A shepherd on
the mountains of Israel had nothing more to do than himself pass up into
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.
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