cant. Our Lord calls it " less than all the seeds that be in the earth." Twice in the Gospels we find our Lord using the figure as a word of comparison, when speaking of a weak faith. (Matt, xvii 20 ; Luke xvii. 6.) The idea was doubtless familiar to a Jewish mind, however strange it may sound to us. Here, as in other places, the Son of God shows us the wisdom of using language familiar to the minds of those whom we may address.
It would be difficult to find an emblem which more faithfully represents the history of the visible church of Christ than this grain of mustard seed.
Weakness and apparent insignificance were undoubt- edly the characteristics of its beginning. How did its Head and King come into the world ? He came as a feeble infant, born in a manger at Bethlehem, without riches, or armies, or attendants, or power. — Who were the men that the Head of the Church gathered round Himself, and appointed His apostles ? They were poor and unlearned persons— fishermen, publicans, and men of like occupations, to all appearance the most unlikely people to shake the world. — What was the last public act of the earthly ministry of the great Head of the Church ? He was crucified, like a malefactor, between two thieves, after having been forsaken by nearly all His disciples, betrayed by one, and denied by another. — What was the doctrine which the first builders of the Church went forth from the upper chamber in Jerusalem to preach to mankind ? It was a doctrine which to the Jews was a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. It was a proclamation that the great Head of their new religion had been put to death on a cross, and that