The grain of mustard seed.
Let us contrast for a moment the account here given with the present condition of Christianity in the world. Christianity has taken possession of the whole civilized world. The thrones, the laws, the institutions of those nations which hold sway in the earth are all based upon the gospel. The arts, the sciences, the literature of civilized men are more or less impregnated with the doctrine of the New Testament. Take the cathedrals of Europe; what an expenditure of thought and skill and wealth they represent! They are among the most imposing monuments of human thought and human labor. Look at the mass of Christian literature—in poetry, in philosophy, in science, in theology, in sacred oratory, in general literature. What countless Christian writers have elevated the human intellect, enlarged the borders of knowledge, added dignity to man, and happiness to mankind! What vast influences, of all sorts, permeating the civilized world, we can now trace up to the gospel! What multitudes of individual men and women in all ages since Christ, and all over the world, have learnt what the true view of human life is, and have found their whole end of living, and their chief enjoyment of life, and their only consolation and support, in the truths which the gospel teaches! How has the world been filled with fruits of righteousness, altering the whole aspect or human society, of which the gospel alone was the first seed! Now turn to the beginnings of the gospel as here exhibited. One upper chamber at Jerusalem, a city in the last days of its troubled existence, contained the whole number of those who acknowledged Christ as their Master. Measured by any worldly standard, anything feebler or more absolutely insignificant than that company cannot be imagined. But the grain of mustard seed was to become a tree in which the birds of the air should make their nests; the little leaven was to leaven the whole lump; the stone was to become a great mountain which should fill the whole earth. And so it has come to pass that the upper chamber at Jerusalem has grown into the Church Catholic, the mother of all the saints that are, or have been, or are to be hereafter. What an infinite encouragement to our faith is this! What a ground for adoration of him whose grace and power and faithfulness work such marvelous effects! What a ground of sure and certain hope that he who has carried his work thus far will finish it, to his own glory, and the exceeding joy of the Church which he has redeemed with his precious blood!