31. Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: A.D. 28. Autumn. BY THE SEA SECOND YEAR. ONE CROP, BUT OF OAKS.-There was an abbot who desired a piece of ground that lay conveniently for him. The owner refused to sell, yet with much persuasion was contented to let it. The abbot hired it and covenanted only to farm it for one crop. He had his bargain and sowed it with acorns,—a crop that lasted three hundred years. So Satan asks to get possession of our souls by asking us to permit some small sin to enter, some one wrong that seems of no great account. But when once he has entered and planted the seeds and beginnings of evil he holds his ground and sins and evils multiply. 32. Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Truthfulness and Accuracy. 32. WHICH IS INDEED THE LEAST OF ALL SEEDS.-"The characterization of the mustard seed as 'less than all the seeds that be in the earth' (Mark iv. 31) was as truthful a statement by our Lord as when in the parable of the sower he said, 'when the sun was risen' (R. V.), though in neither case was he scientifically accurate, for the sun never rises, and botanists know of smaller seeds than those of mustard. But truthfulness and accuracy are not necessarily synonymous terms. Nothing can be more accurate than a photograph from life, for no inaccuracy can be detected in it even by a microscope. But people will continue to prefer and to pay for an expensive portrait by a skilled artist, with all his human mistakes, rather than for the sorry likenesses which the accurate sun often makes of their friends. Our Lord was speaking to the people of seeds which they daily used." -Prof. W. H. Thomson. BECOMETH A TREE. LIBRARY.-Dr. Dorchester's "Religious Progress of the World " and Dr. A. F. Schauffler's "Progress of Missions" give statistics and diagrams showing in most interesting and vivid ways how wonderfully the religion of Christ has progressed in the world. 33. Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. LIBRARY. The progress, unfolded from the nature of the seed, is well illustrated by the contrast between the fruit-tree of Mohammedanism, and the fruit-tree of Christianity, in Prof. Thomson's "Parables and Their Home,” pp. 91-96. A.D. 28. BY THE SEA SECOND YEAR. THE YEAR OF DEVELOPMENT. PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. Leaven. 33. LIKE UNTO LEAVEN." To this parable of the leaven modern science gives a peculiar significance which was wholly unknown in the times when the parable was first uttered. Then, and until very lately, it was supposed that the leavening of bread was caused by an inanimate material acting by purely physical processes upon the meal which it fermented. Pasteur has demonstrated, to the acceptance of the whole scientific world, that ferments are not portions of lifeless organic matter; but are actual living organisms, and that the fermentation which they occasion is a necessary consequence or manifestation of their vital activity and growth." -Prof. W. H. Thomson. CATALYSIS..—“Leaven is an example of those changes in bodies which are called catalysis. In catalysis the mere presence of a certain body among the particles of another produces the most extensive changes among those particles, and yet the body thus operating is itself unaffected. This is the case with leaven. One sees from the commotion among its particles, that a change is going on in its internal condition, and that new compounds are forming out of its elements. Introduced in that state into the meal, it communicates a change to the whole mass analogous to that which it is itself experiencing. One part mixed with 2,000 parts will change the whole in a few hours. It had long been a mystery how so small a quantity of one substance should be able to effect such a change upon so large a mass of another. But the discovery that leaven contains a fungus plant which multiplies with prodigious rapidity, and is sustained by the matter into which the leaven is introduced, furnishes an explanation. This yeast plant consists of myriads of cells, scarcely more than one three-thousandth of an inch in diameter. And it has the power of converting sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid, and finally 34. All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: 35. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. 36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38. The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39. The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. into vinegar. Note the two principles: (1) It needs but a very small quantity of leaven to produce a complete change in a very large amount of farinaceous matter. (2) It is only necessary to start the process in one or a few spots in order to have it permeate the entire heap (unless, as in bread, the process be stopped by heat). The whole secret of the spread of Christianity over the world in in this figure of the leaven. It is fire that kindles fire; love that kindles love; Christianity manifested that spreads Christianity.'" - Dr. Hitchcock. INDIRECT ACTION OF LEAVEN.-" One result of the action of these living cells is the formation of what may be termed pervasive chemical principles, which extend to some distance from the cells into the surrounding fermentable material, profoundly, though at first scarcely visibly, modifying it, and preparing it for the subsequent extension to it of the growing ferment."-W. H. Thomson. This accurately expresses the leavening power of Christianity as it extends its influence far beyond its actual disciples. "WILD" YEAST.-" The desired result is often utterly vitiated by the contamination of the proper ferment by the entrance with it of some form of what is technically termed a 'wild' yeast, which may grow so as wholly to supplant with its evil working the action of a 'cultivated' yeast. How to procure a 'pure' yeast is therefore one of the most carefully investigated problems of this branch of economic chemistry."— Thomson. This is an excellent illustration of the way that "wild" ideas, and 40. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42. And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. A D. 28. SECOND YEAR. TREASURE. 43. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. 44. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. false principles pervade christendom, and great care is needed to exclude or supplant them. LIKE TO LIKE.-"That which is once leavened becomes leaven to the rest; since as the spark, when it takes hold of wood, makes that which is already kindled to transmit the flame, and so seizes still upon more, thus it is also with the preaching of the Word."— Chrysostom. 43. SHINE FORTH.—ÉkλáμŸovow, shine out as from clouds and mists which had obscured their brightness. 44. LIKE UNTO TREASURE HID IN A FIELD. LIBRARY.-Prof. W. H. Thomson, LL.D., the son of the author of the "Land and the Book," born and brought up in Syria, has written the freshest and, in many respects, the best book on the Parables in this chapter, called "The Parables and Their Home." It is full of illustrations from the Orient, like the one that follows. HID TREASURE IN SYRIA.-"What it is to find a hid treasure in Syria was once well illustrated during my residence in Sidon. A land-owner of the town had hired a band of seventeen peasants, men and women, to dig up a field of about an acre to plant it with orange-trees. For such a purpose the custom is to run close together parallel trenches about three feet in depth, and then turn the soil into them until the whole field is thus gone over. As I watched them from the windows of our house on the city wall, I was amused |
