SITTING the other day at a window which overlooked the lake of Windermere, I saw a sight which greatly amused me while it lasted, and set me thinking when it was over. A wooden pier ran out a little way into the lake, and upon this, with barking of dogs and shouting of men, and somewhat rough use of sticks, a number of sheep were driven much against their own tastes and desires. When the whole company were fairly at the end of the jetty, they were seized one by one and most unceremoniously pitched head foremost into deep water. When they rose they swam to the nearest shore of course, making a baahing of a very gulpy kind as if the water bad spoiled the music of their voices, and looking altogether amazed and bewildered. Meanwhile, men in boats, with their oars, submerged again and again such of the swimmers as they could reach, and others drove back into the depths those poor creatures which had landed on the side of the jetty and avoided the longer route to the shore. The water bore sure evidence in its colour of the need there was that the flock should feel the cleansing flood. Great congratulations were offered by the little family groups when the lambs and their mothers had all passed the watery ordeal and were shaking their dripping fleeces; but those congratulations were premature, for the flock was a second time driven to the place of affliction, and each of the sheep had again to be immersed in the troubled waters. It was a day of sore perplexity and multiplied trial such as the lambs had never expected, and the oldest sheep could scarcely remember; they came up all of them out of the flood like those whose tribulation is greater than they can bear, who are driven to their wit’s end. The shepherd took the whole affair quietly enough, seeming to treat the matter rather joyously than otherwise, and yet I have no reason to doubt his tenderness, but on the contrary thought I saw much of it in his way of handling his charge, and especially in his sparing the lambs the second plunge which they needed less than those whose longer fleeces showed a greater familiarity with dirt and dust. Certainly he was not just then making his flock to lie down in green pastures, and the waters to which he led them were far from still, yet was he a true shepherd, and as much playing the shepherd’s part as when he carried the lambs in his bosom, or folded the flock for the night. It was a sheep-washing which I saw, and it typified the sanctified afflictions of believers. The same strife and turmoil, and hurrying and tugging have we felt, and the barking of far fiercer dogs has been in our ears. We, too, are hurled headlong into a sea of sorrows, and find it hard to keep our head above water. Harder still is it when we are pushed under and thrust down by new adversities, which cause the waves to go over us, while we sink into the depths. It is stern toil to swim to land with the heavy fleeces of our cares about us, and the waters of grief in our throats. When with much labour we pass from the present sorrow and begin to rejoice in our escape, we often find to our dismay that the process is to be repeated, and that once again we must stem the flood. Our hearts might fail us if we did not know that the good Shepherd would not subject us to unnecessary trials, but sees a needs-be for them all. We are not like sheep, ignorant of the design of trouble, let us not therefore struggle against the afflicting hand; we can see the natural perverseness of our nature, and how much of chastisement is required to bring it out of us; let us therefore rejoice in tribulation, and pray that it may be divinely sanctified to us. Swimming to shore, may we leave our pride, our worldliness, our sloth, our evil habits all behind, and by the grace of God the Holy Spirit may we be as a flock of sheep which come up from the washing. Child of God, struggling in the depth of affliction, look not to the present grievousness of thine adversity but to the future benefit thereof, when tribulation shall have wrought “patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”—C. H. S.
Spurgeon, C. H. (1866). The Sword and Trowel: 1866, 223–224. (Public Domain)
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