Now you must picture to yourselves an Eastern shepherd sitting among his sheep on the mountains. He loves them! He knows every one of them; and in return they know him, and love him. They will not follow a stranger, nor come to him if he calls them. I heard Mr. Moody say years ago that, when he was visiting at a farm in America, he asked his friend the farmer if he might go out to see his sheep. He remembered those words in the tenth of St. John's Gospel: "And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers." So he asked the farmer if he might stand behind a great tree where the sheep could not see him, and then he would copy the farmer's familiar call, and he would see if the sheep would come to him. But when he gave the call, the sheep looked very frightened, and then they all turned tail, and ran away as far as they could go! Yes—"they knew not the voice of a stranger!" But when the farmer, who was their shepherd too, and their master, gave the call, they turned back, and came up one by one to his side, expecting him to give them the food they longed for, and the love which day by day he lavished upon them. This is a picture of the Eastern shepherd. He loves his sheep, as I told you; he calls them by name; he leads them out to green pastures. If enemies come, he is ready to give his life to protect them! If, in his absence, a hired man has to take care of them, the hireling runs away if he hears the roar of the wild beast, or sees a sudden storm coming up! But the shepherd thinks first of his sheep. He leads them into a place of safety to escape the storm; he defends them against the wild beast with his own hand, and his own life! Jesus is the Good Shepherd—all these good things of which I have told you belong to Him in fullness. He calls His own sheep by name! He says to each one of you, however young you may be, your own, own name! He calls you in loving, tender tones. He says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." He says to every one who will have Him as his Saviour, "I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine." In the old days, when there was a High Priest, he had a breastplate on which was engraved the names of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel, and we are told in the fifteenth of Exodus that "they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord." This is such a sweet thought: that our names, if we love Him, are on the heart of Jesus, in the glory! But there is another story that Jesus tells us about the sheep. We have been thinking about the happy flock who are with the shepherd, feeding in green pastures, lying down by still waters, preserved from enemies, taken to the safe fold at night. But our Lord tells us this story of one, out of the hundred sheep that the Eastern shepherd has, who had wandered away!