thirst, let him come unto me and drink;" "Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;"--these and many such great solid
seed-grains rain from heaven upon us in this land: shall we close all
the avenues to our hearts and so leave that seed lying on the surface
till the enemy carry it away? or shall the groanings which cannot be
uttered, the convictions of sin in the conscience, rend at length the
seared crust, that the seed may enter and occupy the life for God?

If privileged and professing hearers of the Gospel come short of the
kingdom, the fault lies not in the seed--the fault lies not often or to
a great extent even in the sower, although his work may have been feebly
and unskilfully done. If the seed is good, and the ground well prepared,
a very poor and awkward kind of sowing will suffice. Seed flung in any
fashion into the soft ground will grow; whereas, if it fall on the way
side, it will bear no fruit, however artfully it may have been spread.
My father was a practical and skilful agriculturist. I was wont, when
very young, to follow his footsteps into the field, further and oftener
than was convenient for him or comfortable for myself. Knowing well how
much a child is gratified by being permitted to imitate a man's work, he
sometimes hung the seed-bag, with a few handfuls in it, upon my
shoulder, and sent me into the field to sow. I contrived in some way to
throw the grain away, and it fell among the clods. But the seed that
fell from an infant's hands, when it fell in the right place, grew as
well and ripened as fully as that which had been scattered by a strong
and skilful man. In like manner, in the spiritual department, the skill
of the sower, although important in its own place, is, in view of the
final result, a subordinate thing. The cardinal points are the seed and
the soil. In point of fact, throughout the history of the Church, while
the Lord has abundantly honoured his own ordinance of a standing
ministry, he has never ceased to show, by granting signal success to
feeble instruments, that results in his work are not necessarily
proportionate to the number of talents employed.

Nor does the cause of failure, in the last resort, lie in the soil. The
man who receives the Gospel only on the hard surface of a careless life,
is of the same flesh and blood, endued with the same understanding mind
and immortal spirit, with his neighbour who has already become a new
creature in Christ. Believe