The Hart and the Hind.
Dear Children:—
If you have read and profited by the lessons God teaches us in His word about the animals we have already considered; if you have owned yourselves unclean, as the ass and needing to be redeemed by blood; if you have, like the cony, found a refuge—even Christ, our Rock—you will be ready to listen to what God has to say to you about the hart and the hind; for in them we find pictured what should characterize a child of God.
The hart is the male, and the hind the female of the red deer. So I write of them as one.
In Ps. 18:31-33, you find these words, “Who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God? It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places.” Do you know what kind of feet the hind has? It has a parted hoof, with which it can walk with ease upon the rocks and crags, far above the plain. It is fitted by God for the “high places.” And so is everyone who is born from above. David says, “He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet.” It is not natural to us. No, by nature we are in the mire and the sloughs of the pleasures and sins of this evil world; but again the Psalmist says, “He brought me up ——out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock.” Ps. 40:2.
“On Christ the solid Rock I stand. All ether ground is sinking sand.”
If you have found Christ as your own Saviour, you can say, with the prophet; “The Lord God is my strength and He will make my feet like hinds’ feet and He will make me to walk upon my high, places.” Hab. 3:1919The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments. (Habakkuk 3:19).
And now, dear ones, if God has raised us up, and lifted our feet out of the mire, and set us upon a rock, what is becoming in ns but to “walk worthy” of our “high calling”? Shall we come down to the world’s plains for our pleasures and our associates? Oh no! hinds’ feet are not suited to the plain; they would sink in the mud. Let us remember we are called from above, born from above, to have our affections on things above, and to wait for the Lord from heaven. May this be true of each of us —reader and writer—is the earnest prayer of your friend.
E. G. B.
Next week we will look at the hart.
ML 01/07/1900