at this "new man" should be formed and that the old
should pass away.

From the very outset of its new birth we see this double process
going on in the plant. Within a few hours the throb of new life has
spread through the flower, with this first result, that the petals
begin to wither. Fertilisation marks the striking of the death-blow
to all that went before. Look at a clover head; do you know why some
of the spikes are upright and others turned downwards and fading? It
is because these last have received the new tide, and the old is
ebbing out already. The birth-peal and the death-knell rang together.
Fertilisation marks the death of the flower and the death of the
flower the death of the annual, though the carrying out of its doom
comes gradually.

And in like manner the sentence of death passes, in the Cross, on the
old nature in its entirety, as the new comes into being. This is the
one only basis and groundwork for all carrying out in our practical
experience of what that death means. Once for all let this be clear.
Apart from the work done on Calvary, all working out of a death
process in our own souls is only a false and dangerous mysticism... .
"I have been crucified with Christ." (R. V.)--Yes, long before ever I
asked to be--glory be to God! and yet as freshly as if it were
yesterday, for time is nowhere with Him.

And simultaneously, in figure, in the little flower-heart, while
"that which is natural" begins to fade, "that which is spiritual"
dawns. The seed-vessel with its hidden treasure--the ultimate object
of this miracle of quickening--begins immediately to form. It was
within three days of "the heavenly vision" when the once rejected
Jesus was received by St. Paul, that the commission came--"he is a
chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My Name." A chosen vessel unto Him.
The seed-vessel belongs to the seed, only and for ever: it is formed
for itself and has no purpose apart. Separation has nothing austere
and narrow in it when it is unto Him.

Chosen vessels to bear His Name--His personality; with all that is
wrapped up in that Name of fragrance and healing, authority and
power; chosen to go about this weary sinful world with the living
Christ folded in our hearts, ready and able as of old to meet the
need around. Is not this a calling for which it is worth counting, as
St. Paul did, all things but loss?

Chosen vessels--there is the vessel and there is the treasure in it,
for ever distinct, though in