Memory Verse: "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep."--(John x, 12.)

Scripture for Meditation: Luke xv, 3-7; John x, 1-18.


What infinite depths of tenderness are revealed in these sweet parables
of the Lost Sheep and the Good Shepherd! The tender, loving heart of the
Savior goes out in eager compassion and pity for the straying. What
boundless sympathy is revealed in the words, "He calleth his own sheep
by name;" "He goeth after that which is lost;" "When he hath found it,
he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing!" The seeker after souls must
be like his Master. A heart ready to melt at the sight of human
suffering and human need is necessary to successful soul-winning. There
are many whose hearts are hardened by long years of rebellion against
God; whose power of will is emasculated by long years of neglect; and
they will never be saved until some earnest Christian worker shall find
them, whose heart has been touched with the same sorrow that Jesus felt
when he stood on the Mount of Olives weeping over Jerusalem.

J. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland Mission, tells that when he was a
college student he had charge of a man with a gangrenous foot. It was
his duty to dress the man's foot every day. He soon learned that his
patient was not a Christian, and had not been in a church for forty
years. Such was his hatred of religion that he refused to go inside the
church at his wife's funeral. Young Taylor made up his mind to speak to
this man about his soul every time he visited him. The man cursed him,
and refused to allow him to pray. The student persisted in presenting
Christ until one day he said to himself, "It's no use," and was leaving
the room. When he reached the door, he turned around and saw the man