VIII.

NATURE.

THE nature of the root and stem of the vine, as of any other plant or tree, will always determine of what species or kind it is. The form of the plant, the shape of the leaf, the hue of the blossom, the kind and taste of the fruit it bears,—all are governed by the parent stock. You cannot raise an acorn from a beech-tree, nor can a plum be produced from the branches of a cherry-tree or a pear. So with the foliage: the leafage of the fir-tree can never clothe the branches of a poplar, nor the silver leaves of the aspen the boughs of the mountain ash. Like produces like, and each tree will bring forth both fruit and foliage "after its kind."

Now Jesus Christ Himself, as we have seen, is the Root and Stem of God's noble Vine. It is clear then that it is He who gives definite character and quality to the soul whose life is hid in Him.

Men cannot gather grapes from thorns, nor figs. from thistles, neither can they who are "accustomed to do evil," following their native bent, ever "learn to do well" in the Christly sense, or to bring forth the good fruit of the Christly life. This will determine whether we are "in Christ; " whether the vital change hath come to pass in us, which the Apostle Paul calls "newness of life," and which the Master Himself calls being "born again." "He who is born of God," says the Apostle John, "does not commit sin." That is not the nature of the life he has received; that is not the quality of the tree on which he grows; he will not bring forth evil fruit because he is growing on a good tree, and the productions of the old life are "things whereof” he is " now ashamed."

In the Root and Stem of the living Vine, are all the eternal forces of goodness, of truth, of righteousness, of love. Every living branch that feels the quickening Spirit, the divine life-sap circulating through his moral being, will grow goodness, truth, righteousness and love and all other fruits of the Spirit, as surely as the apple-tree produces apples or grapes grow on the vine. Vine leaf, vine blossom, vine smell, vine fruit, are all unquestioned certainties from the vine root and

stem; and it is equally certain that Christ walk, Christ talk, Christ character, Christ influence, and Christ deeds are all the sure and natural outcome of any real engrafting of the soul into Christ the Living Vine. Hereby may we, hereby ought we to examine ourselves, and see whether we be in the faith or no.

It is said of that noble and self-sacrificing missionary, Hiram Judson, that on one occasion his wife read to him certain magazine and newspaper notices of himself and his mission travels. She thought to amuse and interest him thereby. But in them all he was compared admiringly and approvingly with some one or other of the apostles of our Lord. He was grieved exceedingly. "I do not want," said he, "to be like Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, but I want to have in me always the spirit of Christ, and show forth Christ, and to be like Him. We have only one perfect Exemplar; only One whom it is safe or good to follow. I want to copy Him in all His teachings, to drink into His spirit, to place myself in His footsteps, and measure my shortcomings by that standard alone." Here speaks the Christly soul, whose "new life" will exert itself in active effort to produce the life and character which inspires him. This it is,

O Christian-Christ man! to be a living branch

of the living Vine!

The vine, the vine leaf drapes,
The vine grows only grapes,
As is the vine so is the fruit;
Its branches are the same
In nature as the stem,
And are identic with the root.

As is the living Vine,
The source of life divine,
So also shall the Christian be;
And on the self-same plan,
As Christ the pattern Man,
His soul shall move eternally.

The olden life of sin,

Now he is "grafted in”

And in his Lord doth live and grow,

Hath now nor life nor place,

For by His sovereign grace

New life thro' every vein doth flow.

His thought, His mind, His love
Through all his being move,

And He and they have one design,—

To seek in deed and word

The glory of the Lord,

Alike the glory of the branch and Vine.

IX.

THE TRUE VINE.

In this beautiful and richly suggestive parable, Jesus Christ describes Himself as the true Vine, the only stock which can produce real, healthy, salutary life and blessing, the only possible source and root from whence good fruit can possibly proThere are ceed, 'strange vines" which bring forth "wild grapes" in perilous abundance, planted in the soil of our human nature by "an enemy," who hath done this with malign intent and evil purpose against God and man; but their nature is deadly, their grapes, however luscious and inviting, are noxious; their very shadow and foliage, like the fabled Upas tree, are redolent of destruction and death. Against these the Book is full of warning, and their malific properties are fully and emphatically described.

There are grapes of gold, for which the grower sells his soul, and Mammon is the spirit that drives