Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/72

 his father's flocks on remote steeps, had inflamed his poetry with its intense and Oriental beauty! The "Shadow of a Mighty Rock in a thirsty land!" who could fully understand the simple imagery and all it meant, save one who had stood on treeless stretches under a burning sun, set in a copper sky? "My strong Rock, my Fortress, and my Defence!" No refuge from the blazing, deadly light anywhere but in the indigo shadows. Defence and refuge for heart and soul, as well as for the panting body. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help!" Ancient words, millions of times repealed, yet with a new message to every torn human heart, in its own time of need.

But this mountain-training of David, the shepherd lad, with its environment of constant difficulty, constant danger, enforcing alertness against the creeping, prowling things that would attack and destroy his helpless flocks, its training in resource of mind as well as in strength of body, bestow-