the pasture lands and then begin to sing a psalm or offer a prayer, when,
in an instant, his proper sheep were all round about him. The sheep knew
their own shepherd's voice, and they fled from the voice of a stranger.
And so it is with a true preacher,--a preacher of experience, that is.
His own people know no voice like his voice. He does not need to bribe
and flatter and run after his people. He may have, he usually has, but
few people as people go in our day, and the better the preacher sometimes
the smaller the flock. It was so in our Master's case. The multitude
followed after the loaves but they fled from the feeding doctrines, till
He first tasted that dejection and that sense of defeat which so many of
His best servants are fed on in this world. Still, as our Lord did not
tune His pulpit to the taste of the loungers of Galilee, no more will a
minister worth the name do anything else but press deeper and deeper into
the depths of truth and life, till, as was the case with his Master, his
followers, though few, will be all the more worth having. The Delectable
Mountains are wide and roomy. They roll far away both before and behind.
Immanuel's Land is a large place, and there are many other shepherds
among those hills and valleys besides Knowledge and Experience and
Watchful and Sincere. And each several shepherd has, on the whole, his
own sheep. Knowledge has his; Experience has his; Watchful has his; and
Sincere has his; and all the other here unnamed shepherds have all theirs
also. For, always, like shepherd like sheep. Yes. Hosea must have been
something in Israel somewhat analogous to a session-clerk among
ourselves. 'Like priest like people' is certainly a digest of some such
experience. Let some inquisitive beginner in Hebrew this winter search
out the prophet upon that matter, consulting Mr. Hutcheson and Dr. Pusey,
and he will let me hear the result.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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