work out its consequences for good or for evil. The originator has to be
contented with setting the thing going and handing on unfinished tasks
to his successors. That is the condition under which we live. We have to
be contented to do our little bit of work, that will fit in along with
that of a great many others, like a chain of men who stand between a
river and a burning house, and pass the buckets from end to end. How
many hands does it take to make a pin? How many did it take to make the
cloth of our dress? The shepherd out in Australia, the packer in
Melbourne, the sailors on the ship that brought the wool home, the
railwayman that took it to Bradford, the spinner, the weaver, the dyer,
the finisher, the tailor--they all had a hand in it, and the share of
none of them was fit to stand upright by itself, as it were, without
something on either side of it to hold it up.

So it is in all our work in the world, and eminently in our Christian
work. We have to be contented with being parts of a mighty whole, to do
our small piece of service, and not to mind though it cannot be singled
out in the completed whole. What does that matter, as long as it is
there? The waters of the brook are lost in the river, and it, in turn,
in the sea. But each drop is there, though indistinguishable.

Multiplication of joy comes from division of labour, 'One soweth and
another reapeth,' and the result is that there are two to be glad over
the harvest instead of one--'that he that soweth and he that reapeth may
rejoice together.' So it is a good thing that the hands that laid the
foundations so seldom are the hands that finish the work; for thereby
there are more admitted into the social gladness of the completed
results. The navvy that lifted the first spadeful of earth in excavating
for the railway line, and the driver of the locomotive over the
completed track, are partners in the success and in the joy. The
forgotten bishop who, I know not how many centuries ago, laid the
foundations of Cologne Cathedral, and the workmen who, a few years
since, took down the old crane that had stood for long years on the
spire, and completed it to the slender apex, were partners in one work
that reached through the ages.

So let us do our little bit of work, and remember that whilst we do it,
He for whom we are doing it is doing it in us, and let us rejoice to
know that at the last we shall share in the 'joy of our Lord,' when He
sees of the travail