gotten in the "reaching forth unto the things that are before:"
the seed-vessel has begun to form: it is "yielded . . . to bring
forth fruit."

Yes, there is another stage to be developed in us after the lesson of
absolute unquestioning surrender to God has been learnt. A life that
has been poured forth to Him must find its crown, its completion, in
being poured forth for man: it must grow out of surrender into
sacrifice. "They first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us
by the will of God."

Back to the Cross once more: if there is any place where this fresh
lesson can be learnt, it is there! "Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down
our lives for the brethren." It is the very love of Calvary that must
come down into our souls, "Yea, if I be poured forth upon the service
of your faith I joy and rejoice with you all:" so spoke the apostle
who drank most deeply into the Master's spirit: and again--"Death
worketh in us, but life in you." "Neither count I my life dear unto
myself, that I may finish . . . the ministry."

Deeper and deeper must be the dying, for wider and fuller is the
lifetide that it is to liberate--no longer limited by the narrow
range of our own being, but with endless powers of multiplying in
other souls. Death must reach the very springs of our nature to set
it free: it is not this thing or that thing that must go now: it is
blindly, helplessly, recklessly, our very selves. A dying must come
upon all that would hinder God's working through us--all interests,
all impulses, all energies that are "born of the flesh"--all that is
merely human and apart from His Spirit. Only thus can the Life of
Jesus, in its intensity of love for sinners, have its way in our
souls.

Death to Self is the Way Out into a Life of Sacrifice.

This dandelion has long ago surrendered its golden petals, and has
reached its crowning stage of dying--the delicate seed-globe must
break up now--it gives and gives till it has nothing left.

What a revolution would come over the world--the world of starving
bodies at home--the world of starving souls abroad, if something like
this were the standard of giving; if God's people ventured on "making
themselves poor" as Jesus did, for the sake of the need around; if
the "I"--"me"--"mine" were practically delivered up, no longer to be
recognised when they clash with those needs.

The hour of this new dying is clearly