Lonely Cottage

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  “Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage of some shepherd. Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who “conceive and meditate of ple...

More on Mules

Early this month, our brother Scott helped us remember how “God loves Mules, but Don’t Be One” from Psalm 32:8-11.


Thanks, Scott.


I came across this poem by Marion Susan Campbell:

“I thought is strange He asked for me,
And bade me carry Him;
The noblest one of all the earth
Into Jerusalem!

But rumor goes He loves the meek
And such on him might call;
That may be why He trusted me,
The humblest beast of all.

Yet though He was so great and wise,
Unequaled in His might,
I scarcely knew I bore a King,
So light He rode—so light!

They sang Hosannah in the streets,
But I have heard men say
The only time they praised their King
Was when He rode that day.

Men pushed and shouted all around,
The air was thick with cries;
They spread their garments at my feet,
And palms before my eyes.

They strewed the narrow road with boughs,
And barred my path again—
But the tenderest hand I ever felt
Was on my bridle chain.”

Charles Spurgeon gives us the following thought in his incredible sermon, “The Lowly King” concerning Zechariah 9:9: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass."

“Now, this riding of Christ upon an ass is remarkable, if you remember that no pretender to be a prophet, or a divine messenger, has imitated it. Ask the Jew whether he expects the Messiah to ride thus through the streets of Jerusalem. He will probably answer "No." If he does not, you may ask him the further question, whether there has appeared in his nation anyone who, professing to be the Messiah, has, at any time, come to the daughter of Jerusalem "riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." It is rather singular that no false Messiah has copied this lowly style of the Son of David.”

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