und, was not only given to him for his own individual enjoyment,
elevation, ennobling, emancipation, salvation, but was 'committed to
his charge,' and he was 'entrusted' with it, as he says, as a sacred
deposit.

Remember, too, that, strange as it may seem, the only way by which that
knowledge of God which was bestowed upon Israel could become the
possession of the world was by its first of all being made the
possession of a few. People talk about the unfairness, the harshness, of
the providential arrangement by which the whole world was not made
participant of the revelation which was granted to Israel. The fire is
gathered on to a hearth. Does that mean that the corners of the room are
left uncared for? No! the brazier is in the middle--as Palestine was,
even geographically in the centre of the then civilised world--that from
the centre the beneficent warmth might radiate and give heat as well as
light to 'all them that are in the house.'

So it is in regard to all the great possessions of the race. Art,
literature, science, political wisdom, they are all intrusted to a few
who are made their apostles; and the purpose is their universal
diffusion from these human centres. It is in the line of the analogy of
all the other gifts of God to humanity, that chosen men should be raised
up in whom the life is lodged, that it may be diffused.

So to us the message comes: 'The Lord hath need of thee.' Christ has
died; the Cross is the world's redemption. Christ lives that He may
apply the power and the benefits of His death and of His risen life to
all humanity. But the missing link between the all sufficient redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, and the actual redemption of the world, is
'the remnant of Jacob,' the Christian Church which is to be 'in the
midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord.'

Now, that diffusion from individual centres of the life that is in Jesus
Christ is the chiefest reason--or at all events, is one chief
reason--for the strange and inextricable intertwining in modern society,
of saint and sinner, of Christian and non-Christian. The seed is sown
among the thorns; the wheat springs up amongst the tares. Their roots
are so matted together that no hand can separate them. In families, in
professions, in business relations, in civil life, in national life,
both grow together. God sows His seed thin that all the field may smile
in harvest. The salt is broken up into many minute particles and rubbed
int