spinning or coal-mining. Think how striking a figure that is, of all the
world as God's farm, where He practises His husbandry to grow the crops
which He desires.

What a picture the parable gives of sedulous and patient labour for a
far-off result!

It insists on the thought of one steady divine purpose ever directing
the movements of the divine hand.

That is the negation of the godless theory that the affairs of men are
merely the work of men, or are merely the result of impersonal causes.
The world is not a jungle where any or every plant springs of itself,
but it is cultivated ground which has an Owner who looks after it.

It is the affirmation that God's action is regulated by a purpose which
is intelligent, unchanging, all-embracing to us because revealed.

II. That steady purpose is man's highest good.

The end of all the farmer's care is the ripening of the seed. God's
purpose is our moral, intellectual, and spiritual perfecting.

Neither His own 'glory' nor man's 'happiness,' which are taken by
different schools of thought to be the divine aim in creation and
providence, is an object worthy of Him or adequate to explain the facts
of every man's experience, unless both are regarded as needing man's
perfecting, for their attainment. God's glory is to make men godlike.
Man's happiness cannot be secured without His holiness.