Article April 27, 1899 Issue

The Shepherd

Frances Mack Mann

Denver Republican

We find in both the Old and New Testaments that the type of the shepherd was a favorite one for Biblical writers. It was a touching one in a pastoral country like Palestine.

The sheep and shepherd were inseparable in that lonely, mountainous country. They were mutually dependent. The shepherd was drawn to the sheep for companionship; the sheep were drawn to the shepherd for protection. There were dangers from wolves, lions, robbers, torrents, and storms, which each shared.

This manner of life seems to have brought out in the man a sense of Love, so that the shepherds were among the first to know of the advent of Jesus to earth. We find by the parable of Jesus that there were both true and false shepherds. The duty of the true shepherd was in the morning to lead the sheep out where there were green pastures and running waters, carefully he tended the flock all day, keeping them away from dangers, and if one strayed away he went afar after it until he found it and brought it again to the fold. He slept with them at night. But the false shepherd, the hireling, cared only for the money he was receiving for his work, and ran away at the first approach of danger.

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