The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1922-09-29
A VISION Of our TASK.

had recently been in Judea building |
1,uon the foundation which John the |
Baptist had laid. The Pharisees had
opposed Him and thought that they
were rid of him, as he was at TINS
time imprisoned. But Jesus sudden
" appears upon the scene and IS ev-
en- more successful than John, IN
that he made and baptized more DIS
ciples than he. But when Jesus
knew that the Pharisees were aware
of his success, he left Judea accom-,
nanied by his disciples and departed
into Galiiee. In order to reach CALI
lee it was necessary to pass through
Samaria. They arrived about the
noon hour at Jacobs well, which has
been the fountain at which the shep-
herds and fiocks of the ages have come
10 slake their thirst. But now wear
led with the Journey of the day, the
shenherd Of souls sits to tell one, who
Is thirsting for righteousness, of the
fountain which shall become in her
a well springing up into eternal lie.
So overioyed did she become that she
left her water pots and went into the
city to tell others.
Just at this time the disciples re;
turned from the city where they had
gone to buy bread; but to their sur
prise he had meat that they knew not
Of: for he said, "my meat is to do the
will of Him that sent me, and ac-
cornplish His work" Success is
soul stimulant. The disciples go on
eating and are too busy with tnelr
meal to lift their eyes; and as they
do so they talk of the harvest which
is yet some months as Indicated by
the fields of grain through which
they have passed.
But Jesus now sees brighter pros
pect. 1t is the band of men who. are
now returning with the woman from
the little city of Sychan, to which ne
calls his disciples attention, as the
harvest more worthy Of their consid--
Grafton. Do you say that it is yet
four months until the harvest?
saw. lift up your eyes and mark that
eager crowd of Samaritans, and say
If YOU do not hope to reap much even
TODAY for the fields are ripe already
unto the harvest.
Here we see first the need OF VISION.
Without doubt the disciples had not
caught the vision of their task. Their
ewes were cast upon the things OF the
world. The measure of the man IS
the measure of his vision. In reality
the vision makes the man. It gives
him his reach and power. One man
secs nothing in the things about him
and becomes one of the worlds
drones. Another looks up and sees
the falling apple and discovers the
law of gravitation, or sees the steam
from the kettle and forms an engine;
n fash from the sky and turns dense
darkness into day, he sees an anger
in marble. a hero in the child; and
becomes an inventor, an artlst,
prophet or statesman.
We must lift up our eyes. The LAD
der of life does not lie fiat upon the
ground, but as in the vision OF ia
cob it rises to heaven, and the an,
gels of God are seen to ascend and
descend upon it, Vision not only
gives direction to the aim and energy
of life but helps to discover and
Quicken ones nature. Man becomes
more and does more because he
reaches out beyond the present and
actual. :,
"Ah. but a mans reach should ex-
ceed his grasp,
Or what is heaven fort"
Jesus saw that the thing that his
disciples needed was vision. The wo-
men and her friends were not very
interesting or promising. The discl'
pies did not think SO, L am sure
They were not of pure race-hal1
lew and half canaanite. They were
the scum Of Sychar, how could any.
thing be expected Of them? THAI
was indeed a dry and unpromisine
field. But Christ thought differently
So Jesus said to the dull-eyed disci
pies, Gift up your eyes and look OF
the fields.' Less than an hour pc
fore Jesus had met the woman at ia
cob's well. She was ignorant. super,
Stitious and degraded. Can we moi
imagine ourselves Withdrawing from
such a character? Would our mod
ern congregations feel altogether
comfortable if she should come intc
our worship?
The great need of the church today
is more vision. A vision that makes
us feel that the unsaved world which
lies about us is the task which ou1
lord of long ago assigned us--a vi
sion that makes us feel and act as thu
apostle Paul who said, II am debtor
"a vision that will make us feel thai
the differences in race, land ant
tongue are superficial and that thu
oneness of mankind is essential anc
vital. In such a vision the finest ner
and women Of our day and other days
have labored.
A great Italian sculptor one day
seeing rough and misshapen blocl
Of marble which had been cast aside
as worthless and useless, was seizet
as with kind of Divine fury and be
gan to use his hammer and chisel
:, and as he made the chips Of marble
fly he said to those who watched
him, "Let me unlose the angel. Witt
his quick artists eye he had seen th,
angel in that rough, misshaperi 3a am l
outcast block, And in much the, sarnt
way, in the worlds, waste and fouteas1
material, Jesus saw what nc one elsi
saw. He saw the; hidden and burieC
angel. Behind and beneath the sir
and folly and shame he saw gloriou;
potences and possibilities Down ii
the human heart, overlaid perhaps by
a4 uy;rkadrass and vice he saw feelings