Article January 12, 1924 Issue

The Gaining of Eternal Life

MARIE C. HARTMAN

What a wealth of tenderness is expressed by Christ Jesus, when, in the gospel of John, he refers to himself as the "good shepherd," and proceeds to portray how the shepherd watches over his flock. He goes before it; and, hearing his voice and following him, the sheep are gently guided towards "green pastures" and "beside the still waters." When danger seems to confront them, when fear and terror would frighten, confuse, and scatter the sheep, and the way of escape seems blocked and disaster imminent, then, ever watchful and ever near, the shepherd is there to quiet their fear and bring them back to the safe path.

The true shepherd gives his life for the sheep. The spiritual shepherd lays down his sense of material existence for mankind, and is thus able to handle all that would destroy. The evil from which the hireling flees cannot terrify this shepherd; for, being loved of God, he is conscious of the power and reality of divine Love, and knows that not one form or phase of error is able to "pluck" him out of the "Father's hand."

And then comes the supreme proof of this tender care, the culmination of the shepherd's love for the sheep: he points them to eternal Life. In their long and sometimes wearisome journey from sense to Soul, they at last reach the point where the true sense of being begins to unfold, where the Life that is God is revealed as the only Life, and therefore as the Life of man.

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