e out of the fiery
breath that made havoc with the outward and visible.

"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the
Lord bloweth upon it." But "our light affliction" (and from the
context we see that spiritual trial is included there) "which is but
for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory--while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." In all the
breaking down on the human side, the hidden treasure is left not only
unhurt but enriched. Everything that wrecks our hopes of ourselves,
and our earthly props, is helping forward infinitely God's work in us.

So "we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward
man is renewed day by day." God's purpose for us is that we should be
seed-vessels; all the rest may go down into nothingness, for it
"profiteth nothing." The plant does not faint in its inner heart.
Little does it matter what happens to the "corruptible": each fading
of the outward only marks a corresponding development of the
"incorruptible" within.

"What things were gain to me" (the words seem echoed from the fading
leaves and the ripening seed), "those I counted loss for Christ. Yea,
doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ."

"This one thing I do." "They that are after the flesh do mind the
things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things
of the Spirit." The plant has nothing to "mind" now but the treasure
it bears. Its aim has grown absolutely simple. In old days there was
the complexity of trying to carry on two lives at once, nourishing
root and stem, leaf and flower and tendril, alongside the seed-vessel
and the seed. All that is over. It withdraws itself quietly into the
inner shrine where God is working out that which is eternal. It has
chosen, in figure, that good part which shall not be taken away: it
is pressing towards the mark for the prize of its calling.

Pressing, but in perfect rest. "They toil not, neither do they spin,"
these plants, in their seed-bearing any more than in their flowering.
And when we have learnt something of their surrender, we are ready
for their secret of waiting on God's inworking. How long