e ceased, and the sun of summer has waxed hot,
the moisture is quickly exhaled from the shallow stratum of soil, and
forthwith the fair promise dies.

But yet another slip there may be "between the cup and the lip:" even
from the seed that falls on deep, soft ground, you cannot count with
certainty on a rich return in harvest. Although the plants should
without obstruction strike their roots deeply into the soft, moist
earth, and rear their stalks aloft into the balmy air, they may be
rendered barren at last by the simultaneous growth of rivals more
imperious and more powerful than themselves. Unless the grain not only
grow in deeply broken ground, but grow alone there, it cannot be
fruitful: "Some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up and choked
it." Besides those plants that are more correctly denominated thorns, we
may include under the term here all rank weeds, varying with countries
and climates, which infest the soil and hurt the harvest. The green
stalks that grow among thorns are neither withered in spring, nor
stunted in their summer's growth; they may be found in harvest taller
than their fruitful neighbours; but the ear is never filled, never
ripened, and the reaper gets nothing in his arms but long slender straw
adorned at the top with graceful clusters of empty chaff. The roots of
the thorns drank up the sap of the ground, while their branches veiled
off the sunlight, and thus the good seed, starved beneath and
overshadowed above, although it started fair in spring, produced nothing
in the autumn.

As Truth is one and Error manifold, so in regard to the seed sown, the
story of failure is long and varied, the story of success is short and
simple: "Other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an
hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold." The design of the picture
is to reveal the various causes which at different times and places
render the husbandman's labour abortive and leave his garner empty. This
done, there is no need of more. The seed, when none of these things
impeded it, prospered as a matter of course, under the ordinary care of
man and the ordinary gifts of God.

Three distinct obstructions to the growth and ripening of the seed are
enumerated in the parable. The statement is exact, and the order
transparent. The natural sequences are strictly and beautifully
maintained. The three causes of abortion--the way side, the stony
ground, and the thorns--follow each other as the