etters on the constitution of human
nature, every man who, in any region of society or life, is seeking
to effect the great designs of the universal loving Father--can take
to himself, in the measure and according to the manner of his special
activity, the great encouragement of my text, and feel that he, too,
in his little way, is a fellow-helper to the truth and a
fellow-worker with God. But then, of course, according to New
Testament teaching, and according to the realities of the case, the
highest form in which men thus can co-operate with God, and carry
into effect His purposes is that in which men devote themselves,
either directly or indirectly, to spreading throughout the whole
world the name and the power of the Saviour Jesus Christ, in whom all
God's will is gathered, and through whom all God's blessings are
communicated to mankind. So the thought of my text comes
appropriately when I have to bring before you the claims of our
missionary operations.

Now, the first way in which I desire to look at this great idea
expressed in these words, is that we find in it

I. A solemn thought.

'Labourers together with God.' Cannot He do it all Himself? No. God
needs men to carry out His purposes. True, on the Cross, Jesus spoke
the triumphant word, 'It is finished!' He did not thereby simply mean
that He had completed all His suffering; but He meant that He had
then done all which the world needed to have done in order that it
should be a redeemed world. But for the distribution and application
of that finished work God depends on men. You all know, in your own
daily businesses, how there must be a middleman between the mill and
the consumer. The question of organising a distributing agency is
quite as important as any other part of the manufacturer's business.
The great reservoir is full, but there has to be a system of
irrigating-channels by which the water is carried into every corner
of the field that is to be watered. Christian men individually, and
the Church collectively, supply--may I call it the missing
link?--between a redeeming Saviour and the world which He has
redeemed in act, but which is not actually redeemed, until it has
received the message of the great Redemption that is wrought. The
supernatural is implanted in the very heart of the mass of leaven by
the Incarnation and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; but the spreading of
that supernatural revelation is left in the hands of men who work
through natura