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VI.

RESULTS.

As the natural and fitting outcome of all his toil and care, all his pains and labour, the husbandman comes in due season to pluck for himself the purple clusters that hang ripe and ready on the branches of his well-tended vine. The divine Husbandman regards His Vine with equal hope, and visits it in just expectation of the same results.

"Fruit, much fruit, more fruit." This is to be the outcome of life in Christ. By this means is the Father glorified, in that the living branches of the living Vine produce good fruit. In proportion, O Christian, to the abundance of your privilege, and the expenditure of cost and care in your cultivation, should be the measure of your return. Thou art graffed into a "noble Vine." Thou art placed in a choice climate and a very fruitful hill.” Thou

art tended and cared for in bounteous fashion. Nowhere and on no one shines the sun more warmly,

falls the rain more plenteously, descends the dew more copiously, blows the breeze more freshly, toils the Vinedresser more zealously, more graciously, than on thee. What store of fruit oughtest thou to bear! The grapes of purest holiness to God, of highest service to thy fellow-men! Large grapes, ripe and sweet; grapes in clusters; so that the Husbandman, thy Owner, Tender, Trainer, Protector may pluck thy pleasant fruits of love and faith and duty, and press them into the cup of sacrifice and service that cheers the heart of God and man!

Ponder a moment, O reader, before this little. book is laid aside. Ponder on the claims which the Husbandman hath upon thee. "What more could I have done unto my vineyard that I have not done?" That will be the question put to thee direct in the time of the grape-harvest. If then thou art found unfruitful, if thy branch is bare and barren when the season is past, what, I pray thee, will thine answer be? "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away." How? Whither? But if, by the grace of God, you are fruitful; fruitful in good works, fruitful in holy thoughts and conversation, fruitful in real, high service to your kind, then is the "Father glorified," then is the Son, the True Vine, on which you grow, glori

fied also then is the good Spirit, who is your life, glorified; then in the harvest-home of God, you, too, shall be glorified; and in that day shall the Saviour's promise concerning you become perfectly fulfilled and eternally true; "my joy shall remain in you, and your joy shall be FULL!"

"Three instruments," saith an old writer, "doth the husbandman have in hand or in reserve for the vine according to its fruitfulness or its failure. First comes the spade wherewith he diggeth and looseneth, and manywise helps the growing; the spade wherewith he bringeth thereto the nourishing loam, or enriching soil, to refresh and cheer and strengthen the heart of it. Verily the spade may well stand for all the husbandman's bounty and labour and care. Then cometh the knife with which he pruneth, loppeth, and otherwise cutteth down the vine, that its juices may be the more compressed, and that it may be made more truly hale and more capable of bringing forth fruit that is good and commendable and in just sufficiency. The pruning-knife, in wise hands, worketh wonders for the grape-harvest. There is also in reserve, not to be produced except under pressure of strong occasion, the axe, by which the vine, if, despite the spade and the knife, and all the husbandman's witting, it

remaineth empty, may be cut down as a cumberer, cast into the fire, and the ground made clear for the implanting of a better tree."

The spade, the knife, the axe: three suggestive words: I would insert in the record a possible third as an alternative. After the spade, after the knife, representative of vine-dresser's skill and management and care, representative of time and season, -then comes the baskets to receive the clusters when they are fully ripe. Should persistent barrenness keep the basket empty, then comes the axe to lop off the branch, to relieve the vine of dead and useless weight, and the rejected bough must go to feed the fire.

The spade, the knife, the basket, the axe : Christian, how readest thou? If the basket be filled, if the Husband gathers the pleasant clusters, meet reward for His labour and care, then the spade shall transplant thee to the Upper Vineyard, where the True Vine is, and in that glorious Canaan of fertility, that clime of high perfection and delight, thy life and fruit and foliage shall be "even as the vines of Eshcol," and thy Beloved shall walk in His garden and gather His pleasant fruits. There, the knife will never be required, for there the clusters will never fail. There the axe will never be possible,

for life and fruit and foliage are all immortal— and Husbandman, Vine, and Branches are glorified together!

Let us remember, finally, that this is our Lord's latest parable; a sort of "last word" to His Church, to be remembered, solemnly pondered, tenderly reverenced, and lovingly obeyed.

"AND THIS I PRAY THAT YOUR LOVE MAY ABOUND YET MORE AND MORE IN KNOWLEDGE AND IN ALL

JUDGMENT.

"THAT YE MAY APPROVE THINGS THAT ARE EXCELLENT; THAT YE MAY BE SINCERE AND WITHOUT OFFENCE TILL THE DAY OF CHRIST;

"BEING FILLED WITH THE FRUITS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, WHICH ARE BY JESUS CHRIST UNTO THE GLORY AND THE PRAISE OF GOD."

"Lord I have lain,

Barren too long, and fain

I would redeem the time that I Inay
Fruitful to Thee;

be

Fruitful in knowledge, faith, obedience,
Ere I go hence;

That when I come

At harvest to be reaped and brought home,
Thine angels may

My soul in Thy celestial garner lay,
Where perfect joy and bliss
Eternal is."

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND Co.

EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

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