aggravation, ultimately reject it; the main design of the
second is to exhibit the kingdom in its relation to the wicked one, who
endeavours, by cunning stratagem, to destroy it. In either case there is
a conflict: in the first, the conflict is waged chiefly between the
word, which is the seed of the kingdom, and the various evil
dispositions which impede its growth in the hearts of men; in the
second, the conflict is waged chiefly, as in the mysterious temptation
in the wilderness, between Christ, man's Redeemer, and the devil, the
adversary of man. In the first parable the obstacles to the progress of
the kingdom lay in the heedlessness, the hardness, and the worldliness
of men; in the second, the old serpent is the opposer, and wicked men
are wielded as instruments in his hands.

The picture is sketched from nature; the lines are very few, but each
contributes a feature, and all, together, make the likeness complete.

A Galilean countryman, after having fenced and ploughed and cleaned his
field, has watched the condition of the soil and the appearance of the
sky, until he has found a day on which both were suitable for the grand
decisive operation of the season, the sowing of the seed. With anxiety,
but in hope, this critical and cardinal act is performed; the seed is
committed to the ground.

It was "good seed" that the careful husbandman cast among the clods. If
the last season's crop was of inferior quality, he and his children have
cheerfully lived upon the worst, that the best might be reserved for
sowing; if the last crop was scanty, the family were content with a less
plentiful meal; and if none of the previous year's produce was well
ripened, better grain has been bought in a distant market, that at all
hazards a sufficient quantity of good seed may be secured for the coming
season. Those only who have lived among them, and shared their lot, know
how much the poor but intelligent and industrious cultivators of the
soil will do and bear in order to preserve or obtain plenty of "good
seed."

The great crisis of the season is now past; and the husbandman, wiping
his brow as he glances backward upon his completed work, goes home at
sunset with limbs somewhat weary, but a heart full of hope. The next
portion of the picture is of a dark and dismal hue. When the farmer and
his family, innocent and unsuspicious, are fast asleep, a neighbour, too
full of envy for enjoying rest, stalks forth into the same field unde