Henry Ward Beecher

“It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophy of the world.

It has remanded to their dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows than there are sands on the sea shore.

It has comforted the noble host of the poor.

It has sung courage to the army of the disappointed.

It has poured balm and consolation into the heart of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their pinching griefs, of orphans in their loneliness.

Dying soldiers have died easier as it was read to them; ghastly hospitals have been illuminated;

It has visited the prisoner, and broken his chains.

It has made the dying Christian slave freer than his master.

It will go singing to your children and my children, and to their children, through all the generations of time; nor will it fold its wings till the last pilgrim is safe, and time ended; and then it shall fly back to the bosom of God, whence it issued, and sound on, mingled with all those sounds of celestial joy which make heaven musical for ever.”

So proclaimed Henry Ward Beecher about Psalm 23.