My Favorite Poem - "The Echo"

I've been going through a ton of papers today and ran across this poem... It's my favorite. Hope you enjoy it.

"The Echo"

'Twas a sheep, not a lamb that strayed away

In the parable Jesus told,

A grown-up sheep that strayed away

From the ninety and nine in the fold.

And why for the sheep should we seek

And earnestly hope and pray?

Because there is danger when sheep go wrong;

They lead the lambs astray.

Lambs will follow the sheep, you know,

Wherever the sheep may stray.

When sheep go wrong, it won't be long

Til the lambs are as wrong as they.

And so with the sheep we earnestly plead

For the sake of the lambs today,

For when sheep are lost, what a terribhle cost

The lambs will have to pay!

("The Echo," C.C. Miller, quoted in

Hugh B. Brown's, The Abundant Life (1965), 166-167