What are the returns I am making for such love, such bounty, such patience, such assiduous cultivation and untiring care? am I producing fruit, much fruit? or am I bearing-" nothing but leaves?"

"Nothing but leaves! The Spirit grieves

Over a wasted life;

Over sins indulged while conscience slept,
Over vows and promises all unkept,
Over mercies misused and sins unwept,
And gathers from years of strife
Nothing but leaves."

Ah, who can thus the Master meet,
Bearing but withered leaves?

Ah, who shall dare at the Master's feet,

And before the tremendous judgment-seat,

When the Lord and the barren branch shall meet,
To lay down nothing but leaves,
Nothing but leaves !

The husbandman toils with tireless skill,
And labours the live-long day

To nourish and foster and train and till,
With bountiful blessing and kind goodwill,
To make my sluggardly soul to thrill
With vig'rous and fruitful life, but still,
He says as He searches, “Nay,
There is nothing here but leaves,
Nothing but leaves!"

O God of my life! I stand in amaze,
That after so many reprieves,

And nothing but leaves,

The patience endureth, and judgment delays!

O help, Lord, that I for the rest of my days
May be fruitful, not barren, and live to thy praise,
With fruit in rich clusters of virtue and grace,

Much fruit, barren past that retrieves,

And bring forth, as harvest doth bring forth its sheaves, Clusters and leaves !

III.

TRAINING.

IN the cultivation of the vine, the careful and constant training of the branches is a matter of much importance and requires the husbandman's best attention and skill. The branches of the vine are strengthless and pliant, and their tendency is to droop, to lie prone along the ground, and to grovel in the dust. Left to themselves they will hug the earth, and creep along the soil. All this will cover them with dust, rob them of the sunlight, and render their leaves flaccid, yellow, sickly, and like to die. Beneath and among the prostrate boughs and leaves, will dwell multitudes of noxious insect tribes, which will increase and multiply, will totally destroy the foliage and devour the tender grapes.

Altogether powerless to rise, nay, even content to lie and suffer harm, the wayward and earth

prone bough puts forth its tendrils in ever-increasing number and strength. It curls them round about the stones, wraps them around convenient thorn or stalwart weed, and clasps in mistaken and perilous friendship, vain, unworthy stays equally low and prostrate as itself.

Then comes the husbandman, the vinedresser. He lays hold of the prostrate branch, lifts it up from its dark, dank, dirty bed among the weeds and briars; and in doing so, he snaps without mercy every tendril that binds it down to earth. By this means he frees it from its false friends, delivers it from its dangerous bondage, rids it of parasites that nest upon and underneath it, that would surely be its ruin, preying and thriving as they do, upon its very life. He shakes off the dust and all other undesirable and noxious accumulations, and raises it carefully, tenderly as if he loves it. Then he proceeds to pinch off the dead and dying leaves, and then he trains and trellises it in this direction, or in that, around upright pole or neighbouring tree, or along wall or lattice, always keeping in view what is best for the branch, best for the vine, best for the fruit. Now the breeze, fresh, bracing, invigorating, can blow through it; the genial sunshine can woo and warm and nourish

it; the leaves and shoots and tender buds or clusters can find full room to grow; and the entire vine gains in beauty, fruitfulness, and strength.

Who can mistake the meaning of all this? who can fail to interpret the parable? Who can miss the tender beauty of the lesson it is intended to convey ?

Not thou, O Christian, disciple of Jesus, branch of the living Vine! It tallies too perfectly as a picture of thine own wayward weakness, thine own proneness to seek the dust, thine own peril from false supports. It depicts too clearly thy Heavenly Father's dealings with thee, severe yet salutary, painful yet profitable, and tenderly gracious all the time, for thee to misread the message in this parable which the Master sends.

Let us study our picture here humbly and honestly. How weak we are, even without strength. How strong is our tendency downward and earthward! How sadly inclined we are to creep and to crawl where we ought to climb and rise! We set our affections upon earthly things, upon harmful things, and cling with ever-strengthening and contented clasp to vain and injurious supports and trusts, as we lie and grovel in the dust. In such sad plight all noxious and destructive influences