a good
work in you, will perfect it until the day of Christ. You could not make
a living seed; but God has given it. Thus far all is well, but you are
as helpless at the second stage as you were at the first; you have no
more power to make the seed grow than you had to make the seed. The
Author and Finisher of this work keeps it from first to last in his own
hands. It is He who gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons. The
small seed of the kingdom has fallen on your hearts, and been hidden in
their folds; it has taken root, and sent up into your lives some tender
shoots of faith, and hope, and love. It is well; thank God for the past,
and take courage for the coming time. The plant is small now; it will be
great hereafter. It is small on earth; it will be great in heaven. Weed
it and water it, sun it and shelter it. Be diligent on your own side of
this great business, and God will not withhold his power. Cultivate the
kingdom in your own hearts, and count on the blessing from on high to
make it prosper. From the tender, diminutive life of grace, the life of
glory will in due time grow.

When painters have drawn their figures in light, they throw in dark
shadows beside them, that the positive forms may thereby be more
prominently displayed. So, beside the kingdom of heaven, under the
aspect of its growth from small beginnings, let us throw in the outline
of the kingdom of darkness, that thereby the glory of light may be
better seen.

Although one kingdom differs from another in character and aim, all
kingdoms are like each other in the method of their operation. The
kingdom of darkness, like the kingdom of light, grows gradually from
very small to very great. The kingdom of Satan hangs on and follows
Christ's kingdom like a dark shadow, and the shadow depends upon the
light. The first sin against God was a very small seed, but the tree
which sprang from it was the fall of man. "Thou shalt not eat," is a
small point--its smallness has sometimes supplied unbelievers with wit,
if not with argument--but on that point a door was hung, which, turned
this way, opened heaven and shut hell; turned that way, opened hell and
shut heaven. In its beginning the kingdom of evil was small; but from
that small seed a mighty tree has grown.[18]

[18] "Good is like the mustard-seed; from small it becomes great:
evil resembles it not less. Here, too, the great springs from the
small. An evil thought, when once it has made its