Bible Commentaries

Chapter35

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art very good, else why do the sons of men live before thee? Their hands are stretched out in rebellion, their feet are swift to run in ways of evil, and their hearts are as chambers of imagery in which they commit daily idolatry. Yet dost thou spare them as if thou hadst need of them, thou dost not sweep them off the face of the earth, thou dost continue their generation from age to age. Surely thou dost remember thy covenant, and thine oath is not forgotten in heaven; thou dost keep the seasons on their wheels, never dost thou stop the gracious procession—spring and summer and autumn and winter, seed-time and harvest thou hast ever given unto the sons of men, nor hast thou drowned their earth again with water, nor burned it with infinite conflagration. Behold thou dost surely love us, and in thine heart is a secret place for the children of men. Thou didst create us in thine own image and likeness; we bear the superscription of God; we are ruined indeed, but in our ruins are traces of majesty. Surely thou wilt redeem us, though it be at great cost; in our redemption thou wilt not spare the blood of thine own heart; thou shalt see of the travail of thy soul and be satisfied, and with a great inbringing shalt thou draw the nations near and unite them in one offering of praise. We cannot see how this is to be done, the horizon is full of clouds, the whole firmament is charged with thunder, the earth is out of course, and the foundations are shaken—we cannot tell how thou wilt do this miracle, but thou wilt do it, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Thou dost not take again thy words, thou dost not cause thy promises to evaporate, thou dost redeem thy word and turn thy promises into the facts of human history.

We therefore renew our faith, we relight the lamp of our hope, even in the sanctuary itself, and with thy holy book open before us we take heart again, and proceed to do what duty and service we can, knowing that those servants are blessed who shall be found waiting and working for their Lord. Thou hast done wondrous things for thy Church: her stones thou hast laid with fair colours, and her foundations with sapphires, her windows have been of agates, and her gates of carbuncles—no treasure hast thou spared, the whole of thy treasures have been gathered around thy Church to make her beautiful as the Lamb's bride. Continue thy gracious work, give grace upon grace, withhold not thy Holy Spirit; by still mightier inspirations and still further baptisms of grace, do thou work in thy Church and upon it, until it shall be without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, a glorious Church, a lamp lighted by the Lord's hand.

We bless thee for all thy Fatherly, Motherly, Shepherdly care. Our house is still standing, the fire is still burning, and the table is still spread. The little child is in the cradle, and the old man in the arm-chair, and the window is full of light, and the birds gather around the roof to sing their summer song. Thou dost give us meat in desert places, and water in sandy deserts: thou dost go before us and make footprints on the road lest we go in the wrong path, and stumble and fall. The very hairs of our head are all numbered, thou dost count our heart-beats, thou dost beset us behind and before and lay thine hand upon us, and no good thing dost thou withhold from our life. Thou dost always give an additional blessing, thou art always giving, thou livest to give, thou didst give thine only-begotten Matthew 9:1-8

Christianity More Than An Argument

"And he entered into a ship and passed over and came into his own city." That does not tell us half the truth. A reference to this verse will show you the necessity of reading the Scriptures through, and of paying attention not to the text only, but to the context. Anybody would think, from reading this first verse, that Jesus had, upon his own will and motion, returned into his own city: we should have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that Jesus did this because he wanted to do it or had willed so to do. Is there not a caused Refer to the verse which concludes the previous chapter if you would find the key of the verse which opens the ninth chapter. "Behold the whole city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts, and he entered into a ship and passed over." Now the whole case is before you. You thought he came away spontaneously, whereas the fact is he was driven out. He never leaves the human heart of his own will; he never said to any one of you, "I have been here long enough, I must now leave you to yourself."

But you tell me that Jesus Christ is no longer with you, you say you sigh to think of happier days, you recall the hour when Jesus Christ was the only guest of your heart, and now you mourn that he is no longer present in the sanctuary of your consciousness and your love. He never left of his own accord. I cannot allow your mourning to go without one or two sharp and piercing inquiries. How did you treat him—did his presence become a shadow in the life—was his interference burdensome—did he dash some cups of pleasure from your hands—did he call you to sacrifices which were too painful for your love? Search yourselves and see. I never knew him leave a human heart because he was tired of it, weary because he had expended his love upon it—but I have known him whipped out, scourged away, entreated to go, banished.

"And he entered into a ship and passed over and came into his own city." How he looked as he did so! No picture can ever tell us how the eyes fell upon the dust in shame for those who had desired his banishment. How his heart quivered under a new and sharp pain as he realised that he was indeed despised and rejected of men! How he felt as his good deeds became the occasion of a desire on the part of those who had seen them to send him away from their coasts! This is a mystery on which there is no light. Do not imagine that you began the story with the first verse of the ninth chapter. It is true that Jesus entered into a ship and passed over, but it is also true that the people besought him that he would depart out of their coasts. So when my heart is empty of his presence and I wonder whither he has gone, I will revive my recollection, I will command my memory to be faithful and to tell me the white truth, the candid fact, and when it speaks it will shame me with the intolerable reminiscence that I besought him to go. Let us be honest, or we shall never be healed, let us face the stern, fierce facts of life, or we shall make no progress in purity or in spiritual knowledge.

"And behold they brought unto him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed, and Jesus, seeing their faith------" Is it possible for faith to be greater than the palsy? Are such miracles wrought in the consciousness of man? Does the soul ever rise in its original majesty and put the body down? Sometimes. Is it possible for the will to be so inflamed and inspired to rise above the palsy and to say, "I am master!" I like such flashes of the divinity that is within us. We are too easily cowed; our physicians complain that our will does not co-operate with their endeavours, so that we too easily go down. There is something in us that can conquer the palsy. I cannot gather together all the subtle influences which make up the present economy of things, but again and again in the history of others, and now and then in my own history, I have seen such a rising up of the inner nature as has said to the body, "I am master." I magnify these occasional revelations of the latent force of a kind of suppressed divinity, until I see death dead, the grave filled up, and the whole universe full of life.

Magnify all the best hints of your nature; be ready to accept suggestions of new power; never take the little and dwindling view of your life. If now and then your heart leap up like sparks of fire in prayer seize every one of them. That is where your grandeur is; that is your true self. Caught in some mean conception, conscious of some unworthy fancy—know that that is the leper that has to be healed. Caught in some rapture of worship, some sweet desire for heaven—know that that is the angel that is in you, and that by and by nothing shall be left in you but the angel, the true spirit, conqueror through him who wrought its redemption.

"And Jesus, seeing their faith------" That was just like him. He always sees the best of us; he never takes other than the greatest view of our life and its endeavours. "And Jesus, seeing their faith." Shall we amend the text? "And Jesus, seeing their—sectarianism." That would fill up a line better than faith; it is a longer word; it has more syllables in it; it fills the mouth better—shall we put it in? "And Jesus, seeing their—denomi-nationalism." There is a word that would almost make a line by itself. That word ought to have something in it; polysyllables ought not to be empty. "And Jesus, seeing their—Congregationalism, their attachment to Episcopalianism, their deep love of Roman Catholicism." I fancy we cannot amend the text. We can take out the little word faith and put in the long words I have named: these would not be amendments: they would be spoliations; they would be blasphemies; they would belittle the occasion; they would taint it with a human touch. Let the word faith stand; it is universal; it is a cord that stretches itself around the starlit horizon; it touches those of you who belong to no sect, the dumb, the groping, the wondering, as well as the clear-minded and the positive as to religious principle and conviction.

Jesus Christ always startled his hearers by seeing something greater in them than they had ever seen in themselves, and always seemed to credit his patients with their own cure. He said, "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole." He gave the woman to feel as if she had all the time been her own healer. And the broad and everlasting meaning of that assurance is that you and I have it in us at this moment to get the healing that we need. The physician is here; his prescription is written in syllables clear as stars, and in lines open as the heavens. What he waits for is our faith. Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Lord, increase our faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Be it unto thee according to thy faith. Believest thou that I am able to do this? There is something then for us to do. Find it out and do it, and God will be faithful to his word.

"And Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Matthew 9:9-13

9. And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a Matthew 9:14-19

The Spiritual Law

Jesus Christ was always pestered by little questions. It is very seldom, if ever, that you hear a great inquiry propounded to him. Why eat with publicans and sinners? Why eat with Unwashed hands? Why heal on the Sabbath-day? Why not fast more? These were the small enquiries by which those who were immediately around him and were observing him critically or in partial sympathy belittled every occasion. A man is known by the questions he asks. Whoever asks any great question concerning the Bible? Be assured that he who asks the great question gets the great answer, and be not surprised if, in reply to our little and superficial enquiries, we receive shallow and disappointing replies. What is our question when we open the sacred book?

The persons who put this enquiry were honest men. They were not Pharisees, they were the disciples of Matthew 9:18-26

Affliction In the House

"While he spake these things." We need not critically inquire whether any interval separated between what is written in the seventeenth verse and in the eighteenth. No doubt such an interval did occur, yet it would have been quite in accordance with the habit of the great Teacher and Sufferer if he had in terrupted any speech in order to do good to a broken heart. It did not shock the writer when he wrote, "While he spake these things unto them." It did not occur to him that he was indicating a point of interruption, nor did it occur to him that he was violating any probability of the case. Christ himself was the one improbability, the one impossibility of human history, and therefore we must not bring little rules and standards by which to measure anything that he did or said.

He was answering a question put to him by the disciples of John about fasting, and Matthew writes, "While he spake these things unto them," ere yet the answer was fully given, or whilst the last word was being uttered, or whilst he was in the act of pausing for some rejoinder either by way of comment or inquiry—just then a great, solemn, heart-laden prayer burst upon his startled ear. "My daughter is now dead, but come and lay thy hand upon her and she shall live." Elijah taught us that other gods might be so busy that they could not hear the cry of their devotees; Elijah spoke so in irony and mockery, bitter and severe, telling us to cry louder, that our God was talking or pursuing; he told us that we got no answer because our voice was too low, that the god was on a journey or sleeping—nobody knew what he was doing: he must be called for by a louder and shriller cry. Jesus Christ was never so busy that he could not answer any question put to him, and in proportion as that question was acute, arising from the heart's sore distress and burning agony, would he interrupt even a miracle of a minor kind, to accomplish a miracle of a superior kind. These are the things that prove his quality, these are the elements which, being brought together into one complete mass, establish his claim to be something more than I am. I go with him so far, and in a moment he shoots beyond me and stands alone on the solemn elevation. Up to a given line he is a good man simply, extremely kind and sensitive, answering every emotion of the life that is around him steadily and truly; then in a moment he leaves all examples and precedents and parallels behind, and stands before us as God, so much like God that were a man to say to him, "My Lord and my God," not a heart in all the listening assembly would feel the shock of an irreligious or painful surprise. The cry would accord with the circumstances, and would establish a sweet though pensive rhythm. The two words, the word of Christ and the acknowledging word of Matthew 9:27-31

The World Through Which Christ Passed

What a world our Lord Jesus Christ passed through! He was always surrounded by the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the poor, the broken-hearted, the weary, the hungry, and those that had no helper. Herein was the realization, and most vivid and happy fulfilment of prophecy: it was foretold of him that he was to be the Apostle to the meek, the captive, the broken-hearted, and the mourning. Every man creates his awn world. You can find a tolerably comfortable world if you please. Shut yourself up in your own parlour, enjoy your own honey, warm yourself by your own fire, shut out safely all the cries of distress that are ringing in the world, and you will come to the conclusion that life after all is tolerably happy and comfortable. There are men who do this. When they hear complaints, they say they are exaggerated; when their eye reluctantly alights upon the newspapers containing reports of human distress and poverty, they call such reports romances, or they blame the poor for their poverty, the sorrowing for their distress, and the lonely for their helplessness. Every Matthew 9:32-35

Christ Must Be Accounted for

You will find a fuller account of the same matter in the Gospel according to Mark—

Mark 3:22-30

22. And the Scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.

23. And he called them unto him, and said unto them, in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?

24. And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

25. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

26. And if Satan rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.

27. No man can enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong Matthew 9:36-38

Christ's View of the World

When we read that he was moved with compassion, we feel that it did not require much to move the pity of such a heart. It was not moved now for the first time. Again and again as we come along the line of the sacred narrative we have seen his tears, we have heard the piteousness of many of his tones, and have been, touched by the pathos of many of his deeds. The key-word of this divine life is—Compassion. If you do not seize that word in its true meaning, the life of Jesus Christ will be to you little more than either a romantic surprise or a dead letter. It is not a life of genius, it is not a display of literary power, it is pre-eminently yet inclusively, a life of love, a history of compassion, an exemplification of the tenderest aspects of the infinite mercy of God. Begin at that point and read the history in that light, and you will see the right proportion of things and their right colour, and you will hear their sweetest and richest music. Again and again, therefore, would I repeat, the master-word of this divine life is the sweet and all-inclusive word—Compassion.

Observe what the word means. It means "feeling with" "feeling for," sympathy, a right view of human want and human distress, and a taking upon oneself all the pain, the feebleness, the poverty, and the anguish of those who suffer most. He bare our sins, he carried our iniquities, and himself took our infirmities and sustained our afflictions. You have been reading the life of Christ as if he were one of twenty men, leaders of human thought; we have lectured upon him as if he belonged to a gallery of heroes. Therein have we done him injustice, and therein, too, have we done ourselves injustice, for we have not viewed the great occasion from the right standpoint; therefore have we missed its majesty, its perspective, its subtlest relations, and its deepest significances. He is not one of many, he is many in one. Therein is that singular utterance most true—he is All in All—multitudinous man, as great a host as the throng on which he looked; they were detailed humanity, he was our totalised nature. He felt every pang, he responded to every emotion. He is not a priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, he knows us through and through, and he is every one of us, because he is the Son of Man.

"When he saw the multitudes." Let us lay the emphasis upon the last word for a moment, for it will enable us to seize a new meaning and occupy a novel standpoint. When he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion; when we see the multitudes we are moved with wonder or with admiration. See if that be not so in matter as well as in humanity. When I see multitudinous matter, a mountain, I am moved with surprise, my wonder arises; I call attention to the infinite mass, and we stand before it with wide-open eyes, and the whole posture is one of amazement. We are wonderstruck that the rubbish should be so infinite, for it is only rubbish—the greatest mountain in Europe; no man of you would care for any spadeful of it, no man would be touched by any ten feet of it, no man would go fifty yards to see twenty feet of it; it is when it multiplies itself, foot on foot, pile on pile, mile on mile, until it cools itself in snow, high up in the rarefied air—then we run excursion trains to look at it, then we build villas near it and gaze on it with admiration, then we write about it in the public journals; it acquires fame by its vastness, not by intrinsic and detailed value, but by hugeness, by what we should term, in relation to human throngs, multitudinousness.

Now when Jesus saw the multitudes he was not moved with wonder, which is a partial emotion, or with admiration, which is an incomplete and babyish feeling. He was moved with compassion, and therein He differed from every other observer of great things. We know what it is to look at great things ourselves. If you see one soldier, you care but little for the sight; you may point out the intensity of the colour which he displays, or the splendour of his metal, but one passing remark will suffice for that occasion. You see an army, and you are filled with wonder, admiration, delight; it brings to you a sense of power, grandeur, and grandeur never touches compassion, it seems rather to rebuke it. If I see a mighty throng of men, the very last feeling that would come into my heart as an observer would be a feeling of compassion. Multitudinousness means power, multitudinousness means greatness, resource, all kinds of energy, amplitude of strength. Who dare pity a multitude? It could overpower you, run you down, trample you to death—why pity it? Pity yourself, little creature, run away from the ever-multiplying throng that marches with the strength of an army and with the pomp of a nation.

Yet here is a man who looks upon a multitude and his heart is filled with pity. He did not say, "How great, what force, what wondrous resources of genius, and strength, and money, and power of every degree!" His heart filled with tears; he said, "It is a sad sight." If he could have taken any other view of the multitude he never would have been the Saviour of the world. There you see the meaning of his life: it touches you now. This must end in fainting or in sacrifice, must terminate in shrinking from the infinite task, or in heroic conquest in the infinite tragedy.

Those tears have great meaning, those larger emotions than any we have yet seen have a remote and infinite significance. If he had been touched with wonder only he would have failed, if he had been moved with admiration he would have lost his power; but, moved with compassion, he includes every other worthy emotion, and sets himself in a right relation to his task. Nothing but compassion will carry you through any tragedy in life; you cannot go through it merely for its own sake. The hireling will fall asleep over the sick child, but the mother will drive sleep away from her dwelling-place till she has rescued her little one from the power of the enemy, if it be within the scope of her endurance and skill to win so great a triumph. Her compassion keeps her awake, her love makes the night as the day, her pity stops the clock, so that she takes no note of time. Every other emotion grows dumb; wonder must sometimes close its eyes, admiration falls upon itself, sates its appetite and dies of the satiety, but compassion grows by what it feeds on, and is of the very nature of the love of God. He grows in the development of his compassion; he will succeed yet. Beaten back at a hundred points, he will yet win. He shall see of the travail of his soul, which is really but another word for compassion, and shall be satisfied.

It does us good to come into contact with a teacher who sees the whole of his case. We are cursed by partial views. We elect twelve men to judge a case that we may bring twelve different minds to bear upon it and a twelvefold power to grasp it fully. We have to multiply ourselves when we would be great; Jesus Christ always saw the end from the beginning, the entire situation, took the comprehensive view, excluded no aspect of the case with which he had to heal. As Judges , we are ruined by our partial cleverness; if we could see more we should feel more and do more.

Take a view of a Christian congregation. What lovelier sight can the earth present? Many men, women, children, gathered together in one house sanctified to the highest uses, sweet hymn, noble Psalm , penetrating, triumphant anthem, rich and pathetic prayer, reading of the divine word, exposition of the holy mysteries, exhortation, explanation poured from a loving heart and from an eloquent tongue, the spirit of peace in the house—what nobler sight is there upon the earth? I look upon it, and say, "All is well; the old earth is renewing its youth, and all is bright in prospect." Am I right? I am as far wrong as I can well be within such limits; I am deceived by appearances. I may be right as to the mere literal facts of the occasion, within the four walls of any Christian building; I have only to look outside the window, and I see that in this great metropolis today the majority of men are not in the house of God, nor do they care for its worship and service. You have only to go off the broad thoroughfare, and look down certain passages and openings on the side ways, to see festering humanity, children that were never taught to clasp their little hands in prayer, houses in which there is no word of God, men imbruted, women stripped of their divinity, and the whole human name befouled, cursed, degraded into what is practically perdition. Jesus Christ would not take the view presented by any Christian congregation only, he would see the congregation within and the multitude without; he would take in the whole situation, and seeing it, his tears would drop from our hymns, and great heart-breaking agony would mingle with our broadest and most hopeful prayers.

There are men who take partial views and come to partial and, therefore, erroneous conclusions about everything. There are those who seat themselves within some vernal enclosure or summer paradise, and say, with a foolish chuckle, that the earth is not so bad a place after all. They see a bed of blooming flowers, fiery-hued or gentle-tinted, and they hear birds in the branches twittering, trilling, singing, and making melody in their hearts, and they say the earth is a very lovely place, notwithstanding all the croakers say to the contrary. Now observe how they confound the partial term with the larger word. They see a garden and then speak of the earth, they see a bed of geraniums and then speak of the globe; there is no balance in their sentences, their words do not correspond with one another at both ends of their declarations. The garden is beautiful, the flowers are lovely beyond all that it is possible for the colouring of human heart fully to represent. The painter paints the form, but he cannot touch the fragrance. We admire their poetical sympathy within given limits, but go beyond the garden wall, go into the rough streets, go into the desolate places, take in the wilderness, throw the line around the entirety, bring the whole elements within your purview, and then say what it is. The angel sees it, and says, "Mourning and lamentation and woe." Jesus sees it and cannot cease his prayer, Jesus looks upon it and is moved with compassion. Do not shut yourselves within your churches and say, "All is well;" do not shut the garden door and rejoice upon the verdant lawn and under the drooping tree, and say, "This is paradise regained." See every point of beauty, be thankful for every mercy given to you of the divine providence, but always endeavour to take in not a roof but a sky, not a circumference drawn by human compasses, but a horizon that required the sweep of the divine arm to form it, and when you see the entire scene you will be moved with compassion.

"But when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion because they fainted"—literally because they were vexed, and disturbed, and fretted, and chafed—as sheep when the wolf comes into the fold. They hear his panting, they see his eye of fire and his pitiless teeth, and they hear him as he prowls and snuffs and throbs in his cruel desire and design. Jesus not only saw the sheep, he saw the wolf; he not only sees humanity, he sees the devil and his angels, he sees how we are vexed, fretted, torn, disturbed, frightened by ten thousand black spirits that darken the day, and through whose black wings the hot sun can scarcely dart one living beam. He sees men, devils, angels, earth, heaven, and whilst the whole thing sums itself up before his comprehensive and penetrating vision his eyes darken with tears.

He noted that the people were as sheep having no shepherd. This figure of shepherdliness is most beautiful. He himself had the shepherdly heart. He is called the Good Shepherd: he knows his sheep, and many sheep he has that are not of this fold. He lays down his life for the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling and careth not for the sheep. All these figures by which Jesus represents himself are figures of tenderness, sympathy, sometimes of weakness, by way of accommodation, to our human infirmities. He could blow the trumpet of thunder, and stand upon the platform of the wind and roar with the tempest blowing from every point of the compass in one fierce blast; but he sees that would overpower and affright them, so he speaks in a still small voice, thunder reduced to a whisper, and therefore not an utterance of feebleness, but a sigh of suppressed and condensed power. He is the gentle Shepherd, the good Shepherd. He made himself of no reputation, he took up our forms of endearment and service and our whole nomenclature of fellowship, sympathy, and love, and he made his tabernacle in our little words, giving them infinite enlargement according to his own purpose and motive. Observe how he comes from the multitude to the shepherd, from the many to the one. It is possible to have one man who can rule and guide and bless a countless host. I am longing for that one Man; I would speak with him a long while. He would be my preacher, my teacher; he would understand me wholly, and would speak to me in great breadths of knowledge and sympathy, and if I had any bitter shameful tale to tell, I could tell him every word of it, and he would answer me in gospels and not in condemnation. Any wolf can bite, any bigot can judge and condemn, any little detestable Pharisee can sit upon the judgment-seat and pronounce upon men whose shoe-latchet he is not worthy to unloose. It takes the great Christ and the Christly heart to judge with large judgment. Show me a man that can take in the large view, who knows all the languages of the heart, all the emotions of the wondrous human spirit, and he shall teach me and shepherd me, and I will fall asleep upon his breast; I will ask no better environment on earth than his strong and tender arm. Save me from the bigot, the literalist, the sectarian, the mean soul, and if ye know where the shepherd is show me his dwelling-place, and he will make my heart bright and young with a new hope.

"Then saith he to his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, the labourers are few." The figure changes. He has been speaking about a shepherd, and now he speaks about labourers. He has been speaking about a fold of sheep, and now he speaks about a harvest-field, and he speaks about both in the same breath. We are punctilious about the consistency of our figures; we dare not risk our reputation by the use of a mixed metaphor; no man dare utter these words as if they were his own. He would be heard of again, he would be laughed at by the last boy that left the school, he would be left by men who may have their weaknesses if you could only find them, but who could never by any possibility perpetrate the unutterable crime of uttering a mixed metaphor.

Both the figures are right: never mind about their juxtaposition. The world is a great sheepfold and a great harvest-field: it is both; it wants shepherds, wants labourers, wants compassion, wants attention. This is the great view of the great Christ; he saw the whole occasion, and saw the figures that were appropriate to it. So we can come into the text when we please. If Jesus Christ had compassion on us, ought we not to have compassion on ourselves? Is it a time for us to be flattering our heart and saying "It is all right" when Jesus Christ is crying great, bitter, hot tears? If he is uneasy for us, even to the point of agony, is it a time for us to be lying on a soft couch and to be saying "All is well"? I would rather take this view of my life than I would take my own.

And then, again, some of us are fit for bringing into the garner. I have come to seek you today as one of the labourers of God. You must not stand out there too long. Already you are golden, mellow, ripened corn, and we now want to take you into the garner—will you come? This is a harvest that cannot be cut down against its own will, and garnered against its own consent. It is a great mystery, and the mystery is larger than the figure, the figure only helping us to a very partial treatment of the mystery. You are fifty years of age, and you have been out long enough; you are seventy years of age, and we want to bring you into the garner this very morning. You have ripened and ripened; there is a point after which you will rot and rot. With all the love of my heart—no love at all compared with the love of Christ—I would ask those of you who are yet outside the fold to hear the shepherd's voice bidding you come in, and ask those of you who are as mellow corn bowing your heads under the blessing of the summer breeze, or the autumnal wind, to allow yourselves to be garnered in the church and heart of God.