spring, the summer, and
the autumn. In the first case the seed does not spring at all; in the
second it springs, but dies before it grows up; in the third, it grows
up, but does not ripen. If it escape the way side, the danger of the
stony ground lies before it; if it escape the stony ground, the thorns
at a later stage threaten its safety; and it is only when it has
successively escaped all three that it becomes fruitful at length.

In this case, the Lord himself gave both the parable and its
explanation; he became his own interpreter. The Master takes us, like
little children, by the hand and leads us through all the turnings of
his first symbolic lesson, lest in our inexperience we should miss our
way. The Son of God not only gave himself as a sacrifice for sin; he
also laboured as a patient painstaking teacher of the ignorant: he is
the Apostle as well as the High Priest of our profession. His
instructions have been recorded by the Spirit in the Scriptures for our
use; we may still sit at his feet and listen to his voice. He has taken
his seat on the deck of a fishing-boat while the waters of the lake are
still, and is discoursing to a congregation of Galileans from the
neighbourhood who stand clustering on the shore. Let us join the
outskirts of the crowd and hear that heavenly Teacher too.

He speaks in parables: he fixes saving truth in the forms of familiar
things, that it may be carried away and kept. We look with lively
interest on the scene which these words conjure up before our eyes; but
we should look on it reverently: it has not been given to us as a
plaything. Gaze gravely, brother, into this parable, for "thou art the
man" of whom it speaks: it reveals the way of life and the way of death
to thee. If a traveller who possesses an accurate map of his route turn
aside from it and perish in a pit, it will not avail him in his
extremity to reflect that he carries the correct track in his hand.
Alas! a literary admiration of the parable-stories which Jesus told in
Galilee will not avail us, if we do not accept himself as our Saviour
from sin.

From the Lord's own exposition here and elsewhere recorded, we learn
that the seed is the word of God; that the sower is the man who makes it
known to his neighbours; and that the ground on which the seed falls is
the hearer's heart. The main drift of the parable concerns the ground,
and to it accordingly our attention must be chiefly directed. The
lesson, however,