V.

SILENT SIGNALS.

LET us learn also while we look at the vine branch as a representation of the Christian life that the manifestation of the excellency of the Christ root is silently, naturally, spontaneously done. The vine does not flaunt its verdant beauties or parade its purple fruits. In the former case each leaf seems to lose itself in the general mass, and in the latter the clusters half-conceal themselves behind the leaves. There is no self-assertion, and the eye is compelled to witness and admire. There is not so much an exhibition as a revelation. The vine grows, buds, blossoms, unfolds its green garments of beauty, and hangs its graceful bunches just as the rose unfurls its petals and flings its fragrance to the air it is natural and cannot be otherwise. It simply follows out quietly to the full issue the natural promptings that lie within and underneath.

Thus, too, the Christian, the branch of the Living

Vine, unconsciously, unassumingly, with the true humility of unselfishness, lives godly, acts piously, and is morally fair and beautiful, not to be seen of men, not to seek the praise of men, but simply because Jesus is the root-force and heart-throb of his life. His mission is to shine out the goodness of his Saviour into the eyes of men, and though he may seldom say it, he always feels, "not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thee be glory." Like Moses when he came down from the Mount, his face shines, but he knows not that he shines, although the glow is on him all the time.

Old Thomas Secker says, "He is the most lovely professor who is the most lowly one. As incense smells the sweetest when it is beaten the smallest, so saints look the fairest when they lie the lowest." And we may add, too, that the more the branch is laden with good fruit, the more it bends towards the ground. President Edwards well describes the true Christian as "such a little flower as we see in the spring of the year, low and humble in the ground; opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing as it were in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrance, standing peacefully and lowly in the midst of other flowers."

Give me the lowest place; not that I dare

Ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died
That I might live and share

Thy glory by Thy side.

Give me the lowest place; or if for me

The lowest place too high, make one more low,

Where I may sit and see

My Lord, and love Thee so.

We are to covet the best gifts; and this is one of the best of all; that "low sweet root from which all other virtues shoot." To be nothing, that Christ may be all; to show His power, His praise, His beauty, His surpassing loveliness undimmed, undisparaged by any streak of self. This is how the angels serve. This is the perfect glory of the saints in heaven. This should be the ardent aspira

tion of every Christian on earth.

The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown

In deepest adoration bends;

The weight of glory bends him down,

Then most, when most his soul ascends.

Nearest the throne itself we see

The footstool of humility.

"The honest and good heart," writes Bishop Sumner, "is the only soil in which the Christian graces can expand and flourish. It is humble, because it feels how far its goodness is from extend

ing unto God, and how much there is that belongs to the unprofitable servant' even in its best services. It glories not in its attainments, or in its spiritual progress, because it is written that it is 'God that maketh men to differ;' and that He resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”

Oh, learn that it is only by the lowly

The paths of peace are trod;

If thou wouldst keep thy garments white and holy,
Walk humbly with thy God.

The man with earthly wisdom high uplifted,

Is in God's sight a fool;

But he in heavenly truth most deeply gifted,
Sits lowest in Christ's school.

The lowly spirit God hath consecrated

As His abiding rest;

An angel by some patriarch's tent hath waited,
When kings had no such guest.

The dew that never wets the flinty mountain
Falls in the valley free ;

Bright verdure fringes the small desert fountain
But barren sand the sea.

Not in the stately oak the fragrance dwelleth
Which charms the general wood;

But in the violet low whose sweetness telleth
Its unseen neighbourhood.

The censer swung by the proud hand of merit,
Fumes with a fire abhorred;

But faith's two mites, dropped covertly, inherit
A blessing from the Lord.

VI.

FOLIAGE.

WHILE the essential necessity of being fruit-bearers needs persistently to be urged upon all who are followers of Jesus, it must not be forgotten that leaf-bearing is also a natural and fitting outcome of all true union with the living Vine. There are few warnings given to Christian people, from the pulpit and otherwhere, oftener or more solemnly, than of the danger and folly of producing "nothing but leaves." That quotation from the Book hath passed into a proverb. It is a great peril, and the warning is needed. But we must not therefore think nothing of leaves, or undervalue the important part that foliage has to play alike in the vine branch and the Christian believer.

The foliage of any tree, and especially of the vine, takes credit, and rightly so, for a large share of the beauty and attractiveness of the tree. Its graceful appearance and general winsomeness are