The incident recorded in Matt. 14:13-21 and its parallel passage, Mark 6:32-44, affords us a fine illustration of the truth that " we are laborers together with God."

Much people had followed Jesus into the desert place where He had taken His disciples to " rest awhile." And, as ever, He was ready to serve them,-"He healed their sick" and " began to teach them many things."

"And when the day was far spent," the disciples, no doubt thinking Jesus had surely done enough for the people, come and ask Him to "send them away," that they might go into the villages and buy themselves food. The saw the need of the people, knew they were faint and hungry, but it did not seem to enter their minds that Jesus could meet that need as well as any other. But Jesus was "moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd;" and, true to His character as a Shepherd, He would not let them depart until their every need had been met, and they could say with David, " The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." More than that, He would waken His disciples to the fact that they, by His grace, were able to be " workers together with Him" in feeding the multitude ; so He says, " Give ye them to eat." They straightway doubt their ability to do as He bids with their limited supply, and ask, " Shall we go and buy two hundred penny-worth of bread, and give them to eat? " Jesus, answering, asks them, ''How many loaves have ye? go and see."

Dear children of God, the multitude who are "coming and going" in our path to-'day are as hungry and faint as those who followed Jesus then ; for the time has come when there is " a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." And the question comes home to each of us, "How many loaves have ye? go and see."

The believer who knows only the gospel by which he is saved,-' how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," has at least one loaf, and he need not fear that it is not enough to supply the demand; it is sufficient for the need of a famishing world-He " tasted death for every man," and He has made us " ambassadors for Christ," " and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."

Have we not, then, all of us who have believed, a life-giving loaf to give a perishing world ?Our own faith in the message we deliver is ample qualification for such ministry, as the apostle writes to the Corinthians, "We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak"He who has made us ambassadors, and given us the message, will hold us responsible for its delivery. May we, then, heed the word, " Give ye them to eat," remembering the while that we are not " sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament."

But apart from the world who need to hear the gospel of the grace of God, there is a hungry throng of God's own people who need to be fed, and we will do well to " go and see " if we have not some loaves wherewith to feed them. We do not speak only of those who give their whole time to the "work of the ministry," or those to whom we look as teachers and pastors, but of every child of God; for the body is to be "fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal (or, to mutually profit)." And again it is written, "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." So no saint is without something to minister to the rest of the family. Each of us is a steward of more or less of God's precious Word ; as it is written, " Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." Whatever of truth the Holy Spirit has led us into, to that extent we are stewards; "moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful."

It is so natural for us to be like the disciples,-slow to use what we have, because we think it is only a little- just a crumb, compared with the need we see. But let us not judge too hastily ; if it be a portion of God's Word, however small it may seem in our eyes, it is inexhaustible. Its "seed is in itself," and it will multiply. We need never fear to honor the smallest portion of God's Word by speaking it to another ; for Himself says, "As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and causeth it to bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth."

And this last clause reminds us of the next injunction of Jesus in our narrative. The disciples having searched, and told Him the number of their loaves, He said, "Bring them hither to Me" Apart from Him, they could do nothing. It was in His hands that the loaves multiplied, and straight from Him, through the disciples only as a channel, that the hungry ones were fed.

And so it should be with all our ministry-whatever food we receive from the Scriptures, it is our happy privilege to take it to Him, and commune with Him about it; and we may rest assured that, after such communion, He will sooner or later send us forth with our loaf increased a hundredfold. And He having thus blessed and broken our loaf, our labor shall not be in vain as we carry the message to hungry and thirsty ones; for from Him, the Head, " all the body, by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God."

Another happy result of their bringing the loaves to Jesus we must not fail to note.

" And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, He looked up to heaven and blessed." It filled His heart with joy and thanksgiving to know that His disciples had a supply, however limited, to disperse abroad; and do we not rightly judge that He is as glad to-day when His children "know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary " ? And when we speak " often one to another," like those of old who "feared the Lord," have we not good reason to hope that He still "hearkens," and notes it in His "book of remembrance"? The disciples were not the least profited on that occasion through the loaves and fishes which they bestowed upon others, for they furnished a means whereby Jesus could reveal Himself to them as One who could indeed " furnish a table in the wilderness "-One whose resources were infinite, and thus He often reveals Himself afresh to us through some word we are ministering to another. Thus He rewarded the two at Emmaus as they proffered their loaf to Him, supposing Him to be a stranger,-"He was known of them in breaking of bread."
Jesus had taken His disciples into the desert place to "rest awhile." To human eyes they had found only a long day's labor, stretching away out into the evening ; but they had taken His yoke upon them, "and learned of Him, and had they not surely found rest unto their souls ? G. M. R.