Chapter III: CHRIST'S GIVING CONTRASTED WITH THE WORLD'S.--"Not as the world

giveth, give I unto you."

The world wishes peace, but lightly speaks the word; frequently wishing it when there is least warrant for it; wishing it without doing anything to produce it; wishing it whilst glorying over a wrong, healing slightly a wound, covering with the turf the crater of a volcano. Christ, on the other hand, lays the foundations of peace in suitable conditions of a holy and healthy life.

With the world, peace is a passing emotion; with Christ, a settled principle of action--the perfect balance and equilibrium of the soul, out of which comes all that is fair, strong, wholesome.

The world's peace consists in the absence of untoward circumstances; Christ's is altogether independent of circumstances, and consists in the state of the heart. It matters nothing to Him that in the world we have tribulation. He bids us be of good cheer, because in Him we shall have peace. The wildest conjunction of outward things cannot break the perfect peace which nestles to His heart, as Noah's dove to the hand which plucked it in from the weltering waters.

"Let not your heart be troubled," the Master says again. You may be troubled on every side, but be not troubled. Do not let the trouble come inside. Watch carefully against its intrusion, as you would against that of any other form of temptation. Let My peace, like a sentinel, keep you; and as you look forward to the unknown future, out of which spectral figures emerge, do not be afraid. There is a part for you to do, as well as for Me. I can give you My peace, but you must avoid any and everything that will militate against its possession and growth.

XIV

The Story of the Vine

"I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman."--JOHN xv. I.

We have now a story to tell which, in the eye of heaven, will make our world forever memorable and wonderful among her sister spheres. It is the story of the Vine, and how it was the Divine purpose our earth should be its fruitful soil, and our race intimately associated with its growth and history.

"I am the _true_ Vine," said our Lord. Not improbably, as He was passing forth with His disciples into the moonlit air, He perceived a vine clustering around the window or door; and with an eye ever awake to each touch of natural beauty, and a heart always alert for spiritual lessons, He turned to them and said, What that vine is in the world of nature I am in relation to all true and faithful souls. I am the _true_ Vine--true, not as opposed to false, but true in the sense of real, substantial, and enduring. The essential, as distinguished from the circumstantial; the eternal, as distinct from the temporary and transient.

Nature is a parable of God. In each of her forms we have a revelation of God. Not so complete as that given through the mind of prophets, or the life of Jesus Christ, but still a revelation of the Divine. Each natural object, as it stood in Eden's untainted beauty, displayed some aspect of Him, whom no man can see and live. The apple-tree among the trees of the wood; the rose of Sharon: the lily of the vale; the cedar, with its dark green foliage; the rock for strength; the sea for multitudinousness; the heaven with its limpid blue, like the Divine compassion, overarching all--these are some of the forthshadowings in the natural world of spiritual qualities in the nature of God. The vine was made the clinging, helpless plant it is, that it might forever remind men of certain deep characteristics of the Divine nature.