The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-07-18
Good and Evil, or the Heavenly
FOld..-NO. 2.

The sheep OF the fold possess certain
qualities which the Lord leads forth
and fosters. These are humility, self
remuneration and acknowledgment of
him. But what are the true lambs in
the heart we often do not understand.
What the Lord is endeavoring to nour-
ish and cultivate we may despise, and
what he is seeking to have us put away
we may prize as the choicest possession
of our virtues. We do not always know
the divine flock, so that it often hap
pens that the Lord is seeking to foster
in us something that we do not think
worth protecting and preserving.
This divine Shepherd has infinite
wisdom, and he is willing to care for
only the lambs and the sheep of his
own pure heavenly fold. The germs
of heavenly life which he is seeking to
implant in us, to protect and to nourish
until they become centers of heavenly
life to our souls, may be of transcend
emily greater value than we can under
stand or appreciate. We do not compre-
bend what it is that he is protect
ing with such infinite solictude and we
are unwilling that he should care so
tenderly for the sheep we do not value.
If we could have our own way we should
love to give the Lord a flock to
care for in our hearts. We would like
to have the divine truth with all its
power, and the divine providence in
the infinitude of its resources protect
with tender care all our much-loved
virtues, all our self-righteousness,
our success before the word, the gratiti-
cations of our ambitions and the salts
factions of our selfish enjoyments. We
would have the Lord carry in his bosom
the children of our conceits and the Off
spring of our own vanities.
But the lambs and the sheep which
the Lord cares for with all the richness
OF his divine mercy are the offspring
of his heavenly kingdom. They are
nothing that our self-love would value.
They are humiliation and the renuncia-
ton of self, the receptiveness which
enables us to unite with him. But in
what circumstances does the Lord come
to US? What events happen to us
which we may recognize as containing
his presence Into what parts of our
lives may we look and feel that in them
the Lord as shepherd is carrying the
lambs in his bosom? 1t is customary
in many phases of religious thought to
lCRdlu Experiences III IllC anu CCl TAIN
events as containing the divine pres
ence more fully than others.
The Lord says in the New Testament
that he comes in an hour when we think
not, and in any event of life, however
trivial, external, trying or evil it may
seem in its external aspects, the Lord
may be present as shepherd of his
flock. The Heavenly Father stands at
the very Utmost chamber of every hu-
man heart, and so guides with the ex-
haustless resources of his providence
the affairs of life that in every one of
them he may cherish his lambs.
In our lives the Lord constantly feeds
the inmates of this heavenly fold. In
the respect in which any experience
may be made to encourage something
heavenly in our hearts it is from the
Lord, and this is true however bitter or
however sweet may be the event. But
in whatever respect an experience en-
courages self-lOve, or our own self
sufficiency, it is from self; the Lord is
not in it, whether it appears sweet or
bitter. The outer character has naught
to do with it. The hold which it en-
ables the Lord to gain upon the heart
determines the whole question.
There are three thoughts which
bring this subject home to us: First,
that we realize what are the true lambs
of the Lord; that they are not certain
persons separated from the rest of hui
manity, nor are our success, our honor
or our selfish happiness, but our hui
mility, our emptiness, our capacity to
receive the heavenly life. Second
that the coming of the divine love into
our souls is the only success, the only
wealth and the only honor worth
having; that this should be the one
truth, measuring the estimate we place
upon things happening to us. Third
that the coming of the Lord into hui
man hearts is the all of truly successful
life on earth, that to bring it into the
world as well as into our own hearts
must be the purpose of our life here
and the harder the struggle the greater
the success. MRS. BROWN.