass on their way to the national festivals at Jerusalem. Apparently the poet has one of these pilgrimages in mind, although he is not able to take part in it himself. Thus he writes in the fifth verse, "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the highways to Zion." Unable to form one of the company who are going up to worship at the Temple, he follows the procession with his mind's eye, as it were, and turns it into a figure of the spiritual life. His desire to go is real and intense, as is evident from the opening verses: "How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." Every pious and patriotic Jew felt more or less like this on the occasion of the great national festivals. But our poet does not content himself with wishing he could be one of the throng of worshippers in Solomon's glorious Temple. He sees that life is a pilgrimage anyhow, and that the way to the highest experience of the love and goodness of God often lies through toil and care as well as through brightness and joy. But he sees, too, that every one of the happenings of life, the welcome and the unwelcome, the glad

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and the painful, may be so appropriated as to become the means of abundant blessing leading to clearer vision of God. Authorities are not agreed as to the exact location of the valley of Baca. Some have identified it with the valley of Achor, which has sinister associations; others with the valley wherein David inflicted a severe defeat on the Philistines, as recorded in 2 Sam. v. 22. Renan, the great French author and critic, believed it to be the last station of the caravan route from the north to Jerusalem. But, wherever it was, it was probably a bare and desert place, without water, and therefore without beauty. The thought of the Psalmist thus becomes one of touching sweetness and suggestiveness. He regards the man of faith as a spreader of blessing. He turns a wilderness into a fruitful land, and causes springs to gush forth where none but he could find them. The place of death becomes transformed at his touch into a scene of abundant life; sorrow becomes love and joy.

An obvious illustration of the truth the Psalmist has in mind was suggested to me only the other day. I have been told that the colony of British Columbia, on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains, contained at one time a number of cañons, or deep valleys, which were entirely devoid of verdure owing to the absence of water. The soil was rich enough to grow anything, but owing to this particular lack it presented the appearance of a barren wilderness. But within comparatively recent years certain lusty

pioneers have come along who have bored deep shafts beneath the arid surface of these various valleys and come upon the much-needed water supply, with the consequence that, one after another, these scenes of death have been filled with luxuriant life and beauty. The comparison between the valley of Baca and these unpromising districts of British Columbia is quite felicitous, because the conditions appear to have been exactly the same in both. In either case what was wanted was that some one should come along with sufficient faith and energy to turn a dry and cheerless land into "a place of springs" - for this is the literal translation of the phrase "make it a well." It is because the valley becomes "a place of springs" that it becomes a place of smiling plenty.

Few will be inclined to dispute the correctness of this view of the poet's meaning. The valley of Baca is a desert place a place of weeping, if you like but the spiritual man, the man of faith, is able to draw from such arid experiences their hidden meaning, so that the desert is made to "rejoice and blossom as the rose." I think this is a very beautiful conception, and one which compels us to reverence this unknown singer of a far-off day, whoever he may have been. For it is just as true to-day as it was when he wrote, and I think it will repay us to try to apply it to the conditions under which we live our own lives. Keep before your minds the figure of the pilgrimage which is suggested here.