p. 9 | The Good Shepherd

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 28, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 30.

The Good Shepherd.

There was to be a children's meeting at the chapel at 3 o'clock, and the teacher was collecting different articles together, preparatory to going over to the large, light room that was to be used for the meeting. All the morning she had been thinking, praying, and studying. And now when she had her Bible, her pictures, crayons, pins, and blackboard cloth in her little satchel, she bowed again to ask the great, good Shepherd to speak through her to His own lambs. She said, “Thou knowest I am unworthy to speak to them, but I love them, and Thou lovest them, and I ask Thee for Thy little lambs’ sake, and for Thine own, to bless them, to soften their hearts, and to feed them in green pastures.” After this she started for the chapel, feeling a sense of rest and calm.

CALIFORNIA SCENERY, No. 21.—John A. Sutter, a Swiss, entered California in 1839. He built a fort, known as Sutter's Fort, on the present site of Sacramento, and formed a settlement, named by him New Helvetia. Sutter and Marshall built their sawmill in the foot-hills of the Sierras, about fifty miles northeast of the fort, in the autumn of 1847. It was finished in January, 1848, and the 19th of that month gold was discovered, which set California and the whole country wild. In the autumn Fort Sutter and vicinity were laid out as the town of Sacramento. A view of the town in 1849 was given last week. The above illustration is from an old engraving of the principal part of the city in 1850. This was the year California became a State.

It was an hour before the time appointed for the meeting, but there was an hour’s work to do. At a convention she had heard a primary worker say that we were impressed eighty times more through the eye than through the ear. “And so,” she said, “they shall have the benefit of both channels to the heart.” First she pinned on the blackboard a lovely picture of a shepherd and a flock of sheep. She had cut this out of a nicely colored picture in a child’s book, as she had a number of other pictures that were used. Then she drew a few mountain peaks in the distance with green chalk for a background, and made a green pasture for the sheep and shepherd in the foreground, and then pinned on a few lilies and other flower pictures, and made a very attractive pasture.

Behind the picture she drew a white cross; on one side of the cross, at the top, was the Saviour carrying a little child in one arm, while leading another by His hand. Over the top of the cross was written, “The good Shepherd;” round the smaller picture, “Carries the lambs in His bosom.” On the other side, over a wild, mountainous desert, where a lamb was caught in a thicket, “Seeketh the lost one.” At the lower right side, over a picture of a shepherd at a well with his sheep, was, “Watereth the flock.” On the left side, a picture of a green place beside a still river where the sheep were resting, and over this, “Leadeth them beside still waters.” On the cross was written, “Giveth His life for the sheep,” and underneath the cross over a picture where a lion was coming to devour the sheep, and where the man hired to care for them was running away, was written, “The hireling fleeth.”

Then she carefully cleared away all trace of litter, “For,” she said, “children are influenced to be orderly if the room is in order,” and placed a few cut pictures that were to be used on the desk.

Before 3 the children began to gather. The songs had been selected with reference to the lesson, and as the children looked at the picture yet unexplained, they sang with interest the first and third verses of the good hymn, “He Leadeth Me.” When the teacher rose to begin the lesson, a sense of her privilege took hold of her heart. There were the sweet, fresh, eager faces lifted to her, and something of a realization of how precious they were in the dew of their youth, how much they were to the great Shepherd, caused the tears to spring unbidden to her eyes. There was a little tremor in her voice as she said: “Children, I am so glad to be with you to-day, because I love you. You are the dear Lord’s children. I never see a child but I feel my heart reach out for him.” The direct gaze of the children read deeper than the words; it was no sham; they would have found that out in a minute. The teacher loved them, and made them feel so quickly that Jesus loved them too.

“Now can you tell me the name of the man who was a shepherd for forty years?”

“Jesus,” said a little fellow timidly.

“Yes,” said the teacher, “so He was, and much longer than that. But there was another man.”

“Moses,” said another boy.

“Who can tell the name of the shepherd boy who used to play on a harp while he kept his sheep, and sing beautiful songs of praise to God?”

The teacher held up a picture from the desk, of David on the hillside.

“David,” said the children.

“Let us repeat the words of one of his songs—now after me.”

Then together they repeated: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. . . . Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

“Who was David’s shepherd?”

“Jesus.”

“Yes, and what kind of a shepherd is He?”

“The good Shepherd.”

“Now we have come around to our picture; for our lesson is on ‘The Good Shepherd.’”

“But if Jesus is a shepherd, who are the sheep and lambs?”

A little girl read, “‘And ye My flock, the flock of My pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.’”

“If grown people are the sheep, who are the lambs?”

“Children,” said some one.

“Then we are His lambs,” and, pointing to the first side picture, “What does our Shepherd do for the lambs?”

The children read, “‘Carries the lambs in His bosom.’”

“Children, Jesus was the Father’s pet Lamb, and the Bible says that ‘He was in the bosom of the Father.’ That means that God thought of Him always, planned for Him, loved Him, felt all His griefs, and it was as tho He was lying always on the Father’s heart. That is the way Jesus loves His lambs. You can have no grief, no trouble, temptation, or thought, that Jesus does not know. He carries you in His bosom.”

“But is it only when you are good?—No, always. I know how children feel when they do wrong. They feel that no one loves them. When mother reproves, they say, ‘She doesn’t love me.’ I knew a little girl who did wrong, and when her mother sent her upstairs alone, the little girl sobbed, and said to herself, ‘I won’t eat any dinner or supper, and I’ll starve to death, and then when I’m dead, mother will be sorry she didn’t love me more.’ But all this time the little girl’s mother was carrying her in her bosom and saying, ‘What can I do to help my darling child?’ That is the way Jesus feels for you when you do wrong. We are often like this little lamb who wandered away and got lost in the rocks. But Jesus, the good Shepherd, does what?”

“Seeketh the lost one,” read the children.

“He will never give us up. I knew a child who told her mother a lie. Her heart felt so heavy after she told it that she could not eat any supper, and when she went to bed, she was almost afraid to go to sleep. In the morning she kept following her mother around, and at last she threw her arms around her, and sobbed out her confession. Did her mother punish her?—No, she took her child in her arms, and said: ‘I knew you told me a lie last night, and I have been praying for you ever since, asking God to help you confess it. Of course I’ll forgive you, and so will Jesus.’ Then they knelt down and told our good Shepherd all about it. But He had been seeking the lost one, and how glad He was that He had found His own again! Never let the enemy tell you that Jesus does not love you when you do wrong. ‘He seeketh the lost one.’”

“How many have felt as tho you wanted something you did not have?—Why, all of you. I have felt that way, and I believe it is a soul-thirst for Jesus’ love. But our good Shepherd will satisfy that hungry, thirsty feeling. Just as a shepherd takes his flock to the well, and

pours water into the trough for them, so our good Shepherd does what?”},{