!. TnE KINGDOM OF IlEAVEN 18 TO HAVE 1TB OWN DEVELOPMENT; IT IS TO GROW OF ITSELF AND FROM ITSELF. Wherever it is, whatever it works upon, whatever it may attract to itself, it shall receive into itself; leave some of it, take some of it, incorporate this, have one body and one spirit, and own to no rival. II. THAT DEVELOPMENT WILL IN NO BENSE BE SIMPLY COMMENSURABLE WITH ITS BEGINNING, EVEN WHEN EVERY ALLOW ANOE SHALL BE MADE FOR THE ORDINARY MEASURE OB' DIFB'EREN0E BETWEEN A BEGINNING AND THAT TO WID0II IT MAY GROW. Jt wi\1 contradict and gloriously disappoint untaught expectation. No mere proverbial oak from acorn will suffice to set forth the development this growth will attain. The only analogy that will suit will be the example of something that is indeed perfectly natural, but looks something other than natural. Wide nature, the work of God, will indeed find the analogue, however bumble the scale of it. This is a very small seed, and its proper growth a herb; but the herb refuses to answer very strictly to its own sort, and waxes into a tree; and shows the features and properties of the tree, "shooting out great branches." So is the kingdom of heaven. A.nd whether the seed be called that which was once found in the manger, or that which was once found in the tomb, it seemed small indeed-neither at the former time nor at the latter was it counted for anything but a thing to be disregarded and despised-yet to what was it to grow I Ill. THAT GROWTH FROM SMALLEST BEED, THAT KINGDOM FOUNDED FROM MOST UNPROMIBING MATERIAL, SHALL PROVE ITSELF NOT A GROWTH OF MERE GRANDEUR TO BEHOLD, NOT A MONUMENT OF BUMAN PRIDE OF POWER AND CONQUEST; BUT A RESORT OB' HEAVENLY SHADE, HEAVENLY SAFETY, HEAVENLY REST-A HEAVENLY HOME FOR ALL THAT WILL BEEK IT, FOR ALL THAT WILL WING THEIR FLIGHT, WEARY OR GLAD, TO IT. This tree is in a new sense the tree of life, offered to all, and as free to all as air, and spreading branches, and whispering winds, the breath of morning, or the sweet sighings of evening, with their invitations, could make it, for all birds and "fowl of every wing " that fly under heaven.-B. Vere. 33-36 (see also Luke xiii. 20, 21).-The foretold now become the told. In introduction, note that perhaps no parable more postulates that the student of it insist on observing the essential canon in the interpretation of every parable, viz. that its one main object be kept steadily in view, and that it was kept in view by the Author of it. So much may be made, even by warrant of Scripture, in respect of the ill associa- tions of leaven, that if this be dwelt upon without a steaqy memory of the quality and the one use of leaven, whether in good association or in bad, the student-vision will be n double one, and his judgment warped and distorted. So, though in risk far inferior, and of far less moment, the incidents of this very brief parable, e.g. of the mention of th11 11 woman" who took the leaven, and of the "three measures" of meal in which she is represented as hiding it, may easily be turned, for they have been so turned, to what tends to mar, instead of to complete our distinct apprehension and appropriation of the matter of the parable. These may, indeed, heighten effect, and, if possible, may beautify effect. They mny be, perhaps, not illegitimately used to these very ends. They may so chime in with history, with fact, with reverent associations of faith, as not to be unjustified, for the very helpfulness and devoutness of them. But they must be subordinated to their right place and sphere with a stern resolution. Of this simplest parable-illustration of the kingdom of heaven on earth many difficulties have been:made, and not a little distortion and perversion even; but in its brief simplicity it says- I. THAT A 0EBTAIN PRESEN0E OF SELF-ACTING INTRINBIO QUALITY AND TRANSJIIUTmG FOR0E IS INTRODUCED INTO WHAT MAY BE CALLED THE SOCIETY OF TBIB WORLD, OR, MORE FORMALLY, THE KINGDOM OF THIEi WORLD. II. THAT TIIIB IB BROUGHT DIBTINOTLY FROM WITHOUT, IN NO BENSE DEING ONE WITS THAT INTO WHICH IT IB INTRODUOED,· III. THAT BO BOON AS INTRODUCED, HOWEVER SILENTLY, HOWEVER SUDDENLY, IT DEGINB TO INCORPORATE ITSELF, AND TO BE ASSIMILATED, WORKING UNCEASINGLY AND IN EVERY DIREOTION UPON THE MASS OF MATERIAL IN WBI0B IT IS HIDDEN, AND IN WWOB IT BEEMB SMOTHERED, IV. TnAT ITB OPERATION DOES NOT CE.ABE UNTIL IT BAB TRANSMUTED THAT WH0L.E 36 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [en. xm. 1-68.
¥Ass. All this was foretold; and all this was divinely called paral,le. But history has t-Old it, and it bas ceased by any possibility to be able to be called mere parable. In every respect it has been witnessed to, illustrated by most evident facts, and proved with not a shadow of doubt or uncertainty. The amazing mission of Christ to this world, his sojourn in it, his replacement by the Holy Spirit, the suddenness of this new and most wonderful and most gracious "departure," the silence and obscurity of the subuuing and transforming work, and its unceasingness to the present hour, have all been fact, and are all forming an overwhelming presage of the further development and growth of their conquering power and grace. It means that the process, so wonderful, so potent, so beneficent, shall know no pause till the whole lump is leavened. -B.