278 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



in which the delegated power is to be exercised. And 

 in consequence she has used her rod to increase instead 

 of to relieve the misery and evil of the world ; and in the 

 end the rod of oppression and cruelty which she has 

 wrenched from the nations has been turned against her, 

 and she has herself in turn been oppressed and cruelly 

 used. But when she exercises the rod aright, in the 

 spirit and after the manner of the Lord Jesus, and by 

 virtue of the holy authority communicated by the Father, 

 as the result of her own triumph over all the pride of 

 life, and the lusts of the flesh, and the selfishness and 

 injustices of the world : when she maintains her own 

 moral standing-ground inviolate ; then, in marvellous 

 ways, does the world acknowledge her power a power 

 which shall subdue all its superstitions and corruptions, 

 and make the nations confess that the Messiah's king- 

 dom is, indeed, a blessed reality. 



But the second part of the vivid representation brings 

 up a different image altogether. There is an abrupt 

 transition from the shepherd's to the pottery-crusher's 

 work. It is not the idea of a potter's vessel struck by a 

 shepherd's iron-faced club that is brought before us ; but 

 the idea of the heap of broken pottery, over which the 

 huge stone of the cement-manufacturer is made to pass 

 repeatedly, until every fragment is ground to powder. 

 This is a much more terrible idea. The potter's vessel 

 struck by the shepherd's club would be broken to pieces 

 more or less large ; but the vessel ground by the stone 

 of the crusher would be shivered to the smallest atoms, 

 so that there could be no restoration. And it is this 



