ady searched, drained, scourged by the greedy roots of
rank earthly lusts, is a sapless, impoverished, shrivelled thing, where
faith in God and loving obedience to his law can no longer grow. Thus
perish many bright promises; and high above the ruin, living and abiding
for ever stands the word of Christ a witness against all who have been
undone by neglecting it, "No man can serve two masters."

Worldly cares nursed by indulgence into a dangerous strength are further
like thorns growing in a corn field, in that they interpose a veil
between the face of Jesus and the opening, trustful look of a longing
soul. It is the want of free, habitual exposure to the Sun of
righteousness that prevents the ripening of grace in Christians. Unless
we turn our eye often upward, and expose the struggling, springing seed
of faith to the beams of the Redeemer's love, there will be no steady
growth of grace, and no ultimate fruit of righteousness. It is thus that
insinuating, overspreading, domineering cares quench both hope and
holiness: they hinder the simple, tender, confiding look unto Jesus
which is necessary to the increase or maintenance of spiritual life. The
love of Christ freely streaming down from heaven through the Scriptures
and by the ministry of the Spirit, when freely admitted into an open,
willing heart, by degrees turns fear into hope, doubt into faith, and
the feeble struggle of a child into the strong man's glorious victory;
as unimpeded sunlight converts the minute mustard seed into a towering
tree, and the tender sprouts of spring into the golden treasures of
harvest. A thickly woven web of cares and pleasures interposed between
the soul and the Saviour is a chief cause of failure in "God's
husbandry."

Nor is the harvest safe although the thorny shade that overhangs it be
not completely impervious and constant. Fitful glances of sunshine now
and then will not bring the fruit to maturity. Stand beneath the
branches of a forest tree on a day that is at once bright and breezy:
you may observe on the ground at your feet a curious network of
flickering light trembling and dancing about in perpetual motion. The
sunbeams that penetrate at intervals through openings among the agitated
branches are barren though beautiful. The grass that gets no other
light grows slim and pithless, bearing no seed-knot on its slender top.
Sunlight admitted now and then through apertures in the leafy awning is
not sufficient for the processes