The world is pretty unanimous
now in its belief in the orderliness of Nature. Men may not know how
fruits grow, but they do know that they cannot grow in an hour. Some
lives have not even a stalk on which fruits could hang, even if they
did grow in an hour. Some have never planted one sound seed of Joy in
all their lives; and others who may have planted a germ or two have
lived so little in sunshine that they never could come to maturity.
Whence, then, is joy? Christ put His teaching upon this subject into
one of the most exquisite of His parables. I should in any instance
have appealed to His teaching here, as in the case of Rest, for I do
not wish you to think I am speaking words of my own. But it so happens
that He has dealt with it in words of unusual fullness.
I need not recall the whole illustration. It is the parable of the
Vine. Did you ever think why Christ spoke that parable? He did not
merely throw it into space as a fine illustration of general truths.
It was not simply a statement of the mystical union, and the doctrine
of an indwelling Christ.
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