THE DOOR by Mary M. Redding

Pacific Press Publishing Company · MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA · Jan 9, 1907

THE DOOR.

By Mary M. Redding

(MARY M. REDDING, in Sunday School Times.)

[An actual incident of one of Dr. George Adam Smith’s Syrian journeys.]

An old-new parable from Palestine, Land of the palm and olive, fig and vine, I read to-day, and, like a lovely song, It singeth in my heart the whole day long:

A traveler once, when skies were rose and gold With Syrian sunset, paused beside the fold Where an Arabian shepherd housed his flock; Only a circling wall of rough gray rock,— No door, no gate, but just an opening wide Enough for snowy, huddling sheep to come inside. “So,” questioned he, “then no wild beasts you dread?” “Ah, yes, the wolf is near,” the shepherd said.

“But”—strange and sweet the voice divine of yore Fell on his startled ear—“I am the door! When skies are sown with stars, and I may trace The velvet shadows, in this narrow space I lay me down. No silly sheep may go Without the fold but I, the shepherd, know. Nor need my cherished flock, close-sheltered, warm, Fear ravening wolf, save o’er my prostrate form.”

O word of Christ,—illumined evermore For us His timid sheep,—“I am the Door!”