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II.

THE SOWER AND THE SEED;

OR,

DIFFERENT CLASSES OF HEARERS.

"And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow," &c., &c.

MATT. xiii. 3—9, 18—23.

Multitudes

OUR Lord was now becoming popular. thronged to hear Him. The house in which He tarried was too small for His audience; we find, therefore, that He was compelled to go out of the house, and sit on the seaside. The company, however, soon became so numerous that He found it necessary to change his position again; hence He went into a ship lying close by, and having once more taken His seat, proceeded to deliver His wonderful discourse.

It was altogether a most interesting scene. Let us endeavour to picture it to ourselves. Behind them lay the picturesque sea of Tiberias, calmly reposing among the hills, and reflecting in its placid waters the green fields, the fruitful vineyards, and

the rugged rocks with which it was surrounded. From the blue firmament above the sun poured down a flood of glory which was exquisitely charming to behold. It was as if Nature had put on her best robes in honour of this brief visit of her mighty King.

Many look upon this, and other similar incidents in our Lord's life, as tokens of His humiliation. Instead of occupying some of the stately edifices of which the world could boast at the time; instead of meeting His hearers in marble halls, specially constructed for the purpose; He availed Himself of the most convenient places that presented themselves in the open air. But to my mind, our Lord never appeared so glorious, so majestic, so divine, as when He stood in the temple which His own hands had built, with the green earth for its floor, the spacious heaven for its roof, and the beauties of nature for its ornaments, and in this magnificent temple gave utterance to those eternal principles which He had come into the world to teach.

Our Lord's ministry had an attractiveness peculiar to itself. "Never man spake like this man," was the testimony of the officers, whom the chief priests and the Pharisees on one occasion sent to take Him, And even now, after the lapse of so many ages, after the appearance and disappearance of so many illustrious geniuses, even we may repeat with equal propriety, "Never man spake like this man." The

man that could speak as He did has not yet been born. And no wonder; for He was God manifest in the flesh, He was omnipotent as well as omniscient, He possessed divine power and divine wisdom, He knew the wants of His hearers, and had ample means to supply them. Now, one of the most prominent features in our Lord's discourses was their beautiful simplicity. They were designed to set forth, in the clearest manner possible, the great principles of His kingdom. Unquestionably,

He was the greatest man, the greatest teacher, the greatest preacher that this world has ever seen, and in nothing was His greatness manifested more conspicuously than in His constant desire to make Himself understood. We naturally lose confidence in those would-be great men, who only contrive to darken what is evident, and to mystify what is clear; who spend their days in fruitless attempts to paint the lily and to beautify the rainbow. This is so far from being a mark of greatness that it is a sure sign of miserable smallness. Christ was the very opposite of all this. He availed Himself of every means within His power to simplify the doctrines which He taught. He condescended to employ the simplest figures to illustrate the profoundest principles. And to this fact mainly, though not absolutely, we are to attribute the great multiplicity of parables, with which his sermons

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abound. Many of these parables have been suggested by the most homely affairs, by the occurrences of everyday life, by things with which the very dullest of His hearers could not have been unacquainted. You may take this parable of the sower as a specimen of the whole. I don't suppose there was a single man, woman, or crowd who heard it, to whom the work were not perfectly familiar.

child among the

sower and His The same may

be said of all the other parables recorded in this chapter—the tares, the grain of mustard-seed, the leaven, the hid treasure, the pearl of great price, the draw-net, and the householder.

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Behold, a sower went forth to sow." I imagine that a sower was at the time within sight, busily at work in a neighbouring field. If so, the parable would be peculiarly striking and appropriate. Lord could point to a living instance of what He described. He could say, "Behold, there he is before your eyes; watch his movements at his work; see how he sows the same seed in widely different grounds, some by the wayside, some in stony places, some among thorns, and some in good ground; behold all this, and learn the moral lesson which it so clearly sets forth."

"A sower went forth." By this figure, our Lord must have meant himself; He was the great sower, who came into the world to scatter the precious

seed of the truth; nevertheless the figure applies with equal force to every Christian teacher who labours in His name. It was our Lord himself who commenced to sow; it was a work which no other being had power to commence; and it is He who still supplies those who carry on the work with the proper seed. He regarded the work honourable then; the work is honourable still; no work can be more dignified than that of disseminating the word. He experienced the same difficulties, the same oppositions, the same discouragements then as His humblest servants experience now. Notwithstanding His care, His wisdom, His earnestness, all that He sowed was not fruitful. Let us bear this in mind, and let it strengthen our hearts, when we are ready to faint through want of success.

Here four classes of hearers are brought before us the careless hearer, the superficial hearer, the worldly hearer, and the earnest hearer. All these classes are to be found in almost every congregation. Let us therefore examine their respective characteristics.

I. THE CARELESS HEARER.

"And when he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up.". The wayside was the hard, trodden foot-path, which probably lay across the field; which, owing to the

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