may abound unto every good work: as it is written, He
hath scattered abroad, He hath given to the poor; His righteousness
abideth for ever. And He that supplieth seed to the sower and bread
for food, shall supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and
increase the fruits of your righteousness: ye being enriched in
everything unto all liberality, which worketh through us thanksgiving
to God" (R.V.).

And as part of the enriching in everything unto all liberality, God
can give us all the ingenuity of love in scattering broadcast
Spirit-filled, Spirit-sent seed that He has figured in the
seed-vessels--the heaven-given inspiration as to how to lay out His
treasures to their uttermost--how to secure to Him the highest return
out of our lives, as they do.

Yes, the "return" is to Him, as again we see in parable with the
plants. They show us a love that seeketh not her own: no one knows
whence the seeds come when they reach their journey's end: no glory
can possibly gather round the plants that surrendered their lives to
form and shed them. They just give and give, with no aim but to be
bare footstalks when all is done. Everything is loosened and spent
without a shade of calculation or self-interest.

"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory,"
they are all saying in spirit: they teach us absolute indifference as
to whether our service is appreciated or even recognised, so long as
the work is done and the Lord is glorified. The plant itself asks for
nothing to keep, nothing to show, nothing to glory in from its whole
life toil.

Nothing to glory in--God cannot get His whole glory while man gets
any. That seems a truism, but do we realise the fact? "Herein is My
Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." If that is our one aim,
as it was in the soul of Jesus, it is bound to be realised. Let Him
work this in us too--this simple, absolute, absorbing passion of His
years on earth.

And then we shall have, as He had, that independence of visible
results that we have just seen in the plants. He left the world--this
one world out of His mighty universe in which God had come to
dwell--with no more to be seen from His travail than a few hundred
brethren, every one of whom had forsaken Him only six weeks before,
and of whom but a hundred and twenty had enough purpose of heart to
follow on to Pentecost. And still He could say, "Yet surely My
judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God." And though
Is