Re: [Midrash] Notes & Quotes

My Notes and Quotes on Sunday's Gospel (Luke 15) by Francis Chisholm

In the Ontario town of Fergus, where the Highland Games are held in August, there is a very old cemetery on the banks of the Grand River, in which stands a simple headstone which bears the inscription, In memory of George, eldest son of Andrew Clephane, late Sheriff of Fifeshire. Scotland, died May 2, 1851, age 32. George Clephane emigrated to Canada in 1842. He was known as a remittance man, one who was supported by a monthly allowance sent from home. He tried farming, but was not successful. Alcohol, which had been his downfall in the old country, flowed even more freely in the new land. He drank himself to death at an early age. One spring morning, George was picked up from a ditrch where he had fallen during the night while in a drunken stupor. He was carried suffering from exposure to the doctor. The good doctor placed the gravestone to mark the last restingplace of the Lost Sheep. Back in Scotland, the one who mourned George's passing most, was his little sister, Elizabeth. She was only 11 years old when George was sent to Canada. When he died, she was 21. She loved her brother very much & even though he lay in a drunkard's grave in a faraway land, she felt that God must have loved him too. In the privacy of her room, she poured out her grief in the form of verse. Half ashamed, she locked the poem in her desk. Elizabeth Clephane died in 1869, not knowing that her verses would become a great hymn of the church.
One afternoon in 1874, the American evangelists, Moody and Sankey, were on the railway platform at Glasgow, Scotland, where Ira bought a newspaper, & on the way to Edinburgh,. his eyes lighted on a litle poem by Elizabeth Clephane. That night in the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, a crowded audience listenedd to D.L. Moody speak on The Good Shepherd. He turned to Ira Sankey & asked his associate to sing. Sankey took the clipping from his pocket. The words had been in his mind ever since reading them. He went to the organ & struck the key of B flat & began to sing. Note by note, the tune came to him, & it has not changed from that day to this. That night, the verse winged the message home, & a great wave of conviction swept the entire assembly. The Moody & Sankey Revival in Scotland had begun.. Only God saw the hidden link beteween that far-off grave in Canada.
Praise: There were Ninety and nine that safely lay.
A great Jewish scholar, Claude Montefiore(1858-1938) stated that this was the absolutely new thing which Jesus taught about God, that God actually sought & searched for the lost. No Pharisee ever dramed of a God like that.
To be a seeker is to be of the best sect next to a finder; and such an one shall every faithful, humble seeker be at the end. Happy seeker, happy finder! - Oliver Cromwell 1646
God warms his hands at a man's heart when he prays. - John Masefield.
Lost your sheep? Call 1-800 Bo Peep!
A shepherd thinking in terms of profit & loss, would let the one sheep go for the sake of the 99. Only the shepherd who searches out the lost one is an image of God's care.

(Comments to Francis at fcholm@mountaincable.net.) Hamilton Ontario UC Canada
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