The metaphor of the Shepherd and the Sheep is of constant
occurrence throughout the Bible and naturally suggests the idea
of the guiding, guarding, and feeding both of the individual
sheep and of the whole flock and it is not difficult to see the
spiritual correspondence of these things in a general sort of
way. But we find that the Bible combines the metaphor of the
Shepherd with another metaphor that of "the Stone," and at first
sight the two seem rather incongruous.
"From thence is the Shepherd the Stone of Israel," says the Old
Testament (Genesis xlix. 24), and Jesus calls himself both "The
Good Shepherd" and "The Stone which the builders rejected." The
Shepherd and the Stone are thus identified and we must therefore
seek the interpretation in some conception which combines the
two. A shepherd suggests Personal care for the welfare of the
sheep, and an intelligence greater than theirs. A stone suggests
the idea of Building, and consequently of measurement, adaptation
of parts to whole, and progressive construction according to
plan. Combining these two conceptions we get the idea of the
building of an edifice whose stones are persons, each taking
their more or less conscious part in the construction--thus a
building, not constructed from without, but self-forming by a
principle of growth from within under the guidance of a Supreme
Wisdom permeating the whole and conducting it stage by stage to
ultimate completeness. This points to a Divine Order in human
affairs with which we may more or less consciously co-operate:
both to our personal advantage and also to the furtherance of the
great scheme of human evolution as a whole; the ultimate purpose
being to establish in ALL men that principle of "The Octave" to
which I have already alluded; and in proportion as some
adumbration of this principle is realized by individuals and by
groups of individuals they specialize the law of
race-development, even though they may not be aware of the fact,
and so come under a SPECIALIZED working of the fundamental Law,
which thus differentiates them from other individuals and
nationalities, as by a peculiar guidance, producing higher
developments which the merely generic operation of the Law could
not.
Now if we keep steadily in mind that, though the purpose, or Law
of Tendency, or the Originating Spirit must always be universal
in its nature, it must necessarily be individual in its
operation, we shall see that this universal purpose can only be
accomplished through the instrumentality of specific means. This
results from the fundamental proposition that the Universal can
only work on the plane of the Particular by becoming the
individual and particular; and when we grasp the conception that
the merely generic operation of the Creative Law has now brought
the human race as far as it can, that is to say it has completely
evolved the merely natural GENUS home, it follows that if any
further development is to take place it can only be by the
co-operation of the individual himself. Now it is the spread of
this individual co-operation that the forward movement of the
Spirit is leading us to, and it is the gradual extension of this
universal principle that is alluded to in the prophecy of Daniel
regarding the Stone cut out without hands that spreads until it
fills the whole earth (Daniel ii. 34 and 44). According to the
interpretation given by Daniel, this Stone is the emblem of a
spiritual Kingdom, and the identity of the Stone and the Shepherd
indicates that the Kingdom of the Stone must be also the Kingdom
of the Shepherd; and the Master, who identified himself with both
the Stone and the Shepherd, emphatically declared that this
Kingdom was, in its essence, an interior Kingdom--"the Kingdom of
Heaven is within you." We must look for its foundation therefore,
in a spiritual principle or mental law inherent in the
constitution of all men but waiting to be brought into fuller
development by more accurate compliance with its essential
requirements; which is precisely the method by which science has
evoked powers from the laws of nature which were undreamt of in
former ages; and in like manner the recognition of our true
relation to the Universal Spirit, which is the source of all
individual being, must lead to an advance both for the race and
for the individual such as we can at present scarcely form the
faintest idea of, but which we dimly apprehend through the
intuition and speak of as the New Order. The approach of this New
Order is everywhere making itself vaguely felt; it is, as the
French say, in the air, and the very vagueness and mystery
attending it is causing a feeling of unrest as to what form it
may assume. But to the student of Spiritual Law this should not
be the case. He knows that the Form is always the expression of
the Spirit, and therefore, since he is in touch with the forward
movement of the Spirit, he knows that he himself will always be
harmoniously included in any form of development which the Great
Forward Movement may take. This is the practical and personal
benefit arising from the realization of the Principle which is
symbolized under the two-fold metaphor of the Shepherd and the
Stone. and in all those new developments which are perhaps even
now within measurable distance, we can rest on the knowledge that
we are under the care of a kind Shepherd, and under the formation
of a wise Master Builder.
But the principle of the Shepherd and the Stone is not something
hitherto unheard of which is only to conne into existence in the
future. If there were no manifestations of this principle in the
past, we might question whether there were any such principle at
all; but a careful study of the subject will show us that it has
been at work all through the ages, sometimes in modes more
immediately bearing the aspect of the Shepherd, and sometimes in
modes more immediately bearing the aspect of the Stone, though
the one always implies the other, for they are the same thing
seen from different points of view. The subject is one of immense
interest, but covering such a wide range of study that all I can
do here is to point out that such a field of investigation exists
and is worth exploration; and the exploration brings its reward
with it, not only by putting us in possession of the key to the
history of the past, but by showing us that it is the key to the
history of the future also, and furthermore by making evident on
a large scale the working of the same principle of Spiritual Law
by cooperation with which we may facilitate the process of our
own individual evolution. It thus adds a vivid interest to life,
giving us something worth looking forward to and introducing us
to a personal future which is not limited by the proverbial
three-score years and ten.
Now, we have seen that the first stage in the Creative Process is
always that of Feeling--a reaching-out by the Spirit in a
particular direction, and therefore we may look for something of
the same kind in the development of the great principle which we
are now considering. And we find this first vague movement of
this great principle in the intuitions of a particular race which
appears from time immemorial to have combined the two
characteristics of nomad wandering with their flocks and herds
and the symbolization of their religious beliefs in monuments of
stone. The monuments themselves have taken different forms in
different countries and ages, but the identity of their symbolism
becomes clear under careful investigation. Together with this
symbolism we always find the nomad character of the builders and
that they are invested with an aura of mystery and romance such
as we find nowhere else, though we always find it surrounding
these builders, even in countries so far apart as India and
Ireland. Then, as we pass beyond the merely monumental stage, we
find threads of historical evidence connecting the different
branches of this race, increasing in their complexity and
strengthening in their cumulative force as we go on, until at
last we are brought to the history of the age in which we live;
and finally most remarkable affinities of language put the
finishing touch to the mass of proofs which can be gathered along
all these different lines. In this magic circle countries so
remote from one another as Ireland and Greece, Egypt and India,
Palestine and Persia, are brought into close contiguity--a
similar tradition, and even a similar nomenclature, unite the
mysterious builders of the Great Pyramid with the equally
mysterious builders of the Round Towers of Ireland--and the Great
Pyramid itself, perhaps antedating the call of Abraham,
re-appears as the official seal of the United States; while
tradition traces the crowning-stone in Westminster Abbey back to
the time of Solomon's temple and even earlier. For the most part
the erewhile wanderers are now settled in their destined homes,
but the Anglo-Saxon race--the People of the Corner-Stone--are
still the pioneers among the nations, and there is something
esoteric in the old joke that when the North Pole is reached a
Scotchman will be found there. And not least in the chain of
evidence is the link afforded by a tribe who are wanderers still,
the Gipsies with their duplicate of the Pyramid in the pack of
cards--a volume which has been called "The Devil's Picture Book"
by those who know it only in its misuse and inversion, but which
when interpreted in the light of the knowledge we are now
gaining, affords a signal instance of that divine policy by which
as St. Paul says, God employs the foolish things of this world to
confute the wise; while a truer apprehension of the Gipsies
themselves indicates their unmistakable connection with that race
who through all its wanderings has ever been the guardian of the
Stone.
In these few paragraphs I have only been able to point out very
briefly the broad lines of enquiry into a subject of national
importance to the British and American peoples, and which
interests us personally, not only as members of these nations,
but as affording proof on the largest scale of the same
specialization of universal laws which each of us has to effect
individually for ourself. But whether the process be individual
or national it is always the same, and is the translation to the
very highest plane--that of the All-originating Life itself--of
the old maxim that "Nature will obey us exactly in proportion as
we first obey Nature"; it is the old parable of the lord who,
finding his servants girt and awaiting him, then girds himself
and serves them (Luke xii. 35 to 37). The nation or the
individual who thus realizes the true principle of the Shepherd
and the Stone, comes under a special Divine guidance and
protection, not by a favouritism incompatible with the conception
of universal Law, but by the very operation of the Law itself.
They have come into touch with its higher possibilities, and to
recur to an analogy which I have already employed, they learn to
make their iron float by the very same law by which it sinks; and
so they become the flock of the Great Shepherd and the building
of the Great Architect, and each one, however insignificant his
or her sphere may appear, becomes a sharer in the great work, and
by a logical consequence begins to grow on new lines of
development for the simple reason that a new principle
necessarily produces new modes of manifestation. If the reader
will think over these things he will see that the promises
contained in the Bible whether national or personal, are nothing
else than statements of the universal law of Cause and Effect
applied to the inmost principles of our being, and that therefore
it is not mere rhapsody, but the figurative expression of a great
truth when the Psalmist says `"The Lord is my Shepherd," and
"Thou art my God and the Rock of my salvation."