Called By Name

A friend, who was traveling in the East, heard that there was a shepherd who still kept up the custom of calling his sheep by name. He went to the man, and said: “Let me put on your clothes, and take your crook, and I will call them, and see if they will come to me.”

And so he did, and he called one sheep, “Mina, Mina,” but the whole flock ran away from him. Then he said to the shepherd: “Will none of them follow me when I call them?”

The shepherd replied: “Yes, sir, some of them will; the sick sheep will follow anybody.”

I’m not going to make the application, I leave that to you.

Moody’s Anecdotes, p. 41