death-bed.  He felt the blessedness of having been merciful.  For my own part, I never can see a man or boy driving cattle with sticks and goads; torturing the poor creatures for being tired, and lame, and thirsty, and faint; and cruelly punishing them for wishing to rest, or do drink, or to crop the green grass; or for being confused and frightened in the noisy, crowded streets of a city, after the quiet country places that they were reared in; I say, I never see such things without a feeling of horror and dread:  for the Lord God will surely call to a terrible account those who act as if there were no just, holy, and merciful Creator, to hear the cry of his tormented creatures, and to prove before men and angels that they did not cry to him in vain.

[Illustration]

The next animal that I shall talk to you about is the sheep.  People call them “silly sheep,” because they are so easily frightened, and show very little sense of judgment when running away.  This is owing to their being driven about.  We seem to think it right to make every creature afraid of us, and by that means we weaken their faculties; or, to speak in common words, we frighten them out of their wits.  In eastern countries it is quite different.  There the flocks are not driven, but led.  You will remember that beautiful description in the tenth chapter of John, where our blessed Lord Jesus Christ compares himself to a shepherd, and his people to sheep.  It is now above eighteen hundred years since He spoke those words; but travellers tell us that it is exactly the same at this day.  Speaking of the shepherd, our Lord says, “The sheep hear his voice:  and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.  And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him:  for they know his voice.  And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him:  for they know not the voice of strangers.”  Only fancy what a different sight it must be from what we often witness!  Instead of a poor, frightened, agitated crowd of panting creatures, running here and there, with perhaps a man or boy shouting after them, outspreading his arms to increase their terror, and a rough dog jumping and barking among them, to see a quiet-looking, happy flock walking after their shepherd, pressing forward to get near him, and each coming readily when called by its name.  Of course, not being taught to run away from man, they are not flurried and thrown into confusion so easily as ours are.  But sheep are always timid, weak, defenceless creatures, and therefore the Lord often speaks of his disciples as sheep; because we are all as little able to protest ourselves from our enemy, Satan, as a flock of sheep is to defend itself from a wolf, or a lion; and he would have us keep close to him for protection as the eastern sheep do to their careful shepherd.