hat received seed among the thorns is he that
heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness
of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that
received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and
understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some
an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."--MATT. xiii. 1-9, 18-23.

The parable is, in our language at least, so uniformly associated with
this name, that it would not readily be recognised under any other
designation; but "The four kinds of ground" (viererlei Acker), the title
which seems to be in ordinary use among the Germans, is logically more
correct, inasmuch as it points directly to the central idea, and
expresses the distinctive characteristic.

At this period a great and eager multitude followed the steps of Jesus
and hung upon his lips. A certain divine authority, strangely combined
with the tenderest human sympathy, marked his discourses sharply off, as
entirely different in kind from all that they had been accustomed to
hear in the synagogue. Finding that instincts and capacities hitherto
dormant in their being were awakened by his word, "the common people
heard him gladly." At an earlier hour of the same day on which this
parable was spoken, the circle of listeners that encompassed the Teacher
had become so broad and dense, that his mother and brothers, who had
come from home to speak with him, were obliged to halt on the outskirts
of the crowd, and pass their message in from mouth to mouth. In these
circumstances, the Preacher's work must have been heavy, and doubtless
the worker was weary. Having paused till the press slackened, he
privately retired to the margin of the lake, desiring probably to "rest
a while;" but no sooner had he taken his seat beside the cool still
water, than he was again surrounded by the anxious crowd. At once to
escape the pressure and to command the audience better when he should
again begin to speak, he stepped into one of the fishing-boats that
floated at ease close by the beach, on the margin of that tideless
inland sea. From the water's edge, stretching away upward on the natural
gallery formed by the sloping bank, the great congregation, with every
face fixed in an attitude of eager expectancy, presented to the
Preacher's eye the appearance of a ploughed field ready to receive the
seed. As he opened his lips, and cast the word of life freely a