Avondale School Farm
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keeps it operating according to His appointment. As we sow the seed
and cultivate the plant, we are to remember that God created the seed,
and He gives it to the earth. By His divine power He cares for that
seed. It is by His appointment that the seed in dying gives its life to the
blade and to the ear which contains in itself other seeds to be treasured
and again put into the earth to yield their harvest. We may also study
how the co-operation of man acts a part. The human agent has his part
to act, his work to do. This is one of the lessons which nature teaches,
and we shall see in it a solemn, a beautiful work.
There is much talk about God in nature, as if the Lord were bound
by the laws of nature to be nature’s servant. Many theories would
lead minds to suppose that nature is a self-sustaining agency apart
from the Deity, having its own inherent power with which to work. In
this men do not know what they are talking about. Do they suppose
that nature has a self-existing power without the continual agency of
Jehovah? The Lord does not work through His laws to supersede the
laws of nature. He does His work through the laws and properties of
His instruments, and nature obeys a “Thus saith the Lord.”
The God of nature is perpetually at work. His infinite power
works unseen, but manifestations appear in the effects which the work
produces. The same God who guides the planets works in the fruit
orchard and in the vegetable garden. He never made a thorn, a thistle,
or a tare. These are Satan’s work, the result of degeneration, introduced
by him among the precious things; but it is through God’s immediate
agency that every bud bursts into blossom. When He was in the world
in the form of humanity, Christ said: “My Father worketh hitherto,
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and I work.”
John 5:17
. So when the students employ their time and
strength in agricultural work, in heaven it is said of them, Ye “are
laborers together with God.”
1 Corinthians 3:9
.
Let the lands near the school and the church be retained. Those
who come to settle in Cooranbong can, if they choose, find for them-
selves homes near by, or on portions of, the Avondale estate. But the
light given me is that all that section of land from the school orchard
to the Maitland road, and extending on both sides of the road from
the meetinghouse to the school, should become a farm and a park,
beautified with fragrant flowers and ornamental trees. There should
be orchards, and every kind of produce should be cultivated that is