MATTHEW xviii. 7-14.
What an infinite value the Lord attaches to one soul! "And _one of them_
be gone astray!" I thought He might never have missed the one! And yet the
Eastern shepherd says that out of his great flock he can miss the
individual face. A face is missing, as though a child were absent from the
family circle. When a soul is wandering in the far country there is an
awful gap in the Father's house! Is thy place empty? Is mine?
And mark the pangs of the Shepherd's quest. He "_goeth into the mountain
and seeketh!_" The Eastern shepherd goes out in tempest, and in rocky
ravine, or in thorny scrub that tears the hands and feet, he seeks and
finds his sheep. And my Lord sought me, in stony and thorny places, in the
darkness of Gethsemane, and in the awful desolations of The Hill.
And the Shepherd found His sheep, and He returns across the hills singing
the song of the triumph of grace--
"And up from the mountains, thunder-riven,
And up from the rocky steep,
A cry arose to the gates of heaven,
'Rejoice! I have found My sheep!'
And the angels echo around the throne,
'Rejoice! for the Lord brings back His own!'"
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John Henry Jowett was born in Halifax, England in 1864. Jowett's father had arranged for him to begin working as a clerk for a lawyer in Halifax, but the encouragement of his Sunday school teacher, Mr. Dewhirst, turned Jowett's heart toward the ministry.
After theological training at Edinburgh and Oxford, Jowett assumed the pastorate of the Saint James Congregational Church. His six effective years of ministry brought him to the attention of the Carr's Lane Church in Birmingham, England, on the death of their pastor. For the next fifteen years the church grew and prospered. Their pastor's vision led them to increase their efforts to bring people to Christ. In 1917, the mayor of Birmingham said the church had changed the town with "crime and drunkenness having decreased."
Jowett came to America for the first time in 1909 to address the Northfield Conference founded by D. L. Moody. While in America he preached twice at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. The church immediately asked him to come as its pastor. Jowett refused, having received a petition, signed by more than 1,400 members of his church in England, begging him to stay. The Fifth Avenue Church called him again, and then a third time. Finally Jowett concluded that this was God's leading for his life. He assumed the pastorate in 1911.
Although his preaching style was not dynamic (he read all of his sermons), the depth of his knowledge, the clarity of his language, and the power of his life commanded respect. Attendance at the church which had dropped to 600 on Sunday morning rose to 1,500. Lines up to half a block long formed, waiting for unclaimed seats. Jowett began preparing his Sunday sermons on Tuesday, following a meticulously detailed schedule.
When G. Campbell Morgan resigned the Westminster Chapel in London in 1917, Dr. Jowett once again crossed the ocean to take a new church. This would be his final pastorate. Declining health forced him to give up preaching in 1922, and his death in 1923 took from the world one of its most gifted and dedicated preachers.