er was it, on the other hand, a case of conscious, intentional
deceit. It was real, but it was not thorough. Something was given to
Christ, but because all was not given the issue was the same as if all
had been withheld. In the rich young man the seed sprang hopefully, but
it withered soon: he did not lightly part with Christ, but he parted: he
was very sorrowful, but he went away.

A Christian parent or pastor, diligent in his main business and fervent
in prayer for success, observes at length in some young members of his
charge a new tenderness of conscience, an earnest attention to the word,
a subdued, reverential spirit, with frequency and fervency in prayer.
With mingled hope and fear these symptoms are watched and cherished: the
symptoms continue and increase: the converts are added to the Church,
and perhaps their experience is narrated as an example. This is not a
deception on the part of either teacher or scholar: it is a true
outgrowth from the contact of human hearts with the word of life. Man,
who looks only on the outward appearance, cannot with certainty
determine in whom this promise of spring will be blasted by the summer
heat, and in whom it will yield a manifold return to the reaper. When
you cast your eye over the corn field soon after the seed has sprung,
you may not be able to detect any difference between one portion and
another; all may be alike fresh and green. But, if some parts of the
field be deep soft soil, and other parts only a thin sprinkling of earth
over unbroken rock, there is a decisive difference in secret even now,
and the difference will ere long become visible to all. Come back and
look upon the same field after it has lain a few days without rain under
a scorching sun: you will find that while in some portions the young
plants have increased in bulk without losing any of their freshness, in
others the green covering has disappeared and left the ground as brown
and bare as it was when the sower went forth to sow upon it. Where the
earth is soft underneath, and so permits the roots to penetrate its
depths, the towering stalks defy the summer's drought; but where the
roots are shut out from the heart, the leaves wither on the surface.

If the law of God has never rent the "stony heart" and made it
"contrite," that is, bruised it small, you may, by receiving the Gospel
on some temporary, superficial softness of nature, obtain your religion
more easily and quickly than others who have