ch so aptly is made to symbolize
the softened or the hardened heart, the clean or the thorn-infested
soil. Observe the grades of soil, given in the increasing order of their
fertility: (A) the compacted highway, the wayside path, on which, save
by a combination of fortuitous circumstances practically amounting to a
miracle, no seed can possibly strike root or grow; (B) the thin layer of
soil covering an impenetrable bed-rock, wherein seed may sprout yet can
never mature; (C) the weed-encumbered field, capable of producing a rich
crop but for the jungle of thistles and thorns; and (D) the clean rich
mold receptive and fertile. Yet even soils classed as good are of
varying degrees of productiveness, yielding an increase of thirty,
sixty, or even a hundred fold, with many inter-gradations.

Some Bible expositors have professed to find in this splendid parable
evidence of decisive fatalism in the lives of individuals, so that those
whose spiritual state is comparable to the hardened pathway or wayside
ground, to the shallow soil on stony floor, or to the neglected,
thorn-ridden tract, are hopelessly and irredeemably bad; while the souls
who may be likened unto good soil are safe against deterioration and
will be inevitably productive of good fruit. Let it not be forgotten
that a parable is but a sketch, not a picture finished in detail; and
that the expressed or implied similitude in parabolic teaching cannot
logically and consistently be carried beyond the limits of the
illustrative story. In the parable we are considering, the Teacher
depicted the varied grades of spiritual receptivity existing among men,
and characterized with incisive brevity each of the specified grades. He
neither said nor intimated that the hard-baked soil of the wayside might
be plowed, harrowed, fertilized, and so be rendered productive; nor that
the stony impediment to growth might not be broken up and removed, or an
increase of good soil be made by actual addition; nor that the thorns
could never be uprooted and their former habitat be rendered fit to
support good plants. The parable is to be studied in the spirit of its
purpose; and strained inferences or extensions are unwarranted. A strong
metaphor, a striking simile, or any other expressive figure of speech,
is of service only when rationally applied; if carried beyond the bounds
of reasonable intent, the best of such may become meaningless or even
absurd.

THE WHEAT AND THE TARES.

Anot