n with them, and with a
few decisive strokes He gives prominence to the chief characteristics of
this connection.

I. The first idea, then, which our Lord wished to present by means of
this allegory is, that He and His disciples together form one whole,
neither being complete without the other. The vine can bear no fruit if
it has no branches; the branches cannot live apart from the vine.
Without the branches the stem is a fruitless pole; without the stem the
branches wither and die. Stem and branches together constitute one
fruit-bearing tree. I, for my part, says Christ, am the Vine; ye are the
branches, neither perfect without the other, the two together forming
one complete tree, essential to one another as stem and branches.

The significance underlying the figure is obvious, and no more welcome
or animating thought could have reached the heart of the disciples as
they felt the first tremor of separation from their Lord. Christ, in His
own visible person and by His own hands and words, was no longer to
extend His kingdom on earth. He was to continue to fulfil God's purpose
among men, no longer however in His own person, but through His
disciples. They were now to be His branches, the medium through which He
could express all the life that was in Him, His love for man, His
purpose to lift and save the world. Not with His own lips was He any
longer to tell men of holiness and of God, not with His own hand was He
to dispense blessing to the needy ones of earth, but His disciples were
now to be the sympathetic interpreters of His goodness and the
unobstructed channels through which He might still pour out upon men all
His loving purpose. As God the Father is a Spirit and needs human hands
to do actual deeds of mercy for Him, as He does not Himself in His own
separate personality make the bed of the sick poor, but does it only
through the intervention of human charity, so can Christ speak no
audible word in the ear of the sinner, nor do the actual work required
for the help and advancement of men. This He leaves to His disciples,
His part being to give them love and perseverance for it, to supply them
with all they need as His branches.

This, then, is the last word of encouragement and of quickening our Lord
leaves with these men and with us: I leave you to do all for Me; I
entrust you with this gravest task of accomplishing in the world all I
have prepared for by My life and death. This great end, to attain which
I