and now no
temptation, however intense and long-continued, shall be able to blanch
its green blade or blast its filling ear. Lord, increase our faith. When
trouble comes, whether under the ordinary procedure of God's government
or more directly from his hand, whether in the form of bodily suffering
or spiritual convictions, possess your soul in patience and wait for the
end of the Lord. "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous,
but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Heb. xii. 11).

III. THE THORNS.--In the application of the lesson this term must be
understood not specifically, but generically. In the natural object it
indicates any species of useless weed that occupies the ground and
injures the growing crop: in the spiritual application it points to the
worldly cares, whether they spring from poverty or wealth, which usurp
in a human heart the place due to Christ and his saving truth.

The earthly affections in the heart which render religion unfruitful in
the life are enumerated under two heads,--"The care of this world," and
"the deceitfulness of riches;" the term riches includes also, as we may
gather from Luke's narrative, the pleasures which riches procure.

Both from our own experience in the world and the specific terms
employed by the Lord in the interpretation of the parable, we learn that
all classes and all ranks are on this side exposed to danger. This is
not a rich man's business, or a poor man's; it is every man's business.
The words point to the two extremes of worldly condition, and include
all that lies between them. "The care of the world" becomes the snare of
those who have little, and "the deceitfulness of riches," the snare of
those who have much. Thus the world wars against the soul, alike when it
smiles and when it frowns. Rich and poor have in this matter no room and
no right to cast stones at each other. Pinching want and luxurious
profusion are, indeed, two widely diverse species of thorns; but when
favoured by circumstances they are equally rank in their growth and
equally effective in destroying the precious seed.

In two distinct aspects thorns, growing in a field of wheat, reflect as
a mirror the kind of spiritual injury which the cares and pleasures of
the world inflict when they are admitted into the heart: they exhaust
the soil by their roots, and overshadow the corn with their branche