Mark 6:35-44 And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came to him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed:… It is true that we have but our five coarse barley loaves and two small fishes; in themselves they are useless. Well, then, let us give them to Christ. He can multiply them, and can make them more than enough to feed the five thousand. A cup of cold water — what a little thing it is! Well, but will the world ever forget one cup of cold water which David would not drink, but poured upon the earth, because his men had risked their lives to fetch it him; or the other cup of cold water which Sir Philip Sidney, although dying and athirst, gave to the wounded soldier who eyed it eagerly at the battle of Zutphen? A grain of mustard seed — can anything be smaller? Well, but when Zinzendorf was a boy at school he founded amongst his schoolfellows a little guild which he called the "Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed," and thereafter that seedling grew into the great tree of the Moravian Brotherhood whose boughs were a blessing to the world. The widow's mite! When they laughed at St. Theresa when she wanted to build a great orphanage, and had but three shillings to begin with, she answered, "With three shillings Theresa can do nothing; but with God and her three shillings there is nothing which Theresa cannot do." Do not let us imagine, then, that we are too poor, or too stupid, or too ignorant, or too obscure to do any real good in the world wherein God has placed us. Is there a greater work in this day than the work of education? Would you have thought that the chief impulse to that work, whereon we now annually spend so many millions of taxation, was given by a poor, illiterate Plymouth cobbler — John Pounds? Has there been a nobler work of mercy in modern days than the purification of prisons? Yet that was done by one whom a great modern writer sneeringly patronized as "the dull, good man, John Howard." Is there a grander, nobler enterprise than missions? The mission of England to India was started by a humble, itinerant shoemaker, William Carey. These men brought to Christ their humble efforts, their five loaves, and in His hand they multiplied exceedingly. (Archdeacon Farrar.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: |
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