There is nothing new or surprising to the Lord Jesus in the progress of our times and the developments of modern thought, nothing for which He is not perfectly prepared. He has taken their measure long ere this, and holds them within His grasp. The government is upon His shoulders--“the weight of all this unintelligible world”--and He can bear it well. He has gifts in store for the twentieth century, when it arrives, as adequate as those He bestowed upon the first or fifth, upon the sixteenth or the eighteenth of our era. There are Augustines and Wesleys yet to come. Hidden in the Almighty’s quiver are shafts as polished and as keen as any He has used, which He will launch forth in the war of the ages at the appointed hour. The need, the peril, the greatness of the time will be the measure of the gift of Christ. There is a danger, however, in waiting for great leaders and in looking for signal displays of Christ’s power amongst men. His “kingdom comes not with observation,” so that men should say, Lo here! or Lo there! It steals upon us unforeseen; it is amongst us before we know. “We looked,” says Rutherford, “that He should take the higher way along the mountains; and lo, He came by the lower way of the valleys!” While men listen to the earthquake and the wind rending the mountains, a still, small voice speaks the message of God to prepared hearts. Rarely can we measure at the first the worth of Christ’s best gifts. When the fruit appears, after long patience, the world will haply discover when and how the seed was sown. But not always then. “The sower, passing onward, was not known; And all men reaped the harvest as their own.” Those who are most ready to appraise their fellows are constantly at fault. Our last may prove Christ’s first; our first His last! “Each of us shall give account of himself to God”: each must answer for his own stewardship, and the grace that was given to each. “Let us not therefore judge one another any more.” But let every man see to it that his part in the building of God’s temple is well and faithfully done. Soon the fire will try every man’s work, of what sort it is. FOOTNOTES: [99] Comp. Hebrews x. 1, 2, 10-14 with xi. 13-16, 39, 40, xii. 23, 24; also vi. 12. [100] The words of David in Browning’s _Saul_, turned from the future tense into the present. [101] 2 Cor. ii. 14; comp. Eph. ii. 6, 7. [102] 2 Tim. iv. 5; Acts viii. 26-40, xxi. 8. [103] In Acts xiv. 4, 14, _Barnabas and Paul_ are “apostles”; 1 Thess. ii. 6, _Paul and Silas and Timothy_. Comp. Rom. xvi. 7; 2 Cor. viii. 23, xi. 13; Phil. ii. 25; Rev. ii. 2. [104] Comp. ch. ii. 20, iii. 5 for the association of _prophets_ with _apostles_. CHAPTER XVIII. _THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH._