And to come back to the parable, it is only the workman who puts aside the evil eye that is acceptable in the Lord's vineyard and does His work well. The person that is always bent on his own honor, dignity, and self-consciousness is easily offended, and easily draws back. The superiority or success of another unnerves him, and not infrequently he acts like a balking horse. Not so the person who has been with the Divine Oculist, and has received in the place of the evil the good eye. He is willing to pluck grapes in a corner of the Lord's vineyard where they are not so plentiful and luscious. What if there was a St. Paul and an Augustine and a Luther and a Walther, and if to-day we have men in the ministry who quite overshadow me? Shall I for that reason keep my hands from filling grapes into my church basket? Nevermore. Should you, because you are no church officer or esteemed pillar in the sanctuary? Even if you cannot pluck some grapes, you may at least hold the basket.
The Church has a place for everybody; five times did the householder go out to hire laborers. It has a place for you; but when you come, leave behind you the evil eye. For that the Church has no place. Let every one think seriously over the text, examine his eyesight, ask God's forgiveness, for Christ's sake, for the sins he has committed in this respect, and help with His divine help to overcome it, so that he may be found an approved laborer in God's vineyard. Amen.
Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.--_John 5, 39._
This year marks an event of more than passing interest to the English-speaking world, _viz._, the tercentenary or 300th birthday of the translation of the Bible. It was in 1611, early in the summer, when, after seven years of the most painstaking labors, the most scholarly men of that time completed and turned over for publication their manuscripts. It was styled the King James Version or Translation, because it was with the help and patronage of that monarch of England, King James, that it was issued; and so as the Germans speak of Dr. Luther's Bible translation, the English speak of King James' Version.
It is this translation of God's Word that lies before us, for though in the past three centuries there have been more than a score of worthy revisions, none has dislodged this from its place of supremacy, and so it is fitting that grateful mention should be made of the glorious work, the blessings of which continue to flow out to us whenever we open the holy pages.