marks of
"ministry"? Such were what Paul found to be the conditions of
spiritual power. Their absence among us may account for its absence
too! Oh! how little we know of them in the midst of the spirit of
luxury that is around us in the world and of the easy-going
Christianity of the Church! We cannot all be honoured by our service
finding the same outward expression as his, in its bodily stress and
suffering, but is there among us even a seeking after its spirit?

"This is sacrifice, 'death in us, life in you.'--In us, emptiness,
weakness, suffering, pressure, perplexity. In you life--life--life!
As if Paul would say, 'the more I am pressed above measure, the more
the life of Jesus is abundant in its outflow, and in its quickening
of other lives.' This is the apostolic life. Through the Eternal
Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God. Through the same Spirit shall
we be enabled to walk in His steps, and to rejoice in ... sufferings ...
and fill up ... that which is lacking of the afflictions of
Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church.'"
[footnote*:"The Message of the Cross"--Mrs. Penn-Lewis.]

Yes, it is a broken spirit that we need--a spirit keeping no rights
before God or man, longing to go down, down, anywhere, if other souls
may be blessed. It is an indefinable thing, this brokenness, and yet
it is as unmistakable when it has been wrought, as that of the
seed-vessel in the field.

God has His promise for those "who sow in tears": those to whom to be
a channel of Divine communication to the world means soul burden and
travail. It is they who are bound to "reap in joy."

And as we look at these broken-up seed-vessels, we can read a warning
as to our dealings with others, as well as the lesson to ourselves.
If such brokenness as this is the condition of God's power upon us,
what of the danger of making much of the instruments that He uses? If
we do so even in thought, it will unconsciously show itself in manner
and tone, and the subtle influence may reach them and be used of the
devil to build again in a moment that which God had been long
breaking down, and so stay the tide He had at last with infinite
pains set free. "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers
by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have
planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither
is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that
giveth the increase."

*