98 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED
Dr. John Ker says, Every line of it, every word of it, has been engraven for generations in Scottish hearts, has accompanied them from childhood to age, from their homes to all the seas and lands where they have wandered, and has been to a multitude no man can number the rod and staff of which it speaks, to guide and guard them in dark valleys, and at last through the darkest. Mr. S. R. Crockett writes Mr. Stead, There is no hymn like " The Lord s my Shepherd, I ll not want." I think I must have stood by quite a hundred men and women as they lay a-dying, and I can assure you that these words the first learned by the child were also the words that ushered most of them into the Quiet. The Rev. D. P. Alford also writes, When I was chaplain of the Scilly Islands, one of my leading parishioners, a Scotchman, when dying, found the greatest con solation in the metrical version of this psalm. His wife said to me, " It is no wonder that psalm comforts him, for he has said it every night before going to bed ever since I have known him." They were elderly people, and had been married many years.
Hymn 87. My Shepherd will supply my need.
ISAAC WATTS, D.D. (3).
Psalm xxiii,, from Psalms of David, 1719. The sixth verse is omitted
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come ; No more a stranger or a guest, But like a child at home.
Hymn 88. Thee will I praise with all my heart.
CHARLES WESLEY (i).
Psalm ix. Seven double verses ; first published in 1870 in Works t viii. 17.
Hymn 89. O bless the Lord, my soul! ISAAC WATTS, D.D. (3).
Psalm ciii. 1-7, from Psalms of David, 1719. Praise for spiritual and temporal mercies.
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