THE SHEEP. 75 



and that they might have it more abundantly, I am the good 

 shepherd : the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But 

 he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep 

 are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth ; 

 and the wolf catcheth them, and scattered! the sheep. The hire- 

 ling fleeth because he is an hireling, and c.ireth not for the sheep. 

 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of 

 mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father ; 

 and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, 

 which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, and they shall 

 hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd,' 

 John x. 316. 



The sprightly and playful inclination of the lamb has passed 

 into a proverb. To their gambols in the pasture, there is an allu- 

 sion in a bold but appropriate figure, in the 114th Psalm: 'The 

 mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs. What 

 ailed ye, ye mountains, that ye skipped like rarns; and ye little 

 hills, like lambs?' The meek and harmless disposition of this 

 animal has occasioned it to be selected by the Holy Spirit, as a fit 

 type of the Son of God and Saviour of the world. The lamb in 

 the paschal feast, which was roasted whole, and feasted upon by 

 each family of redeemed Israelites, and whose blood, sprinkled 

 upon the door-posts of their houses, preserved them from the 

 sword of the destroying angel, was a lively representation of him 

 * who gave himself for our sins, according to the will of God and 

 our father ; ' whose blood has been shed for the expiation of hu- 

 man guilt ; and upon whom every redeemed Israelite feeds and 

 lives by faith, John vi. 5155. He is the lamb of God, who 

 taketh away the sin of the world, (John i. 29), the necessity and 

 efficacy of whose atonement were strikingly prefigured by the daily- 

 sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual. 



