your heart
to-day, it will be more painful to-morrow. Take for example the love of
money: we know well that though money is a useful servant it is a hard
master; be assured if it get and keep the mastery of a soul, its little
finger in the end will be thicker than its loins were at the beginning.
Avarice chastises its slave in middle life with whips; but if he abide
its slave, it will chastise him when he is old with scorpions.

3. The thorn is a prickly thing; it tears the husbandman's flesh, as
well as destroys the fruit of his field. In like manner the care of the
world and the deceitfulness of riches lacerate the man who permits them
to grow rank in his heart. The vain man is continually meeting with
slights, or suspecting that his neighbours are about to offer them. The
miser is always losing money, or trembling lest he should lose it in
the next transaction. The world itself knows, and in its proverbs
confesses, that around the most coveted pleasures are set sharp thorns,
which wound the hand that tries to pluck the rose.

4. It was where the seed and the thorns grew together that the mischief
was done. If the grain is permitted to occupy alone the heart of the
field, the thorns that grow outside and around it may constitute a hedge
of defence, not only harmless but useful. There is a place for cares,
and for riches too,--a place in which they help and do not hinder the
kingdom of God. Kept in its own sphere, the lawful business of life
becomes a protecting fence round the tender plant of grace in a
Christian's heart. Permit not the thorns to occupy the position which is
due to the good seed. Not as rivals within the field, but as guards
around it, earthly affairs are innocent and safe. "Seek first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you."

5. When the husbandman perceives a huge prickly weed in the midst of his
field robbing and overshadowing the corn, he sends his servant to cast
out the intruder. In such a case, a bare spot is left where the thistle
grew; but at this stage experiences diverge and travel on different
lines towards opposite results. In some cases the blank is soon made up
again, and the corn waves level like a lake over all the field, so that
none could tell where the thistle stood: in others, the blank caused by
the removal of a rank weed remains a blank throughout the summer,
presenting to the reapers in harvest only a spot of bare ground. Why do