In the little society of Christ and His disciples everything centred in the person of the Master. The smiting of the shepherd was the scattering of the flock (Matt. xxvi, 31). It remained, one fold, or one flock, so long as it had in Him one Shepherd (John x, 16). Then we ask whether so essential a feature of the infant Church ought not somehow to reappear and be conspicuous in the Church grown great and filling the world.

Of God and His Creatures: 4.76