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The vineyard yields us spontaneous fruit. Man must work, and he must work in the line of God's laws — observing the demands of the plant, supplying the conditions of atmosphere and soil — or else no rich vintage will gladden the hills or reward his toil. And so in the culture of the soul. It is not through rest, but through action — not in seclusion, but by brave labour ant in the open field, under the noontide and under the dew — that its powers are to be developed and its highest possibilities attained. You must not suppose, however, that in insisting upon the great truth that the proper issue and the proof of a real Christianity are in action and work, in the doing by each one of us of his Father's business in the world, I would put dishonour upon the subjective side of the religious life. This, too, with its seasons of retirement, of quiet meditation, of self-recollection, of communion with God who is the Fountain of all power, is necessary. Nay, more than this: it is the condition precedent and absolutely essential to the highest life and best action of the soul. It is here in the life of the soul as in the life of the material universe. Nature has her seasons of apparent rest when she gathers her energies in secret chambers and in silent ways. But these gathered energies only reveal their value and reach their proper end when they pass out into action and clothe the world with bloom and fruit and beauty for the use and service of men. And this great truth, like every other great moral and spiritual truth, finds illustration in the life of Christ. He retires again and again from the multitude to the secret oratories of the desert and the mountain-top. ]But the full meaning and purpose of His retirement are made manifest when He comes forth again, with all His spiritual energies refreshed, to labour and suffer more devotedly for men, and so to do His Father's work in the world. The danger against which I would warn you is the belief that Christianity is simply a doctrine or a sentiment. It is these; but above all it is, as the fruition of these, a life and a work. What the world needs to-day, but what, alas! our saintliness not seldom fails to give, is this living, loving, labouring piety. What in this hour our religion lacks especially is red blood. It wants, in place of its too often sickly complexion — the paleness, as it were, of the cloisters — the rich tan of a vigorous health, which comes only from brave and devoted labour under all the changing skies. And so the command comes to you and to me, "Son, daughter, go out and work." It bids us leave our shaded hermit-caves in the valley, come down from our high peaks of mere religious sentiment or rhapsody, and go, each one of us, to his own proper field along the hot and stony hillsides of our life, toiling there with energy and patience and devotion until the whole landscape shall hang thick with the burdened vines.

(W. Rudder, D. D.)

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KJV: But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard.

WEB: But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, 'Son, go work today in my vineyard.'