THE SWALLOW'S NEST. 



should we expend in the precious labour of winning 

 souls and building up this spiritual house not made with 

 hands, not what costs us nothing, but what may involve 

 much self-denial and self-sacrifice ; not the light toil of 

 our leisure moments, but the sweat of our soul in our 

 busiest; remembering that He for whom we labour 

 made clay of His own saliva with which to open the eyes 

 of the blind ; and in the crowning consummation of His 

 work gave Himself for us on the cross. The first crea- 

 tion formed us out of the dust of the earth without toil or 

 trouble ; the new creation opens our blind eyes by the 

 addition to the dust of the earth of a part of the very 

 substance of the Saviour, by the expenditure of much 

 toil, and sorrow, and suffering. And in this we must 

 imitate His example if we are to be successful master- 

 builders. No labour of ours will endure form part of 

 the eternity of God unless it be mingled not only with 

 faith and prayer, as the swallow's nest is constructed of 

 bits of straw to give the clay strength and coherence, 

 but also, like the swallow's nest, with a part of ourselves, 

 with the love, and the sympathy, and the self-denial of 

 our souls. The instinctive, unconscious love of the 

 swallow for its prospective young is shown by the sacri- 

 fice of itself in the building of its home ; and our love 

 for the little children, to use the apostle's words, of 

 whom we travail in birth again until Christ be formed 

 in them, should be shown by a similar self sacrifice, only 

 conscious and willing, and greater in degree as the 

 object is so much more important. 



