umed me," says Jacob; and who was He who at
midday sat down at that very Jacob's well, tired with His journey, and
needing some of that water to quench His thirst, whereof "Jacob drank
himself, and his children and his cattle"? Yet whereas He had a living
water to impart, which the world knew not of. He preferred, as became
the good Shepherd, to offer it to one of those lost sheep whom He came
to seek and to save, rather than to take at her hand the water from the
well, or to accept the offer of His disciples, when they came with meat
from the city, and said, "Master, eat." "The frost" consumed me "by
night," says Jacob, "and my sleep departed from mine eyes," and read we
not of One whose wont it was to rise a long while before day, and
continue in prayer to God? who passed nights in the mountain, or on the
sea? who dwelt forty days in the wilderness? who, in the evening and
night of His passion, was forlorn in the bleak garden, or stripped and
bleeding in the cold judgment hall?

Again: Moses, amid his sheep, saw the vision of God and was told of
God's adorable Name; and Christ, the true Shepherd, lived a life of
contemplation in the midst of His laborious ministry; He was
transfigured on the mountain, and no man knew the Son but the Father,
nor the Father but the Son.

Jacob endured, Moses meditated--and David wrought. Jacob endured the
frost, and heat, and sleepless nights, and paid the price of the lost
sheep; Moses was taken up into the mount for forty days; David fought
with the foe, and recovered the prey--he rescued it from the mouth of
the lion, and the paw of the bear, and killed the ravenous beasts.
Christ, too, not only suffered with Jacob, and was in contemplation
with Moses, but fought and conquered with David. David defended his
father's sheep at Bethlehem; Christ, born and heralded to the shepherds
at Bethlehem, suffered on the Cross in order to conquer. He came "from
Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah[33];" but He was "glorious in His
apparel," for He trod the people "in His anger, and trampled them in
His fury, and their blood was sprinkled upon His garments, and He
stained all His raiment." Jacob was not as David, nor David as Jacob,
nor either of them as Moses; but Christ was all three, as fulfilling
all types, the lowly Jacob, the wise Moses, the heroic David, all in
one--Priest, Prophet, and King.

My brethren, we say daily, "We are His people, and the sheep of His
pasture." Again, we