hile the tares are
those souls who have given themselves up to evil and are counted as
children of the wicked one. Inspired by zeal for their Master's profit,
the servants would have forcibly rooted up the tares, but were
restrained, for their unwise though well-intended course would have
endangered the wheat while yet tender, since in the early stages of
growth it would have been difficult to distinguish the one from the
other, and the intertwining of the roots would have caused much
destruction of the precious grain.

One cardinal lesson of the parable, apart from the representation of
actual conditions present and future, is that of patience,
long-suffering, and toleration--each an attribute of Deity and a trait
of character that all men should cultivate. The tares mentioned in the
story may be considered as any kind of noxious weed, particularly such
as in early growth resembles the wholesome grain.[623] Over-sowing with
the seed of weeds in a field already sown with grain is a species of
malignant outrage not unknown even in the present day.[624] The
certainty of a time of separation, when the wheat shall be garnered in
the store-house of the Lord, and the tares be burned, that their
poisonous seed may reproduce no more, is placed beyond question by the
Lord's own exposition.

So important is the lesson embodied in this parable, and so assured is
the literal fulfilment of its contained predictions, that the Lord has
given a further explication through revelation in the current
dispensation, a period in which the application is direct and immediate.
Speaking through Joseph Smith the Prophet in 1832, Jesus Christ said:

"But behold, in the last days, even now while the Lord is
beginning to bring forth the word, and the blade is springing up
and is yet tender. Behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are
crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to
be sent forth to reap down the fields; but the Lord saith unto
them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender, (for
verily your faith is weak,) lest you destroy the wheat also.
Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the
harvest is fully ripe, then ye shall first gather out the wheat
from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat,
behold and lo! the tares are bound in bundles, and the field
remaineth to be burned."[625]

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.

Matthe