of observation, one of the best, bears witness
that he has often seen the wheat and barley fields overrun with darnel,
and that the native owners stoutly declare that the good wheat which
they sowed has been changed into the false in the process of growth
during a single season; but he intimates at the same time that he
believes the men are mistaken, and that the presence of the darnel must
be attributed to some other cause, and accounted for in some other
way.[12] The suggestion that the same peculiarities of season which
destroy the sown wheat may favour the springing of the darnel, that had
lain in the ground dormant before, may possibly account for the present
experience of the Syrian cultivators; or the effects may be in whole or
in part due to other causes of which we are not cognizant; but the
solution of this question is by no means essential to the right
interpretation of the parable, and therefore we shall not prosecute the
investigation further in this direction.

[12] "The Land and the Book." Note by Principal Fairbairn in
translation of "Lisco on the Parables."

Dr. Thomson gives unequivocal testimony, at the same time, that at the
present day no instance is known of the growth of darnel among the wheat
being caused by the malicious act of an enemy. This, however, as he
distinctly owns, does not prove that the transaction depicted in the
parable had no foundation in fact. It must have happened substantially
in history, otherwise it would not have been introduced as a supposition
into these lessons of the Lord. Some travellers have stated that this
species of crime is known in India; but I do not set much value on the
discovery of precisely identical facts in modern times. The existence of
the representation in this parable is, simply as a matter of rational
evidence, a tenfold stronger proof that the facts in their essential
features actually happened, than any quantity of analogous cases drawn
from other countries in later times. It is of greater importance to note
that the malice which endured the toil of sowing tares in a neighbour's
field grows yet, and grows rankly in human breasts. In different ages
and regions, that spiritual wickedness may clothe itself in bodies of
diverse mould and hue, but it is in all times and places the same foul
and malignant spirit, acting according to its kind. The same spirit that
sowed darnel among wheat at night in a corn field of Galilee, two
thousand years ago, w