ere of
tribute--as Paul was lifted--into the region of that kingdom which would
sweep Caesar's as a satellite in its sphere. Did the Lord foresee sadly
the scene from which a few dark days divided them, when they would yield
to Caesar--these men, who were groaning and haggling over the
tribute--absolutely everything that was God's? (John xix. 7-16).

The leader of the band who turned the world upside down witnessed this
confession, "_Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I
thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk_." They
were poor as beggars, but richer in power to draw forth the treasures
of this world than kings. What king's command could have wrought this
miracle? "_And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and
of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he
possessed was his own; but they had all things common._" (Acts iv. 32.)
In truth, this love of Christ is the universal solvent. Nothing remains
any man's own when once the heart is touched by this Divine fire. It
melts all selfish separations and appropriations, as sun warmth the
bonds of winter, and quickens in the universal human heart the glow and
circulation of the spring. Nothing starves in summer for want of the
bread that perishes; supplies lie thick everywhere around. And no Divine
work stays for lack of the gold that perishes, when once the sun of the
Divine love has loosed men's hearts from the winter of their isolation
and selfish grasping care. Don't worry about the tribute. "_Trust in the
Lord, and do good_," and things will right themselves at once. Tribute
will pour into the treasury, and even the exactors shall become
ministers and yield their willing aid. "_Thine officers shall become
peace, and thine exactors righteousness._" "_Kings shall be thy nursing
fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers._" "_Violence shall be no more
heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders_," if the
King is in thy palaces; if thy heart, soul, and hand are loyally devoted
to Christ. I often think, in these days of grand Christian institutions,
with their vast fixed incomes and endowments, and all the magnificent
apparatus without which it seems to us the Lord's kingdom must perish
out of this land and out of the world, of the little company who trudged
wearily about the highways of Palestine, seeking their morning meal from
the fig-tree by the wayside, and lodging wherever a