persons who will not be at the trouble even to understand what they hear, but suffer the wicked one to take away the word from their hearts, as fast as it is sown. Surely the least we can do, when we hear the word of God, is to give it our best attention, and try to understand it. The Holy Spirit may then be pleased to enable us to receive and keep it, and not suffer the evil one to snatch it from us.

The next class of hearers, you said, were like rocky ground, where the soil may not be hard, like that of the beaten pathway, and like the hearts of careless ones, but loose and easily penetrated, yet shallow, on account of the rockiness of the ground below. Here seed may grow, but cannot take a deep root. Edward, what sort of hearers were these?

Now,

E. I think they were those who hear the word of God at first with joy, but have no root, and therefore last but a little time. I think you have told me that as corn, sown by accident upon rocky ground, where the roots had no moisture, would soon wither away under a scorching sun, so these persons would fall away from Christ, and forget the pleasantness they had once found in his words, if any great trial were to come upon them. Have I explained it aright? M. Yes, you are quite clear in your account, and I dare say you could go and tell me that the thorns and brambles, in the wild uncleaned ground, or near the hedges, represent those cares and pleasures which, at the very best, overrun the heart of man; and which, so often, alas! choke the word of God, and prevent it from bringing forth fruit. This is an awful case: for people often go on in this way deceiving themselves; thinking that they are truly religious, because they listen to

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the word of God, and do not turn a deaf ear like the careless ones, nor fall away like the unstable. And yet they do not receive the truth into a sincere and obedient heart; nor does it produce those lively fruits of righteousness which do spring up in some hearts, by the grace of Jesus Christ, to the praise and glory of God. How many dangers, my dear child, are there to be guarded against. Some perish through want of thought; some through want of steadiness; some through worldliness and the love of pleasure, mixing itself with their religion continually, and altogether stopping their progress in the way of life. May God keep us from all these evils, and bestow upon us of His great mercy that honest and good heart, so cultivated and prepared by his grace, that the precious seed sown in it may take deep root, and spring up, and increase day by day continually, and bring forth fruit a hundred-fold.

For this we must pray continually, and at the same time we must not forget, that, like the husbandman, we must take great pains with the ground which is to receive the seed. You have often seen a farmer sowing his wheat, and that too not only with the machines now invented for the purpose, but sometimes in the old fashioned way of scattering it about freely with the hand. Thus when the sower comes near the edges of the field, some may even fall upon the highway, some upon the footpath in the field itself, and some amongst the thorns near the hedges; and there will be some too that will fall upon the stony parts of the field, and the rest upon the ground that has been ploughed and manured, and in other ways carefully prepared to receive the grain. Now our hearts must, in like man

ner be prepared to receive the word of God. As the prophet says, we must "break up the fallow ground, and not sow among thorns." We must by God's grace plough up our sins by the root, and take away all the ill weeds of pride, and idleness, and folly, and look to God" until he rain righteousness upon us," and give us the fruits of our labours.

The farmer knows, or ought to know, that he can do nothing without God; for what would become of all his toil, if God did not give him a soil capable of being made fruitful, and the means of preparing and enriching it; if He did not give him seed to sow as well as multiply that seed by his refreshing dews, and ripening suns, and fertilizing rains from heaven. But though these are the great things, and every farmer knows it, yet he knows he must work too, and that God will not encourage him in idleness, by giving rich crops, without abundance of care, and skill, and toil.

E. I see, Mamma; he must work in preparing the ground, and must watch the seed when it is sown, and be careful to keep it safe from the birds, and clean from the weeds that would hurt it.

M. Yes; and it is thus that we must work out our salvation; not because we can save ourselves, any more than we can make the corn grow; because it is God that works in us and with us, enabling us to will and to do that which is good, and bestowing upon us the fruits of righteousness, if we cultivate them carefully in our hearts, and implore them earnestly from Him. His abundant goodness and grace towards us, make it doubly our duty not to be idle and careless, but diligent in making a good use of all the [Second Series.]

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means of improvement, which he has bestowed upon I think you will never more cross a corn-field, or see the farmer scattering the grain, without thinking of this beautiful parable of our Lord; and praying earnestly that your heart may be like the good ground. E. Was the parable of the sower the only one which our Lord spoke at this time?

M. No: there were several others, which I cannot now attempt to explain at full length. I do not, indeed, intend to go through the parables with you, because we have studied many of them before now, and because you have very valuable books already on your shelves explaining them all. I have only gone over the parable of the sower, you see, very slightly: but what I have said, by way of explaining that, may help you to understand all the rest, almost of yourself, or at least with such explanations of them, as you will find in the Bible itself. If you look to the chapter from which I have taken the parable of the sower, you will find that there were several others spoken by our Saviour, either on the lake itself, or when he returned to Capernaum.

E. Yes, Mamma; I see there is the parable of the wheat and the tares in the same field. I suppose the righteous and the wicked are spoken of here?

M. Yes; the righteous and the wicked grow up together in this world, nor can the wicked be plucked up without doing harm to the righteous also: so that both are allowed to remain together until the harvest, when the reapers, that is to say the angels, will carefully separate the one from the other. The unprofitable tares they will bind up in bundles to burn ; but the valuable wheat, the precious grain, in other

words the really righteous, they will collect into the kingdom of their Father, there to shine forth like suns for ever.

Then, by the slow and unseen growth of corn, our Lord showed how gradually, "without observation," His Gospel should be spread throughout the world. And thus it increases in our hearts also. The kingdom of God within us is established by very slow degrees. The seed of piety springs up we know not how, excepting that we know it comes not naturally, but is planted there by God.

First, there is the blade ;-the first precious promise of any thing lovely and good: then comes the ear; an appearance and beginning of the fruits of the Spirit then the full corn in the ear;-that delightful progress in holiness, those great victories over sin, that blessed meetness for heaven, which many and many a Christian, as he comes nearer the end of his life, has been enabled by God's grace to arrive at. And last of all is the rejoicing of the reapers, when the time of the harvest is come. Then he that once went on his way weeping because of his sins, his toils, his difficulties, and his troubles, shall go home with joy carrying his sheaves with him. Oh ! for our share, Edward, in that blissful harvest-home!

A lesson very much the same as this is taught in the parable of the mustard seed, which from a very small plant grows to be a tree large enough for the birds to lodge in. How little was the flock of Christ at first! See it spreading now over the whole world, and gathering into it all nations and languages! How slight in your dear little sister's mind must be the knowledge of the truth! Yet do we hope that she