SOWING, 
 
 GROWTH 
 
 and REAPING. 
 
BV 4915 .E42 1886 
 
 Egbert, J. P. 
 Some lessons from the 
 parable of the sower 
 
 ^ 
 
In preparing for the pulpit the " lessons," 
 now puulished in *' Sowing, Growth, and 
 Reaping," free use was made of every help 
 available. By a mistake, the paragraph ac- 
 knowledging these helps was omitted from the 
 preface. It would be impossible to tell the ori- 
 gin of every suggestion, or even expression, and 
 it would have greatly encumbered the pages 
 with notes, to have referred to all the sources of 
 information and suggestion. This would have 
 been especially difficult in this case, as publi- 
 cation was not thought of when these subjects 
 were prepared for pulpit treatment. Many 
 books, open to every student of Holy Writ were 
 consulted, some which have become almost 
 necessary to a study of the Bible. The ex- 
 positions of the Parables by Trench, Arnot, 
 Bruce, Goebel and others, the various com- 
 mentaries upon the Gospels, and the lives of 
 our Lord by Andrews, .^sheim, Weiss, and 
 others, are of inestimable vatue in searching for 
 the '' mind of the Spirit." The chief object 
 in publishing the book was to help our own 
 people in their spiritual life, and to add a little 
 to the usefulness of Calvary Church. 
 
SONIE; LE^SSONS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 Parable of The Sower 
 
 THE 
 
 Parable of Growth 
 
 AND THE 
 
 Law of The Harvest 
 
 iBy cr. I'- e;g-:bei?,t. 
 
 BUFFALO 
 U L B R I'C H & K I N G S L E Y 
 
 1886 
 
Copyright, 1886, 
 By J. P. Egbert, 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A pastor often feels with pain the 
 weakness of his work, and seeks to find 
 some means to increase its value. 
 
 It is with this desire to strengthen a 
 consciously defective ministry that these 
 studies of ''the Word of the Kingdom" 
 have been prepared. 
 
 First delivered as sermons in Calvary 
 Church, they were then written out from 
 the stenographer's notes, and are published 
 as nearly as possible as they were delivered. 
 
 The pleasure of their preparation has 
 been increased by the thought that perhaps 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 they may carry true seed to some " good 
 and honest " heart, or help the growth 
 to fuller harvest of seed already sown. 
 Should this be accomplished, it may justify 
 the addition of one more to the many 
 books that ask for our attention. If it 
 find no ministry of helpfulness, it will at 
 least do no harm to those who take the 
 time to read it. 
 
 As we are all stewards of the truth, do 
 not forget to ask for the blessing of the 
 God of all truth upon whatever in this 
 little book is according to His Word. 
 
 Study of Calvary Church. 
 
 Mav, 1886, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Teaching by Parables i 
 
 The Parable of the Sower 37 
 
 The First Class, " By the Wayside " 49 
 
 The Second Class, " On the Rock " 65 
 
 The Third Class, " Among Thorns " 83 
 
 The Fourth Class, " In Good Ground " 106 
 
 "Take Heed How Ye Hear" 123 
 
 Parable of Growth 134 
 
 The Law of the Harvest 174 
 
" the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee 
 
 wise unto salvation." . — // Tim., 3: 15. 
 
 Ask not for a sign from Heaven, 
 
 In the gospel of thy Saviour, life as well as light, is given. 
 Ever looking unto Jesus, all his glory thou shalt see, 
 From thy heart the veil be taken, and the Word be clear to 
 thee." —£>e IVette. 
 
 "Voice of the Holy Spirit, making known 
 Man to himself, a witness swift and sure, 
 Warning, approving, true and wise and pure. 
 Counsel and guidance that misleadeth none! 
 By thee the mystery of life is read; 
 The picture-writing of the world's gray seers, 
 The myths and parables of the primal years, 
 Whose letter kills, by thee interpreted 
 Take healthful meanings fitted to our needs, 
 And in the soul's vernacular, express 
 The common law of simple righteousness." 
 
 — /. G. Whittier. 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 
 
 *' Why speakest thou to tJievi in para- 
 bles r 
 
 This question of the disciples suggests 
 a line of thought which may be profitable 
 to us as an introduction to the parables of 
 our Lord, especially to the Parable of 
 the Sower. 
 
 The great Teacher did not use parables 
 for their beauty, nor chiefly for their power 
 as illustrations. They are rather hints of 
 something deeper ; surface indications of 
 richer ore beneath, for which we must 
 dig watchfully and thoroughly. And we 
 may be sure that parables meant more 
 to Christ than they do to us. As the 
 botanist walking through the forest sees a 
 variety and wealth of which the woodman 
 never dreams ; or as the anthropologist, 
 looking at the common customs of men, 
 sees a far-reaching history with a wealth of 
 
2 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 meaning that is never more than a surface 
 suggestion to the mass of men ; so the 
 Christ, " by whom all things consist," sees 
 nature's secrets In all their infinite depth 
 of meaning. 
 
 Where we see the conflicts that keep 
 nature's surface in agitation. He sees the 
 perfect concord reigning deep within. 
 Behind the Infinite variety that puzzles 
 us, and the struggle of forces that bewilders 
 us. He reads the eternal purpose of God 
 blending all into the most perfect harmony. 
 His pure eyes see a wealth to which our 
 eyes are blind, and His mighty hand draws 
 it forth for the world's instruction. Divine 
 Himself, He is conscious of the divine 
 knowledge and beauty written in with 
 every scroll of nature. So that where all 
 looks dark and deadly to us, He sees a 
 divine truth, the truth of Jehovah's certain 
 purpose, relieving with Its own glory all 
 the seeming defects and contradictions of 
 earth. It adds to the value as well as to 
 the beauty of the gospel message, that the 
 Christ Teacher wove It into such close 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. ^ 
 
 relations with all the works of God, among 
 which we must delve for our daily life. 
 
 The Teacher who knew what was in man, 
 knew also what was in nature, and taught 
 us how to take more than a mere glance 
 at the vast gallery of truth and beauty 
 through which we are passing. He taught 
 us to look for Jehovah's thought in every 
 problem of nature, and to listen for the 
 Father's voice of love and wisdom in every 
 incident of life. He would have us search 
 every nook of earthly life for the foot- 
 prints of divine purpose, for the incarna- 
 tion of divine thought, for the illustration 
 of divine truth. To Him all things in the 
 heavens and the earth, in the fields, the sea 
 and the air, were filled with the thoughts 
 of the eternal Mind, and He interpreted 
 them into current language for circulation 
 through all the years of human life. 
 These truths He would force into the con- 
 sciousness of men, and by them arouse us 
 to an earnest effort to reach His own high 
 standard for us. 
 
 On the head, the arm, the foot, you 
 
4 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 touch the throbbing pulse, and think of 
 the heart that beats its Hfe-strokes into 
 every part of the body. As the divine 
 Teacher touches the pulses of truth, beat- 
 ing their mysterious harmonies everywhere 
 throughout all life, He points our minds to 
 the great Unity, who, like an eternal 
 heart, sends a mighty intimation of His 
 plan and presence throbbing through all 
 the veins of nature. Thus He would lead 
 us to search beyond the discord for the 
 eternal harmony toward which He is lead- 
 ing us. 
 
 You may thus at last learn that 
 
 "All nature is but art unknown to thee ; 
 All chance, direction which thou canst not see ; 
 All discord, harmony not understood ; 
 All partial evil, universal good." — Pope. 
 
 Without doubt, he is the richest heir of 
 God who has most familiarity with the 
 divine meanings of nature ; and that 
 lover of nature is truest and happiest who 
 can discern in her teachings the truths of 
 God's implanting. As such a student 
 looks on nature's problems, he is often 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 5 
 
 forced to ask the question of the angel in 
 Milton :— 
 
 "What if earth 
 Be but the shadow of Heaven and things therein, 
 Each to other like more than on earth is thought ? " 
 
 Certainly the Master used the earthly 
 to teach us of things heavenly. For how- 
 ever others may read nature, Christ teaches 
 that this world is a divine thought, God's 
 world ; and that men are the highest part 
 of that thought, a copy of the Divine 
 Thinker; and that many of the mysteries 
 that fall like shadows across the world are 
 but intimations of Jehovah's presence. 
 Earth's treasures of truth are being dis- 
 covered more and more richly every year 
 by this eager, busy age, and science has 
 given us many keys that unlock her secrets, 
 yet her meaning is continually misinter- 
 preted and her instructions misapplied. 
 As we rejoice over earth's wealth and 
 beauty, we do not always realize how true 
 it is that 
 
 '* The earth is crammed with Heaven, 
 And every bush afire with God." 
 
b PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Men are constantly saying the world is 
 full of prophecies and man is full of hopes, 
 but where is the promise of their fulfill- 
 ment? The Word, the supreme Thought 
 incarnate, comes to lighten man's dark- 
 ness, to lift the world's hopes still higher 
 by the divine assurance, to point man's 
 limited, hindered, heavy-laden life to the 
 rest of perfection, the unhindered growth 
 of eternal life. Though all the world 
 groaneth and travaileth until now, the 
 time of rest comes rapidly, when all the 
 hidden things of the universe will reveal 
 their meaning. When we shall live amid 
 great thoughts and holy purposes, amid 
 our highest hopes fulfilled, and higher 
 hopes begotten. When the natural and 
 the spiritual shall build each other into 
 symmetry, and by Christ's teaching shall 
 reveal each other to the instruction and 
 the comfort of all who listen to His 
 voice. 
 
 The Master ever interprets nature as 
 speaking the truth of God. The moun- 
 tain points to the sure refuge in Jehovah's 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 7 
 
 strength and protection, the rock ilhis- 
 trates His abiding salvation. The Hly in 
 its beauty, and the birds in the free air 
 above, point to God's providing care. The 
 golden grain drops into the fertile earth 
 and springs up to a more abundant life, 
 and the seeds of divine truth fall into the 
 ''good and honest " heart only to spring 
 up into the abundance of eternal life. 
 
 ''Goto the earth," says Job, "and it 
 shall teach thee," and the Psalmist contin- 
 ues the song, " for the earth is the Lord's 
 and the fulness thereof." (Ps. 24: i.) "O 
 Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in 
 wisdom hast Thou made them all : the 
 earth is full of Thy riches." (Ps. 104: 24.) 
 God has summoned all the resources of 
 the whole realm of nature to aid in the 
 upbuilding of man ; and from the open 
 pages of this visible universe Christ has 
 taught us to read the truths of the unseen 
 and eternal world. He so minMed the 
 visible world about Him with the unseen 
 world of His promise as to make the 
 unseen things more real by association 
 
8 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 with things we knew. He read such 
 divine truth from the suggestions of nature, 
 and made the present mean so much by 
 its relations with the eternal future ; so 
 unveiled that future by showing the real 
 meaning of the present, and so rifted the 
 cloud that separated them, as to make 
 them forever stand forth as to-day and 
 to-morrow of the same immortal life. Thus 
 teaching us that the present is the parable 
 of the unbounded future, and only as we 
 rightly read the days that are, can we 
 understand the years that shall be. 
 
 How patiently Christ battled with the 
 world's darkness, shining like the rising 
 sun against the world's clouds and fogs of 
 sin and error, striving to make Heaven's 
 glorious light scatter every human dark- 
 ness. Earnestly, longingly, did He labor 
 to fill men's minds with thoughts of God, 
 and put into their souls His own high aim 
 of life. The Parable of the Sower sug- 
 gests the manner in which the world 
 receives His earnest teaching. 
 
 The disciples appear to have been sur- 
 
^TEACHING BY PARABLES. 9 
 
 prised by this parable. Not so much that 
 He spake in parables, but that He used 
 parables at this time and to this people. 
 They are not very sure that they under- 
 stand His meaning in the parable just 
 uttered ; but if they do, why does this 
 Teacher, so earnest and so wise, speak 
 such a parable to such an audience ? It 
 is not an illustration of God's love and 
 mercy. It is not an exhibition of Christ's 
 divine mission to our fallen race. As one 
 has said, " He preached not to the peo- 
 ple, but at them, or over their heads." No 
 comforting truth of revelation, but a dis- 
 couraging, heart-searching analysis of the 
 characters of His hearers. It was not 
 a gospel message, but an uncomfortable, 
 depressing statement of how the gospel 
 would be received. 
 
 That listening assembly was made up 
 of a few who believed, and a multitude 
 who were either indifferent, save from 
 mere curiosity, or were prejudiced against 
 Him. some even hatingf Him with a read- 
 iness to kill Him. Why did not Christ 
 
lO PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 use this opportunity for a parable illus- 
 trating the grandeur of His mission, or 
 the infinite o^reatness of His Father's love ? 
 How appropriate the parable of the '' Prod- 
 igal Son," or the '' Lost Sheep,'' or the 
 " Pearl of Great Price." Instead of any 
 vindication of Himself, or any propitia- 
 tion of His hearers. He speaks to them a 
 parable that, if understood, will discourage 
 many, and rouse more to wrath that may 
 seek to compass His own destruction. 
 Why lose this fine opportunity for a ser- 
 mon on the great truths of God's heavenly 
 kingdom, or an earnest presentation of 
 the Father's infinite love and mercy ? How 
 little we see of thino^s that are clear to the 
 Master's vision ! 
 
 The disciples might easily have been 
 deceived, as we often are, into thinking 
 that the multitude would press into the 
 heavenly kingdom if only the gospel were 
 appropriately preached unto them. These 
 eager followers, who yet judge by appear- 
 ances, dread to hear a word that might 
 drive away the large audiences, or check 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. II 
 
 their enthusiasm. But Christ preached 
 not merely to the senses. That audi- 
 ence was much better understood by Christ 
 than by the disciples, and from His perfect 
 knowledc^e of the human heart He would 
 take a lesson for the continual use of His 
 disciples, and of all who preach His 
 word. 
 
 The crowd was very great, ''There was 
 gathered unto him a great multitude," 
 coming '' out of every city," along that 
 thickly populated lake-shore, and filled 
 with eao^erness to hear the wonderful words 
 of the new prophet. The enthusiasm 
 would have gladdened the heart of any 
 human teacher, yet Christ speaks to the 
 crowd a parable that carries a sad strain 
 in almost every sentence. The disciples 
 were disappointed, ) et they were curious 
 to know their Master's purpose. 
 
 *' IV/iy speakest thoic to tJiein in para- 
 bles .?" ** What might this parable 7nea7i ?'' 
 
 They had yet but little experience of 
 their Teacher's ways, and were only begin- 
 ning to understand His mission among 
 
12 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 them. They had not learned, and how 
 few of us have learned, to wait patiently 
 with a sure confidence that He who spake 
 as never man speaks, has spoken with 
 unerring wisdom. 
 
 He knows that in a few days, when He 
 forces the real nature of His mission on 
 their dull hearts, that crowd will scatter to 
 all distances from Him, some even to do 
 their part in hastening His condemnation. 
 He sees the whole field of livincr souls 
 before Him divided into the four classes 
 He describes in the parable, and in deep 
 sadness utters what He so certainly knows 
 and so keenly feels. How few are the 
 real members of His divine kingdom, and 
 what a crowd of eager seekers after sen- 
 sations ! 
 
 The Saviour s reply tells how He under- 
 Stood the question of His little school of 
 disciples. " Therefore speak I to them 
 in parables; because seeing they see not, 
 and hearing they hear not, neither do they 
 understand." Over that soil He has sown 
 the pure seed of divine truth, yet all their 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 1 3 
 
 thoughts are carnal. ''In them is fulfilled 
 the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By 
 heariiig ye shall hea7% and shall not under- 
 stand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not 
 perceive : for this people s heart is waxed 
 gross, and their ears are dull of Jiearing, 
 and their eyes they have closed; lest at any 
 time they should see with their eyes, a?id 
 hear with their ears, and should tender- 
 stand zoith their hearty and should be con- 
 verted, and I should heal them'' They 
 see and hear, but their hearts are become 
 so gross and foul that they cannot under- 
 stand, or they would be converted. What 
 a fearful sentence to pronounce upon any 
 class of human beings, and yet how true ! 
 He sees in that crowd the fulfillment of 
 the prophecy of Isaiah, and He prophesies 
 a result soon to be apparent to all. The 
 enthusiasm is at its heiofht, and avast mul- 
 titude is eager to make Him king; but in 
 a few days He will enter Capernaum, and 
 to the same multitude, with increase. He 
 will preach that wonderful sermon on the 
 Bread of Life, after which the whole Gal- 
 
14 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Ilean revival seemed to collapse In almost 
 total failure. 
 
 In this parable of the Sower, Christ 
 says to all in that crowd who understand 
 him, "Examine yourselves, and make sure 
 of your own position, for in a few days I 
 will pour a flood of light upon the real 
 truth I came to teach, that will blind those 
 who are still filled with the gross darkness 
 of ignorance and unbelief; and at the 
 same time I will also make clearer the 
 boundaries of My heavenly kingdom — one 
 class of you will be within the kingdom, 
 many classes without. To which class do 
 you belong ? " 
 
 To His disciples He would say — "judge 
 not by appearance, but learn well the les- 
 son of this parable, for it is the judgment 
 of omniscience upon every audience you 
 will have to teach." Their own high, and 
 not very clear, expectations might easily 
 lead them to put too great a value upon 
 the eagerness and enthusiasm of the 
 increasing crowd. He bids them look 
 deeper. For their Instruction, He analyzes 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 1 5 
 
 the very hearts of that listening congre- 
 o-ation, and shows how few of them are 
 '' good and honest" soil in which truth can 
 o-row. It is an infinitely sad thought. 
 Not only that many of them will not re- 
 ceive the truth, but cannot. Their hearts 
 are too barren, or too thorny. They have 
 lost their capacity to receive the truth with 
 understanding. Was this more true then 
 than now ? Are there not multitudes now 
 whose hearts are so gross as to make it 
 impossible for spiritual truth to enter and 
 abide ? 
 
 No longer can those who catch the 
 meaning of the parable be entirely unmind- 
 ful of the high and unselfish purpose of 
 their teacher ; nor can they be altogether 
 blind to the grossness and insincerity of 
 the ereat conereo^ations that listened to 
 Him. 
 
 Misinterpretation of the parable is an 
 evident revelation of His own omniscience, 
 and a clear exhibition of His position as 
 a teacher from God. At the same time it 
 is an impressive lesson to His disciples 
 
1 6 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Upon the great necessity for the possession 
 of a rl^ht spirit In order to understand all 
 parables, and rightly judge all congrega- 
 tions. The Parable of the Sower has been 
 to all Christ's followers an important, 
 though sometimes very discouraging, les- 
 son. The hard experiences of centuries 
 have vividly Illustrated and proven true 
 these words of Him who " knew what was 
 in man," and no longer can a teacher of 
 truth speak to any audience without the 
 thought that here, too, are the four classes 
 of hearers. It is the handwriting of God 
 upon every assembly listening to the gos- 
 pel message. A few will hear the truth 
 and treasure It in good and honest hearts, 
 but the other classes are the more numer- 
 ous. '' Having ears they hear not." All 
 who hear are modified by the truth, but 
 how few are sanctified by it ! Is it not 
 strange and sorrowful that so few receive 
 the truth Into hearts all ready for its full- 
 est growth, when the reward of knowing 
 God is eternal life ? 
 
 Many loudly-applauded philanthropic 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 1 7 
 
 schemes to reform the world have had a sud- 
 den success that deceived men into a tem- 
 porary behef that they were divinely true, 
 but their false interpretation of God, and 
 their blindness to the narrowness, the hard- 
 ness, and the thorny condition of our sinful 
 hearts, have caused them to pass away as 
 visions in the night, leaving the world still 
 unreformed. But no follower of Christ, 
 however enthusiastic for the world's re- 
 demption, can for a moment leave out of 
 account the sin-disturbed vision, and sin- 
 deadened ears of our degenerate souls. 
 He ever remembers that "the servant is 
 not greater than his Lord" even in this, 
 and if they would not hear the Master 
 they are not likely to hear the disciple. If 
 from the hand of the divine Sower the 
 seed fell into but few hearts that were 
 "honest and good," the disciple may expect, 
 without discouragement, that while he 
 must "sow beside all waters," only here 
 and there will there be a harvest. 
 
 Yet all true disciples of Christ work for 
 His kincrdom under the dominance of the 
 
 o 
 3 
 
1 8 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 ever present hope of its full success. ''Thy 
 
 kingdom come," is their earnest prayer, 
 
 but it is also a loyal acceptance of their 
 
 Master's prophecy that ''the gospel of the 
 
 kingdom shall be preached in the whole 
 
 world." It is not their dream, it is not 
 
 any mere scheme of reformation, but a 
 
 steady, determined sowing of the "word 
 
 of the kingdom," the fruit of which is 
 
 ever good, and which would make this 
 
 world all fruitful of heavenly graces if all 
 
 hearts were but "good and honest." It is 
 
 the seed of love, the foundation of all true 
 
 and abiding philanthropy. Yet, if there 
 
 were no promise of success, but only the 
 
 command to sow, every true disciple would 
 
 work with all diliorence because it is the 
 
 <_> 
 
 will of his Lord. 
 
 The disciples very evidently feel that 
 Christ has thoughts deeper than the mere 
 literal meaning of the parable, and they 
 ask for the interpretation. He answers 
 with a very suggestive question, " Know ye 
 not this parable, how then will ye know 
 all parables?" What, not understand so 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. ' 1 9 
 
 simple a parable as this? How then will 
 ye understand the deeper parables which 
 teach of Jehovah's nature and man's eter- 
 nal future ? This may be the meaning of 
 His question, but does it not go deeper? 
 Does it not reach down to the innermost 
 spirit of every listener? The Christ might 
 stand before this congregation and say, " I 
 show you the Father?" and we answer, 
 "only show us the Father and it sufficeth 
 us." ''What," he says, "have I been so 
 long time with you, and yet hast thou not 
 known Me? He that hath seen Me hath 
 seen the Father." The fault is not in 
 Him, it is not in God; it is in our hearts. 
 The "pure in heart shall see God." Like- 
 ness is essential to perfect understand- 
 ing. No man can have any clear insight 
 into that with which he has no sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 As Hartley Coleridge says : " Sympathy 
 is the ground of mutual understand- 
 ing." Or as Wordsworth so beautifully 
 expresses it : " You must love Him ere to 
 you He seem worthy of your love." 
 
20 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 " Whate'er we look on, at our side 
 Be charity — to bid us think. 
 And feel, if we would know." 
 
 Irving, in his Columbus, Bk. 7, ch. i, 
 first paragraph, gives a perfect illustration 
 of this necessity of sympathy in order to 
 understanding. It is a necessity alwa^'s, 
 but especially in spiritual matters. 
 
 The doubting Thomas cannot see the 
 glorious meaning of the Christ life ; but 
 the new-born Thomas bows humbly, and 
 with the very heart says, " My Lord and 
 my God." 
 
 Apply this to that audience listening to 
 the parable as Christ first utters it. Gross 
 of heart, stubborn and blind, how could 
 they understand a spiritual parable? "Their 
 mood is for revolution, but not of their 
 own lives." They would make Jesus a 
 king, but not In their souls, nor according 
 to the Idea of His spiritual kingdom. They 
 are full of enthusiasm for a miracle- 
 worker who can feed them with loaves and 
 fishes, but where Is their zeal for truth, 
 or loving, patient endurance for right- 
 eousness sake ? 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 2 1 
 
 About one-half of Christ's earthly min- 
 istry is gone. He has scattered the seeds 
 of truth broadcast over many great audi- 
 ences. In spring-time, when hearts were 
 opened with need and expectation, with 
 divine skill He had sown the good seed 
 ''beside all waters." Not in parables, but 
 in plain speech. Not in similitudes, but 
 in the concise, startling, enduring beati- 
 tudes. His hearers saw His mighty deeds, 
 but saw not their meaning or purpose. 
 They heard His wonderful teachings, but 
 caught not their life-giving value. '' See- 
 ing, they see not; hearing, they hear not." 
 Now, as he wraps His thoughts in parable, 
 those who understand may see the truth 
 more clearly by the dress in which it is 
 clothed, and in which those who have hard- 
 ened themselves into grossness of heart 
 may find their own judgment. Some went 
 up into clearer light; the many went down 
 into deeper darkness. Yet even as these 
 " despisers of the word " went lower and 
 lower, the familiar parable would cling to 
 their memories, and might even yet chal- 
 
2 2 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 lenge their attention to its hidden truths. 
 As Von Gerlach says : "A parable is Hke 
 the pillar of cloud and fire, which turned the 
 dark side to the Egyptians, the bright side 
 to the people of the covenant; it is like 
 a shell which keeps the precious kernel as 
 well for the diligent as from the indolent." 
 When they would not hear the plain warn- 
 ings and commands, when through gross- 
 ness of heart they could not take hold of 
 His spiritual promises, Christ gave the 
 divine message in parables in order that, 
 if possible, some of them might even yet 
 perceive the deeper meaning within and 
 be saved. Christ does not abandon them 
 when they reject His message, but contin- 
 ues always to preach to them the word of 
 life ''And with many such parables spake 
 He the word unto them, as they were able 
 to hear it : and without a parable spake He 
 not unto them; but privately to His own 
 disciples He expounded all things." 
 
 But may we not catch a glimpse of the 
 feeling in the heart of the Teacher as He 
 uttered this parable, and thus see still 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 23 
 
 more clearly its deeper meaning? Com- 
 plained of, upbraided, misunderstood ; 
 selfish motives ascribed to His pure deeds , 
 Isolated, without sympathy, without the 
 confidence of those He came to save ; 
 charged with crime by those for whom He 
 would die ; sorrowing unto death with the 
 knowledge of human sinfulness ; thus out 
 of a heart so familiar with grief, He utters 
 this parable. It was His omniscient view 
 of the gigantic struggle now begun 
 between truth from God and human sin- 
 fulness. Is It any wonder that He spake 
 this parable in sadness? This was His 
 prophecy concerning the reception of the 
 truth, and all the history of Christianity 
 Is the fulfillment of His word. His In- 
 finite longing to save His people from the 
 tyranny of sin, and from its final awful 
 fruits; His Immeasurable love for human 
 souls ; His divine enthusiasm for the truth, 
 could not dim His vision to the reality of 
 the wilful rejection by men of His sub- 
 llmest efforts. 
 
 Infinitely sad, yet certainly true, is this 
 
24 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 parable ; and as true to-day as when Christ 
 stood in the boat on Galilee's lake so loner 
 agfo And thus the record of Christ's own 
 experience as a teacher became a proph- 
 ecy of the experience of every teacher of 
 truth so lonor as men remain the willincr 
 
 o o 
 
 slaves of sin. 
 
 With what meaning and power this par- 
 able must have come to His disciples 
 when, in later days, they tried to put spir- 
 itual truths into sensual and selfish hearts ! 
 They are to preach the gospel of love and 
 peace to just such audiences as this now 
 before the Saviour, and it is all important 
 that they should know, not only the truth 
 as it is represented in Jesus, but also the 
 characters of their hearers, and the recep- 
 tion the word of truth will meet. They 
 are eager, believing followers, but as yet 
 only half understanding the great mission 
 for which their Teacher is preparing them. 
 Even long after this they were sorely vexed 
 and surprised at their own lack of success. 
 How soon and how thoroughly they 
 learned what needs no Illustration now, 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 25 
 
 that the hearts of men are not incHned 
 towards the truth as it is revealed in 
 Jesus ! 
 
 The answer to the question of the dis- 
 ciples may be further gathered from 
 Christ's words in Mark 4,: 11. ''Unto 
 you it is given to know the mysteries of 
 the kincrdom of God : but to them that 
 are without, all things are done in para- 
 bles." This suggests a definite design for 
 parables in relation to the " Kingdom of 
 God." To those within the kino^dom, 
 suggesting truth and illustrating it for 
 their upbuilding; to those without the 
 kingdom, leaving a possibility that in the 
 imagery some soul may catch a view of 
 the truth, and be led to fuller knowledge. 
 Christ's great mission on earth was to 
 establish this kinordom in all the hearts of 
 men. They had revolted, and become 
 subjects of another king, the '' Prince of 
 this world." They must be won back to 
 their rightful Lord, reinstated in the king- 
 dom of life. For this Christ lived and 
 died. As a kinor He came into the world 
 
26 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 to destroy the works of the devil, and win 
 back man's allegiance to Himself. The 
 whole ministry of Christ was built about 
 this one central idea of a kingdom. "The 
 Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." '' Jesus 
 came into Galilee preaching the gospel of 
 the kingdom of God." '* I must preach 
 the kingdom of God to other cities also ; 
 for therefore am I sent." That wonderful 
 Sermon on the Mount was a partial exposi- 
 tion of the law of this kingdom. He 
 commissioned His disciples to "go preach, 
 saying, the Kingdom of Heaven is at 
 hand." To the "seventy," He said, " Say 
 unto them, the Kingdom of God is come 
 nigh unto you." And in all His earthly 
 ministry He never let go His kingly pre- 
 rogative Even in lowliest service. He 
 was kingly. He was king in the presence 
 of Pilate, in the midst of the mob, in His 
 suffering on the cross, in His promise to 
 the dying thief, in His triumphant resur- 
 rection, and in His regal ascension. He 
 was a king in the splendor of His claims, 
 in the grandeur of His promises, in the 
 
TEACHING BY PARABI.ES. 2 7 
 
 sublimity of His prophecies, in the right- 
 eousness of His judgments, in the equity 
 of His laws, in the vastness of His realm, 
 in the countless multitude of His subjects. 
 For what other king were ever such weap- 
 ons forged as truth and love ? For what 
 other sovereign have men displayed such 
 exalted moral courao^e ? For what other 
 ''leader and commander" have so many 
 thousands died with quiet heart and for- 
 giving word ? What other king ever con- 
 quered by patient love and won victories 
 by dying? What other king was ever 
 anointed of God a "leader and commander" 
 to all people ? He was the very '' King 
 of kings." And the doctrine of a spir- 
 itual kingdom was the one theme of His 
 teaching. 
 
 At this time when He is about to utter 
 His first parable, when the enthusiasm is 
 at the highest, and crowds were proclaim- 
 ing Him king, we see a division work 
 becoming apparent. While this work 
 began at the very beginning of His min- 
 istry, yet so marked was it at the time of 
 
28 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 this parable that many immediately went 
 back and walked no more with Him. The 
 truth had at last entered their minds that 
 His kingdom was spiritual, a kingdom of 
 regenerate character. 
 
 He was gathering around Him a little 
 band of true members of His kinordom, 
 into whose minds He poured the wealth 
 of His kingly teaching, which through 
 them was to be scattered broadcast over 
 the world. To this little inner circle, the 
 first of the many that shall fill the earth, 
 He spake directly, without any other veil 
 to His deep meanings than the human 
 words which conveyed them. These were 
 loyal subjects, with hearts ready for the 
 seed, with minds already subject to the 
 laws of His spiritual kingdom, for Christ 
 was a king in every life of this little army 
 now being marshalled for the conquest of 
 the world. Others might sit with His 
 loyal disciples, but to them alone was He 
 giving the invulnerable armor of His own 
 graces, and the keen-edged sword of divine 
 truth. 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 29 
 
 ''But to those without He spake zji par- 
 ables. 
 
 The disciples saw that He made a dis- 
 tinction between themselves and the mul- 
 titude that crowded to hear His teach- 
 ings, and they inquired of him the reason. 
 Before giving them a direct reply, He lays 
 down the principle on which His action 
 is based. " Whosoever hath, to him shall 
 be given, and he shall have more abun- 
 dance, but whosoever hath not, from him 
 shall be taken away even that he hath." 
 Whoever possesses any truth, shows the 
 ability to receive truth. Whoever does 
 not possess, shows want of ability to 
 receive. Whoever, by possession of the 
 first truths of the kingdom, shows his fit- 
 ness and ability to receive higher teachings, 
 will receive abundance ; but he who has 
 not received the beginning, cannot receive 
 the completion. The man who rejects the 
 spirit of the kingdom, is unprepared to 
 understand its laws. 
 
 Spiritual meanings are ever hidden from 
 the hard-hearted and selfish, and revealed 
 
30 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 to those who are willing and able to receive 
 them; while the highest truths are revealed 
 to the true heart of faith, and always con- 
 cealed from the careless and gross-hearted. 
 That man whose heart possesses truth 
 has a magnet within himself to which all 
 truth is in some degree attracted. He has 
 that In him which makes all that Is true 
 attractive to him, and with every new 
 acquisition of truth there comes an increase 
 of pleasure In Its pursuit. When a man has 
 a little Information on any subject, every 
 item concerning it is read with pleasure, 
 and is naturally assimilated with the knowl- 
 edge previously acquired. When the 
 heart is not open to the dawning of the 
 light, its later, noonday beams will only 
 dazzle and blind. 
 
 But our Saviour had a further meaning. 
 The soul that rejects His truth shall see 
 going from him the very opportunity of 
 hearing the plain, direct commands of 
 Christ, and will hear them only in para- 
 bles which he may interpret to his own 
 condemnation. 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 3 1 
 
 Christ had spoken plainly to all alike of 
 His mission as a king. Some received the 
 truth, and thus were prepared for a higher 
 education in divine things. Others had 
 so misused and abused their ability to 
 receive spiritual truth that it is only cast- 
 ing pearls before swine to preach the king- 
 dom of heaven to them. Disuse or mis- 
 use of their higher faculties had left them 
 unable to see any meaning beyond the 
 physical. The years of His earthly min- 
 istry are few, and the causes of the world's 
 reformation must all be put in motion. 
 Shall He now continue to scatter seed on 
 all alike ? He does not, but takes the few 
 who were fitted by the possession of the 
 first principles of the kingdom for a more 
 rapid growth in this higher knowledge, 
 into a closer relation with Himself, that He 
 might teach them more fully the myster- 
 ies of the kingdom of God. To them the 
 Saviour will give more and more abun- 
 dantly of His rich gifts. To the multi- 
 tude who had rejected this plain procla- 
 
32 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 matlon of His mission, He will veil His 
 meaning in parables. 
 
 *' They will not heai^ : therefore in jttdg- 
 vtent I speak to them in par ablest 
 
 What is helpful truth to one is judgment 
 to another. The Christian rejoices in the 
 thought that there is a God who knoweth 
 all things; while to the "wicked" the 
 thought of Jehovah's omniscience is a 
 terrible judgment. Christ had spoken 
 tenderly and plainly to all concerning the 
 beauties and glories of His kingdom. He 
 had earnestly besought them to receive its 
 sacred privileges and blessings. They 
 had heard and rejected. They despised 
 His truths when they saw that His king- 
 dom was not of this world, and thus 
 proved themselves unfit to be taken into 
 that inner circle of truth-seekers who 
 heard Him gladly. The higher truths and 
 aspirations of the Christian life are always 
 foolishness to one without the kinordom. 
 The *' Sermon on the Mount " would have 
 been but pearls cast before swine to the 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. ^T, 
 
 crowd orathered at Sinai. Christ's truths 
 were the revelation of Himself to the 
 souls of men. Reject His teachings, and 
 you reject His life. If, therefore, in judg- 
 ment He withdraws Himself and His 
 teachings from you. He is but acting 
 according to your desire 
 
 Jesus had truths to state which were of 
 great importance to His disciples in their 
 ministry as his witnesses. To state these 
 to the multitude would only excite them 
 to greater hatred, and endanger the life 
 and ministry of both Himself and His 
 disciples. He, therefore, chose to state 
 the doctrine so that if their hearts were 
 right, if any capability to receive the truth 
 were left in them, they would catch His 
 meaning ; but if they were gross of 
 heart, malignant, haters of the truth, 
 they would not understand. 
 
 From this time forward the Saviour 
 veils his truths from the multitude. He 
 d6es not abandon them. He does not 
 refuse to teach them. But they hear no 
 more sermons of the mount, no more 
 
34 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 direct unfoldings of the rich truths of 
 His kingdom. 
 
 Those within the kingdom are no longer 
 servants, but nearest friends, to whom He 
 reveals the highest meanings of His life, 
 and inspires them with the promise of 
 eternal life in His likeness. Those with- 
 out the kingdom are aliens. To them, 
 parables are as judgments. Having 
 eyes, they see not the truth : having ears, 
 they hear not the meaning of the words 
 that come to them. 
 
 Yet Christ does not completely with- 
 draw Himself when they reject His 
 teachings. He still speaks to them in 
 parables. There may be some who will 
 hear aright. Some even of those who 
 
 would have been aroused to d-anoferous 
 
 <_> 
 
 anger by plain statement of the truth, by 
 continual repetition of it in parables might 
 be led up unsuspecting to a state of mind 
 where truth could be received. ** It is a 
 blessing to have truth near, though sepa- 
 rated by a veil." Moreover, this was the 
 only chance left them to hear the word of 
 
TEACHING BY PARABLES. 35 
 
 life. They had rejected the plain state- 
 ment of the truth, and this is the only 
 method left by which it can possibly reach 
 them. And these pictures from nature 
 have a power of clinging to the mind in a 
 way that sometimes effects what the most 
 earnest direct teachings fail to accomplish. 
 Thus judgment and mercy, side by side, 
 were sifting the multitude, and separating 
 those within the kingdom from those with- 
 out. By parables they may yet receive 
 the truth ; and if they still reject it, there 
 is the palliation that the truth is veiled. 
 Mercy and judgment may not be sepa- 
 rated, but the latter will be held in abey- 
 ance until all the facts of the Saviour's 
 life are acted out ; until the cross, and the 
 grave, and the empty tomb have fully 
 established His kingdom and made its 
 mysteries clear. Then after the Spirit 
 has come, His trained disciples with clear 
 vision, renewed hearts, and divine guid- 
 ance, will preach this kingdom with mar- 
 velous power. The seed sown by the 
 Saviour in these parables which still cling 
 
^6 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 J 
 
 to the minds of the multitude, watered by 
 the Spirit, now, under the earnest teach- 
 ing of the disciples, may yet bring forth 
 some harvest of ripened convictions. Who 
 can tell how much of the harvest gathered 
 at Pentecost grew from the earlier sow- 
 ing of the Son of God? 
 
"HEAR YE THE PARABLE OE 
 THE SOWER." 
 
" In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening with- 
 hold not thine hand." Eccles. ii : 6. 
 
 " In the name of God advancing, 
 
 Sow thy seed at morning light ; 
 Cheerily the furrows turning, 
 
 Labor on with all thy might. 
 Look not to the far-off future, 
 
 Do the work which nearest lies ; 
 Sow thou must before thou reapest, 
 
 Rest at last is labor's prize. 
 
 "Standing still is dangerous ever, 
 
 Toil is meant for Christians now ; 
 Let there be, when evening cometh, 
 
 Honest sweat on every brow ; 
 And the Master shall come smiling, 
 
 At the setting of the sun, 
 Saying, as He pays thy wages, 
 
 ' Good and faithful one, well done ! ' " 
 
 From unknown Germaft Author, 
 
-HEAR YE THE PARABLE OF 
 THE SOWER." 
 
 Matt. 13, Mark 4, Luke 8. 
 
 Christ challenges the closest attention 
 to this first parable. 
 
 Let us give heed to the Master's words, 
 asking, as sincere disciples, for the inter- 
 pretation, while we examine the parable 
 and its exposition by our Lord. 
 
 It Is a part of that great revelation of 
 Himself which God has made to His 
 people. Jehovah is become the seed of a 
 divine life within man, and the husband- 
 man to cultivate that life to a perfect har- 
 vest. The King of kings is become the 
 Father of His people ; the omnipotent God 
 reveals Himself as the tenderly merciful 
 and long-suffering Redeemer ; the Judge of 
 all the earth bows in deep humiliation to 
 bear His people's burdens ; the omniscient 
 One, with His own blood, blots out of His 
 sight the sins of His redeemed. We cannot 
 of ourselves add anything to the sum of 
 holiness, and even as we try to reflect the 
 
40 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 holiness of God, it is marred by our 
 shadows, and the mirrored imag^e is often a 
 deformed one. With our reflection of the 
 gentleness, charity, and zeal of Christ, we 
 are ever mingling our own harshness and 
 coldly formal service. We are sinful, and, 
 strive as we may, we always fall short of 
 any great attainment in righteousness. 
 Yet the seed of a divinely perfect life is 
 sown within us, and the infinitely wise 
 Sower, who knew the end from the begin- 
 ning, has prophesied a full harvest. This 
 seed is the '' word of the kingdom." ** Thy 
 word is truth," — the truth that scattered 
 in human hearts brings *' the kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness" into the 
 world of human life and sinfulness. 
 
 This parable, so wonderfully fitted to 
 the occasion when the divine Teacher used 
 it to describe that crowd standing by Gen- 
 esareth, is as accurately true to-day in every 
 assenfbly to which the gospel is preached. 
 Four classes of hearers were defined 
 then, and all four are here to-day. You be- 
 long to one, and only one, of these classes. 
 
THE SCENE. 4 1 
 
 THE SCENE. 
 
 What a picture Is here suggested by 
 the Inspired writer ! A great multitude 
 full of enthusiasm, curious, excited, crowd- 
 ing out of Capernaum and the neighboring 
 villages, eager to catch every word of the 
 wonderful Teacher. Pressed by the throng, 
 this Teacher steps Into a boat, and a few 
 strokes of the oars carry Him and His 
 disciples away from the crowd, yet He waits 
 near enough to the shore for all the mul- 
 titude to hear. Only a narrow strip of 
 water separated His body from the crowd, 
 but what an infinite distance separated 
 Him In spirit from them! A rude pulpit, 
 that unsteady fishing boat, but from it 
 came a message as abiding and as power- 
 ful as truth from God. 
 
 Five hundred feet below the level of the 
 sea, in a cleft of the hills, lies the lake of 
 Galilee. Thus, as If from the lowest sta- 
 tion He could reach, Christ spake to the 
 multitude crowding the shore that sloped 
 gently up from the water's edge to the 
 mountain ridge above. . Before His eyes 
 
 5. 
 
42 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 were large and busy towns and hamlets, 
 and terraced hills covered with fruitful 
 vineyards, — Gennesaret, the ''garden of 
 princes." 
 
 Probably as His eyes return from the 
 Father's face, He sees a sower scattering 
 grain on the hill-side above and behind 
 the waltlnor crowd that stood like the 
 ploughed field ready to receive the seed. 
 We can almost see them turn to look as 
 He bids them, 
 
 ''Behold, the sower went forth to sow'' 
 Galilee's lake still lies among her silent 
 hills, pure and clear as when this parable 
 was spoken ; but sail and oar now seldom 
 disturb her waters. The villao^es and 
 vineyards that once lay all along her shores 
 are to be traced only In a few ruins ; and 
 the crowds that listened to the voice of 
 Jesus are two thousand years away beyond 
 death. Still that voice speaks to us, and 
 still those seeds of truth fall like heavenly 
 manna upon our hungry souls, and to-day 
 are producing a richer and grander harvest 
 in our world than even when they came 
 
THE SEED. 43 
 
 in all their freshness and vigor from the 
 Master's heart. Rather, we are still reap- 
 ino- the fruits of that sowino^of the divine 
 husbandman. These fruits are in all 
 our thoughts and hopes, in all our homes 
 and cities, fruits that have their root in 
 that Master s life and work two thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 THE SEED. 
 
 "Seeing ye have puritied your souls 
 in your obedience to the truth unto un- 
 feigned love of the brethren, love one 
 another from the (clean) heart fervently; 
 having been begotten again, not of cor- 
 ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through 
 the word of God, which liveth and abid- 
 eth." I Peter i: 23. 
 
 " The seed is the word of God!' 
 
 All teachings are seeds that must pro- 
 duce some fruit in every life into which 
 they fall. All uttered thoughts are seeds 
 that hold within themselves some life for 
 future growth. In what a high sense 
 
44 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 must this be true of the '' Word of God," 
 which He spake who was Himself the 
 power within all His teachings ! 
 
 Observe this seed. It is from God, 
 who knows man thoroughly, his history, 
 his needs, and his capabilities ; who also 
 knows the truth in its own greatness, in 
 its fitness to deliver man Into hiorhest free- 
 dom, and in its life-giving power as repre- 
 sented to the world in Jesus. The all-wise 
 God, knowing the end from the beginning, 
 has given this seed of life as perfectly 
 adapted to supply man's need, and to grow 
 up in him to an endless life. 
 
 Christ scatters the seed with a perfect 
 knowledge of all this, and with an eternal 
 purpose that it shall produce an abundant 
 harvest In every good and honest heart. 
 For us the Bible, like a treasure house, 
 contains this seed. ''Search the script- 
 ures, for In them ye think ye have eternal 
 life, and these are they which bear witness 
 of me." Treat this book reverently then, 
 for it holds the words of life, the truth 
 concerning Him who is " the way, the 
 
THE SEED. 45 
 
 truth, and the Hfe," to every good and 
 honest heart. 
 
 Christ Is both seed and Sower. *' He 
 that soweth the good seed is the Sou of 
 many Matt. 13 \^^. But He Is also the 
 Word of truth, the holy Logos, the per- 
 fect expression of the thought of God. 
 
 ''God having of old time spoken unto 
 the fathers in the prophets by divers por- 
 tions and in divers manners, hath at the 
 end of these days spoken unto us In His 
 Son." 
 
 God hath been made manifest unto us 
 who do believe in Him. Prophets told 
 us the truth of God ; the Son revealed 
 the person of God. They knowing only 
 in part, could reveal only In part ; He 
 knowing the truth In the very counsels of 
 the Father in all its fullness, uttered truth 
 in all its greatness and wealth. Com'Ing 
 through human prophets and teachers by 
 human language and symbols, It came 
 slowly by changing modes and with vary- 
 ing meaning. Coming by a Son, yea in a 
 Son, who bore in His own nature the 
 
4-6 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 express Image of the Father, the manifes- 
 tation of the truth was perfect, complete 
 and unchanoreable. 
 
 The great and wide universe, with its 
 unnumbered worlds, with all its infinite 
 variety and wealth of life and beauty, is 
 but the incarnation of a few of the thouehts 
 of God. All the tremendous energy man- 
 ifested in the movements of the worlds of 
 the universe, and all the accuracy dis- 
 played in their perfect order, are simply 
 partial expressions of the energy and 
 accuracy of the divine Mind. They ought 
 to be, and are becoming more and more, 
 the illustrations of the workino^s of that 
 Being whose nature is truth. They are 
 the utterances of the mind of God, in a 
 language we only partially understand, 
 and at the best we can read from them a 
 very indefinite knowledge of Jehovah. 
 We would see, and God would have us 
 see, a grander and nearer, a richer and 
 plainer, expression of Himself. We 
 needed an expression of our God that 
 could come to our seared consciences 
 
THE SEED. 47 
 
 with the voice of Hfe's Omniscient Judge, 
 that could speak to our sin-narrowed souls 
 with the expanding, exalting voice of eter- 
 nal life, that could speak to our darkened 
 hearts with the voice of the Father of 
 lights, that could meet our repentance with 
 divine forgiveness, that could heal human 
 sorrow with the compassion of a holy 
 comforter, that could quicken hope by a 
 revelation of the unseen glories of God 
 and Heaven. God speaking in His Son 
 is such an expression. Christ speaks 
 God's will, but It is by speaking God's 
 nature. He is the express image of the 
 Father, the very utterance of His Being 
 to our needy human race. 
 
 This living Christ is the power within 
 the seed, the Word within the word, that 
 breaks the husk and brines forth a new 
 life and growth within the soul. This 
 divine life within the uttered word of 
 truth, when It falls into proper soil, will 
 put forth energy in a new life that shall 
 strike Its roots ever deeper and deeper, 
 and send the foliage and blossoms and 
 
48 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 fruits higher and higher in growth towards 
 Him who sowed the seed. The fault of 
 failure to produce a good harvest cannot 
 be in the sower or the seed. Indeed, if 
 you scatter good seed in any manner upon 
 soil properly prepared, it will grow. If 
 failure come with good seed, the trouble 
 is in the soil or its preparation. The 
 Master illustrates this clearly and forcibly 
 in the four classes of hearers. 
 
FIRST CLASS OF HEARERS. 
 
 '' And when he sowed, some fell by the 
 wayside, and the fozuls came a7id devoured 
 them upy (Heb. 2:1; Acts 26:28 ; Matt. 
 22:5; Isa. 53:1.) 
 
 Christ's disciples were too familiar with 
 the scene immediately around them to 
 have any difficulty in understanding the 
 letter of the parable, but they seek to 
 know its deeper meaning. And the words, 
 ''who hath ears to hear, let him hear J' 
 with which He closed the parable, must 
 have challenged the attention of the most 
 thouehtless, while It was a direct summons 
 to all In that crowd who understood Him, 
 to look for a meaning deeper and richer 
 than the mere picture with which they 
 were all familiar. The letter of the para- 
 ble is easily understood, but what is the 
 spiritual truth it holds for us ? 
 
 As we study this ''word of the king- 
 dom," let us try to catch its full meaning. 
 
50 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 and by applying Its lessons to our own 
 lives, give the **seed" fullest opportunity 
 to grow even to an hundred fold in good 
 and honest hearts. 
 
 The whole field was sown, but in Pales- 
 tine, as in the far west of our own land, 
 there are few fences, and the feet of many 
 travelers have worn a hard path across the 
 ploughed and harrowed surface. The 
 Master's explanation of this part of the 
 parable is, '* When anyone heareth the 
 word of the kingdo7n, and understandeth 
 it not, then cometh the ivicked one, and 
 catcheth away that ivhich was sown in the 
 heai^tr 
 
 We cannot justly make our ignorance a 
 reason for not believing, yet if we cannot 
 easily understand the teachings of Christ 
 we are very apt to feel ourselves under no 
 obligation to give them any further atten- 
 tion. Nor have we any right to make the 
 obscurity of the word and the difficulty of 
 our surroundings the excuses for our con- 
 tinued neglect of duty. Christ shows 
 here the fallacy of all such pleas by the 
 
SOME FELL liY THE WAYSIDE. 5 I 
 
 expression which in the text is translated 
 ** understandeth it not." Literally, it is 
 "inattention," neglecting to bring together 
 in the mind for careful consideration the 
 truths we hear. No one can be blamed for 
 not understanding a subject which by 
 actual, careful investigation he has proved 
 to be beyond his capacity ; but he is 
 deserving of censure if he fails to under- 
 stand a matter which is vital to him sim- 
 ply because he will not bring his mind to 
 attend to it. 
 
 " Then!' and not till then, '' covieth the 
 wicked one,'' " Satan," St. Luke says, 
 '' and catchcth azvay that luhich was sozvn 
 in the heart." Originally the soil was all 
 alike. The whole field was well ploughed 
 and harrowed, and the soil of the path is 
 now as fertile as any other part of the 
 field. 
 
 A fertile heart may become like a hard 
 path under a long procession of evil 
 thoughts, ungodly wishes and sinful deeds. 
 Satan cannot steal away seed that is cov- 
 ered in the heart, and it is our fault if the 
 
52 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 ground is so hard that the seed can find 
 no place to take root. It is our fault that 
 we give no attention, that we do not care- 
 fully examine the truths of life, but with- 
 out thought push them aside. It is our 
 fault that, while hearing with the ear, we 
 give no attention with the heart. Satan 
 catches away only that which is left ex- 
 posed upon the surface. 
 
 If Christ be true, these teachings 
 of His are of infinite worth, affecting our 
 life here, and our fate for all eternity. Is 
 it the part of wisdom, of even ordinary 
 good sense, to push them aside without 
 careful examination ? Yet many have no 
 other reason than ignorance for their re- 
 jection of Christ. Rejecting the deepest 
 truths and noblest gifts of life without 
 any personal examination as to the valid- 
 ity of testimony or credibility of witnesses. 
 What a picture this is of many hearers 
 in all our churches ! They come with the 
 multitude to keep holy-day, but the seed 
 falls upon inattentive hearts, as rain falls 
 upon the paved street. Their church- 
 
"SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE. 53 
 
 going Is often a sort of weekly opiate, 
 with which to quiet the conscience, or a 
 mask to deceive the world, and sometimes 
 themselves, and yet with an unexpressed 
 hope that God will count their church- 
 going as a favorable Item In their final 
 account. 
 
 St. Luke (12:13) tells of such a hearer. 
 Christ had been preaching to the people 
 an earnest sermon acralnst all forms of 
 hypocrisy, and showing them the great 
 value of a soul, at the same time promis- 
 ing the Holy Spirit to help them In all 
 trials and sufferings while preaching the 
 truth. "And one of the company said unto 
 him, Master, speak to my brother that he 
 divide the Inheritance with me." Evi- 
 dently the man had given no real atten- 
 tion to the sermon, and he deserved the 
 severe rebuke he received. So It was with 
 Agrlppa, when Paul sowed the truth so 
 faithfully, the seed bounded off from a 
 hard and careless heart. 
 
 Occasionally we hear people say they 
 have no aptitude for religion. What will 
 
54 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 such people do in heaven, where every- 
 thing is rehgion ? Others say they have 
 no interest in *' church-work," in other 
 words, they do not have any interest in the 
 work which the church has undertaken at 
 the command of Christ. Will such peo- 
 ple have any place in heaven, where the 
 whole life is a special service under the 
 command of Christ ? These people, and 
 they are many, are simply hardening the 
 soil, and allowing the seed to die without 
 fruit. . Yet the Master has said, " Herein 
 is my Father glorified, that ye bear much 
 fruit, so shall ye be my disciples." 
 
 Sometimes the very habits of what is 
 called our religious life become a mere 
 ''crust of formality," hard paths across 
 the heart. Attendance upon the ordinan- 
 ces of the church ought to lead us nearer 
 to God, yet how often while the body is 
 obedient to the form of worship the mind 
 is far away. This half-listening, this not 
 attending to the word, is fatal to any 
 true reception of the truth, and only 
 increases the difficulty in the way of 
 
** SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE." 55 
 
 growth. More and more becoming inca- 
 pable of true repentance, such people 
 have neither care nor fear. Their condi- 
 tion does not disturb them, for sin ha5 no 
 deep meaning to them. They know in a 
 general way that they ought to prepare to 
 meet their God, but their hearts are not 
 stirred with the thought of that great cer- 
 tainty, and they are apt soon to grow 
 indifferent to all things spiritual. 
 
 A man gets into this hardened condi- 
 tion, so that the Gospel message has no 
 helpful meaning to him, only because he 
 has exposed his heart as a common road 
 to evil influences. He listens to the gos- 
 pel without objection, it may be, but it 
 arouses no personal interest, for it has 
 fallen on a hardened surface. However 
 he may apply it to others, to himself it is 
 only a social or intellectual culture, or a 
 listening out of curiosity, or for appear- 
 ance sake. The Bible does not take hold 
 of his thouehts as his ledg^er does. Sin 
 and righteousness are not nearly so vital 
 to him as the daily stock report, the con- 
 
56 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 ditlon of his bank, the prospect of harvest, 
 or his physical health or comfort. The 
 good soil may be there, but it is hard. 
 While gracious influences rain upon it, 
 they run off as from a hardened path, and 
 the first hour's march of the old intruders 
 will make it as hard and barren as ever. 
 The truth may be scattered by loving- 
 hands thickly upon it, but winged day- 
 dreams and wicked thoughts steal many, a 
 holy seed, and the heavy tread of evil 
 passions and sinful habits soon crushes 
 the others to their death. 
 
 The farmer does not blame the birds of 
 the air for following the instincts of their 
 nature in stealing his grain so much as 
 he does the trespassers who have worn the 
 path across his rich and well-ploughed 
 fields. Too often the soil in which the 
 word of God should have been received, 
 and where it would have taken root, is 
 allowed to become the highway of the 
 soul's greatest enemies. To such a hearer 
 the command is : submit yourself to the 
 deep ploughing of the Spirit and the law. 
 
''SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE." 57 
 
 and when the heart Is thus broken up, 
 scatter in it the seeds of truth. P'or if 
 the Holy Spirit has deeply furrowed the 
 heart, we know that the divine Sower has 
 scattered there seeds of vast spiritual en- 
 dowments, and He who sowed the seed 
 p-ives the sunshine and the rain, the dew 
 
 o 
 
 and the shade of night, all in proper meas- 
 ure for a full and perfect harvest. But 
 it is ours to keep away all evil birds, and 
 to see that the soil is not tramped so hard 
 that the seed can find no place to grow. 
 
 This first part of the parable ought to 
 touch keenly every hearer of the word. 
 Is your heart's soil thoroughly prepared 
 to receive the falling seed, or is there 
 across it a well tramped path of inatten- 
 tion, careless listening, irreverence, any 
 evil habit of mind or body ? Remember, 
 there is one watching to steal away the 
 seed that falls upon any spot that is not 
 prepared for its reception. When you 
 hear and yet neglect the word, you prac- 
 tically throw it to Satan. When we think 
 of this, and remember how little of the 
 
58 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 word we carry away from God's house and 
 from our daily study of His book, is it 
 any wonder that so many who hear the 
 Hfe-giving word bring forth no fruit? 
 
 Do not blame surroundine circumstan- 
 ces, household cares, and strong tempta- 
 tions, for stealing away the seed ; but put 
 the truth so deeply into your life that none 
 will be left upon the surface for these 
 hungry birds to feed upon. 
 
 We all constantly experience a fading 
 of good impressions because we leave 
 them upon a hardened surface where they 
 cannot grow, instead of covering them 
 with prayer, and cultivating them by an 
 active pursuit of the duties they inculcate. 
 To seize and use every good thing, 
 whether it be impression, thought, or 
 opportunity to bless others, is the only sure 
 way of getting for ourselves its harvest of 
 blessing. Sometimes amid the darkness 
 of a midnight storm, the vivid lightning 
 gives an instant view of all the surround- 
 ing landscape, and shows the path from 
 which we have wandered. So there occa- 
 
SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE. 59 
 
 sionally flashes across the mind a vivid 
 view of truth that quickens faith, awak- 
 ens high aspirations, rouses the will to 
 overthrow some habit of sin, stimulates 
 to renewed consecration of life, and shows 
 the path of duty. Why does this so 
 quickly vanish ? Because we give it no 
 hearty invitation to remain, no home to 
 live in, no duty to perform. We receive 
 It without attention. And yet It Is possi- 
 ble for us so to receive these occasional 
 flashes of good as to have them increase 
 to a frequency that will make our 
 whole life a bright day of light and bless- 
 
 mor. 
 
 Strong graces, like strong powers of 
 mind and body, require constant exercise. 
 Inaction is certain death to them. As 
 intellectual idleness means mental famine, 
 so Idle Christian Is synonymous with dying 
 Christian. All graces have their Infancy, 
 a seed time, when life is just beginning, 
 and their way to full growth and fruitful- 
 ness Is through exercise and constant 
 watchfulness. 
 
6o PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Yet how many are never strong Chris- 
 tians because they are ever waiting and 
 wishing for strong graces, instead of cul- 
 tivating what they have to their fullest 
 growth and greatest strength. Every true 
 Christian has within him the grrowinor seed 
 of a perfect life. If the full harvest does 
 not come, it is not the fault of the perfect 
 seed or the divine Sower. How many 
 turn from the sanctuary every Sabbath 
 day without profit from the service, because 
 they hear without attention. They receive 
 an impression which they know should be 
 immediately put into practice, yet it is 
 neglected until even the memory of it is 
 gone. There are others so thoroughly 
 selfish and vain as to have no spot in the 
 heart where seed can grow. It falls upon 
 them as upon others, but bounds off as 
 from a hard sidewalk. If they ever for- 
 get themselves long enough to think of 
 the truth, it is to blame the birds for steal- 
 ing away the seed. They forget that if 
 Satan had not taken away the truth from 
 them, the incessant tramp of their own 
 
''SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE." 6l 
 
 vain conceits and selfish gratifications 
 would soon have crushed it to death. 
 
 Too many people live with the heart 
 unfenced. It is a public common, stand- 
 ing open with loud invitation to all trav- 
 elers to walk across, or even camp within. 
 It has no sacred place, no holy of holies, 
 where only the great High Priest may 
 enter. Instead of jealously guarding every 
 impression, the life Is left open to all the 
 vile seeds that float in the social atmos- 
 phere. Seeds whose fruits are envy, anger, 
 suspicion, sensuality, and all manner of 
 uncharltableness. Thus, Instead of care- 
 fully loosening the soil whenever it has 
 become hardened by the long-continued 
 tramp of a bad habit, they allow seed to 
 fall upon a surface entirely unprepared, 
 only to die or be stolen by the enemy. 
 
 How often we should be ashamed and 
 self-condemned if we could gather up the 
 truths we have lost bv inattention, and see 
 them in their origin, their present mean- 
 ing, the fruits they would have produced, 
 their influence upon all our future life, 
 
62 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 their fitness to prepare us for the recep- 
 tion of other truths, and then contrast 
 them with the things to which we did give 
 our attention. Truth driven away by 
 some selfish thought. God-given beauty 
 refused for ashes of earth. A growing 
 seed of priceless worth rejected for seed 
 of thorns and weeds. 
 
 It may be that some good seeds have 
 fallen on your heart in childhood before 
 the hard path was worn, that would spring 
 towards the sun if you would but break 
 the hard crust that covers them. 
 
 A visitor to a prison saw there a woman 
 charged with the murder of her child. 
 EVery effort was made to arouse her to 
 a sense of her guilt, but nothing pierced 
 her hardness. The visitor was frequently 
 at the prison, and his ministry was received 
 by all save this one. Passing one day by 
 a nursery, he saw in the hot-house some 
 common garden flowers. He knew that 
 the childhood of this woman had been 
 passed in the country, and trusted that 
 her girl nature had known a love for 
 
" SOME FELL BY THE WAYSIDE." 63 
 
 flowers. He purchased a bouquet and 
 took it to the prison. Going into the cell, 
 he placed the flowers and a copy of the 
 gospel of St. John on the little iron table, 
 and went out into the hall where he could 
 see and not be seen. The prisoner 
 soon came to examine what had been 
 given her. Through the grated door the 
 visitor saw her look at the book and 
 drop it on the floor. The flowers she 
 touched and smelled. Memory began 
 to do its work, and her face was soon 
 buried among the flowers. The tears 
 came, and there upon her knees, with her 
 head and hands upon the table, she went 
 back again to her innocent childhood in 
 her country home. The snow and cold 
 outside were changed to summer sunshine. 
 The hard, sin-burnt heart was aglow with 
 love for the mother watching from the 
 home window. The little fingers were 
 busy plucking flowers in the old home 
 garden. The hard crust was broken, and 
 the seeds that fell on the child's heart so 
 long ago are now blossoming and bearing 
 
64 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 fruit in the reformed, regenerated woman's 
 life. Many a one whom we call hardened 
 might become a fruitful Christian if once 
 the crust were broken. The Spirit can 
 plough, and loving hands can sow the 
 seed. Let the seed be ever falling, for 
 we know not when the Spirit is at work 
 in another's heart, and some seed may find 
 a loosened, fertile spot in which to grow. 
 
SECOND CLASS OF HEARERS. 
 
" The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, 
 and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Fs. 34: 18. 
 
 " We have the heavenly assurance that the path of the 
 just is to shine more and more unto the perfect day. But 
 this blessed truth involves its opposite, that the path of the 
 wicked must grow darker and darker unto the total night, 
 
 unless he give heed to the voice which calls him out 
 
 of this darkness, and turn to the light which is ever striving 
 to illumine it." 
 
 Guesses at Truth. 
 
SECOND CLASS OF HEARERS. 
 
 '' Some fell upon stony places, where they 
 had not much earth: and forthzvith they 
 sprang 2Lp, because they had no deepness of 
 earth; and when the sun was up, they 
 were scorched, and becatise they had no root 
 they ivithered azvay!' St. Matt. 13: 5, 6. 
 
 *' They on the rock are they, which, when 
 they hear, receive the word with joy ; and 
 these have no root, ivhich for a time believe, 
 and in time of temptation fall away T St. 
 Luke 8: 13. 
 
 By a comparison between St. Matthew 
 and St. Luke we discover what is meant 
 by ''stony places" and ''rock." Not a 
 spot in the field where stones lie thickly 
 upon the surface, but where a large rock 
 lies beneath a shallow covering of earth. 
 
 The field appeared to be all alike until 
 the path was worn. Rocks could not be 
 seen. The seed is scattered over the 
 whole field and, save upon the path, takes 
 
68 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 root and grows. The summer sun gets 
 higher in the heavens every day, and sends 
 his hot rays down upon the grain. The 
 path is bare and hard, but elsewhere over 
 all the field the grain has taken root and 
 is growing vigorously. What a prospect 
 for the Autumn ! The soil is fertile. It 
 contains every element necessary to pro- 
 duce a full and abundant harvest. Lying 
 about the roots of the grain are stores of 
 life to paint the leaves, strengthen the 
 stalk, and fill its treasury with golden 
 grain. The sun in the heavens pumps 
 these elements of life from the earth 
 through the roots to every part of leaf 
 and stalk. The higher the plant grows, 
 the higher into the heavens the sun climbs, 
 that he may send increasing force to do 
 this all-important work of developing the 
 whole life of the field to its utmost capa- 
 bility. But as the weeks go by we notice 
 here and there a fading of the rich hue of 
 health. The green turns to yellow. The 
 leaves curl downwards as if striving to 
 avoid the gaze of the sun, and in a little 
 
''SOME FELL UPON A ROCK." 69 
 
 while these spots are dead. Why? The 
 grain grew, sending roots downward and 
 stalks upward. The roots collected the 
 life from the soil, and the sun pumped 
 that life up through the plant. After a 
 time the roots had drawn all the life out 
 of the soil, and were creeping along the 
 hard surface of the rock, vainly striving 
 by every crevice to get through to the 
 moist earth below. Inexorably the sun 
 kept on at his work. His office was not 
 the preparation of the soil, but the draw- 
 ing from the soil of nourishment for the 
 plant that must bear the grain. The roots 
 are doing their best to supply all that the 
 growing life of the plant calls for, but they 
 cannot feed on the rock. The sun keeps 
 on pumping from plant to fruit, from roots 
 to plant. So the roots must now surren- 
 der their life to feed the plant. Nor does 
 the sun stop there. Higher and higher he 
 climbs. He has the same work to do for 
 all the myriad forms of earthly life. If 
 he should stop, they would die. Hence, 
 when the life is all drawn out of the soil, 
 
/O PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 the roots must give up their Hfe, and then 
 the plant itself must give forth its strength 
 and die. 
 
 How close the analogy between this law 
 of plant life and the law of human life ? 
 Whatever is superficial is apt to be trans- 
 itory. Shallowness quickly puts forth all 
 its energy and dies. Not having much 
 root, it exhibits all its growth and strength 
 upon the surface. Those who have little 
 knowledge are usually forward and noisy ; 
 they have little of the joy of the true stu- 
 dent, whose greatest pleasure is in the 
 silent companionship with knowledge, the 
 deeply-rooted life that cannot be seen by 
 others. How little of the deep and abid- 
 ing joy of a symmetrical Christian does 
 that soul know whose life is in what he 
 does and says before the world, more than 
 in what he is before God. 
 
 There seems to be an improvement, 
 however, in the condition of this class 
 over the first class. There is here some 
 life. In the first class, the seed did not 
 even take root. Here it takes root, orows 
 
''SOME FELL UTON A ROCK." 71 
 
 quickly, as with special fertility of soil, 
 and promises a large harvest. But we 
 soon discover that this improvement is 
 but specious, and that the rapid growth 
 upward is from lack of room to grow 
 downward. There it was hardened soil 
 above, here it is rock below. That had 
 been made hard lately, and is upon the 
 surface where you may see it ; this is 
 far enough below to deceive you. Yet 
 there is a real advance, for there the seed 
 had no life ; here it has been received and 
 is growing. You may break up the path 
 only to find a rock beneath and the seed 
 all blown away or stolen, and the Spirit 
 can break up the stony heart as easily as 
 the hard one. 
 
 Failure in life is not among wayside 
 hearers only; but many who hear ''gladly," 
 fail to bring forth the real harvest of 
 life, yea, fail to live until harvest time 
 comes. They are Inconsiderate and im- 
 pulsive, as the members of the preceding 
 class were Inattentive and careless. The 
 "joy of the Holy Ghost" Is unknown to 
 
72 PARABLE <0F THE SOWER. 
 
 them because they have ''no root In them- 
 selves." There may be here and there a 
 stalk that is able to get a single root over 
 the edge of the rock, and thus live a 
 sickly life even to the time of ingathering; 
 but its harvest is puny, the grains are all 
 shriveled through lack of life's vigor, and 
 when at last it falls before the reaper, no 
 golden seeds roll out into the earth to 
 grow to another harvest. 
 
 Our Saviour interprets the meaning of 
 this class as '' he that hearcth the woi^d and 
 anon with joy receiveth it, yet hath he not 
 root in himself, but dtcreth for awhile ; 
 for whejt tribulation or persectition aris- 
 eth becaiise of the zvord, by and by he is 
 offended y 
 
 The seed here is the same as in the 
 former case, the ''word of the kingdom." 
 Those upon whom it falls are attentive ; 
 they are interested ; they receive the seed 
 and cover it into their hearts, where it 
 takes root and grows rapidly. In times of 
 special interest, when many are receiving 
 the word and accepting it openly, this part 
 
"SOME FELL UPON A ROCK." 73 
 
 of the parable Is apt to be too frequently 
 illustrated. Excitable natures are easily 
 stirred, and receive the seed without due 
 preparation of heart. They accept the 
 gospel with joy, and go forth valiantly, 
 but they have not counted the cost. The 
 warfare Is a long one, with an enemy rich 
 In resources and of skill unequalled. Their 
 earnestness Is volatile, quickly noticed, 
 and soon loses Its strength. They are 
 seeking their own happiness rather than a 
 change of character. They run swiftly 
 while the street Is smoothly paved and 
 many are near to applaud; but ''by and 
 by" the way Is rough, the special Interest 
 Is over, and the crowds have gone to other 
 excitements. 
 
 Tribulation and persecution, which 
 ought to strengthen Christian character, 
 prove to this class a stumbling block over 
 which they fall. They have put on the 
 robes of disciples and easily use their 
 speech, but In character there Is no change. 
 The old heart Is still there under a new 
 covering. 
 
74 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 They receive the word with joy, but 
 their joy is thoughtless, a stirring of the 
 emotions, not the peace of a changed 
 nature. Their heart has been touched 
 only upon the surface, not smitten with 
 that blow of Jehovah that makes a stream 
 of living water flow as from the cleft rock, 
 full of life-giving power to the end of life's 
 journey. 
 
 For a time they "did run well," but 
 after awhile they are missed occasionally 
 from the prayer-meeting, they are less 
 active in the Sunday School. For a time 
 they rejoiced to be able to testify to the 
 world that they were Christ's. After the 
 time of special interest, when persecution 
 arose because of the word, the sneer and 
 laugh blowing like a hot, withering wind 
 upon them, they drooped and died. For 
 a while Sabbaths were sacred times, and 
 the services of God's house a pleasure 
 and a profit. But temptation came, and 
 the time of worship was neglected more 
 and more for the opportunity it gave to 
 attend to some little matter forgotten 
 
**SOME FELL UPON A ROCK.'* 75 
 
 during the week. Soon the duties of the 
 week that with a Httle stretch of con- 
 science mioht be called not sinful, are 
 postponed until the leisure of Sunday. 
 Other desecrations of God's chosen holy 
 day follow, and the surface religion is soon 
 rubbed off. Thus the soul is once more 
 put under obligation to sin. Such Chris- 
 tian character is shallow. The roots have 
 come to the rock, and the soil is nearly 
 all exhausted of life. Yet they are the 
 people who are the quickest to resent any 
 hint that they are in danger. They are 
 only not narrow-minded ; they are liberal. 
 They are not narrow Christians, only shal- 
 low ones. They will soon be as bare of 
 all Christian beauty and fruitfulness as the 
 withered spot in yonder field of grain. 
 
 '' By and by they are offended." Yes, 
 they are easily offended. While the sense 
 of the parable is ''by and by they sin," 
 yet in a commoner sense they are offended. 
 They complain more than any other class 
 within the church. The church is not 
 managed properly, the singing does not 
 
76 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 suit them, the preacher is too pointed, the 
 ushers are too slow, they do not beHeve in 
 missions. They are offended because 
 some of the Bible doctrines stand un- 
 changeably before them with stern judg- 
 ment upon their lives. All these com- 
 plaints are mere excuses for their own 
 superficial lives. Their religion is a mat- 
 ter of feeling, not of character. Feeling 
 is transient; character is permanent. 
 When that which aroused the feelinor is 
 
 o 
 
 gone, it subsides until moved by some new 
 influence. Such religion is to true disci- 
 pleship what a review, or a formal salute, 
 is to a battle. Such hearing of the truth 
 is playing with a divine gift, a mere wast- 
 ing of heavenly, life-giving seed. 
 
 The members of this class are guided 
 more by the judgments of others than by 
 their own consciences. Their religion is 
 a possession, not a being. They have 
 ''got religion" more than they have 
 become religious. Having no root of life 
 in themselves, but only in their surround- 
 ings, they are necessarily temporary Chris- 
 
"SOME FELL UPON A ROCK." "]"] 
 
 tians, so that when a change comes in their 
 surrounding circumstances it changes their 
 whole life. 
 
 Not only do excitable ones belong to 
 this class who receive the seed and so 
 quickly let it die, but many a calm and 
 quiet one, listening thoughtfully Sunday 
 after Sunday to divine truth, receives it 
 only so far as to produce a fair external 
 life. There is no change of heart. His 
 character remains the same. In one class 
 of these shallow hearers, feeling is the 
 only soil into which the seed is received ; 
 while in this class, the intellect is all that 
 is converted. One is heat without light, 
 the heart's feelings running swiftly in a 
 new road without the guidance of the 
 head ; the other is the head-light pointing 
 in the right direction and lighting the way, 
 but not advancing. In both there is soil 
 enough to receive the seed, but not enough 
 to sustain the full and continued growth. 
 Under strong temptation they will fall 
 away. 
 
 Even then the one will strive to retain 
 
 8 
 
yS PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 his pleasure in christian things, and the 
 other will try to hold on to his outward 
 christian life long after the roots are dead. 
 Satan stole the seed of life from the way- 
 side hearer without any trouble, but in 
 this class he has to make some effort to 
 destroy it. He witnesses the rapid growth, 
 and tests it to see whether it be deeply 
 rooted. He sends temptations, doubts, 
 and causes of offense. The heat increases. 
 A parley is held with the tempter. The 
 soul sins, and christian character begins 
 to wither. The more intensely the sun 
 pours his heat upon a plant deeply rooted 
 in good soil, the more rapid and fruitful 
 the growth. The tropics receive the most 
 direct rays of the sun, but are ever the 
 richest in flower and fruit. Temptations 
 are blessings if you endure them, and the 
 true Christian is always strengthened by 
 conflict. Even when he falls before any 
 particular temptation he is humbled, and 
 thus lifted up. (I Kings 21: 29; I Peter 
 5:6; Jas. 4:10.) When successfully 
 resisted, temptations and persecutions 
 
" SOME FELL UPON A ROCK." 79 
 
 Strengthen and develop the christian Hfe 
 by compelling it to strike its roots ever 
 deeper and deeper into the soil. 
 
 If the whole heart be changed, and 
 thoroughly prepared for the growth of 
 christian character, the hot sun of oppo- 
 sition will only compel it to grow more 
 rapidly. But if the roots have but little 
 soil, and the heart's centre be a rock, the 
 growth will be rapid enough, but death 
 will come to one after another of the 
 fruits till all are dead before ripened. The 
 same persecution that sent the true Chris- 
 tians to the stake, sent the shallow ones 
 to reinforce the enemies of Christ. 
 
 Many a man who has been a pronounced 
 Christian and is now as avowed in his 
 infidelity, is an illustration of this part of 
 the parable. He boldly affirms that he 
 has tried Christianity, was sincere in his 
 practice of it, and it is a failure. If he 
 would study his case more closely and 
 logically, he would see that he is proclaim- 
 inor his own shallowness. He failed to 
 
 o 
 
 prepare the soil properly for the new seed 
 
8o PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 of life, and the rock beneath the surface 
 prevented the permanent growth of a 
 christian character. The rapid growth of 
 so divine a plant soon exhausted all the 
 real strength of so shallow a soil, and 
 naught was left It but to die. The seed 
 was God-given and perfect. He, not the 
 seed, was the failure. 
 
 There are many who come to Christ as 
 the young man who had kept all the com- 
 mandments from his youth, but had In his 
 heart a solid rock of avarice which he 
 would not break up even for eternal 
 life. 
 
 The " rock " of selfishness which is in 
 nearly every human heart Is a great obsta- 
 cle to the growth of Christ's kingdom. 
 You offer all to Christ. Do you mean it ? 
 Has the Spirit thoroughly ploughed your 
 heart ? Not merely made tender your 
 feelings, and won the consent of your 
 mind ; but has he thoroughly sub-soiled 
 your heart, so that there Is no rock left ? 
 Are you ready to let your christian char- 
 acter grow everywhere, even if its roots 
 
''SOME FELL UPON A ROCK." 8l 
 
 crush out every pet sin and doubtful 
 pleasure ? 
 
 Foolish vanity stands like a great stone 
 at the door of many hearts, otherwise 
 good and honest. They are proud of 
 what they appear to be ; they boast of 
 what they can do. If the seed takes root 
 in them, it quickly strikes the rock of self, 
 and then through lack of soil their relig- 
 ious life dies. The sun does not kill the 
 plant. It dies only because the roots can- 
 not find nourishment. Temptation and 
 persecution and tribulation do not kill the 
 christian life ; they are only the occasion, 
 not the cause of death. Death comes to 
 a christian life only because there is no 
 soil for its roots, no food for its suste- 
 nance — it is starved to death. 
 
 Notice that the members of this class 
 are all professing Christians, either in the 
 church or out of it. The first class did 
 not even start. This class started joyfully, 
 ran well during the time of excitement, 
 then withdrew and died. Their weakness 
 was radical — a root weakness. The heart, 
 
82 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 the very core of life, instead of being full 
 of divine seed, was entirely hard. The 
 old selfishness had never been properly 
 ploughed up, hence their sorrow for sin 
 was more a matter of pride than of repent- 
 ance. They were sorry for the evil of 
 their lives because of the unpleasant con- 
 sequences they feared, and their humility 
 was a temporary subjugation of the feel- 
 ings, not a heart's lowly sense of unwor- 
 thiness. The great mistake of multitudes 
 within the church, and a larger number of 
 judges without It, lies In their considering 
 Christianity a mere matter of sentiment 
 or feeling. The plain teaching of every 
 part of this parable, the unmistakable 
 declaration of Christ, is that the christian 
 life comes from a divine birth within the 
 soul, which must transform, by gradual but 
 complete renewal, the whole nature of a 
 man. It Is not a possession, or an opinion, 
 or even a belief, but a living, growing 
 character. 
 
THIRD CLASS OF HEARERS. 
 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
 with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first 
 and greatest commandment." Matt. 22: 37. 
 
 " Full seldom doth a man repent, or use 
 
 Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch 
 Of blood and custom wholly out of him, 
 
 And make it clean, and plant himself afresh." 
 
 Tennyson, 
 
 "All virtue and goodness tend to make men powerful in 
 this world; but they who aim at the power have not the 
 virtue. Again, virtue is its own reward, and brings with it 
 the truest and highest pleasures; but they who cultivate it 
 for the pleasure-sake are selfish, not religious, and will never 
 have the pleasure, because they never can have the virtue." 
 
 J. H. Newman. 
 
THIRD CLASS OF HEARERS. 
 
 '' Afid some fell among' thorns, and the 
 thorns sprung 2tp a7id choked them!' 
 
 Here, again, the seed is the same as 
 that which has been scattered upon the 
 path and upon the stony places. This is 
 a part of the^ same field, but the soil is 
 not tramped, and no rocks are there. Yet 
 when the good grain comes up, noxious 
 weeds are growing as thickly as the grain. 
 
 The soil was fertile, and the ploughing 
 had been deep and thorough, but the old 
 roots had not been removed, hence they 
 grew up rapidly with the good seed and 
 choked it They drew the strength from 
 the soil, and shaded the good grain from 
 the sun. 
 
 In the first case the seed did not have 
 any life in the soil. In the second it grew 
 for a short time, then died. Here it 
 retains the name to live, but brings no 
 fruit to perfection. The seed is received 
 
86 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Into rich soil, is covered, and puts forth a 
 good growth, and finding no rocks, it roots 
 deeply. Yet, after a few weeks, if you 
 will walk along the hardened path from 
 which the grain has all been stolen, you 
 will see occasional barren spots, with only 
 the dead stalks remaining^ to mark the 
 rocky place ; and here and there, also, you 
 will notice large patches of grain mingled 
 with thorns, cockle, mustarcl or whatever 
 may be the besetting thorn, or weed, of 
 that particular region. 
 
 The hearer of this class is not stupid, 
 nor hardened as in the first class, nor one 
 of mere feeling, as in the second class. 
 In the first, there was no growing life. In 
 the second, growth near the surface (both 
 above and below), no high reaching fruits 
 above, because there was no deeply-rooted 
 life below. In the third we find the roots 
 striking deeply into fertile soil and a rapid 
 growth upward, but thorns are growing 
 thickly with the grain The birds could 
 not steal the seed, for it was received into 
 the soil and covered. The sun could not 
 
"SOME FELL AMONG THORNS." ^J 
 
 wither it, for the roots found no rock. 
 Why, then, has no fruit come to perfection ? 
 The word has fallen upon lives thor- 
 oughly ploughed, no rocks are there, and 
 no paths are yet worn across the heart. 
 They keep the word through all trials and 
 difficulties, but they keep it with an in- 
 creasing growth of weeds. When the 
 heart was broken up, the old thorn-roots 
 were not killed, and now they are growing 
 more rapidly than the good grain. 
 
 It is another illustration of a heart try- 
 ing to serve both God and mammon, try- 
 ing to be both religious and worldly, with 
 the hope of getting the best out of both, 
 and thus failing to get the good out of 
 either. The heart's powers are summoned 
 in so many directions, and spread over so 
 many conflicting interests, that there is 
 not strength in any one spot to bring fruit 
 to perfection. 
 
 The capability of every soil is fixed. 
 It can furnish just so much food for the 
 life growing from it. If all that life be of 
 good seed, and the soil be properly pre- 
 
SS PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 pared, an abundant harvest will be pro- 
 duced. Every weed or thorn requires 
 food for its growth, and takes away just 
 that much of nourishment from the orood 
 grain. Every life is capable, with proper 
 preparation, of bringing forth an abun- 
 dant harvest of good and holy fruits. But 
 if bad seed gets in and mingles its growth 
 with that which is good, all the good and 
 true will be weakened, and much care is 
 needed that it be not entirely destroyed. 
 Many a man struggles through all his 
 adult life to get rid of thorns whose seed 
 was sown in his childhood. It is not 
 enough simply to prevent evil seeds fall 
 ing within your own or your child's life. 
 The field that is carefully fenced and un- 
 ceasingly guarded will yet grow full of the 
 rankest weeds and thorns, unless thor- 
 oughly cultivated and sown with good 
 seed. If eood seed is not sown with care- 
 ful, continued cultivation in every young 
 heart, evil will soon be seen there in vig- 
 orous growth. The fate of the seed de- 
 pends upon the condition of the soil. If 
 
"some fell among thorns." 89 
 
 properly prepared, all evil seeds and roots 
 removed, and only good seed allowed to 
 grow, an abundant harvest of fullest value 
 will be gathered. 
 
 The Master's interpretation of this 
 verse is : ''He also that received seed 
 among the thorns, is he that heareth the 
 word ; afid the care of this world and the 
 deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and 
 he become th tmfrtiitfitiy 
 
 St. Luke says, 8: 14: '' And that which 
 fell among thorns are they, zuhich, zvhen 
 they have heard, go forth, and are choked 
 with cares afid pleasures of this life, and 
 bring no frtiit to perfection^ 
 
 ''Are chokedr As if smothered by the 
 deadly gases that deepen sleep and stop 
 the life. Gradually these evil weeds crowd 
 out the good seed, robbing it of air and 
 light. Evil never succeeds in conquering 
 life by a sudden assault, but always grad- 
 ually, and usually without being noticed. 
 First dulling the senses, then smothering 
 the life. 
 
 The cares and riches and pleasures of 
 
90 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 this life, in contrast with care for heavenly 
 things ; striving for worldly success as 
 contrasted with striving for eternal life. 
 The cares that threaten, and those that 
 flatter ; the poverty that oppresses, and 
 the riches that unduly elate. The two 
 extremes are touched in order to coverall 
 the wide interval between them. 
 
 This bringing of the seed of truth to a 
 perfect harvest is everyone's business, and 
 the rich are no more exempt from its 
 duties and dangers than the poor. The 
 poor man's toil and fear of days when 
 work cannot be found ; the struegle against 
 poverty, or the appearance of need ; the 
 wife's unremitting household cares, and 
 anxious fears for children growing daily 
 into greater dangers ; the unrelaxing, bur- 
 densome effort to give the appearance of 
 greater wealth, are as dangerously deceit- 
 ful as the rich man's care and anxiety. 
 Yet the hard pressure of poverty is not 
 more dangerous to spiritual life than the 
 flattery of heartless parasites, or the false 
 trust the rich man is ever tempted to put 
 
''SOME FELL AMONG THORNS." 9 1 
 
 In the power of his wealth, or the luxuries 
 and pleasures which riches too often pour 
 In upon the soul to enfeeble and destroy 
 It. These and other cares of this life 
 weaken and choke the growth of the 
 Chrlst-llfe In many a fertile heart. They 
 exhaust the heart's best affections and 
 overshadow the good seed with a rank, 
 poisonous growth. They are robbers, for 
 there are robbers everywhere on earth, 
 and the bad will steal from the good, and 
 might will trample down right wherever 
 opportunity Is found. 
 
 The commonest tramp of an evil care, 
 or passion, or pleasure, Is often permitted 
 to oret Into the most secret chambers of 
 our lives to steal away our most sacred 
 treasures, and murder our most holy affec- 
 tions. And how easily and continually do 
 we allow all manner of trifling annoyances 
 and anxieties to commit petty larceny on 
 our christian graces. The commonest 
 household cares are sometimes allowed so 
 to engross us that the good seed Is crowded 
 out of our lives. Every species of thorn- 
 
92 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 roots, all forms of inordinate love of 
 things good in themselves, every wrong 
 use of even right things, every variety of 
 intemperance,, all are ready with open 
 hand to choke the life out of the eood 
 seed in our hearts. 
 
 All these things, cares, riches and pleas- 
 ures, are entirely innocent in themselves, 
 but they become enemies of all true life 
 when they take the place of better things. 
 We all have '' cares of this life," and it 
 would be a sad thing for our best life if we 
 were without them ; but is there no danger 
 of having our life so absorbed in these cares 
 that we have no room for anything better ? 
 When your work is greater than yourself, 
 you are doomed. "What great things he 
 has accomplished ! " Wonders of achieve- 
 ment ! But what of himself ? Ishiswhole 
 life expressed in these works ? They will 
 soon die. Has any man a right so to 
 absorb himself In the cares of this life as 
 to have no time for discharging his special 
 obligations to God ? 
 
<< 
 
 SOME FELL AMONG THORNS." 93 
 
 i( 
 
 DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES. 
 
 n 
 
 Wealth wields in all human society an 
 enormous power for good or evil. Under 
 the control of a lowly Christian heart, 
 riches may be a blessing of rarest quality ; 
 but under the guidance of selfish ambition, 
 they are sure to prove a curse even to their 
 possessor. In Itself wealth Is a blessing 
 to be received with deep thankfulness, for 
 In Its proper use God Is glorified and the 
 world made better ; the deceltfulness of 
 riches is a curse to rich and poor alike. 
 The poor man may be as miserly with 
 his penny as the rich man with his dol- 
 lar. Avarice may be the thorn-root in the 
 poor as In the rich, and it will bring forth 
 as evil a harvest In the one as In the other. 
 Riches promise much of comfort, ease 
 and power ; but these do not come with- 
 out an accompaniment of larger responsi- 
 bilities and greater dangers, and very fre 
 quently the promise Is altogether deceptive. 
 How often the appearances deceive one as 
 to the reality ! The rich fool in the para- 
 
94 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 ble rejoiced in the accumulation of goods 
 for many years, his wealth was the whole 
 of his life, its acquisition and its care 
 absorbed him ; but the command of Jeho- 
 vah, "this night they require of thee thy 
 soul," showed how deceptive his wealth 
 had been. The getting of wealth often 
 becomes a moral disease, corrupting infi- 
 nitely more valuable things in the life. 
 With all their power to bless, riches are as 
 likely to curse. 
 
 "They that are minded to be rich fall 
 into a temptation and a snare and many 
 foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown 
 men in destruction and perdition." Their 
 minds absorbed in getting money, they 
 lose sight of higher values, and often 
 altogether lose the ability to secure any- 
 thing but earthly values. Instead of ease 
 and quietness, how often wealth breeds 
 avarice and unholy ambitions working by 
 unholy methods. The excessive haste to 
 be rich leads to methods in business which 
 rapidly destroy permanent moral wealth in 
 order to increase temporary material riches. 
 
a 
 
 SOME FELL AMONG THORNS." 95 
 
 Riches are thorns when they rob us of 
 simplicity. Many a man, becoming sud^ 
 denly rich, has lost his greatest charm of 
 character, and won only the hollow flattery 
 of those who secretly smile at the assump- 
 tion of the man they pretend to respect. 
 Riches are ever a temptation to prodigal- 
 ity, luxury, and fuller service of mammon. 
 Drawn out of the sight of the woes and 
 needs of others, there is continual danger 
 of a rapid development of gross selfish- 
 ness, and a loss of sympathy with the poor 
 and the weak. Many have inherited 
 great possessions, only to be cursed with 
 poverty of heart. 
 
 Yet no one is more deserving of honor 
 than the rich man who has kept himself 
 unspotted from the stains of undue haste 
 and doubtful methods in acquiring, and 
 from pride and selfishness In possessing. 
 He is worthy of all respect who can receive 
 unharmed the false homage and vile flat- 
 tery so generally accorded to money. 
 One of the humblest Christians I have 
 ever known was a man accounted rich. 
 
96 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 His memory is blessed. Those who knew 
 him best remember and love him for his 
 goodness, not his wealth. The world is 
 full of examples where wealth has proved 
 a blessed minister to the christian life. 
 Thus while riches are often thorns lacer- 
 ating human hearts, they may be good 
 seed, producing a hundred fold in the 
 heart of him who possesses, and in the 
 lives of those whom he blesses. 
 
 But not only are those who become rich 
 in danger of losing their simplicity, but 
 there is even greater danger among those 
 who remain poor. How often the sight 
 of wealth breeds envy, jealousy, and pain- 
 ful discontent. All these are thorns, and 
 of the most dangerous kind. To the rich 
 and to the poor, riches are dangerous 
 chiefly in their deceitfulness, promising so 
 much more than they can give. We give 
 up simplicity because they promise greater 
 comfort in luxury, and greater power in 
 display. And how frequently our hearts 
 are deceived by the promise that as soon 
 as we are rich we will do great good with 
 
SOME FELL AMONG THORNS. 97 
 
 our money, and thus are tempted to such 
 absorbino- haste to be rich that we lose the 
 very capabihty to fulfill the promise. Gen- 
 erous giving as we are receiving is the 
 only sure way of giving with God's bless- 
 ing; it may be the only way to avoid dying 
 " wickedly rich." 
 
 Riches are thorns when they steal our 
 love from Christ. In days when we had 
 but little, our heart's affections poured in 
 concentrated stream to Christ. For Him 
 we lived. In His presence we thought, 
 and loved, and worked. Riches came and 
 gave us other thoughts and aims. We 
 felt the possession of a new power, and 
 with this Increase of Influence, our pride 
 grew. We seldom stopped to think how 
 temporary that power was. The love of 
 self began to crowd out the -dove of 
 Christ. That which lifted us heavenward 
 gave place gradually to that which absorbed 
 
 us in thincrs that soon must die. Deceived 
 <_> 
 
 by this new power, we no longer felt the 
 need of divine power. Cheated by the 
 glitter of this new Idol, we lost our devo- 
 
98 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 tlon to God. The sensuous choked out 
 the spiritual, until the heart's fertility was 
 all exhausted to support a growth of weeds 
 that shall at last prevent any of the truth 
 coming to perfection. 
 
 Riches are thorns when they lead to 
 pride. Counting our money as part of 
 ourselves, we receive the respect paid to 
 our dollars as if it were reverence paid to 
 our character. A true man will receive 
 respect and honor, whether he be rich or 
 poor. A true man will render respect to 
 nobleness of character wherever he find 
 it, whether amid riches or poverty. It is 
 not wealth that wins for you the compan- 
 ionship and confidence of honest men. 
 The man you may call friend is the 
 one who admires and honors your truth- 
 fulness, 5^our uprightness, your christian 
 strength of character. Lose your wealth, 
 and he will still respect and help you, if 
 you still prove yourself a man. Yet how 
 many are proud less of what they are than 
 of what thev have. 
 
 The eager rush for wealth would lead 
 
SOME FELL AMONG THORNS. 99 
 
 one to suppose that it constituted the very 
 hiorhest aim of life. With a vast number 
 everything is sacrificed for money. The 
 best years of Hfe are given to its acquisi- 
 tion. Character is too often put in jeop- 
 ardy by doubtful ventures. Opportunity 
 of self-culture in what is highest and best 
 is neglected for closer pursuit of riches. By 
 the eagerness of older gold-seekers youth 
 is tempted to turn aside from truth and 
 the slower methods of honest accumula- 
 tion, to whatever will most quickly fill the 
 coffers. Wealth may be honestly gath- 
 ered and righteously enjoyed, and the 
 truest Christian may reap largely of this 
 world's harvest, and by every acquisition 
 illustrate pure christian principle ; but he 
 must be ever mindful of the command 
 that while he is ** diligent in business," 
 he must also be '' fervent in spirit," with 
 Godly service. 
 
 ''Pleasures of this life^ Here all are 
 alike, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, 
 for these are the common weeds. They 
 ruin multitudes where riches ruin scores. 
 
lOO PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Do you remember that young man so 
 active in things good and holy, now so 
 useless to his Master ? You know the 
 cause of his failure. He received the 
 word, and it grew rapidly for a time, prom- 
 ising a large harvest. But his Christianity 
 stood in the way of his pleasures, so he 
 crowded out the good seed with a growth 
 of evil weeds. Sinful pleasures kill more 
 souls, and mar the beauty of more chris- 
 tian lives, than all other thorns combined. 
 
 Sometimes people are foolish enough 
 to attempt to stifle sorrow by the ''pleas- 
 ures of this life," forgetting that at the 
 same time they may be stifling a nobler 
 life. How much better to purify sorrow 
 with fervent trust in God, making our 
 very affliction " work out for us a far more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 
 
 There is none too much pleasure in this 
 life, but there is a higher use of life than 
 pleasure-seeking, a use that has peace and 
 pleasure in its very nature. Yet how 
 many men and women come gradually to 
 know no higher end of life than ''to enjoy 
 
"some fell among thorns." ioi 
 
 themselves," meaning to enjoy everything 
 but themselves. Do they never look up 
 from their self-indulgence with a wish for 
 something richer and nobler? Can they 
 be content to live so valueless a life ? All 
 true pleasures have their proper place in 
 the christian life, but out of their own 
 place they are in the way of better things. 
 With the mere pleasure-seeker, inclination 
 controls duty, hence such a man never 
 knows the highest pleasure of christian 
 labor — duty performed for the honor of 
 Christ and the good of other souls. 
 
 *'LUST OF OTHER THINGS." 
 
 Consuming love for any other thing 
 will have the same effect upon the good 
 seed that the "cares of the world" and 
 the " deceitfulness of riches" have. It 
 will not permit the fruit to come to perfec- 
 tion. Such unhallowed love is the root 
 of envy and jealousy. It hears with sor- 
 row of another's prosperity and success, 
 and never wishes good to another without 
 "3^ proviso, or a protest of the heart. 
 
 10 
 
I02 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Political ambition, as too generally 
 exhibited, has a place under this head. 
 Politics may be, and ought to be, honor- 
 able. The politician whose aim is ever 
 to lift his country to its highest possible 
 life, to seek out the needs and possibilities 
 of man's nature and interpret them in 
 laws for his help, deserves high honor. In 
 such labor he is a true minister of God. 
 But when he is a mere seeker of place 
 and individual profit, he is a thorn of the 
 very worst kind. Christianity is a much 
 needed ingredient in our present politics. 
 
 The trouble with this third class of 
 hearers is not only in the preparation of 
 the soil, but also in the later cultivation. 
 The weeds not only exhaust the soil of 
 its fertility, but grow^ up and become a 
 screen between the good seed and the sun. 
 What a false view of the Sun of Right- 
 eousness we often get by looking through 
 the shadows of our own weed-grown lives! 
 And sometimes these evil weeds of our 
 hearts grow so thickly and so large that 
 they entirely exclude from our lives the 
 
''SOME FELL AMONG THORNS. IO3 
 
 great "light of the world." Their begin- 
 nings are almost imperceptible, but their 
 growth is rapid and their fruit deadly. 
 Either we must destroy the weeds, or the 
 weeds will ruin us. In both Peter and 
 Judas there were many thorn-roots; one 
 destroyed them, the other was destroyed 
 by them. 
 
 While the good seed is getting a fair 
 start, a wise farmer will go over his field 
 with care to destroy all the weeds and 
 thorns likely to hinder the growth of the 
 good grain. So will a wise hearer of 
 the word watch against the evil weeds and 
 thorns that spring up in our lives so easily 
 and so rapidly. 
 
 As we approach from barrenness to the 
 full harvest, we notice that the causes of 
 failure eet nearer and nearer to the heart, 
 and are more and more subtle in their char- 
 acter. In the first class, the causes of fail- 
 ure were entirely outward — feet and birds. 
 In the second, both outward and inward — 
 sun and rock. Here the causes are entire- 
 ly inward — cares, deceitfulness, pleasures. 
 
I04 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Outward opposition is overcome, but 
 inward temptation kills them. 
 
 The wi-ong and danger come from allow- 
 ing these weeds to grow in the heart as if 
 they were of as good quality as the true 
 seed, as if mammon were as good as God. 
 The only proper place for thorns is as a 
 protecting hedge around the field, and the 
 only proper place for cares is on the bor- 
 ders of life as ministers of protection to 
 the more valuable things within. 
 
 When you remove a thorn or weed, be 
 sure to sow in its place some good seed. 
 If a large weed in the field is pulled up, it 
 leaves a bare spot, but with loosened soil. 
 If good grain be immediately scattered, 
 a good growth will be produced. If the 
 spot be left to itself, it will either become 
 hard, so that no seed can take root, or 
 evil seeds floating in the air will take pos- 
 session. Be careful. Christian, how you 
 cultivate your heart's soil and the divine 
 seed which the husbandman has planted 
 there, lest when he gathers the completed 
 harvest of your earthly life, it be for him 
 
"SOME FELL AMONG THORNS." IO5 
 
 only a measure of weeds, a crown of 
 thorns. 
 
 But who is free from thorns? Emphat- 
 ically, no one. But the deeper question 
 is, what is your attitude towards them ? 
 One of neglect, one of favor, or one of 
 deadly hostility? '' Break up your fallow 
 ground, and sow not among thorns." 
 
 The fundamental weakness of this class 
 of hearers is that they allow good and 
 evil seeds an equal place in their lives, and 
 thus they are divided against themselves. 
 Their whole life is a conflict. The two 
 crops are struggling for possession of the 
 life, and the end is almost certain to be 
 the death of the good, for the good 
 requires careful cultivation, while the evil 
 grows without any care. 
 
" Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the 
 issues of life." Frov. 4: 23. 
 
 " Create in me a clean heart, O God ; 
 And renew a right spirit within me." 
 
 Ps. 51: 10. 
 
 *' Among the various undertakings of men, can there be 
 mentioned one more important, can there be conceived one 
 more sublime, than an intention to form the mind anew after 
 the Divine Image?" 
 
 Coleridge, 
 
FOURTH CLASS OF HEARERS. 
 
 ''And other fell on good ground, and did 
 yield frtcit that sprang 7tp and i7icr eased ; 
 and brought forth, some thirty, and some 
 sixty, and some an htmdred!' 
 
 Frultfulness is the mark of difference 
 between this class and all the others. Each 
 of the others bears some resemblance to 
 this class, as error invariably carries a 
 front mask resembling the truth, and it is 
 this surface-appearance of truth that gives 
 to every system of error its time of suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Like the first class of hearers, this fourth 
 class heard ; but unlike them, and like the 
 second class, they received the word. They 
 heeded it, and gladly made it a part 
 of their lives. Yet, unlike the second, 
 and like the third, there was no rock, 
 but abundance of rich soil. Instead of a 
 shallow loosening of the feelings, the 
 whole nature was ploughed, as in the third 
 
I08 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 class. Unlike the third class, however, 
 the old roots were all removed, and dan- 
 gerous evil seeds floating in the air from 
 neighboring fields of weeds were care- 
 fully avoided or destroyed. Continually 
 the heart-field was examined. Evil weeds 
 were pulled up by the roots, and good 
 seed sown in the loosened spots ; or, if the 
 evil was not entirely uprooted, the soul 
 stood in an attitude of opposition to every 
 evil thing, while always favoring the good. 
 In every case of failure, the fault lay not 
 with the sower or the seed, not with the 
 sun or the rain, but with the soil. There is 
 an advance throughout the parable, which 
 culminates with this class of fruit-bearers. 
 The members of the first class hear, but 
 do not receive the truth into their lives. 
 Those of the second class hear and gladly 
 cover the new seed with the shallow sur- 
 face covering of their emotions, but there 
 Is no change of character; the heart is 
 only stirred, not changed, hence they 
 quickly die. Those of the third class 
 hear, cover the seed deeply, have no rocks 
 
"some fell into good ground." 109 
 
 In the way, and really begin a new life, 
 but they allow so many other roots and 
 seeds to grow with the pure seed that 
 they destroy its roots with thirst, and its 
 fruits with thorns and evil shadows. In 
 this fourth class, the word is heard, received 
 into the life's best soil, and bears full fruit. 
 Hard paths are ploughed up, rocks are 
 crushed, and evil seeds and roots of thorns 
 are killed and thrown away. The new 
 life permeates with regenerating power 
 the entire inner nature, while its fruits 
 make beautiful and valuable the whole 
 life of thought and deed. The life of 
 such a hearer is not his old life, but the 
 life of Christ growing in him, and causing 
 him to oTow into the likeness of his 
 Lord. 
 
 In the wayside hearer there was no life. 
 In the rocky-hearted hearer the seed was 
 only scratched into the surface and had 
 but a temporary life. In the thorny hearer 
 the truth rooted deeply and grew almost 
 to harvest time, but the thorns and weeds 
 prevented the fruit ripening. In this class 
 
no PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 the seed falls, the roots tap every spring 
 of the heart, its tendrils feel their way 
 through every affection, and its foliage 
 and fruit may be seen in holy thoughts, 
 in words of love, in deeds of righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 Perhaps the most serious difference 
 between the third and fourth classes is 
 that in the fourth the life is united, while 
 in the third the life is trying to serve both 
 God and mammon, trying to raise full 
 crops of both grain and thorns. In the 
 one, all the resources of the life are con- 
 centrated to reach one aim. No division 
 is allowed. ** But one thine I do, forget- 
 ting those things which are behind, and 
 stretching forward (eagerly) to the things 
 which are before, I press on toward the 
 goal unto the prize of the high calling of 
 God in Christ Jesus." In the other class 
 the '' house is divided against itself." 
 The good seed springs up and grows 
 rapidly in one set of conditions, while 
 in another the good is hindered, and the 
 evil grows with great rapidity. So a man 
 
''SOME FELL INTO GOOD GROUND." Ill 
 
 of the third class may be very religious 
 one day, surrounded by favoring condi- 
 tions, and very wicked the next day 
 because surrounded by temptations. His 
 life is divided. Climbing to-day and falling 
 to-morrow — making no advance towards 
 " bringing fruit to perfection." 
 
 Even In the fourth class the full fruit- 
 bearing is not seen immediately after the 
 reception of the word. The seed must 
 have a sowing, a summer growth, and an 
 autumnal ripeness for gathering. 
 
 Let us stand in the Autumn by the 
 reapers as they gather up the harvest. 
 
 The hard path is still there. The bare 
 spot and the thorny place are easily found. 
 See the Master look with pity upon the 
 barren, hardened path, and with sorrow 
 upon the dead stalks marking the rocky 
 spot ! With what grief of rejected love 
 does He search among the weeds and 
 thorns for any straggling mark of life ! Is 
 any gasping, smothered life striving to get 
 the attention of the Lord of the harvest ? 
 ' TIs only a leaf, or a shriveled, unripe 
 
112 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 grain. No fruit brought to perfection. 
 But with what pleasure He looks upon the 
 bowed heads, lowly with their full harvest 
 of perfect grain. Some offer Him a hun- 
 dred fold, no bare spots, no weeds, no 
 ripened thorns ; but a harvest as full and 
 perfect as the life's soil well ploughed and 
 cultivated could produce. Some sixty 
 fold, no weeds or thorns are there; but it 
 may be that before they were rooted out 
 they weakened the soil, and in their place 
 the grain is yet green in harvest time. 
 Some thirty fold, no thorns and a good 
 harvest; but it may be that good seed was 
 not sown while the ground was yet loose 
 after pulling up the weeds and thorns, or 
 the thorns were removed from the life too 
 late for the good seed to grow to a har- 
 vest. 
 
 ''But that which was sown upon good 
 ground is he that hcareth a7id understand- 
 ethy ''But that on good groimd are they, 
 which in an honest and good heart, havi^ig 
 heard the word, keep, and bring forth 
 fruit with patience.'' 
 
"some fell into good c;round/' i 13 
 
 It is an Jumest soil. It Is all through to 
 any depth just what it appears to be on 
 the surface, clean and rich. Not only so, 
 but It Is a crood soil, free from all bad roots 
 and seeds, and perfectly adapted to receive 
 the good seed and produce a harvest. 
 The soil is not eood In the sense that the 
 harvest Is all ready for the granary. The 
 heart Is not good In the sense that it is 
 already righteous, already holy, already 
 perfect and prepared for the heavenly 
 garner. A good heart Is one free from 
 all deception. An honest heart is a sin- 
 cere one. Sincerity, however, Is not all 
 that Is necessary, Yet how often we hear 
 men say, '' It makes little difference what 
 a man believes If he is only sincere." 
 Paul of Tarsus was sincere when he was 
 making havoc of the church; he after- 
 wards proved that his early life was all 
 wrong. The Chinaman worshiping Joss 
 is sincere, yet who is foolish enough to 
 say he is right? The traitor may believe 
 his treason right, yet the government puts 
 
 him to death notwithstanding his slncer- 
 11 
 
114 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 ity. A man going southward may sin- 
 cerely believe that he is on the right road 
 to a city that is really in the north, but 
 will he ever reach his destination unless 
 he forsake his old way, and travel in the 
 opposite direction ? 
 
 ''An honest and good (noble) heai^f' is 
 necessary. Not only a sincere one, but 
 one ready and seeking for the truth. In 
 such a heart the truth finds recognition 
 and a home. The soil is fully ready for 
 it, and the truth is seeking just such a soil. 
 The Master does not say there are no 
 evil roots or thorns growing there. By 
 naming different measures He implies 
 that in part of the soil there was some- 
 thing that reduced the measure from a 
 hundred fold to sixty, and even to thirty. 
 Yet all the soil was honest and good. 
 There may have been thorns in the heart, 
 but there was an honest and sincere effort 
 to eradicate them. Every heart, though 
 capable of producing a hundred fold of 
 the good seed, has in it some roots of 
 evil. 
 
"SOME FELL INTO GOOD GROUND." II5 
 
 The fertile plain of Babylon, Herodotus 
 tells us, commonly produced two hundred 
 fold. Yet there must have been even in 
 that fertile land some unfruitful spots, and 
 here or there a weed or thorn. 
 
 The purest lives are marred by some 
 sins. The most fertile heart has in it 
 some unfruitful spots. Not all the chris- 
 tian graces exhibit a hundred fold increase 
 in any one life. Yet an honest and good 
 heart is ever ready, with eager desire and 
 strong purpose, to receive the seed, and 
 to give it every opportunity to grow. 
 Goodness of heart consists in readiness to 
 receive eood seed and refuse evil. An 
 honest and good heart always has a sin- 
 cere love for the truth, and a fear and 
 hatred of sin. 
 
 We are commanded, not to produce a 
 certain measure of fruitfulness, but to 
 bring to perfection the natural harvest of 
 truth. Our work is definite and clear. 
 Not to control the issues of life, but, so 
 far as in us lies, to cleanse and to keep 
 clean the heart-fountain, whence they flow. 
 
Il6 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 It is not In the measure, but only in the 
 kind that we are commanded to bring 
 forth perfection. Three measures of 
 quantity are given in the parable, yet all 
 are called good. The scale of quantity is 
 the capacity of our nature. The standard 
 of quality is similitude with God. The 
 one is as variable as human character. 
 The other as immutable as the Divine 
 Nature. The end is ever the same; pro- 
 gress towards it is in ever varying speed. 
 The kind of the harvest is fixed by the 
 nature of the seed — divine seed must pro- 
 duce divine harvest. And since the 
 quality of the seed and the harvest is fixed 
 by the Divine Husbandman, it is there- 
 fore perfect. In quantity, both are depend- 
 ent upon the heart-soil's capacity to receive 
 and produce. But we have the comfort 
 of the thought that the seed, whose very 
 nature is to live and put forth energy, will 
 surely produce its harvest to the utmost 
 capacity of every life into which it falls. 
 '' Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for 
 
"SOME FELL INTO GOOD GROUND. I I 7 
 
 out of it are the issues of life," — as the 
 grain springs out of a fertile field. 
 
 It is possible for a single hearer of the 
 gospel to represent all these four classes 
 in succession, passing from the lowest to 
 the highest in their order. But if he 
 belong to this fourth class, his character 
 will not be a building without plan, a wing 
 added here, a shed there, as the time-need 
 is; but the whole building will be ''fitly 
 framed together " and growing toward a 
 perfect plan, the attainment of a God- 
 given ideal. This life and the life of 
 Heaven will not be simply linked together ; 
 but both will be built of the same mate- 
 rial, woven with the same warp and woof. 
 Both will be the ever-ripening, ever-in- 
 creasinor harvest from the one divine sow- 
 ing. Death to such a life will be but the 
 throwing down of the scaffold from the 
 completed character-building, the removal 
 of the debris for the entrance of the heav- 
 enly furniture. It will be but taking the 
 web of life from the loom of earthly strug- 
 gle, and brushing off the broken threads 
 
Il8 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 and mortal dust. It will be but the 
 transplanting of a divine plant, from the 
 exhausted earth-soil, to the broader field 
 of an eternal world. If the two soils 
 have a close resemblance, there will be 
 no shock in the transplanting. But if 
 there be nothing in the earthly soil like 
 the soil of Heaven, how can the life 
 which has grown entirely out of the 
 one get any nourishment from a soil of 
 such opposite character as the other? 
 Heavenly graces grow in earthly soil, but 
 all things earthly die in every attempt to 
 carry them into Heaven. 
 
 This character seed produces no selfish 
 harvest. The bloom and the fragrance 
 and the ever-ripening fruit cannot be lim- 
 ited to self. Others will enter within the 
 blessing. '' For we are laborers together 
 with God ; ye are God's husbandry ; God's 
 building." And every laborer with God 
 is moved by the spirit of Him who came 
 "not to be ministered unto, but to minis- 
 ter." Holy is the fragrance of some of 
 these earnest, laborious lives, and many 
 
. " SOME FELL INTO GOOD GROUND." I 1 9 
 
 are the golden grains of blessing that fall 
 from them into our weaker and less fruit- 
 ful hearts. They are *' God's building," 
 in whose shade we rest. " God's husband- 
 ry," where we gather fruit for refreshment 
 in our weakness and our need. And their 
 number is increasing. The husbandman 
 is ever improving his estate, ploughing 
 up trodden paths, crushing hard rocks, 
 rootine out weeds and thorns, and scatter- 
 ing the perfect seed of His eternal king- 
 dom. Thus that kingdom is ever enlarging. 
 All the causes necessary for its complete 
 establishment and success are at work. 
 The seed is more and more widely sown 
 as the years go by. Richer and more 
 abundant fruits are being produced by the 
 increasing care of heart-culture. Men are 
 gradually perceiving that Christ-likeness 
 is the only true ideal of life, and that 
 grand ideal is more and more prominently 
 cominof into contrast with lower aims, and 
 thus dwarfing them still more. The 
 omnipotent and all-wise God is on the 
 throne, and His eternal purpose is to per- 
 
I20 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 feet all things in Christ, and through Him 
 to establish the kingdom of heaven as the 
 universal and everlasting kingdom. 
 
 The Christian need have no hesitation 
 about scattering the seed, for the word of 
 God has gone forth that it shall not return 
 unto him void. ''Sow beside all waters," 
 is the urorent command of the Lord of the 
 harvest, and implicit obedience is only 
 faithfulness to duty. Christian, your own 
 life depends, in a very large degree, upon 
 your faithfulness in sowing seed for growth 
 in other lives. And yet while you sow, 
 remember the influence of your own life 
 in winning for the seed a good reception. 
 Sow as the Master sowed, with longing 
 love and ceaseless prayer. 
 
 Remember that your life is more the 
 exposition of your heart than of your 
 head. You may think the right and live 
 the wrong. You may think the truth, 
 and understand its deepest statements, 
 and yet live in profoundest error and evil. 
 But what your heart loves profoundly, 
 supremely, will, sooner or later, be 
 
"SOME FELL INTO GOOD GROUND." 121 
 
 expressed in your life, and the world 
 believes when the life speaks. Conver- 
 sion is not change of habit, but change of 
 the very principle of life. And change of 
 principle is not change of opinion, but of 
 loves and motives that come from the 
 heart, not the head. 
 
 And as ye go forth to sow, remember 
 the words of the Master, *' Lo, I am with 
 you alway, even to the end of the world." 
 Be not disheartened with the failures in 
 the three classes, for here and there a 
 good and honest heart will receive the 
 word and multiply your sowing sixty or a 
 hundred fold. 
 
" Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the 
 issues of life." Prov. 4: 23. 
 
 " In order to learn, we must attend; in order to profit by 
 what we have learnt, we must think — that is, reflect. He 
 only thinks who reflects " " It is worthy of special obser- 
 vation, that the Scriptures are distinguished from all other 
 writings pretending to inspiration, by the strong and frequent 
 recommendations to knowledge, and a spirit of inquiry. 
 Without reflection, it is evident that neither the one can be 
 acquired nor the other exercised." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
** Take heed zuhat ye hear.'' (Mark 
 4: 24.^ " Take heed how ye hearT (Luke 
 8: 18.) 
 
 This Is a very Important admonition, 
 yet we pay very little attention to It. 
 How many of us are -watchful to hear 
 only that which will help us to a nobler 
 life? *' What ye hearT Words of wis- 
 dom and words of sinful folly are ever 
 competing for our attention, trying to 
 reach the mind, not only through the ear, 
 but through the eye from printed page 
 and picture. In a thousand forms of 
 appeal trying to get our attention, and 
 influence our life. 
 
 What a motley group of petitioners 
 they are that plead for a hearing! Some 
 coming laden with gold and all manner of 
 wholesome spices, royal gifts to enrich us 
 with things that are good and pure ; others 
 bringing deadly poisons with w^hlch to 
 steal away our senses while they rob us of* 
 
124 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 the true wealth and beauty of our lives. 
 Some come to teach us a higher harmony 
 of life, to attune us to full accord with 
 God's most holy will ; others would woo 
 us to sin by strains that can at last leave 
 us only with discordant sorrow and 
 remorse. 
 
 Many a soul has received its first stain 
 in some heedless hearing, when every 
 door of approach to the mind should have 
 been carefully guarded, and every word that 
 approached the ear, and every page that 
 came before the eye, compelled to pass a 
 challenging scrutiny as to their value and 
 their purpose. Many a child is stained and 
 weakened for life by the careless permis- 
 sion of parents and teachers. They do 
 not wish it, but they do not guard against it. 
 
 Heedlessness as to what we hear is our 
 first danger, but the admonition concern- 
 ing it is not more important than the sec- 
 ond, '* Take heed how ye hear." We are 
 not only heedless as to what we hear, 
 but we are careless how we hear what 
 ' is good. Many a follower of Christ, 
 
''TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR." 1 25 
 
 who is weak to-day, might soon grow 
 strong by careful attention to this com- 
 mand, and all of us would find it whole- 
 some food for faith and peace. 
 
 The parable indicates at least three con- 
 ditions of profitable hearing of the word 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 First, — A tte7ition. 
 
 The reason why the wayside hearer 
 
 received no benefit from the truth was 
 
 because he did not understand it. And 
 
 he did not understand it because, when he 
 
 heard the word, he did not attend to it, 
 
 did not study it, did not concentrate the 
 
 powers of his mind upon it to know its 
 
 full meaning. Inattention was the cause 
 
 of death to all the truth that had fallen 
 
 upon his heart. " Take heed how ye 
 
 hear,' is an all-important injunction, for 
 
 careless hearing, cynical hearing, attention 
 
 to the form instead of the truth, receiving 
 
 the husk instead of the seed, is the secret 
 
 of a vast deal of the church's weakness. 
 
 Attention is more than a mere hearing of 
 
 words ; it is attending to them in order 
 12 
 
126 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 ^ to know their full meaning, their purpose 
 in relation to self, and their fullest value 
 to the life. 
 
 ** Having heard, keep, and bring forth 
 fruit with patience!' ''Keep/'' A stu- 
 dent hearing a valuable truth says, '' I 
 must keep that." How does he do it ? By 
 concentrating his attention upon it until 
 it becomes a part of himself. He looks 
 at it on every side to see all its phases. 
 He does not simply think how valuable 
 or how beautiful it is, but absorbs it into 
 his very life. 
 
 But more than attention is necessary to 
 profitable hearing. The second class of 
 hearers gave full attention to the '' word," 
 and received it into willing hearts ; but it 
 brought forth no fruit in the harvest 
 because there was no true preparation of 
 the heart for hearing the gospel ; it was a 
 mere surface reception. 
 
 Therefore, second, ^r^/^ra/^*^;^ is neces- 
 sary. 
 
 The second class died because the prep- 
 aration was not thorough. A hearer may 
 
"TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR." I27 
 
 pay close attention to the truth, fully 
 assenting to it in his mind, and gladly 
 receiving it in his heart ; but if there is 
 not a complete breaking up of the old 
 rock of sin, the new life — which requires 
 for its full growth all of a man's nature — 
 will die before the summer of his life is 
 over. Not only must the ploughing be 
 deep and thorough, but the old roots of 
 sin must be pulled up and thrown away 
 from the life. Sorrow for sin must grow 
 into a hatred of sin and a righteous fear of 
 it. The true loves of the heart must be 
 purified and strengthened by companion- 
 ship with divine love, while unholy affec- 
 tions must be cut off from all congenial 
 companionship, and fought against until 
 dead or completely in subjection to a will 
 that is allied only with pure affections. 
 
 But something more is necessary than 
 attention and preparation. The third 
 class of hearers both gave attention and 
 received the word into soil prepared for 
 its growth, but there was no fruit brought 
 to perfection. 
 
128 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 Third, — Cultivation is necessary. 
 
 An honest and good hearer of the 
 word is in earnest. With him, hearing 
 is an important matter. Not to beguile 
 an hour, or fulfill a duty, but to enlarge 
 and enrich his life. It is a part of life's 
 supremest question, out-ranking in impor- 
 tance every other interest, whether of busi- 
 ness, of family, or of reputation. To him, 
 everything else is secondary to his perma- 
 nent, eternal life. Hence he not only lis- 
 tens earnestly, honestly and patiently ; but 
 is a *' sincere doer of the word." To him, 
 religion is not merely opinion, or theory, 
 or knowledge ; it is life eternal, and there- 
 fore he cannot rest content with merely 
 ploughing and sowing, but must cultivate 
 with all skill and care that the harvest 
 may be abundant and of the very best 
 quality. 
 
 Whatever care may be taken in the 
 preparation of the soil and in the sowing, 
 all the weeds and thorn-roots cannot be 
 entirely removed before the seed begins 
 to grow, and with the good growth the 
 
"TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR." 1 29 
 
 evil that is left in the soil will surely 
 spring up. If the husbandman is watch- 
 ful and industrious, these evil roots may 
 be removed before doing much harm ; but 
 while life lasts there is danger. Old sins 
 which you thought were entirely eradi- 
 cated long ago, may spring up again to 
 choke your better life. Therefore the 
 Master bids all to "watch and pray" 
 against every evil thing. There is 
 especial value in this third injunction, for 
 whatever we love becomes a theme of our 
 thoughts, enters into the formation of our 
 ideal of life, and modifies all our plans. 
 Every object of our love draws us towards 
 its own likeness in proportion to the 
 strength of the affection. The only way 
 to avoid becoming like what we love is to 
 sacrifice the affection. Christ is Jehovah's 
 ideal for all our race. We reach the 
 highest possible attainment in life when 
 we arrive at the full stature of Christ. If 
 we love Him supremely, love Him for His 
 purity, His divine greatness of character, 
 love Him as the ideal for our own life, we 
 
130 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 shall grow like Him. Our present life is the 
 soil. "The word of the kingdom " is the 
 seed. Eternal perfection, likeness to 
 Christ, is the ripened harvest of our life. 
 It is worth all it costs to prepare the soil 
 thoroughly, and cultivate it with watchful 
 industry, in order that so divine a seed 
 may produce a full harvest. 
 
 Take four boys sitting together at 
 school and watch their careers. One is 
 stupid ; he hears with indifference. Truth 
 makes no impression on him. He is a 
 mere wayside hearer. 
 
 The second boy is bright, quick, prob- 
 ably the smart boy of the school and the 
 pride of his home. He hears and instantly 
 lays hold of the truth taught, — his whole 
 countenance tells that he has caught the 
 meaning. His recitation is brilliant, but it 
 is seed very near the surface, no depth. 
 Anyone who will tickle the surface will 
 get a quick, bright response ; but such a 
 boy never gets beyond the reputation or 
 the ability of his school days. A few 
 years out of school, and he becomes com- 
 
"TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR. I3I 
 
 monplace, disappointing many great 
 expectations. 
 
 The third boy hears, studies the matter 
 in all its bearings, lays strong hold of it, 
 understands it, and absorbs it into his life. 
 He can never forget it. It is become a 
 part of him. But he absorbs all other 
 instruction just as thoroughly. That 
 things are contradictory makes little dif- 
 ference as to the place he gives them in 
 his life. He may become an encyclopaedia 
 of information, but it always remains 
 information, never becomes life. He 
 stands in the same attitude towards one 
 kind of knowledge as towards another. 
 His distinctions are not clearly drawn. 
 He is full of all manner of goods, a '' curi- 
 osity shop " of ideas and beliefs, but there 
 is a great scarcity of convictions. Eras- 
 mus was a very able scholar, but there 
 were too many weeds in his heart, and the 
 driving Reformation tide pushed him 
 aside and left him stranded alone. Luther 
 with less knowledge, but with mighty con- 
 victions, moved all Europe, and kept his 
 
132 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 
 
 place at the very front of the Reformation 
 till the end of his life. 
 
 Our fourth boy will hear as the third, 
 and with no more thorough knowledge, 
 but while he masters fundamental truths, 
 he also cultivates his susceptibility to 
 ev^ry impression of like truth. He learns 
 to recognize the lineaments of truth, and 
 accepts only that information which can 
 stand harmonious adjustment with what 
 he already knows to be true. His knowl- 
 edge may be as vast and varied as his 
 friend's, but he stands in an altogether dif- 
 ferent relation to it. He cultivates a love 
 for all that is true, and as carefully cultivates 
 a hatred for whatever is false. His con- 
 victions grow with his knowledge, and his 
 attitude is conscientiously uncompromis- 
 ing. It is not enough that we hear the 
 truth and "keep it," but we must keep it 
 clean from all association with evil. 
 
 The whole duty of hearing may be 
 summed up in these two commands, 
 '* Take heed z£/ 7^(2/ ye hear," and, ''Take 
 heed how ye hear." Hear the truth, and 
 
TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR. 1 33 
 
 take heed how ye hear it. Avoid all else 
 than truth. Hear not falsehood, hear not 
 folly, hear not evil. Hear the truth, "the 
 word of the kingdom," at all hazard, but 
 take heed how ye hear even the truth. 
 Hear it with attention, with due prepara- 
 tion of heart, and with continued cultiva- 
 tion, for this is the hearing by which faith 
 comes, "and by grace are ye saved 
 through faith." 
 
"And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not to that 
 body that shall be, but bare grain it may chance of wheat, 
 or of some other grain: 
 
 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to 
 every seed His own body." — I Cor. 15: 37, 38. 
 
 Ah ! when shall all men's good 
 
 Be each man's rule, and universal peace 
 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 
 Through all the circle of the golden year? 
 ****** 
 
 "As if the seedsman, rapt 
 
 Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip 
 
 His hand into the bag : but well I know 
 
 That unto him who works, and feels he works, 
 
 This same grand year is ever at the doors 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 " We have attempted to produce facts and evidence which 
 should make it probable, that by far the greatest factor in 
 the moral and humane progress of mankind, is the influence 
 of the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. The argument 
 is logical ; and whoever overthrows it, cannot do so by 
 vague declamation, but only by presenting a sufficient cause, 
 other than Christianity, which shall account for these facts 
 and changes." — " Gesta Christi.'" 
 
PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 ''And He said. So is the kingdo^n of 
 God, as if a man should cast seed iiito the 
 ground ; 
 
 And should sleep, and rise night and 
 day, and the seed should spring and grow 
 up, he knoweth not how. 
 
 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of 
 herself; first the blade, theri the ear ; 
 after that, the fill corn in the ear. 
 
 But when the fruit is brought forth, 
 immediately He putteth i7i the sickle, 
 beca^ise the harvest is come'' — (Mark 4 : 
 26-29.) 
 
 This parable, so full of seed for the 
 Christian life, so rich in its hints of the 
 nature of spiritual growth, and so helpful 
 in its prophecy of the final harvest, is 
 an appropriate theme for a Spring-time 
 study. 
 
 The Parable of the Sower taught us 
 how the good seed was scattered by the 
 
136 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 Sower, and how It was received by human 
 hearts. This parable teaches the nature 
 of the seed, the character of Its growth, 
 and the certainty of the harvest. In both 
 parables, the ** field is the world," and the 
 seed is ''the word of the kingdom." In 
 the former, the ''harvest Is the end of the 
 world;" In the latter, the harvest is when 
 " the fruit is brought forth (or offers 
 Itself)." 
 
 The parable of sowing taught us that 
 while the good seed was to be scattered 
 freely everywhere, whatever the quality 
 of the soil. In many lives it would bring 
 forth no ripened harvest. In this parable 
 it Is assumed that good seed cast into 
 good ground will grow to Its proper har- 
 vest, while the main purpose of the para- 
 ble Is to Illustrate the inherent vitality and 
 productiveness of the seed, and the pro- 
 gressive character of Its growth to perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 For our analysis we cannot do better 
 than to follow the order of thought given 
 in the parable. 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. I 37 
 
 ''As if a 7nan should cast seed iJito I he 
 ground!' 
 
 There is a suo^o^estlon here worth care- 
 ful attention, but as it is not necessary to 
 an exposition of the parable, and to avoid 
 repetition, it will be considered in our 
 study of the law of sowing and reaping. 
 
 ''And should sleep and rise night and 
 day!' 
 
 Seed-time and harvest are the two 
 prominent seasons in a farmer's life. All 
 things else in his work are secondary to 
 the sowing and the reaping, hence in the 
 Master's parable they are left in the back- 
 ground. The soil is to be carefully pre- 
 pared, the evil weeds thrown out, the poi- 
 sonous roots destroyed, and good seed 
 cast into the ground. The less important 
 things are necessary, and therefore the 
 sower does not sit down in idleness after 
 the sowing, but does whatever is necessary 
 to prepare for the coming harvest. So far 
 as the growth of the seed is concerned, he 
 can do nothing but wait. He knows '' not 
 how" it grows, but rests in the certainty 
 
 18 
 
138 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 that by a natural law, not under his con- 
 trol, the seed will grow to the harvest. 
 
 This is not a doctrine that permits indo- 
 lence, but a lesson of patience and hope. 
 When a man has done his wisest work 
 with all thoroughness and skill, he has 
 dealt only with the co7iditions of growth. 
 He cannot give to the seed any additional 
 power to ''spring up and grow." His 
 work is altog^ether with the outward con- 
 ditions, not at all with the inward life. 
 All he can do is to take the seed which 
 has life in itself, and put it in the ground 
 which has the fertility to support that life 
 in its growth, then patiently and hopefully 
 to wait for the harvest. He may know 
 very little of the laws of growth, but he is 
 very sure of the fact of growth ; and hence 
 his patience comes not from ignorance of 
 the manner, but from assurance of the 
 fact. 
 
 How slow we are to learn this lesson of 
 patience that is taught with so great sub- 
 limity in every work of God, and with so 
 great emphasis in all His word. No one 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. 1 39 
 
 can read the story of that long period 
 when Jehovah was drawing the present 
 subhme harmony of the universe out of 
 its early confusion and darkness, without 
 wondering at the infinite patience of the 
 Creator. , He planted the seeds of the 
 future harvest of beauty and order, and 
 then let them grow according to the prin- 
 ciple of life which He had put within them. 
 The growth of continents, of trees, and of 
 animal life, and the slow development of 
 human history, tell the same story of the 
 patience of our God. 
 
 The Bible teaches even more plainly 
 the unhasting patience of Jehovah in 
 working out his mighty designs. The lives 
 of His ancient prophets, Enoch, Noah, 
 Abraham, Moses, were all illustrations of 
 His patient sowing and waiting for a har- 
 vest. The whole course of human history 
 is an illustration of Jehovah's patience 
 with a sinful, rebellious people, yet He 
 never falters in His efforts to bring them 
 up to the height of His eternal purpose 
 for their redemption. How patiently the 
 
140 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 Saviour laid the deep, enduring founda- 
 tions of His kino^dom ! He knew truth's 
 power of growth, and, therefore, without 
 fear or doubt, waited for the harvest. 
 What patience to go quietly on through 
 shame to death without once trying to 
 hasten the end, or resist the cruelty ! 
 
 The Christian's view of time and life 
 should come from his Lord, who counted 
 the earthly life of worth mainly as a Spring- 
 time for the sowinof of " the word of the 
 kingdom," with all eternity for the growth. 
 We think of time in periods, as its beats 
 its changes into our lives, but there are 
 no such divisions of time with God. He 
 who was before time began, and still will 
 be when time is ended, has no need to 
 count its years or note its changing his- 
 tory. The end, the beginning, and all the 
 history are present to His consciousness; 
 hence He never unwisely hurries, or indo- 
 lently lags; but always moves in patience 
 from the first cause in Himself through all 
 the infinite variety of growth and wide- 
 branching effects to His own final purpose. 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. I4I 
 
 Definitely, certainly, persistently, by 
 the principle of growth which He has put 
 within all life, and the command He lays 
 upon it, Jehovah is guiding our whole 
 race to the final harvest. Yet how often 
 He might say to us as he said to Ephraim 
 of old, "I took them on My arms ; but 
 they knew not that I healed them." 
 
 In our impatience to see the end of 
 wickedness, we sometimes forget that the 
 '* times and seasons " are in God's hand, 
 and are tempted even to lose our faith in 
 His supreme control of all the issues of 
 life. We cry out, less in prayer than 
 In unbelief, " How long, O Lord, how 
 long!" And sometimes we even try to 
 gather the harvest before it is ripe, and 
 thus in our '* zeal without knowledo^e " 
 ruin all. 
 
 A few years before the civil war, Fred. 
 Douorlass was addressinof a crowded audi- 
 ence. He depicted the fearful condition 
 of his race, the degradation and horrors 
 of slavery, the indifference of one great 
 political party, and the determined oppo- 
 
142 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 sition of the other. The Supreme Court 
 had just decided against the black man, 
 and all the indications seemed to point 
 to a heavier curse than ever about to fall 
 upon his doomed race. The picture was 
 a fearful one, and it oppressed the audi- 
 ence with the speaker's own feelings of 
 despair, and they were ready with him to 
 cry out for vengeance. In a moment of 
 profound silence, that strange old woman, 
 Sojourner Truth, rose from her seat, and 
 pointing her bony finger at the speaker, 
 asked, *' Frederick, is God dead?" It 
 was like a flash of light in midnight 
 gloom. In his own way and time, Jeho- 
 vah made His purpose plain. 
 
 The best we can do is to do our best, 
 and then to ''hope and quietly wait," 
 leaving the harvest all to God. Our dis- 
 couragement grows out of lack of faith, 
 just as hopelessness always follows the 
 death of faith. We may look over the 
 world and see only the very apparent 
 fruits of sin in the church, and see only its 
 parsimony and lack of fidelity to the great 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. 1 43 
 
 trust for which it exists ; but such a view 
 is thoroughly deceptive. Like the cynic's 
 view of a sincere and earnest Hfe, we carry 
 to a great problem a little mind, and 
 hastily condemn as not existing a power 
 of life too rich and deep for our narrow 
 souls to measure. Like the leaven in the 
 meal, like the seed beneath the soil, 
 secretly and certainly, the ''mind that was 
 in Christ" is taking possession of the 
 intellectual and spiritual life of our world. 
 This influence is creeping into the 
 world's legislation, into social customs, 
 into war and commerce, into heathen 
 lands and heathen hearts, and everywhere 
 it is growing towards the full possession 
 of the world for Christ. It is the quiet 
 whisper of God to all our race, saying, 
 " This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye 
 turn to the right hand and when ye turn 
 to the left." This ought to put to death 
 all thought of our own importance, and 
 make us feel a deep humility in the pres- 
 ence of truth with its endless life and 
 mighty work. Christ sowed and Christ 
 
144 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 shall reap. For there are two great seasons 
 In the life of His kingdom, when He was 
 here to sow and when He comes aeain to 
 reap. Between these times is the silent, 
 secret growth of the kinordom under the 
 guidance of the Spirit. Our work Is to 
 scatter the seed, and wait for the har- 
 vest. 
 
 ''And tJie seed shall spring up and 
 grow, he knozveth not how!' 
 
 Christ evidently expected His kingdom 
 to have a perfectly natural growth ; rapid 
 and wonderful, but strictly according to 
 the law of growth ; and any careful study 
 of this parable will disclose a very close 
 analogy between growth In nature and 
 growth In the spiritual kingdom. 
 
 All the phenomena of growth are Indi- 
 cations of a profound mystery. Every 
 farmer is sure that his seed Is orrowlno^ ; he 
 can point out all the marks of growth ; 
 but *' he knoweth not how " It grows. Not 
 only is It out of our power to make the 
 seed grow, but It Is out of our knowledge 
 how it grows. 
 
"^ PATIENCE AND HOPE. I45 
 
 From seed through the tender '' blade, 
 then the ear, then the full corn In 
 the ear," to the harvest. The outer 
 forms of growth are plain enough, but 
 the Inner spirit of life is a profound mys- 
 tery. And you cannot get away from the 
 mystery ; It Is everywhere. What Is the dif- 
 ference between living tissue and dead ? 
 One Is a marvellous combination of 
 strength and beauty, perfectly fulfilling its 
 purpose ; the other Is worthless, except as 
 a study. Man recognizes the fact of dif- 
 ference, but ''knoweth not how" this 
 difference Is created. As in material 
 growth, so In spiritual, the cause and 
 much of the process are mysterious. 
 The kingdom of spiritual life, like the 
 kingdom of physical life, cometh not with 
 observation, but groweth in secret. " The 
 wind bloweth where It llsteth ; thou hearest 
 the voice thereof, but knowest not whence 
 it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is 
 everyone that Is born of the Spirit." 
 
 The spiritual forces at work In the 
 woi4d do not challenge attention by noise 
 
146 PARABLE OF GROWTH. . . 
 
 or display, yet they are growing Into every 
 nook and corner of human Hfe. They may 
 not always completely change a man's heart 
 and mind, but where In all the world Is there 
 a spot not already modified by the spirit- 
 ual forces started by Christ ? The Master 
 himself gives us a perfect Illustration of 
 this secret and gradual changing of the 
 whole world which He Is working by 
 His spirit. He said, ''The kingdom of 
 heaven Is like unto leaven, which a woman 
 took and hid In three measures of meal, till 
 It was all leavened." Leaven, yeast. Is 
 essentially different from the meal Into 
 which It Is put. So Is the kingdom of 
 heaven, the Chrlst-glven life. Is a life 
 essentially different from the life of the 
 world, which has no more power to change 
 Itself than the meal has to rise without 
 the leaven. It Is the principle of new life 
 In Christ that raises the world, completely 
 renewing It, as It Is the principle of new 
 life In the leaven that transforms the meal. 
 In both cases It Is the life that Is Intro- 
 duced, and life that propagates itself 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. 1 47 
 
 secretly and gradually until the "whole 
 lump " is changed. 
 
 Science has taught us that the yeast we 
 use is a mass of living cells so minute that 
 "a cubic inch of yeast in the heat of fer- 
 mentation contains upwards of eleven hun- 
 dred millions of them." These minute cells, 
 when they grow to full size, give off little 
 buds. These buds in their turn grow 
 and produce other buds. Thus, by a very 
 rapid process of multiplication, this life, 
 which has been put into the heart of the 
 dough, works its way in a few hours to 
 every particle of the whole lump. 
 
 *' So is the kingdom of heaven." Its 
 seed of life by a gradual, and in a large 
 measure secret, growth, multiplies and 
 spreads until it permeates the whole intel- 
 lectual and moral life of our race. " The 
 truth " takes men as they are and lifts 
 them to a sanctified life by its own power 
 of erowth. Men are not transformed in 
 order to receive the truth, but they receive 
 it in order to be transformed. They cannot 
 transform themselves without the seed of 
 
148 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 truth any more than the meal can with- 
 out the leaven. 
 
 Thus the task set before the disciples 
 was to sow the seed of truth. They had 
 no power to control its growth, but they 
 had the promise which God has written 
 so often in His book and so plainly in the 
 seed's own life, '' It shall not return unto 
 me void ; but it shall accomplish that which 
 I please, and it shall prosper in that for 
 which I sent it." 
 
 When we contrast the weakness of the 
 men chosen for the work and the enormous 
 difficulties to be overcome, with the rapid 
 spread of the gospel and the wonderful 
 growth of the church, we have a sublime 
 illustration of this parable of the Master. 
 
 Secrecy and spontaneity (automate) 
 are attributes of all true growth, whether 
 in the physical world or the spiritual. 
 Not all the marks of growth are on the 
 surface of the field of grain, and we are 
 in serious error if we think that there are 
 no marks of spiritual growth but such as 
 are plain to our eyes. Indeed, it is very 
 
" HE KNOWETH NOT HOW.'* 1 49 
 
 doubtful whether the truest spiritual life 
 is ever the most apparent. Many that 
 seem to us to be first, may be last in the 
 Master's judgment. " The word of the 
 kingdom" is not somethinor that is cast 
 away from God, with a life dependent 
 upon the care of men. It is a living spir- 
 itual power in which God works to save 
 the immortal souls of beings created in 
 His image. His spirit is the life within 
 the seed of truth, and, therefore, it has an 
 inherent life that compels growth wherever 
 the seed falls into soil capable of support- 
 ing life. The seed is not the life, but the 
 means by which the life grows to its own 
 harvest. The life bursts from the seed, 
 leaving it to die, and grows out of the form 
 of one seed through the stalk into a larger 
 and more abundant life in many seeds. 
 The. harvest is easily identified with the 
 seed sown, but the life of the little grain 
 has built for itself a laro^er and more val- 
 uable place for itself and its work. Both 
 seed and harvest are reservoirs of the life 
 that has grown from the smaller into the 
 
 14 
 
150 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 larger. A chemist can make a grain of 
 wheat corresponding exactly in all its parts 
 to the living grain, but the manufactured 
 grain will neither rise with the yeast nor 
 grow in the earth. Man may make the 
 reservoir, but God only can give life. Yet 
 the life is what gives the seed its whole 
 value. So it is with the *'word of the 
 kingdom," in external form it may bear 
 the closest resemblance to any word of 
 man ; but its inherent life makes it an 
 altoo^ether different seed in both kind and 
 power. Even of the word of God it is 
 said, " The letter (the mere form) kill- 
 eth" — leads only to death — but the inher- 
 ent spirit is life. As in the Old Testament 
 the spirit of life grew by means of an 
 elaborate ritual and the words of inspired 
 prophets, so in the New Testament the 
 '' word of the kingdom " is the means by 
 which the same spirit is spreading a divine 
 life throughout the world. " The word 
 of God is living, and puts forth energy 
 (growth)." 
 
 The power of Judaism over the thoughts 
 
"HE KNOWETH NOT HOW." I5I 
 
 and feelincjs of the first Christians, the 
 gigantic power in Roman heathenism, the 
 deadly hatred of a world-wide paganism, 
 the subtle opposition of all forms of phi- 
 losophy, the corrupt ideas almost univer- 
 sally associated with religious worship, the 
 actual denial of the immortality of the soul 
 by the head of the church in ancient Rome 
 a few years before the birth of Christ, the 
 weakness and obscurity of the early Chris- 
 tians, everything seemed to make it impos- 
 sible for the " kincrdom of heaven" to 
 take possession of the world, or even to 
 find a quiet spot in which to keep alive 
 the Christ-taught faith. But in spite of 
 opposition without and ignorance and sin 
 within, the Master's kingdom has gone 
 from victory to victory, persistently grow- 
 ing into possession of the life of the world. 
 We know not how, for we cannot trace it 
 except in the indications that are upon 
 the surface, " the blade, the ear, and the 
 full corn in the ear." We know that the 
 Son of Man scattered the seed, and we 
 saw the tender blade break through the 
 
152 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 ground only to meet the storms that beat 
 upon it with such relentless fury. Again 
 and ao^ain we watched to see it die under 
 the overwhelming opposition of its ene- 
 mies, and the selfishness and treachery of 
 its friends ; but still it grew by its own 
 inherent life, from the tender blade to the 
 ear, and now the full corn in the ear is 
 proving its ability to fulfill the mission 
 inherent in its life, to fill the whole earth 
 with the knowledge of the glory of God. 
 
 " First the blade y the^i the ear, then the 
 full corn in the ear.'' 
 
 These words teach the most important 
 lesson of the parable. *' Heaven is not 
 reached by a single bound," any more 
 than a harvest is ready as soon as the sow- 
 ing is accomplished. Growth there must 
 be from seed to ripened fruit. So with 
 the kingdom of Christ, whether in the 
 world at large, or in the individual life, it 
 must grow, and its usual growth is not fit- 
 ful, but steadily progressive. Yet from 
 the beginning, when the disciples asked, 
 *' wilt Thou at this time restore the kinof- 
 
PROGRESSIVE GROWTH. 153 
 
 dom ? " even until now, men have ever been 
 looking for '' signs and wonders" in spirit- 
 ual growth. 
 
 Yet the Master teaches the law of grad- 
 ual progress as the law of His kingdom's 
 growth, and every christian student of 
 human history is impressed with the power 
 of this persistent and gradual growth of 
 Christ's influence. A few men of no 
 influence, and not remarkable for either 
 intellectual or spiritual power, are com- 
 missioned to sow the seed of a spiritual 
 kingdom. They only half understand 
 their mission, yet are forced from one 
 stage of growth to another, until the 
 ignorant fishermen of Galilee are become 
 the saints of Christendom. So with the 
 seed they scattered ; it has grown into pos- 
 session of the world's best soil, and still 
 is growing with ever increasing vigor. 
 
 Like the leaven and the seed, this king- 
 dom of divine life is growing quietly with 
 a sure and gradual growth through the 
 ''whole lump" of human life. Trace any 
 of the noblest thoughts and works of to- 
 
154 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 day to their origin, and you will find that 
 the spirit of Christ has been with them 
 from their birth, giving them their life, 
 and controlling them in their growth. 
 
 Take out of our civilization all that'has 
 grown directly from Christ's life and 
 teachings, and you would rob the world 
 of its noblest life and greatest beauty. 
 All the inspiring hopes and satisfying 
 faiths born of the Spirit, all the peace of 
 Christ which has quieted so many troub- 
 led souls, all that deliverance from the 
 thraldom of creatures to the freedom of 
 children given us by the gospel of redemp- 
 tion, all would be swept away before the 
 storms of passion, and the slavery of 
 sin. 
 
 Because we do not see the power of 
 Christ break forth like a human power, 
 but only know it as growing secretly and 
 gradually, is no reason for discourage- 
 ment. The silent force of gravity is 
 mightier far than the loudest tempest ; 
 and the persistent life that to-day is 
 silently urging its way to the harvest in 
 
SECRET GROWTH. 155 
 
 every field, has proven Itself stronger than 
 all the storms and bitter cold of winter. 
 
 Not "with observation," but in silent, 
 endless growth. Not challenging atten- 
 tion by a storm or Hood, but in silent 
 erowth within the heart, a well of living 
 water flowing on forever with spiritual 
 life and health in every drop. As in 
 the world at large, so in the individual 
 soul, the kingdom of heaven is like 
 a seed springing into life secretly, and 
 gradually growing to the full harvest Not 
 many of us know how or when the first 
 seed fell into our life, or when the first 
 blade appeared. Just as all the richest 
 things in life ''come to us," we know not 
 
 o 
 
 how or why, so this new life often comes. 
 A blessed gift of God, but why to us, and 
 how did it find a place to grow? Like the 
 love of God which passeth knowledge, we 
 know the gift is ours to use and to enjoy ; 
 why it came and how, we leave to God. 
 The growth of the ''kingdom of 
 heaven " in any one human life is as mys- 
 terious, secret and progressive, as in a 
 
156 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 world. We can measure the growth of 
 the kingdom in the world by long periods, 
 but in the individual we have only a few 
 years. In the one the very greatness of 
 the phenomena challenges our attention 
 and helps our understanding of them ; but 
 in an individual life we need to look with 
 closer scrutiny, for the time is short and 
 the field is small. 
 
 In any study of human progress, one 
 very important thing is to be kept in 
 mind, — the highest powers are of slowest 
 growth. There are so few possible excep- 
 tions to this rule that it is doubtful 
 whether it is ever violated. The lowest 
 forms of life grow quickly to their end, 
 and development becomes slower as 
 you rise in the scale of being. In man's 
 own life the physical body reaches its 
 full size and ability in a very few years ; 
 the mind requires a longer period for 
 its highest development, while the spir- 
 itual growth requires more than all of 
 this life, and we know not yet its range 
 of growth in the world to come. This 
 
SECRET GROWTH. 157 
 
 may be because the physical Hfe is 
 temporary and the spiritual life everlast- 
 ing, while the intellectual life, partaking of 
 the natures of both physical and spiritual 
 life, is above the one and below the other. 
 Or it may be that the longer time is 
 needed for the higher quality and value 
 of the life lived and the work performed. 
 It takes but a moment to prepare a pane 
 of common window-glass, but months to 
 complete a lense for the telescope. It 
 needs but a little time to train the ear to 
 the simpler musical sounds, but years of 
 careful attention to enjoy the deeper and 
 richer harmonies. It is easy work to 
 gather a great array of facts, but a greater 
 thine and much more difficult to go down 
 nto the depths of their meanings, and find 
 their deepest principles. It is a compar- 
 atively easy thing to make an open con- 
 fession of faith in Christ; but it requires 
 years of spiritual growth to be able to find 
 the deep, unchanging principle of the 
 Christ's life and make it the controlling 
 power in one's own life. It is so much 
 
 1 
 
158 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 easier to follow the Master in outward 
 act than in inward motive. And this is 
 but saying that it is so much easier to do 
 than to be, and the command is not do 
 perfectly, but ''be ye perfect." 
 
 In the individual life we know not how 
 or when the seed first fell and began its 
 growth. We may be able to tell when 
 we first noticed it growing and felt it to 
 be our own new life, but even this is not 
 possible to us all, so gradual has been the 
 growth. The secrecy of the germination 
 and first growth is as marked in a single 
 life as in the larger field of the world, 
 because it is an essential law of orowth 
 to spring up secretly, and press noiselessly 
 "towards the mark for the prize" of its 
 high calling, the full and ripened harvest. 
 The world instinctively doubts a loud pro- 
 fession of faith or the appearance of too 
 rapid growth, and half expects it to be 
 blasted by some untimely frost, or early 
 tempest. 
 
 Every true spiritual seed must bring 
 forth fruit of itself ; we cannot put the 
 
PATIENCE AND IIOrE. 1 59 
 
 fruits Upon It, and every act of forcing is 
 apt to be an interference with a higher 
 power at work, and therefore apt to hin- 
 der the growth and delay the harvest. 
 It is but childish continually to disturb 
 the seed to see whether it is growing. 
 The lesson we need to learn is taught 
 us in the Master's work with His first 
 disciple. What patience and hopefulness ! 
 How slow of growth they were, and yet 
 He was ever prophesying a great har- 
 vest from their sowing. Ah, but He saw 
 the future, and knew^ how successful their 
 work would be! Did He not also foresee 
 the sure growth and abundant fruitfulness 
 of the truth, and has he not taught us 
 over and over again that the seed of truth, 
 ''the word of the kini^dom." once orrowincr 
 in the ''good and honest" heart, cannot 
 die, but must bring forth a harvest "after 
 its kind ? " " Be ye patient, therefore, until 
 the coming of the Lord. Behold the hus- 
 bandman waiteth for the precious fruit of 
 the earth, being patient over it, until it 
 receive the early and latter rain. Be ye 
 
l6o PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 also patient ; establish your heart ; for the 
 presence of the Lord is at hand." 
 
 The seed must spring up and grow of 
 itself throuo^h the clods and stones of our 
 roueh natures, with no more attention 
 from us than is consistent with the per- 
 fect freedom of the spiritual life growing 
 silently within us. It is ours to remove 
 the weeds, guard against all enemies, keep 
 our nights cloudless that the dew may fall, 
 and our days uncovered to the full shin- 
 ing of the Sun of Righteousness, and then 
 to put our trust in the new-born endless 
 life within, begotten of Him who *'will 
 perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ." 
 
 What a light of hope and faith to shine 
 in upon all our anxious fears and doubts! 
 We long and pray and work, and yet 
 feel hopeless. Have we not forgotten 
 the growing power of the truth ? Judging 
 by the external appearances, we sometimes 
 forget that the "inner man" may be 
 growing with a power and beauty that 
 only occasionally appear in the outer life. 
 
 Conversion, as much as regeneration, 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. l6l 
 
 must be a fact in every christian life, but 
 it is not always traceable. Many of us 
 cannot tell the time of our conversion, 
 and many more are in danger of a serious 
 mistake when they count some particular 
 stirring of their emotions as the time, and 
 fact, of their conversion. Most of us can 
 tell when we realized the fact, but even 
 this sometimes comes so gradually as to , 
 make it impossible to fix upon any par- 
 ticular hour as the time when we were 
 turned completely round toward God. 
 Yet whether dates and occasions can be 
 traced with certainty or not, if the truth 
 has germinated and put forth its own 
 growth, a real change has begun in the 
 life. And it is not merely a change of 
 thought, or of purpose, but a real change 
 of character. It is a new life, whose 
 legitimate harvest is a perfected character. 
 It is not that completed harvest of life, 
 but it is the springing up of the blade ; the 
 ear will follow, and the full harvest shall 
 come according to God's law of spiritual 
 growth. 
 
 15 
 
162 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 The feeble blade, tested as it grows, 
 becomes in due time the strong and fruit- 
 ful harvest ; but the new-born life is just 
 as true a life as it ever can be. The first 
 faint love growing through patient serv- 
 ice, the ardent enthusiasm becoming hope- 
 ful endurance, the early gladness deepen- 
 ing to abiding joy, the buoyancy living 
 on into quietness and peace — this is not 
 change, but development. It is the true 
 and natural growth of the soul. The 
 inner principle is not weaker, nor the 
 outer beauty less, but both are grown into 
 truer harmony and higher fruitfulness. 
 And this last it is that indicates the 
 approach of harvest, and proves the nature 
 of the growth, ** By their fruits ye shall 
 know them." The blade and the ear are 
 as truly alive as the ripened grain, but are 
 not yet able to give life in reproduction. 
 They receive, absorb, in order to ripen 
 and reproduce their fruits, and their life is 
 the same as when at last, more fully 
 grown, they give forth their fruits to the 
 husbandman. 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. 1 63 
 
 We must not expect fruit immedi- 
 ately from the sowing, for we need to 
 remember that in the spiritual kingdom, 
 as in the natural, we have all the phe- 
 nomena of growth. Sometimes, instead 
 of a long period of gradual growth, there 
 is a very rapid development, as if the 
 forces of life were under some unusual 
 pressure. The manifestations of life are 
 not alike in all who truly live, although 
 the laws of life remain the same. Some, 
 as the tender blade of grass or grain, may 
 not realize the rich store of life within 
 them until the grain is almost ready for 
 the harvest. Others, as the fruit-tree 
 blossoming, immediately challenge atten- 
 tion to the vigor and beauty of their new 
 life. The one reaching its highest beauty 
 and value together in an abundant harvest, 
 the other passing through beauty to the 
 more valuable reproductive fruitfulness. 
 
 " The ear,'' between the blade and the 
 harvest, between the blossom and the ripe 
 fruit. This is a dangerous time to many 
 a true christian soul. He has lost the 
 
164 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 vividness of his first spiritual experiences, 
 and begins to doubt the fact of his con- 
 version, and often mourns the decadence 
 of his spiritual life. There may be good 
 reason for his anxiety, but we must not 
 forget that a natural growth leads through 
 a period of green fruit of bitter taste, 
 when there is neither beauty of blossom 
 nor ripeness of fruit. The green grain 
 may not be as beautiful as the blossom, 
 but it is of greater value because nearer 
 the harvest. To pass out of a first stage 
 of vivid experiences to a time of dullness, 
 and even of questioning ; from the early 
 joy to the quiet, perhaps stubborn, endur- 
 ance of storms and resistance of enemies ; 
 may be only a hiding within the sheltering 
 husk for a surer growth. The blade must 
 grow through the green ear to the full 
 harvest, and yet we sometimes distress 
 our souls with a charge of decline when 
 we are really In higher stage of growth. 
 
 But we must not hide from ourselves 
 the special dangers of this stage of chris- 
 tian life. For as the orrain, when crreen 
 
''THE BLADE, THEN THE EAR." 165 
 
 In the ear, Is In danger from unfavorable 
 condition of weather, and from all man- 
 ner of Insects that would feed upon and 
 kill It, so In the spiritual growth this is a 
 time of especial danger from doubt and 
 fear. But we must not think there Is no 
 fruit of the Spirit In us because we do not 
 find any of It fully ripe. This is the time 
 when the Husbandman is most patient 
 with us, expecting of us only a careful 
 guarding of the life He has given us, while 
 It erows to the harvest. 
 
 It may not be amiss to notice some of 
 these conditions which are within our con- 
 trol. The seed Is planted, and has life 
 within Itself. The soil ''spontaneously 
 bringeth forth fruit ;" Its powers of sustain- 
 ing the seed are in Its original endowment. 
 The rain and the atmosphere, the sunshine 
 and the night, of this earthly life, will all 
 attend the growing spirit with their vari- 
 ous ministry. Our work Is not with their 
 production, but with our reception of them, 
 our attitude towards them. We are to 
 make all things without us minister to the 
 
1 66 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 new life within us, thus transforming the 
 temporary into sustenance for the eternal. 
 This cannot be done by giving all our 
 attention to these external conditions, nor 
 by looking only at our hearts to watch the 
 growth, but far more by ''looking unto 
 Him who is the author and finisher of our 
 faith." For a man does not grow God- 
 like by studying only, or even largely, 
 what he is in himself, — this is to mould 
 his ideal and receive his impulse from 
 himself; but by much patient thought of 
 God and God's ideal for man, does he 
 grow. 
 
 Richard Baxter, in his autobiography, 
 expressed this thought perfectly when he 
 said : " I was once wont to meditate most 
 on my own heart, and to dwell all at home 
 and look little higher. I was still poring 
 either on my sins or my wants, or exam- 
 ining my sincerity ; but now, though I am 
 greatly convinced of the need of heart 
 acquaintance, yet I see more of a higher 
 work ; that I should look oftener upon 
 Christ, and God, and heaven, than upon 
 
"WHEN THE FRUIT IS RIPE." 1 67 
 
 my own heart I would have one thought 
 at home upon myself and sins, and many 
 thoughts above upon the high, and amia- 
 ble, and beautifying objects I am 
 
 more solicitous about my duty to God, 
 and less solicitous about His dealincrs with 
 
 o 
 
 me. 
 
 ''But when the fritit is ripe, straight- 
 way he ptttteth forth the sickle, because 
 the harvest is coined 
 
 This is the last touch of the parable, 
 and it is full of power and beauty. ** Is 
 ripe," literally, offers itself, delivers itself 
 up to the husbandman, as if pressing for- 
 ward to the next stage of its development. 
 The grain is not merely an article of food 
 to nourish life, but also a seed to repro- 
 duce its own life in larger measure. How 
 natural that it should be ea^er to cro 
 forward on its mission. It has passed 
 through all the stages of growth in obedi- 
 ence to the decree written within its own 
 nature, and now returns its fruits to the 
 husbandman for whatever use he may 
 have for them, 
 
1 68 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 It is not more natural for a head of 
 wheat fully ripe to drop its grains into the 
 soil about the stalk, than it is for a ripe 
 christian spirit to drop the seeds of life 
 into neighboring minds and hearts. The 
 harvest is come whenever the grain is ripe. 
 So it is in the kingdom of Christ, not 
 waiting for the end of the world, but giv- 
 ing forth seed as fast as it is ripe, until at 
 length the whole character, fully ready, 
 is gathered into the heavenly garner. 
 
 In thinking of the harvest referred to 
 in the Parable of the Sower, the fearful 
 imagery of the fourteenth chapter of Rev- 
 elation is forced upon the mind ; but in 
 this parable, the continual ripening and 
 ever-increasing abundance of the harvest 
 recall the prophecy of Amos, '' Behold the 
 days are coming, saith the Lord, that the 
 ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and 
 the treader of grapes him that soweth 
 seed." So vast will be the field to be 
 cultivated, so rapid the growth and so 
 abundant the harvest, that seed-time and 
 harvest will be as one. How true this is 
 
"WHEN THE FRUIT IS RIPE." 1 69 
 
 of the Master's kingdom ! In every field, 
 sowing and reaping go side by side. 
 Indeed, In every life this Is true ; for what 
 Christian, who really lives, falls to sow 
 even while he Is reaping ? Of all the 
 g-ralns that fall Into his life, none nourish 
 him more than those he scatters abroad 
 to bless other lives. 
 
 Every true harvest delivers Itself will- 
 ingly to the husbandman, needing no 
 forcing; but the unripe grain cannot be 
 beaten from its husk, selfishly refusing to 
 give Itself forth for another harvest. 
 Lives that are not ripe enough to deliver 
 their spiritual fruits spontaneously, may 
 need cultivation, perhaps a little urging, 
 In order to aid their growth ; but forcing 
 Is always dangerous. Yet In our impa- 
 tience to enlarore the harvest, we are 
 tempted to force unripe grain into the 
 sowing, while the life Is yet " in the ear," 
 needing all Its powers for receiving strength 
 to grow — unnaturally compelling It to 
 reproduce. A forced plant Is very apt to 
 be a frail one. Nor must we think that 
 
170 PARABLE OF GROWTH. 
 
 the full harvest can be gathered In this 
 life. The life for which we have sown is 
 endless, and the fruits are too rich and 
 abundant to be all gathered on earth. 
 Immortal life is too vast to give forth in 
 this temporary world anything more than 
 a few indications of its nobility and wealth. 
 Heaven is heaven to us because of what 
 we are becoming, not simply a beautiful 
 home for what we are in this life. Having 
 the power of im^mortal life within our 
 souls, we look for nothing less than end- 
 less growth. Having the image of God 
 born again within our spirits, we will not 
 lower our ideal to anything less than per- 
 fection in His likeness, — perfect as God in 
 kind of life, and in degree of likeness ever 
 growing. 
 
 How can we become discouraged, with 
 this word of the Master in our minds ! 
 
 Souls endowed with endless life, heaven 
 and likeness to God as the goal to be 
 reached, and truth with inherent powers of 
 endless growth to lift the soul to its high 
 destiny, — surely while every mind must 
 
PATIENCE AND HOPE. I7I 
 
 bow reverently and humbly before the 
 greatness of the christian life, every heart 
 must exult at the thought of the aim 
 above and the power within. 
 
 ** Blessed be the God and Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to 
 His great mercy begat us again unto a 
 living hope by the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance 
 incorruptible, and undefiled, and that 
 fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for 
 you, who by the power of God are 
 guarded through faith unto a salvation 
 ready to be revealed in the last time .... 
 having been begotten again, not of cor- 
 ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through 
 the word of God, which liveth and 
 abideth." 
 
" Choose well; your choice is 
 Brief, and yet endless." — Goethe. 
 
 " Others I doubt not, if not we, 
 The issue of our toils shall see; 
 Young children gather as their own 
 The harvest that the dead had sown, 
 The dead, forgotten and unknown." 
 
 — Clough. 
 
 " A wonderful thing is a seed! 
 The one thing deathless forever; 
 The one thing changeless, utterly true; 
 Forever old and forever new, 
 And fickle and faithless never. 
 
 " Plant virtue and virtue will bloom; 
 Plant ill and ill will grow. 
 You can sow to-day; to-morrow will bring 
 The blossom that proves what sort of thing 
 Is the seed — the seed you sow." 
 
 " One base deed, with prolific power, 
 Like its cursed stock, engenders more." 
 
 " Blood for blood and blow for blow, — 
 Thou shalt reap as thou didst sow. 
 Age to age with hoary wisdom 
 Speakelh thus to man," — Aeschylus. 
 
THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 '' Be not deceived ; God is not mocked: 
 for whatsoever a man sozoeth, that shall 
 he also reapT (Galatians 6: 7. ) 
 
 This is the law of the harvest. Every- 
 thine that hath Hfe carries within itself the 
 principle of its own existence, that which 
 determines the method by which it 
 develops and the end for which it lives. 
 Whatever may come from without to 
 modify or change the life, must act through 
 its principle of life; and, although this 
 modification or change come by some 
 command, or law, it must act in harmony 
 with the law ruling within. Ought we to 
 draw so broad a distinction as we usually 
 do between the law written In our hearts 
 and the law given to us by revelation? 
 Both are eiven of God, have the same 
 work and purpose, and are mutually cor- 
 roborative. One of the first exercises of 
 an awakened conscience is to testify to 
 the truth of God's revealed law, and of 
 
 IG 
 
174 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 the awakened heart to respond In peni- 
 tence and prayer to God's infinite love. 
 This correspondence between the two 
 expressions of God's law for human life is 
 clearly indicated in this law of the harvest. 
 A field produces according to the seed 
 beneath its surface, and the fertility of the 
 soil. The same law holds good in every 
 soil, whether in the physical, intellectual, 
 or spiritual world. The whole world is 
 busy sowing and growing for a future 
 harvest. In the physical world, how 
 eagerly the germ of life within the seed 
 bursts its bonds and strives to reach its 
 appropriate harvest. All the various 
 forms of vegetable life multiplying them- 
 selves many fold, a single seed dying to 
 produce its many successors for the 
 autumnal ingathering. The animal world, 
 by increase and dispersion, is taking 
 possession of every part of the earth, 
 while men and their brute servants are 
 ever urging the vegetable world to a 
 more vigorous development to support 
 the rapidly increasing animal life. 
 
''WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH." T 75 
 
 In the Intellectual and moral world, how 
 eagerly men are sowing for the future 
 reaping. Thought-germs of every kind 
 and in every form of utterance are striv- 
 ing for growth towards the harvest. In 
 lecture, book, sermon, newspaper, conver- 
 sation, in the very look of the face and the 
 shrug of the shoulders, men are busy sow- 
 ing and cultivatinor Parents and teachers 
 are diligently scattering seeds for growth 
 in soil more valuable and productive than 
 any that farmer ever ploughed, and out of 
 all this seed the final harvest of the child's 
 life shall be gathered. 
 
 Every human soul is entrusted with soil, 
 seed, and opportunity for the required 
 harvest. Your life-soil is fertile, endures 
 forever, and is forever your own. You 
 cannot sell it. You cannot rent it. You 
 can mortgage it only to sin, whose certain 
 foreclosure is death. The seed may be 
 as immortal as truth from God, or deadly 
 as Satanic error. The opportunity is all 
 your life, with its wealth of resources, its 
 innumerable calls of duty, and its wide 
 
176 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 opportunity for truest growth and noblest 
 work. 
 
 The law of the harvest is simple and 
 certain. According to the kind, quality 
 and quantity of the seed sown, the fertil- 
 ity of the soil, and the amount and quality 
 of labor bestowed on the sowing and the 
 cultivation, so shall the harvest be. 
 
 The Apostle starts out with the warn- 
 ing, '' Be not deceived ; God is not 
 mocked." Do not deceive yourselves into 
 thinking that you are deceiving God. No 
 formal service that is heartless, no crying 
 *' Lord, Lord, have we not done wonder- 
 ful things in Thy name ?" when the spirit 
 is dead, will deceive Him who looketh 
 upon the heart. And yet is there not a 
 general hope, certainly a wish, that God 
 may count what little good we have done, 
 as some sort of atonement for what we 
 are? What is this but expecting Him to 
 take our occasional orood deeds, and draw 
 from them a permanent good character. 
 
 We cannot expect Him to violate His 
 own laws of life in order to save us from 
 
WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. I 77 
 
 the appropriate results of our neglect or 
 wilful disobedience. God does not have 
 special cases. Every germ of life pro- 
 duces after its kind, according to a per- 
 fectly definite law of development. This 
 law, so forcibly stated by the Apostle, 
 contains several particulars. 
 
 Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
 he also reap. As the seed is in kind, 
 so must the harvest be. The sower must 
 choose his harvest in his choice of the 
 seed. A man who sows to the physical 
 life shall reap a harvest for the physical 
 life. One who sows all his seed for the 
 intellectual life shall reap the intellectual 
 harvest. In like manner, one who sows 
 to the spirit shall reap a spiritual harvest. 
 You have the power to choose which of 
 these you will sow, but you have no right 
 to expect that you may sow one kind of 
 seed and reap another kind of harvest. 
 
 Your power of choice lies with the 
 seed ; you cannot change the law of the 
 harvest, which must be as the sowing. 
 You may sow but one kind of seed, or 
 
I 78 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 mingle all good seed In proper propor- 
 tion ; but whatsoever you sow that shall 
 you reap. 
 
 All good is arranged by the Apostle in 
 two classes, temporary good, — ** He that 
 soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption ;" 
 and permanent good, — " He that soweth 
 to the spirit shall reap life everlasting." 
 
 Each after its kind. 
 
 The two classes have many things in 
 common and many resemblances, but in 
 kind they are as different as earth and 
 heaven, as temporary and everlasting. 
 Both may be ours, for we get what we 
 sow for. A man may sow to the spirit, 
 without being blessed with physical com- 
 fort. And because he has sown abun- 
 dantly of the choicest spiritual seed is no 
 especial reason that he should be pros- 
 perous in his physical life. To have both, 
 he must sow for both. 
 
 Christ says, '* Blessed are they which 
 do hunger and thirst after righteousness : 
 for they shall be filled." What with ? 
 Righteousness. Just as those who hun- 
 
" WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. I 79 
 
 ger and thirst after this world's pros- 
 perity shall be filled with that. Each 
 class gets what It seeks. ** Honesty Is the 
 best policy " for this life and that which 
 is to come, but that is not saying that the 
 honest man will get rich, or keep free 
 from disease and sorrow. A man may be 
 a good man and get rich, or he may be 
 just as good and remain poor. Or a man 
 rtiay choose to get rich and have all the 
 comforts of this life, without a thought of 
 the everlasting life. 
 
 " Abraham's bosom," heaven, was the 
 legitimate harvest of the seed sown by 
 Lazarus ; but he had no more rieht to 
 expect that he would receive the home 
 and the luxury which the rich man en- 
 joyed, than the rich man had to expect 
 heaven as the harvest of his life. Each 
 got what he sowed for. 
 
 A man cannot sow to worldly success 
 only, and have any right to expect a spir- 
 itual victory, a victory over death. '* He 
 that soweth to the flesh shall (from that 
 sowing) reap corruption," and corruption 
 
l8o THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 is only another name for death, the end 
 of all flesh. Every man must sow for 
 the harvest he wants. The student who 
 would become a learned man knows that 
 he must sow years of self-denial, and 
 close, hard study. He has no right to 
 complain of his harvest of ignorance and 
 inefficiency if he has never sown the seeds 
 from which a richer harvest could grow. 
 You have no right to complain that 
 although you are a devoted Christian, 
 serving God with fervent spirit, yet your 
 neighbor, who cares for nothing but his 
 own success, is growing rich and influen- 
 tial, while you are hardly able to pay your 
 just debts. You sowed for peace of mind 
 and all the christian graces here, and eter- 
 nal life in the world to come. Your 
 neighbor sowed for worldly success. 
 You are both getting what you sowed for. 
 If you want wealth and influence, you 
 must sow accordingly. The Master said of 
 the hypocritical Pharisees, whose very 
 religious services were performed for the 
 praise of men, " They have their reward." 
 
** WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH." l8l 
 
 They sowed for the praise of men and 
 they got it. 
 
 The man who sows for worldly success 
 has a right to expect worldly success, but 
 he has no right to expect anything else. 
 If the Christian expects to have worldly 
 success because he is a Christian, he mis- 
 interprets God's law of cause and effect. 
 What a man sows, he shall reap. He 
 cannot expect a harvest of physical com- 
 fort from a sowing of spiritual seed. Inci- 
 dentally, the spiritual growth will help the 
 growth of all true good, even physical 
 good ; but the seed must be planted for 
 every part of life's harvest. 
 
 But, some may say, there is a difference 
 between the spiritual law of growth and 
 the physical, in this that God loves the 
 sinner, and nature does not ; God forgives 
 sin, and nature does not. Because God 
 is love shall He violate laws which are 
 altogether good and pure, laws which are 
 the most perfect expression of His love, 
 as of every other attribute of His nature? 
 His love is deep as eternity, mighty as 
 
1 82 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 omnipotence, broad and rich as human 
 need, and helpful as the Christ himself ; 
 but that love is shown in the perfect ful- 
 fillment of law, not in the violation of it. 
 Christ '' came not to destrov the law, but to 
 fulfill." And the divine love was dis- 
 played as much in the atoning death as in 
 the obedient service. 
 
 God's law of command never violates 
 His law of principle, for what He speaks 
 in revelation is in strict harmony with His 
 utterance in the inherent, abiding princi- 
 ples of man's moral nature. 
 
 Suppose you have a young almond stock 
 and want a harvest of apricots, how will 
 you secure the change of fruit ? You will 
 graft an apricot stem into the almond 
 stock, and the fruit will be apricots. Thus 
 you change the harvest by changing that 
 which produces it. But then I read in this 
 book of God that it is no exception to this 
 law, or violation of it, that God forgives 
 sin, but in strictest accordance with it. 
 " Ye must be born again." The seed is 
 changed in order to change the harvest. 
 
''WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH." I 83 
 
 The law is that a seed can produce but 
 one harvest, and that the harvest shall be 
 of the same kind as the sowing. You 
 may choose to sow either to the flesh or 
 to the spirit, but you must not expect to 
 gather both the physical and the spiritual 
 harvest from one sowing. 
 
 Many of you are young, and you often 
 hear this exhortation, but has it no mean- 
 ing that it need not be repeated ? You 
 are sowing seed with a free hand in very 
 productive soil — what shall the harvest be ? 
 The answer is plain — exactly what the seed 
 was. Do you think that you can sow any 
 kind of seed now% and then reap in later 
 years any harvest you may wish ? 
 
 There is in a distant state a man whose 
 life is full of eood works. He wears to 
 the world a cheerful face, and helps every 
 life he meets. But there is a load on his 
 heart that only the redemption of his body 
 can remove. He did a great wrong in his 
 youth. After his conversion he made 
 every reparation in his power, but it was 
 too late to remove all the harm, and the 
 
184 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 sorrow of that memory goes with him 
 through Hfe. 
 
 Say what you please about what a man 
 ought to do, how he ought to feel at peace 
 when he has done everything in his power 
 to repair his wrong, and by a penitent, 
 humble and devoted life is doing all he 
 can to help others. The law of God and 
 the law of nature, — if you can thus sepa- 
 rate two methods of the same law — require 
 that every harvest shall be as the sowing. 
 And though a man may be born again, he 
 cannot forget the old life,with its joys and 
 its remorse, until the new life has swallowed 
 up in its ever-increasing abundance all 
 the past, and swept even its memories 
 clean. 
 
 The sins of youth are sure to produce 
 some harvest. God forgives, and plants 
 the seed of a new spiritual life, but He 
 does not enable you to forget. And one 
 mark of this new life is its power to 
 deepen the soul's remorse for sin, even 
 while it increases the lonorin^ for riorht- 
 eousness. We have no right to expect that 
 
"WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETII." I 85 
 
 in later years we shall reap the harvest of 
 honest speech and candid mind, when we 
 filled our youth with insincere words and 
 uncharitable thoughts. Not only will the 
 reputatio7i earned in youth cling to us 
 but the habits of thought and tone of 
 spirit will influence and modify our 
 characters to the end of life. The most 
 fearful of all dangers to an immortal soul 
 is that doom which Christ said had fallen 
 upon some who heard the Parable of the 
 Sower, "their heart is waxed gross," they 
 had lost their capability for any higher 
 life. We forget that " God requireth that 
 which is past," because we forget that 
 there is no past with God, and fail to 
 remember that nothing dies, and that 
 everything produces its own harvest. 
 Remember the timely warning of the 
 wise preacher in Ecclesiastes, 1 1 : 9 : 
 " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth ; 
 and let thy heart cheer thee in the days 
 of thy youth, and walk in the ways of 
 thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes ; 
 but know thou that, for all these things 
 
 17 
 
1 86 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 God will bring thee to judgment." It is 
 the same law ; as thou sowest thou shall 
 reap. 
 
 Neither does God with His forgiveness 
 send any new power to the body to escape 
 the harvest of the earlier sowing. You 
 may have become a true child of God, 
 but if your youth has been spent in indo- 
 lence, idleness and dissipation, you will 
 feel the loss of power to the end of your 
 days. Not only so, but if a man in early 
 spring-time sows a crop of thorns, he will 
 not only gather no good crop, but he is 
 thus far weakened by loss of time and 
 skill and opportunity when he would be 
 very glad to sow a better seed. Many 
 people who wish to " do good " after their 
 days of business and youthful pleasure 
 are over, find that they have lost their 
 aptitude for it ; sometimes have lost even 
 their capability for work so different from 
 what has busied them in all their earlier 
 years. They sowed one kind of seed, and 
 they must not expect to reap another 
 kind of harvest. The old Latin proverb 
 
''WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH." tS; 
 
 urges that "you must become an old man 
 when young, if you would be a young man 
 when old ;" suggesting that you must apply 
 the temperance and wisdom of maturity 
 to youthful inclinations, if you would pre- 
 serve the strength and vigor of youth to 
 old age. As Pope puts it — 
 
 " For fainting age what cordial drop remains, 
 If our intemperate youth the vessel drains ? " 
 
 Many of us who are yet young would 
 repudiate our future selves with all the 
 zeal and loathing of Hazael of old, should 
 some Elisha make that future plain to us. 
 
 We shall reap as we sow, and yet some- 
 times people (not thoughtful people) say 
 that if one is only sincere it matters little 
 what a man believes. Wheat and rye 
 look very much alike to one who is not 
 familiar with them, but suppose a farmer, 
 honestly believing that he is sowing wheat, 
 actually scatters rye broadcast over his 
 field, will he get a crop of wheat for his 
 honesty ? A man will get what he sows — 
 whatever he may think he is sowing. 
 
 There is one fallacy in our reasoning 
 
1 88 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 about goodness that needs to be noticed. 
 The goodness which Christ teaches and 
 what is called the world's goodness, or 
 moral goodness, are different In kind. The 
 fruits bear a close resemblance. Indeed, 
 the world's highest morality is a harvest 
 of our Master's sowing. Our noblest 
 view of life and our highest conception of 
 God come from Christ's life and teach- 
 ings. Yet there are men who deny 
 Christ, and yet want to claim God as their 
 Father. They say, perhaps, that science 
 has taught them this view of God. Yet 
 science tells us very little about God, 
 except that He exists and is all-powerful. 
 These men take the view of God which 
 Christianity has taught the world, and 
 proclaim It as a discovery of their own 
 skill and knowledge. Christ's own 
 answer to all such is given In St. John 8 : 
 42 : '* If God were your Father, ye would 
 love Me : for I came forth and am come 
 from God." But whatever their view of 
 God, and however they may have received 
 it, there Is a difference in kind between the 
 
''WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. 1 89 
 
 ''moral life " and the spiritual, and the 
 final harvests must bear the same differ- 
 ence. These men are entitled to all the 
 reward of a true morality, with all it 
 means of health and comfort and o^ood 
 influence. But they have no right to 
 expect that their earthly life, beautiful as 
 it is, will grow to a harvest in God's like- 
 ness. They have sowed the seed of the 
 highest earthly life, and they shall reap 
 accordingly, but the harvest will be no 
 higher or more enduring than the sowing. 
 It is still " sowing to the flesh," and only 
 he who sows to the spirit shall reap " life 
 everlasting." The one is living by earthly 
 motives, according to an earthly standard, 
 and must always measure himself by the 
 lives of men like himself. The other is 
 moved by heavenly motives, according to 
 a divine standard of life, and always 
 measures himself by the perfect life of 
 Christ, God's ideal life for man. One 
 life is guided by custom, and controlled 
 by external influences. The other is 
 guided by the principle of a new-born life 
 
190 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 within, and controlled by a divine spirit 
 to whom he has surrendered his life. The 
 '* moral life" has its life and reward this 
 side of death, for the o^rave is the end of 
 its trrowth. It is a beautiful and fruitful 
 earthly plant, soon reaching maturity and 
 death, but its seeds reproduce only in an 
 earthly soil. The spiritual life never 
 reaches maturity on earth, but requires a 
 spiritual world for its fullest growth. It 
 aims to bring forth all the good fruits of 
 the '* moral life" as. a legitimate harvest 
 of its own life on earth, but looks for a still 
 higher fruitfulness in an unending world. 
 The "moral life" touches no higher power 
 than its own, supported by the pressure 
 from without of forces that are altogether 
 earthly. The forces that control such a life 
 rarely touch the mass of men, and have 
 at best only a reforming power, and that 
 is chiefly negative. These forces come 
 nto a life with all the prohibitions of the 
 aw, but with none of the gospel of a new 
 ife. It commands the life to put forth 
 its own greatest power, but it gives no 
 
WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. I9I 
 
 new power. The moralist is one who 
 tries to live up to the standard of morals 
 reached by the world under the influence 
 of Christianity. The Christian is one in 
 whom Christ has begotten a new life, 
 which is lifting him by steady growth 
 towards perfection. One may be a 
 reformed man, but the other is a regener- 
 ated man. One life is the fruit of earthly 
 seed, and the whole growth will be as the 
 seed, earthly. The other life is growing 
 towards an eternal harvest from a divine 
 seed of God's own planting. The one is 
 begotten of the best spirit of the world, 
 the other is born of the Spirit of God. 
 Each after its kind shall reap a harvest, 
 but the two harvests will be as different 
 as the sowing. 
 
 Prof. J. C. Shairp, in his ** Studies in 
 Poetry and Philosophy," uses the follow- 
 ing strong and suggestive language : 
 " Character, which, when regarded from a 
 merely moral point of view, almost inevi- 
 tably becomes a building up from our 
 own internal resources, takes altocrether 
 
192 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 another aspect when it is seen that true 
 character is in the last resort determined 
 by the attitude in which the spirit stands 
 to God. Then it comes to be felt that 
 the rightness men search for cannot be 
 evolved from within, must go beyond self, 
 must fall back on a simple receptivity, 
 receiving the rightness and the right- 
 making power, which they have not in 
 themselves, from out of the great reser- 
 voir of righteousness which is in God. 
 Only on thus falling back on God, and 
 feeling himself to be, as of everything 
 else, so of righteousness, a recipient, is a 
 man truly rightened. Thus the last moral 
 experience and the first upward look of 
 religion agree in one, * A man can receive 
 nothing except it be given him from 
 above.'" 
 
 Again the harvest must be as the sowing 
 in qzmlity. After a man decides what 
 kind of grain he must sow in order to 
 secure the kind of harvest he wants to 
 reap, he is careful to select a good quality 
 of that kind of grain, for he knows that 
 
"WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. I93 
 
 the quality of the harvest is affected by 
 the qiiahty of the seed. A good farmer, 
 when he has decided to sow wheat, seeks 
 to get for his seed the best quahty of 
 wheat in the market ; and the student, 
 when he has decided to study any partic- 
 ular theme, seeks to find the ablest teach- 
 ers and most helpful books, so that by the 
 best methods and the best quality of seed 
 he may be sure of a good quality of har- 
 vest. So it should be in the spiritual 
 sowing. It is needful for us all to have the 
 choicest spiritual seed, if we would have 
 the richest spiritual harvest. This seed is 
 the word of God. The words of men 
 may be wise and very helpful ; but every 
 Christian knows that the power to sanc- 
 tify is the word of truth. The faith that 
 enables us to receive aright the blessings 
 of God, '' Cometh by hearing, and hearing 
 by the word of God." For this there is 
 no safe substitute. Nor must the quantity 
 be regarded as an unimportant matter, for 
 if one wants to reap bountifully, he must 
 sow bountifully. No farmer is so igno- 
 
194 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 rant as to do on his farm what so many- 
 Intelligent and cautious people do in the 
 spiritual work of their lives ; sow as little 
 as possible, and yet hope to reap a very 
 great abundance. Sowing to the flesh a 
 hundred dollars for every dime they sow 
 to the spirit ; sowing a week's work to the 
 flesh for every hour they give to spiritual 
 work ; sowing a thousand fold for the 
 body over the handful they scatter for the 
 spiritual harvest. As they sow in kind 
 and quality and quantity, so shall they 
 reap. 
 
 Another particular of this law is that of 
 increase. You plant a single grain and it 
 gives you in return a score like itself. 
 Your harvest is not according to the 
 labor and money you expend upon it. 
 These alone do not give the full value of 
 the product. The natural fertility of the 
 soil, and the ability of the seed to multi- 
 ply itself so abundantly, must be consid- 
 ered. This power of multiplication, the 
 seed has in itself ; but there is another 
 mode of increase that must not be over- 
 
"WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH." I95 
 
 looked, that by diffiisioii or dispersion. 
 Whether it be thistle-down floating on the 
 air, the lady-slipper exploding to scatter 
 its little seed-bullets, or the seeds of trees 
 and grass and grain carried by the wind, 
 or the birds, or on the bosom of flowing 
 waters, far and wide the life is dispersed 
 to grow and multiply in new lands. 
 Everyone recognizes this law in nature, 
 every student knows how true it is in the 
 intellectual life, and the word of God 
 says, as we have seen in the Parable of 
 Growth, that it is as true in the spiritual 
 life. You cannot keep either spiritual 
 good or evil from increasing. The good 
 we do and the evil we do go on producing 
 their harvest to the end, multiplying and 
 diffusing their influence, each after its 
 kind. One would think that no exhortation 
 could be needed to make us cautious in 
 our every word and deed in presence of 
 such a responsibility. But we are apt to 
 forget the wisest admonition, grown famil- 
 iar by its frequent repetition, even as we 
 are apt to overlook the greatest values in 
 
196 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 things grown customary by our constant 
 use of them. 
 
 "To do good and communicate, forget 
 not, for with such sacrifices God is well 
 pleased." '' Herein is my Father glori- 
 fied, that ye bear much fruit." These, to 
 one who seeks to "sow to the spirit," are 
 not mere commands, but are the very 
 principle of his life. They are commands 
 of duty, but they are eagerly accepted as 
 in perfect harmony with his own new-born 
 spiritual life, and the grain does not more 
 eagerly accept the sunshine and the rain 
 for its growth to the harvest than does the 
 earnest Christian accept these commands 
 and the opportunities they give for growth 
 towards the final harvest of his own full- 
 grown and ripened life. 
 
 By a different emphasis, we may learn 
 another lesson, which is also suggested 
 by the first sentence of the Parable of 
 Growth. " Whatsoever a man sowetJi, 
 that shall he also reap.'' 
 
 Every true life is one of activity. No 
 man drifts to real success, for while he 
 
''WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. I97 
 
 may suddenly and without effort secure 
 possession of great wealth or high posi- 
 tion, he has not that discipline of self 
 which comes with the labor of achieve- 
 rhent. In no department of life does one 
 gather a good harvest without a previous 
 sowing. Hence the work, the manner of 
 its performance, and the spirit of the 
 worker, all enter into the life-problem of 
 every human soul. And this is true, not 
 only in the great affairs of life, but also in 
 every little thing. For everything, 
 whether great or small, is both a seed 
 and a harvest, the seed for future growth 
 and the fruit of a previous sowing. Con- 
 tempt of littles may be contempt of the 
 greatest values, for we never know how 
 much of growth may lie within the small- 
 est seed. You cast a little word of truth 
 into a young heart, and never knew that 
 from your sowing there sprang up great 
 principles to control an immortal, life. 
 Nor did you see the many seeds that have 
 fallen from that life to spring up and 
 grow in other souls unto endless life. 
 
 18 
 
198 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 A divine spirit makes everything divine 
 that it touches, and a consecrated spirit 
 consecrates every work it performs, 
 whether the world call it small or large. 
 As Mrs. Gaskel's " Ruth " expresses it : 
 
 '' There is a right way and a wrong 
 way of setting about everything — and to 
 my thinking, the right way is to take a 
 thing up heartily, if it is only making a 
 bed. Why, dear, ah me ! making a bed 
 may be done after a very christian 
 fashion, I take it, or else what's to come 
 of such as me in heaven, who've had little 
 enough time on earth for clapping our- 
 selves down on our knees for set prayers." 
 
 Any man is great who does all his work 
 for the spirit and the duty in it, who feels 
 that each lowly task may be so performed 
 as to help the noblest spiritual growth. 
 Religion ''put on " is a very deadly thing, 
 like the famed shirt of Nessus, putting 
 the wearer to a miserable death. But 
 religion that springs from the heart, and 
 flows naturally with consecrating power 
 into every walk of life, is a very noble 
 
"WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. 1 99 
 
 thinor makinor the life beautiful in all 
 abiding graces, and ''fruitful in every 
 good work." But such a life comes not 
 by accident. Its own appropriate sowing 
 and its own natural growth must precede 
 it. Evil crops grow without any care, but 
 good seed must be sown and carefully 
 cultivated. All plants and trees pro- 
 ducing food for man are short-lived, and 
 require constant care to prevent their 
 deeeneration. Even the famous bread- 
 fruit, which we once thought did not come 
 under this rule, is no exception to the 
 law ; for of the two varieties of the bread- 
 fruit-tree, the wild propagates itself, and 
 is worthless for food, while that which 
 yields food is seedless, and requires con- 
 stant care for its growth. 
 
 In the spiritual world, the very labor of 
 sowing and cultivatinor enters into the 
 quality of the fruit, and prepares the soul 
 for the proper enjoyment and use of the 
 harvest. The great purpose of the 
 activity to which Christ urges his fol- 
 lowers is to crowd out the evil growth by 
 
200 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 the more abundant sowing and cultivation 
 of the good. "Sow beside all waters," 
 however weed-grown and stony, for It Is 
 thus that Christ would " destroy the 
 works of the devil." Indeed, the Master 
 would teach us to measure our life less by 
 the number of Its years than by the spirit 
 of Its service and the abundance of Its 
 fruits. How can any soul accustomed 
 only to reaping, without a thought of sow- 
 ing, ever rightly appreciate the self-denial 
 and never-resting service of Christ ? 
 What can he understand of the joys of 
 Him who delighted to do God's will, and 
 of the heaven that rewards the faithful 
 steward, when he is a stranger to the 
 spirit of devotion to the work of minister- 
 ing unto others? The Saviour's admo- 
 nitions concerning hearing might well be 
 applied to sowing ; take heed hozu ye sow, 
 and take heed wJiat ye sow. Before sowing, 
 decide what you will sow, and that will be 
 decided by what you want to reap In the 
 harvest. And do not overlook the fact 
 that this law applies to every part of life. 
 
"WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH. 20I 
 
 To public life and to private. To the 
 school and the church, to the store and 
 the home, to politics and to business. 
 
 If you want to reap success in business, 
 you must sow accordingly ; but remember 
 that you may be so ''diligent in business" 
 (or In house-keeping, or in study) as to 
 become unable to ''be fervent in spirit." 
 Perhaps you say, " I will first be success- 
 ful in business, and then with my wealth 
 I will serve the Lord with all faithfulness." 
 Nay, if you do not continue "fervent in 
 spirit, serving the Lord," while you are 
 increasing you wealth, you will never 
 properly unite them afterwards. Much 
 of the devotion to business which the 
 world applauds is the very process that 
 is destroying spiritual growth. Many of 
 our business men, pressing forward 
 eagerly for wealth, need to consider this 
 law of life which God has written in such 
 unqualified language. 
 
 Ask yourselves whether, when you shall 
 have secured possession of wealth, you 
 will be richer or poorer than now ? You 
 
202 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 will possess much, but will you be more 
 or less than now ? Be watchful, lest you 
 choke your spiritual life, God's harvest, 
 with the too abundant growth of your 
 own earthly harvest ! '' It is required of 
 stewards that they be found faithful." 
 Not only when they have laid by all that 
 they want for themselves, but from the 
 first moment of life. 
 
 Every moment this law is In full opera- 
 tion in every life, yet do we not often try 
 to make ourselves believe that Its action 
 is not certain, or at least that it is far off 
 in the future ? We treat life as if It were 
 a mere succession of acts and thouo^hts 
 and words, when these are but the leaves 
 and blossoms and partial fruits of a life 
 which is unbroken and endless. Thinking 
 that we can at any moment cease to per- 
 form the acts, we forget that they are but 
 expressions of a life steadily growing to a 
 harvest from the sowing of all the past. 
 For all life is an unbroken series of beo^In- 
 nings, as well as of harvests. The slight 
 Inclination, which we may have Inherited, 
 
<( r, 
 
 THAT SHALL HE REAL. 203 
 
 may seem to us a very small matter, yet 
 from it may grow a wish, an affection, an 
 act, a habit, all doing their part in shap- 
 ing and -establishing our character. How 
 careless we are of the seeds that fall into 
 our lives, and the lives of those for whom 
 we are responsible! We pay so little 
 heed to the sowing, but when too late to 
 destroy the evil, and cultivate the good 
 to advantage, we curse ourselves for our 
 folly, and plead for God to pity us. We 
 are apt to think of retribution as some- 
 thing which belongs exclusively to a dis- 
 tant future and another world, yet every 
 soul carries within itself the prophecy of 
 its own judgment. For retribution is 
 implied in every threat of conscience, and 
 illustrated in every controversy between 
 ofood and evil for the control of the will. 
 In every temptation, the will is solicited 
 by opposing f-celings, and we can do no 
 more than to choose the best or the worst 
 that is before us. If we choose the worst 
 thing, is it not the wickedest thing we are 
 able to do at that moment ? It is no 
 
204 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 palliation to say that others have done 
 worse things than we ever have, for they 
 did no more than the wickedest thing that 
 lay within their reach, and that we have 
 done. We know that in every temptation 
 there is a choice between two things, 
 and these two things are not of equal 
 moral worth, so that we are ever choosing 
 either the best thing or the worst. Thus 
 we are ever casting the seed for a future 
 harvest, habituating the will to obey the 
 purer affections in its decisions, and quick- 
 eninor these affections to more vigorous 
 growth ; or putting the will more and 
 more under the control of the evil in us, 
 and thus determining our characters away 
 from good and from God. 
 
 We know that neither orood nor evil 
 receives its full retribution in this world ; 
 every life's experience is proof of that. 
 Conscience punishes the most spiritual 
 with the keenest remorse for sin, while it 
 speaks but feebly in those who dwell in 
 crime. But the law abides forever; 
 '' whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
 
**THAT SHALL HE REAP. 205 
 
 also reap." '' Even as I have seen, they 
 that plow iniquity and sow wickedness, 
 reap the same." (Job 4: 8.) What a 
 fearful meaning this gives to that last proc- 
 lamation of this same law : ** Seal not up 
 the words of the prophecy of this book ; 
 for the time is at hand. He that is 
 unrighteous, let him be unrighteous still : 
 and he which is filthy, let him be filthy 
 still : and he that his holy, let him be holy 
 still. And behold I come quickly ; and 
 my reward (wages) is with me, to give 
 every man according as his work shall be." 
 (Rev. 22: II, 12.) 
 
 Solemn and threatening as this law may 
 be in one direction, it is full of comfort 
 and encouragement in another. A sower 
 of good seed has only to look at the won- 
 derful orrowth of '* the word of the kincr- 
 
 o o 
 
 dom," to see how certainly this law 
 applies to good as well as to evil. It will 
 make him penitent for the evil he has 
 done, but it should make him diligent and 
 hopeful in every faithful service of good. 
 Diligent, to make the future sowing 
 
206 THE LAW OF THE HARVEST. 
 
 both good and bountiful. Hopeful, for 
 the harvest shall be as the sowing, for 
 every good seed carries within itself the 
 decree of its own certain growth to the 
 final harvest, and is guarded and nour- 
 ished by the blessing of '' the Lord of the 
 harvest." 
 
 Every seed is a beginning; if the seed 
 be true and good, it is the beginning of 
 blessings that cannot die. For your own 
 soul, for your children, for all lives that 
 feel you influence, have seeds of blessing 
 ready in the abundant fruitfulness of your 
 own life. Remember *'the Sower," who 
 never came in contact with human life 
 without leaving some seeds of comfort, or 
 warning, or hopefulness, never counting 
 any too low or too great to receive the 
 word of life. There is no better life for this 
 world or heaven than His, "who came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minister." 
 
 '' Wherefore, be ye steadfast, unmova- 
 ble, always abounding in the work of the 
 Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your 
 labor is not in vain in the Lord," 
 
''THAT SHALL HE REAP." 207 
 
 '' Now He that ministereth bread for 
 your food, multiply your seed sown, 
 and increase the fruits of your righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 " Now the God of peace, who brought 
 again from the dead the Great Shepherd 
 of the sheep with the blood of the eternal 
 covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you 
 perfect in every good thing to do His 
 will, working In us that which is well-pleas- 
 ing in His sight, through Jesus Christ ; to 
 whom be the glory forever and ever. 
 Amen."