But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
Jesus calls His disciples favored because with open, teachable hearts they grasp the hidden truths of His kingdom while others look without grasping and listen without comprehending. The rest miss the blessing because their hearts have grown dull and they deliberately close eyes and ears against being changed and healed. This sight and hearing is the privilege that earlier prophets and righteous people longed for without receiving, now given in Christ's presence and teaching. The same favor rests on those today who receive the unfolding light of present truth and understand the messages God is sending to the world. Yet truly seeing and hearing means more than momentary acceptance, for only those who hold the word with faithful hearts bear fruit and pass the light on to others.
Parable Setting and Purpose
The blessing belongs to the parable of the sower, which portrays the different kinds of hearers of Christ's teaching and explains why His ministry showed limited immediate results. Those who see and hear are those able to receive His teaching, yet all remained free to accept or reject it, for He did not compel belief. He taught them to join their efforts with divine power to overcome sin, with the condition of the heart shaping the response.
Christ presented truth in parables as the way He could rebuke sin without causing personal offense. He chose familiar scenes suited to people's lives and circumstances so that every class, including the humblest, could grasp heavenly truth. The sower, the wheat and tares, and the mustard seed spoke through scenes familiar to people generally, while the hidden treasure addressed those seeking riches and the leaven especially helped women understand how God's grace works in the heart.
As men came to Christ, angels in the form of men mingled with His hearers, while opposing suggestions criticized, misapplied and misinterpreted the Saviour's words. The same takes place now, when evil angels in the form of men talk with those who know the truth and misinterpret and misconstrue the statements of God's messengers, so that hearts are not moved by the proclamation of the gospel. Good seed is sown in the hearts of hearers, but when the soil is not prepared the seed does not spring up to bear fruit, for Satan is linked with the religionists of today and the enemy comes with suggestions and insinuations so that the spoken words of life lose their force.
The teaching in Matthew 13 is an essential example of His instruction and work, to be studied and made familiar for its lessons. It presents Christ as the great Medical Missionary and reveals two opposing working forces. Its lessons are to shape believers' hearts and guide their ministry, providing principles of true education beyond any instruction originating with human teachers.
The chapter is a warning to be read as for life and taken heed to, with no man allowed to blind the eyes by human sophistries or mocking burlesque of sacred things. It calls for prayerful self-examination as to who shall stand acquitted without spot or stain of character before the judgment seat of Christ, showing Christ contemplating the future destiny of those for whom He gave His life and requiring those who are saved to form characters without fault before a pure and holy God. God has given every man his work, and Christ will cooperate with everyone who cooperates with Him, wearing His yoke and learning His meekness and lowliness, loved and ministered to by angels and taught daily by Christ in the meaning of the divine beatitudes. It directs people from earthly things to heavenly truth, whereas Israel's leaders had turned from true knowledge and used interpretations that obscured what God had made plain.
The parable shows the work of Christ and His servants to sow the seeds of truth everywhere among all kinds of people. They are not to stop because some hearers are unreceptive or because results are not immediately visible.
Blessed Seeing and Hearing
The blessing falls on disciples because with believing, teachable eyes and ears they truly see and hear, perceiving and understanding what is taught about the mysteries of the kingdom, while others see without perceiving and hear without understanding. Their receptive faith gives practical knowledge, in contrast to those who neglect opportunity to know truth or refuse conviction until chosen hardness leaves them unable to perceive or understand. Unlike the Pharisees who willfully closed themselves to understanding, they received the teaching with hearts ready to receive instruction and to believe.
By contrast the multitude see without perceiving and hear without understanding because the heart is waxed gross, the ears dull and the eyes closed, lest they be converted and healed. The Pharisees willfully shut their eyes and ears to avoid understanding, so truth could not reach their hearts, and that deliberate blindness and self-imposed ignorance brought retribution. Their hearts were like soil in which heavenly truth could not take root, hopeless and profitless ground where the seed cannot take root. Self-exaltation and spiritual blindness kept them from receiving it, for exalted self claimed all their faith, honor and love in self-deluding superiority. They supposed others at fault, spoke strong hard words of reproof and condemnation that crush all hope and courage out of the soul, were full of evil thoughts and suspicion even of the purest, made a man an offender for a word, and let the goodness of heart seen in true Christians put roots of bitterness in them whereby many are defiled.
The Father hides these things from the wise and prudent and reveals them unto babes, giving understanding to those who receive while taking even what they have from those who have not. Honest and pure hearts discern the doctrines even when hidden in parables under similitudes, while those without the truth or the love of it cannot know them because their hearts are misled by temper and gratified inclination. The unfruitful hearers are the skeptical, the superficial and the secular, who cannot discern the moral glory of the truth or its practical personal application to their own hearts, and who lack the faith that overcomes the world so the world overcomes them. The fruitful hearers understand the Word in proportion to their faith and in proportion as they receive it into good and honest hearts, and this understanding does not come from learning or learned men but from close connection with God which opens and makes quick and sharp the understanding.
The blessing includes truths given through earlier prophets that had become mixed with error, which were separated and restored in the gospel so they could shine in original clarity and illuminate the world. Receiving the truth brings the opportunity for healing, for eyes and ears are blessed when they truly perceive and understand. Prejudice against God's servants closes the heart to the truth and its healing work, as with people whose hearts have grown dull and who close themselves to understanding and conversion.
Privilege Prophets Long Desired
The disciples were blessed because they could see and hear Christ Himself and receive the truths revealed through His mission. Those truths brought heavenly light, freedom, wisdom, and salvation. Those who rejected Him closed their eyes and ears to His teaching and chose darkness and bondage instead. Their privilege came from Christ's presence and teaching, and it called them to recognize His authority and give Him their allegiance.
They were blessed with receptive understanding in contrast with those whose hearts were hardened and who would not see or hear the precious word of truth but rejected the light. They saw and heard with believing hearts, so that they could understand His words and gain practical knowledge of God's kingdom, unlike those who neglected opportunities to know the truth or refused conviction and whose chosen hardness left them unable to perceive or understand. Unlike the Pharisees, who willfully shut their eyes and ears to avoid understanding and whose deliberate blindness kept their hearts from being reached and brought retribution, the disciples saw and heard with believing eyes and ears. What they witnessed and heard was what many prophets and righteous people of earlier times had long desired to witness, see and hear, but did not experience. Christ's mission opened to people truths hidden from the foundation of the world.
Light for Present Time
Those living now are highly favored above all people, for blessed eyes that see and ears that hear receive precious truth and advanced light, hidden truths unfolded in this day that many prophets and righteous men desired to see and hear but did not see or hear. The eyes that saw and the ears that heard the things seen and heard in 1843 and 1844 are blessed, for they witnessed what earlier prophets and righteous men longed to see and hear and did not. The messages given from 1840 to 1844 are to be made forcible now to all the churches without delay, with no delay in repeating the message, because the signs of the times are fulfilling and the closing work must be done.
A great work will be done in a short time, and a message will soon be given by God's appointment that will swell into a loud cry, when Daniel will stand in his lot to give his testimony. The remnant church is blessed because its eyes see and its ears hear what prophets and kings and righteous men longed to see and hear but could not, and that seeing and hearing is understanding and carrying messages from God to the world. These are mysteries into which angels desire to look, things the prophets foretold without being given the privilege to understand what they prophesied. Full knowledge of these things will come when Christ comes the second time, when surrounded by a multitude which no man can number He explains the deliverance wrought out by the great sacrifice He made.
The blessing of seeing and hearing truth that people in earlier times longed to know carries the trust of making known these revealed mysteries. That trust includes the message of Christ's soon coming and the third angel's message, the last message of mercy to the world.
Receiving and Sharing Seed
Hearing the word, even receiving it with joy, does not by itself mean a person has understood it or will hold it fast. Some do not retain what they hear, some have no depth and fail to endure when trial comes, and others allow worldly cares, riches, and other influences to choke it. Those who truly see and hear receive it with a heart that remains faithful and bears fruit, while efforts to uproot the unworthy too soon may harm those who might yet be strengthened and established in the truth. Hearing alone is not enough, for the heart must be softened by the Spirit so the seed can take root, and personal care after preaching helps cultivate that response.
The different results of the word depend on the condition of the hearers' hearts, for which they are responsible. People become inattentive or neglect the word by resisting the Spirit, and they are accountable for the hardness and growths that obstruct it, yet thorny or hardened hearers need not remain that way. The heart is a garden where good or evil seed is sown, and as the garden must be prepared for natural seed so the heart must be prepared for the seed of truth. That garden must be cultivated by diligent, persevering labor, the soil broken up by repentance, the evil growths that choke the good grain uprooted, and ground once overgrown with thorns reclaimed only by earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ. Children learn this by themselves preparing soil and sowing seed, being taught the garden of the heart, Christ's death as seed cast into the ground and the resurrection as the blade springing up, and youth learn it from tilling the soil and watching the plant grow, since no one expects a raw piece of land at once to yield a harvest.
Those who receive Christ's teaching with receptive minds are blessed to see and hear heavenly truth, gathering His words and example as precious treasure from heaven sown for disciples to cultivate. The seed may lie hidden or dormant for a time in a cold, selfish heart before grace convicts the heart and awakens it to life, so its effect is not seen at once yet it lives to spring up and bear fruit to the glory of God. After His crucifixion and resurrection the lessons were revived in the hearts of attentive hearers, and they repeated what they had heard for the benefit of future generations to the close of time, saving many souls. Even listeners who eagerly take in His words but only dimly understand them may have the life-giving seed take root and later bear fruit, and lessons of divine truth taught by a teacher whose work is wrought in God linger in the memory of even the most careless students until the Holy Spirit waters the sown seed and often after many days it springs up. Some hearers are deeply impressed and stirred to desire a holier life, yet soon lose those impressions amid worldly cares and temptations.
Being blessed with eyes that see and ears that hear means receiving spiritual light and grace to give to others, not for personal benefit alone. What is heard and seen is to be spoken and repeated by pen and voice and presented to others, for the glad tidings of salvation are for all people, including those who have not yet heard, and Christians are to reflect Christ's light and faithfully declare the whole counsel of God even amid opposition and discouragement. No one is a privileged character because of benefits received, for God is no respecter of persons, and those employed as channels of light must let it shine in the clearest rays to those in darkness and use intelligence to diffuse it. Mercies not appropriated to bless others are withdrawn, and those who were depositaries of sacred gifts and hid the light and knowledge of truth so it never reached those God designed to receive it through them will be weighed in the golden balances of the sanctuary and pronounced wanting when judgment sits and the books are opened.
Following the divine Teacher's self-denying example requires having the mind of Christ in order not to become weary in well-doing. Christ sowed seeds of truth with care, anxiety, and self-denial in a life of continued sacrifice for others' good, trusting God to quicken the seed to life. Missionaries in this great work are to labor unselfishly, earnestly, and perseveringly as co-workers with Christ and the heavenly angels in the salvation of their fellow men, leaving timing and results with God. The beaten path represents a hard heart where the seed of truth cannot take root, but personal ministry that reveals Christ's love can soften that heart and make it receptive. The message bears fruit when Christ and His redeeming love are presented so that people who listen and are impressed by its evidence are won to Him.
Patient, gracious religious influence weakens prejudice and prepares people to hear, so the seed of truth can take root in hearts and be welcomed with joy. This includes patients who, under divine influence, become receptive to truth sown in their hearts and are directed to Jesus. Nicodemus illustrates the blessing, for he watched Jesus' life and works with interest and pondered His teachings until the raising of Lazarus gave him decisive evidence of His Messiahship. Some who heard Jesus received the gospel seed in their hearts so that reverence and awe grew into faith in Him as the world's Redeemer.
Children's and youth's minds are soil to be cultivated with unceasing care and sown with the precious seed of Bible truth and with lessons from God's book of nature revealing His wisdom and love, which take root, are remembered, and bear fruit unto eternal life. Between an uncultivated field and an untrained mind there is a striking similarity, and the heart must be prepared as soil for the Sower to scatter good seed. Parents are to help prepare that soil as their children's minds can comprehend, teaching them truth as living seed sown deep in the soil of their hearts and keeping watchful guard, for the enemy sows tares there which unless guarded against spring up to bear evil fruit. Trashy, exciting tales are to be rejected for sensible reading that leads the mind to take an interest in Bible story, history, and argument, and reading that throws light upon the Sacred Volume and quickens desire to study it is not dangerous but beneficial. Sowing the seeds of truth also means giving thorough instruction in how to present books containing precious truths such as Christ's Object Lessons and Ministry of Healing, from which the reader can draw lessons of highest value, and wherever this work is taken hold of in earnest it does good and well repays the efforts of those who engage in it.
Jesus calls His disciples favored because with open, teachable hearts they grasp the hidden truths of His kingdom while others look without grasping and listen without comprehending. The rest miss the blessing because their hearts have grown dull and they deliberately close eyes and ears against being changed and healed. This sight and hearing is the privilege that earlier prophets and righteous people longed for without receiving, now given in Christ's presence and teaching. The same favor rests on those today who receive the unfolding light of present truth and understand the messages God is sending to the world. Yet truly seeing and hearing means more than momentary acceptance, for only those who hold the word with faithful hearts bear fruit and pass the light on to others.
Parable Setting and Purpose
The blessing belongs to the parable of the sower, which portrays the different kinds of hearers of Christ's teaching and explains why His ministry showed limited immediate results. Those who see and hear are those able to receive His teaching, yet all remained free to accept or reject it, for He did not compel belief. He taught them to join their efforts with divine power to overcome sin, with the condition of the heart shaping the response.
Christ presented truth in parables as the way He could rebuke sin without causing personal offense. He chose familiar scenes suited to people's lives and circumstances so that every class, including the humblest, could grasp heavenly truth. The sower, the wheat and tares, and the mustard seed spoke through scenes familiar to people generally, while the hidden treasure addressed those seeking riches and the leaven especially helped women understand how God's grace works in the heart.
As men came to Christ, angels in the form of men mingled with His hearers, while opposing suggestions criticized, misapplied and misinterpreted the Saviour's words. The same takes place now, when evil angels in the form of men talk with those who know the truth and misinterpret and misconstrue the statements of God's messengers, so that hearts are not moved by the proclamation of the gospel. Good seed is sown in the hearts of hearers, but when the soil is not prepared the seed does not spring up to bear fruit, for Satan is linked with the religionists of today and the enemy comes with suggestions and insinuations so that the spoken words of life lose their force.
The teaching in Matthew 13 is an essential example of His instruction and work, to be studied and made familiar for its lessons. It presents Christ as the great Medical Missionary and reveals two opposing working forces. Its lessons are to shape believers' hearts and guide their ministry, providing principles of true education beyond any instruction originating with human teachers.
The chapter is a warning to be read as for life and taken heed to, with no man allowed to blind the eyes by human sophistries or mocking burlesque of sacred things. It calls for prayerful self-examination as to who shall stand acquitted without spot or stain of character before the judgment seat of Christ, showing Christ contemplating the future destiny of those for whom He gave His life and requiring those who are saved to form characters without fault before a pure and holy God. God has given every man his work, and Christ will cooperate with everyone who cooperates with Him, wearing His yoke and learning His meekness and lowliness, loved and ministered to by angels and taught daily by Christ in the meaning of the divine beatitudes. It directs people from earthly things to heavenly truth, whereas Israel's leaders had turned from true knowledge and used interpretations that obscured what God had made plain.
The parable shows the work of Christ and His servants to sow the seeds of truth everywhere among all kinds of people. They are not to stop because some hearers are unreceptive or because results are not immediately visible.
Blessed Seeing and Hearing
The blessing falls on disciples because with believing, teachable eyes and ears they truly see and hear, perceiving and understanding what is taught about the mysteries of the kingdom, while others see without perceiving and hear without understanding. Their receptive faith gives practical knowledge, in contrast to those who neglect opportunity to know truth or refuse conviction until chosen hardness leaves them unable to perceive or understand. Unlike the Pharisees who willfully closed themselves to understanding, they received the teaching with hearts ready to receive instruction and to believe.
By contrast the multitude see without perceiving and hear without understanding because the heart is waxed gross, the ears dull and the eyes closed, lest they be converted and healed. The Pharisees willfully shut their eyes and ears to avoid understanding, so truth could not reach their hearts, and that deliberate blindness and self-imposed ignorance brought retribution. Their hearts were like soil in which heavenly truth could not take root, hopeless and profitless ground where the seed cannot take root. Self-exaltation and spiritual blindness kept them from receiving it, for exalted self claimed all their faith, honor and love in self-deluding superiority. They supposed others at fault, spoke strong hard words of reproof and condemnation that crush all hope and courage out of the soul, were full of evil thoughts and suspicion even of the purest, made a man an offender for a word, and let the goodness of heart seen in true Christians put roots of bitterness in them whereby many are defiled.
The Father hides these things from the wise and prudent and reveals them unto babes, giving understanding to those who receive while taking even what they have from those who have not. Honest and pure hearts discern the doctrines even when hidden in parables under similitudes, while those without the truth or the love of it cannot know them because their hearts are misled by temper and gratified inclination. The unfruitful hearers are the skeptical, the superficial and the secular, who cannot discern the moral glory of the truth or its practical personal application to their own hearts, and who lack the faith that overcomes the world so the world overcomes them. The fruitful hearers understand the Word in proportion to their faith and in proportion as they receive it into good and honest hearts, and this understanding does not come from learning or learned men but from close connection with God which opens and makes quick and sharp the understanding.
The blessing includes truths given through earlier prophets that had become mixed with error, which were separated and restored in the gospel so they could shine in original clarity and illuminate the world. Receiving the truth brings the opportunity for healing, for eyes and ears are blessed when they truly perceive and understand. Prejudice against God's servants closes the heart to the truth and its healing work, as with people whose hearts have grown dull and who close themselves to understanding and conversion.
Privilege Prophets Long Desired
The disciples were blessed because they could see and hear Christ Himself and receive the truths revealed through His mission. Those truths brought heavenly light, freedom, wisdom, and salvation. Those who rejected Him closed their eyes and ears to His teaching and chose darkness and bondage instead. Their privilege came from Christ's presence and teaching, and it called them to recognize His authority and give Him their allegiance.
They were blessed with receptive understanding in contrast with those whose hearts were hardened and who would not see or hear the precious word of truth but rejected the light. They saw and heard with believing hearts, so that they could understand His words and gain practical knowledge of God's kingdom, unlike those who neglected opportunities to know the truth or refused conviction and whose chosen hardness left them unable to perceive or understand. Unlike the Pharisees, who willfully shut their eyes and ears to avoid understanding and whose deliberate blindness kept their hearts from being reached and brought retribution, the disciples saw and heard with believing eyes and ears. What they witnessed and heard was what many prophets and righteous people of earlier times had long desired to witness, see and hear, but did not experience. Christ's mission opened to people truths hidden from the foundation of the world.
Light for Present Time
Those living now are highly favored above all people, for blessed eyes that see and ears that hear receive precious truth and advanced light, hidden truths unfolded in this day that many prophets and righteous men desired to see and hear but did not see or hear. The eyes that saw and the ears that heard the things seen and heard in 1843 and 1844 are blessed, for they witnessed what earlier prophets and righteous men longed to see and hear and did not. The messages given from 1840 to 1844 are to be made forcible now to all the churches without delay, with no delay in repeating the message, because the signs of the times are fulfilling and the closing work must be done.
A great work will be done in a short time, and a message will soon be given by God's appointment that will swell into a loud cry, when Daniel will stand in his lot to give his testimony. The remnant church is blessed because its eyes see and its ears hear what prophets and kings and righteous men longed to see and hear but could not, and that seeing and hearing is understanding and carrying messages from God to the world. These are mysteries into which angels desire to look, things the prophets foretold without being given the privilege to understand what they prophesied. Full knowledge of these things will come when Christ comes the second time, when surrounded by a multitude which no man can number He explains the deliverance wrought out by the great sacrifice He made.
The blessing of seeing and hearing truth that people in earlier times longed to know carries the trust of making known these revealed mysteries. That trust includes the message of Christ's soon coming and the third angel's message, the last message of mercy to the world.
Receiving and Sharing Seed
Hearing the word, even receiving it with joy, does not by itself mean a person has understood it or will hold it fast. Some do not retain what they hear, some have no depth and fail to endure when trial comes, and others allow worldly cares, riches, and other influences to choke it. Those who truly see and hear receive it with a heart that remains faithful and bears fruit, while efforts to uproot the unworthy too soon may harm those who might yet be strengthened and established in the truth. Hearing alone is not enough, for the heart must be softened by the Spirit so the seed can take root, and personal care after preaching helps cultivate that response.
The different results of the word depend on the condition of the hearers' hearts, for which they are responsible. People become inattentive or neglect the word by resisting the Spirit, and they are accountable for the hardness and growths that obstruct it, yet thorny or hardened hearers need not remain that way. The heart is a garden where good or evil seed is sown, and as the garden must be prepared for natural seed so the heart must be prepared for the seed of truth. That garden must be cultivated by diligent, persevering labor, the soil broken up by repentance, the evil growths that choke the good grain uprooted, and ground once overgrown with thorns reclaimed only by earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ. Children learn this by themselves preparing soil and sowing seed, being taught the garden of the heart, Christ's death as seed cast into the ground and the resurrection as the blade springing up, and youth learn it from tilling the soil and watching the plant grow, since no one expects a raw piece of land at once to yield a harvest.
Those who receive Christ's teaching with receptive minds are blessed to see and hear heavenly truth, gathering His words and example as precious treasure from heaven sown for disciples to cultivate. The seed may lie hidden or dormant for a time in a cold, selfish heart before grace convicts the heart and awakens it to life, so its effect is not seen at once yet it lives to spring up and bear fruit to the glory of God. After His crucifixion and resurrection the lessons were revived in the hearts of attentive hearers, and they repeated what they had heard for the benefit of future generations to the close of time, saving many souls. Even listeners who eagerly take in His words but only dimly understand them may have the life-giving seed take root and later bear fruit, and lessons of divine truth taught by a teacher whose work is wrought in God linger in the memory of even the most careless students until the Holy Spirit waters the sown seed and often after many days it springs up. Some hearers are deeply impressed and stirred to desire a holier life, yet soon lose those impressions amid worldly cares and temptations.
Being blessed with eyes that see and ears that hear means receiving spiritual light and grace to give to others, not for personal benefit alone. What is heard and seen is to be spoken and repeated by pen and voice and presented to others, for the glad tidings of salvation are for all people, including those who have not yet heard, and Christians are to reflect Christ's light and faithfully declare the whole counsel of God even amid opposition and discouragement. No one is a privileged character because of benefits received, for God is no respecter of persons, and those employed as channels of light must let it shine in the clearest rays to those in darkness and use intelligence to diffuse it. Mercies not appropriated to bless others are withdrawn, and those who were depositaries of sacred gifts and hid the light and knowledge of truth so it never reached those God designed to receive it through them will be weighed in the golden balances of the sanctuary and pronounced wanting when judgment sits and the books are opened.
Following the divine Teacher's self-denying example requires having the mind of Christ in order not to become weary in well-doing. Christ sowed seeds of truth with care, anxiety, and self-denial in a life of continued sacrifice for others' good, trusting God to quicken the seed to life. Missionaries in this great work are to labor unselfishly, earnestly, and perseveringly as co-workers with Christ and the heavenly angels in the salvation of their fellow men, leaving timing and results with God. The beaten path represents a hard heart where the seed of truth cannot take root, but personal ministry that reveals Christ's love can soften that heart and make it receptive. The message bears fruit when Christ and His redeeming love are presented so that people who listen and are impressed by its evidence are won to Him.
Patient, gracious religious influence weakens prejudice and prepares people to hear, so the seed of truth can take root in hearts and be welcomed with joy. This includes patients who, under divine influence, become receptive to truth sown in their hearts and are directed to Jesus. Nicodemus illustrates the blessing, for he watched Jesus' life and works with interest and pondered His teachings until the raising of Lazarus gave him decisive evidence of His Messiahship. Some who heard Jesus received the gospel seed in their hearts so that reverence and awe grew into faith in Him as the world's Redeemer.
Children's and youth's minds are soil to be cultivated with unceasing care and sown with the precious seed of Bible truth and with lessons from God's book of nature revealing His wisdom and love, which take root, are remembered, and bear fruit unto eternal life. Between an uncultivated field and an untrained mind there is a striking similarity, and the heart must be prepared as soil for the Sower to scatter good seed. Parents are to help prepare that soil as their children's minds can comprehend, teaching them truth as living seed sown deep in the soil of their hearts and keeping watchful guard, for the enemy sows tares there which unless guarded against spring up to bear evil fruit. Trashy, exciting tales are to be rejected for sensible reading that leads the mind to take an interest in Bible story, history, and argument, and reading that throws light upon the Sacred Volume and quickens desire to study it is not dangerous but beneficial. Sowing the seeds of truth also means giving thorough instruction in how to present books containing precious truths such as Christ's Object Lessons and Ministry of Healing, from which the reader can draw lessons of highest value, and wherever this work is taken hold of in earnest it does good and well repays the efforts of those who engage in it.