xx. UNTO GAZA, WHICH IS DESERT. 



345 



Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert." And as he did 

 the will of God, the purpose of the commandment was 

 made known to him. He found in the desert a more 

 fruitful field of usefulness than he had found even in 

 Samaria. Scientific men have shown us lately the won- 

 derful arrangements by which insects and flowers are 

 brought together, in order to carry out the ends of the 

 vegetable world. The blossom is furnished with a 

 nectary, or honey-cell, is painted with brilliant hues, 

 enriched with fragrance, and shaped in a particular way, 

 in order to attract and guide insects, by whose agency 

 the plant may be fertilized and enabled to produce seed. 

 More wonderful still are the providential arrangements 

 by which God brings together the soul and the Saviour ; 

 the means by which a man may be brought to the 

 knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus and the man 

 himself. So was it in the case before us. Just as, in 

 the curious blossom of a common orchid, the insect is 

 guided by the peculiar shape and colour of the blossom 

 to the particular spot where it can carry out the higher 

 purposes of the plant, and cannot chose any other path, 

 so Philip was guided to the very place where he should 

 meet the Ethiopian eunuch on his way home from Jeru- 

 salem. He was shut up in Providence to that one only 

 course. 



Some, who have an inadequate estimate of the value 

 of a human soul, may say that it was not worth while to 

 take Philip away from the great task of converting mul- 

 titudes in Samaria for the purpose of saving a single 

 benighted stranger in the southern desert. But such 



