Remember, too, that, strange as it may seem, the only way by which that knowledge of God which was bestowed upon Israel could become the possession of the world was by its first of all being made the possession of a few.  People talk about the unfairness, the harshness, of the providential arrangement by which the whole world was not made participant of the revelation which was granted to Israel.  The fire is gathered on to a hearth.  Does that mean that the corners of the room are left uncared for?  No! the brazier is in the middle—­as Palestine was, even geographically in the centre of the then civilised world—­that from the centre the beneficent warmth might radiate and give heat as well as light to ‘all them that are in the house.’

So it is in regard to all the great possessions of the race.  Art, literature, science, political wisdom, they are all intrusted to a few who are made their apostles; and the purpose is their universal diffusion from these human centres.  It is in the line of the analogy of all the other gifts of God to humanity, that chosen men should be raised up in whom the life is lodged, that it may be diffused.

So to us the message comes:  ‘The Lord hath need of thee.’  Christ has died; the Cross is the world’s redemption.  Christ lives that He may apply the power and the benefits of His death and of His risen life to all humanity.  But the missing link between the all sufficient redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and the actual redemption of the world, is ‘the remnant of Jacob,’ the Christian Church which is to be ’in the midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord.’

Now, that diffusion from individual centres of the life that is in Jesus Christ is the chiefest reason—­or at all events, is one chief reason—­for the strange and inextricable intertwining in modern society, of saint and sinner, of Christian and non-Christian.  The seed is sown among the thorns; the wheat springs up amongst the tares.  Their roots are so matted together that no hand can separate them.  In families, in professions, in business relations, in civil life, in national life, both grow together.  God sows His seed thin that all the field may smile in harvest.  The salt is broken up into many minute particles and rubbed into that which it is to preserve from corruption.  The remnant of Jacob is in the midst of many peoples; and you and I are encompassed by those who need our Christ, and who do not know Him or love Him; and one great reason for the close intertwining is that, scattered, we may diffuse, and that at all points the world may be in contact with those who ought to be working to preserve it from putrefaction and decay.