25. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. In that small beginning not only was every after-development already determined to a finality, but it also contained the stored-up inheritance of untold generations." -Dr. W. H. Thomson, in Parables and Their Home. THE GOOD SEED ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE KINGDOM.Hence living seed. "Perhaps the better part of most good and useful lives is the part that never gets into the written biography, that cannot be written. It is probable that in nearly every life this is the better part, that its unconscious, unwritten, unpurposed influences aggregate more in the end than the things wrought out with labor and pains, and thought of as making the real life-work. An artist spends years in a foreign city, studying the works of the great masters, and then with glowing inspiration cuts in the marble the ideal forms of his own dreams and visions. The figures are packed and sent home. The boxes are carefully opened, and the marbles are admired and praised by thousands. The artist's ambition is gratified, and he rejoices in his triumph. But hidden in the straw in which the noble works were packed were a number of little seeds. The straw is scattered about the grounds, and the next spring rare foreign flowers spring up beside the artist's of the Good. doorway. The pieces of statuary were the purposed results of those many years abroad; the flowers exhaling their fragrance were the accidental, unplanned, unintended results. So good men and women go on with their great purposes and plans, but there is at the same time an unperceived, unnoted ministry, which yields many a sweet flower."-Sunday-School Times. Unconscious 25. HIS ENEMY SOWED TARES AMONG THE WHEAT. -Trench relates a similar trick of malice from Ireland, where he knew an outgoing tenant who, in spite at his ejection, sowed wild oats in the fields of the proprietor, which ripened and seeded themselves before the crops, so that it became next to impossible to get rid of them. Dr. Alford, too, mentions that a field belonging to him in Leicestershire, England, was Modern Examples. 27. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares ? 28. He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? maliciously sown with charlock, and that heavy damages were obtained by the tenant against the offender. A.D. 28. BY THE SEA OF GALILEE NEAR CAPERNAUM. MIDDLE OF SECOND YEAR. THE YEAR OF DEVELOPMENT. PARABLE OF THE TARES. THE TARES are the children of the wicked one, who are filled with his spirit, live according to his principles, and are under his control. They are not a degenerate form of virtue, but as distinct as virtue and vice. They often resemble the good till the fruit begins to appear, but they are as different as wheat and tares, as thistles and roses. GOOD SOIL FOR WHEAT IS FERTILE FOR TARES.-The better the soil for wheat, the better it is for tares. The more the ground is prepared for the good, the more earnest Satan is to plant the bad. There are a thousand weeds sown in a garden to one in the Sahara sands. There are many more evils in the civilized land made so by Christian principles, than in the wilds of savage life. Dr. Thomson says: "Never has there been a fresh beginning for better things in this world without its affording new opportunities of its own making for the growth of tares. Hence have come the sad disappointments of many reformers, who, while rejoicing at the doing away of old evils, as if every evil would then cease, have quite forgotten how men with selfish instincts would find this newly prepared field good for them also. Thus we can imagine how the heroes of liberty in English or American history would be dismayed if they could return now to the scenes of their labors. In view of the rank growth of abuses in our legislative and municipal affairs, how natural it would be for them to exclaim, 'Did we not sow good seed in this field? From whence then hath it tares?'" Applica tions. We are to measure the values not by counting the weeds, but by the number and usefulness of the good plants. WEEDS SOWN UNCONSCIOUSLY." As botanists assure us that 29. But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. the North American continent now abounds with European weeds which colonists unwittingly introduced with the grains which they brought with them, so the universality of the law of the spiritual tares has never escaped illustration in the history of our religious sects, from the largest to the smallest of them." -Dr. W. H. Thomson. SCOTCH THISTLE IN CALIFORNIA.-Two Scotchmen emigrated in the early days to California. Each thought to take with him some memorial of his beloved country. One of them, an enthusiastic lover of Scotland, took with him a thistle, the national emblem. The other took a small swarm of honey bees. Years have passed away. The Pacific coast is, on the one hand, cursed with the Scotch thistle, which the farmers find it impossible to exterminate; on the other hand, the forests and fields are fragrant and laden with the sweetness of honey, which has been and is still one of the blessings of the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. LIBRARY.-In "The Land of the Kangaroo," we are told, how an enthusiastic Scotchman brought with him to Australia a thistle plant on his return from Scotland. It was welcomed by a great dinner, of which the thistle was the center-piece. Speeches were made and congratulations offered. But the thistle soon scattered its seeds, till thistles became one of the great pests of the country, and an Act of Parliament was passed for their destruction. VEDDER'S PICTURE IN NEW YORK.-"In the autumn of 1894 a painting by Vedder was exhibited in New York City, which showed, as few modern works of art do, the innermost fact in the problem of the world's moral life, now up for solution. The painter called his parable of life, as it was put on the large canvas, 'The Devil Sowing Tares. The whole atmosphere was dark, mysterious, and lowering, set in a light that struck the observer with awe, as in the presence of some dread problem going on beneath those portentous clouds. Before him was a bare and rockpaved slope, curving upward, like another Golgotha, to an upright post, at the base of which the letters I N R I plainly intimated that A Painter's 30. Let both grow together until the harvest and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. A.D. 28. BY THE SEA OF GALILEE NEAR CAPERNAUM. MIDDLE OF PARABLE it was the foot of the cross, the center of redeeming influences streaming forth down the eastern slope of Golgotha into the cold, dark, worldly mystery around, and off toward a horizon with faint streaks of light breaking on it. In the foreground was Satan, with malignant leer, holding beneath one brawny arm a pot of gold, and with the other he was sowing the coins, as a sower flings the seed, up toward the cross. He was poisoning the very fountain of redemption. He was setting gold to work against the gospel, the seduction of luxury, the charm of opulence, the fierce temptation to be rich, the looming up of worldly grandeur, coins of different size and shape, but all the devil's gold, and all now thrown into the garden soil of Christian life and character, to seed it with tares, or into the fountain of faith to poison it at the source. This is the painter's parable of the church's trial in the present age. This is the parable of the devil poisoning the fountains; not for the slums, but for the Christain churches and homes."-(See full description in the Independent of Nov. 22, 1894.) "The lie brought forth others, Dark sisters and brothers, And fathers and mothers, A horrible crew." Tares and 30. LET BOTH GROW TOGETHER UNTIL THE HARVEST.-"It is said to be the only grass which bears a poisonous seed, 'a fitting symbol of the fruit of the devil's sowing.' It grows frequently with the wheat and so nearly resembles it as to be practically indistinguishable until the grain is headed out. There can be no mistake then. As once I heard it remarked in that country, 'the ears which God has blessed bow their heads, but these accursed tares stick theirs above the whole field!' For the tare then carries a tall, light head of small, dark grains which in every respect contrasts with the weighty, golden ear of the good seed.'"-Dr. W. H. Thomson. The good and the evil are not found here as genuine and counterfeit coins may be heaped together." But the roots are interwoven. Persecutions and trials for heresy have more often rooted up wheat than tares. TARES AND WHEAT GROWING TOGETHER.-It is wise to let wheat and tares grow together, because the wheat may have a good influence over the tares, and change them into wheat, This is expressed a few verses later in the parable of the leaven. "Cultivation, improvement by tillage, has done a good deal for some weeds. The potato used to be called a weed, but we do not call it so now, because, by much care and attention, it has become useful, profitable, and far from Weeds Changed to Useful Plants. troublesome to man. 'I think the tomato was once called a weed also. You can see why it is no longer. Perhaps some of you can remember, or find out, about other plants that have lost the odious title." -Juniata Stafford, in Sunday-School Times. "Wiser would it be to accept the simple thought of the Syrian peasants, who to this day believe that tares can best be kept down by nourishing to the utmost the life of the good seed." -Dr. W. H. Thomson. Christians themselves are educated and disciplined by contact with the tares. They would not be nearly so good if shut off in a community by themselves. Tares would still come in. If the wheat does not seek to change the tares into wheat, the wheat will degenerate into tares. THE HARVEST.-"One day the master of Lukman (an Eastern fabulist) said to him, 'Go into such a field and sow barley.' Lukman sowed oats instead. At the time of harvest his master went to the place and, seeing the green oats springing up, asked him, 'Did I not tell you to sow barley here? Why, then, have you sown oats?' He answered, I sowed oats in the hope that barley would grow up.' His master said, 'What foolish idea is this? Have you ever heard of the like?' Lukman replied, 'You yourself are constantly sowing in the field of the world the seeds of evil, and yet expect to reap in the resurrection day the fruits of virtue. Therefore I thought also I might get barley by sowing oats.' The master was abashed at the reply and set Lukman free.”—Biblical Treasury. |