iples," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "He
calls you to him. You may all come to him _privately_, as the
disciples did; pray to him in secret, and have his words made clear to
you, if you will. You may all bring forth fruit to his glory, thirty,
or sixty, or a hundred fold.

"You see," she continued, "although there are only two great bodies or
parties in the world,--those in whom Christ's words _live_, and those
in whom they _die_,--yet there are many smaller differences among each
of these parties. Some of the seed in the parable fell merely on the
surface, and never was seen any more after it was sown: just as, I am
afraid, some of you have often left all thoughts of God behind when
you left the school or the church, and never thought of him or his
words from one Sunday to another. The fowls of the air--that is, some
light thought or play, or Satan, who goes about to put these in your
heart--come the moment the words die on your ear, and take the good
seed quite away. And then some of you like to hear about Christ, and
his words and works, and are quick, and easily understand and take in
new thoughts, and, perhaps, think you would like to be good children,
and to love Christ, and be his disciples, and go home and go to sleep
full of good intentions and plans of correcting your faults. But the
next morning other lessons have to be learned, and other things to be
thought about, and your faults and bad habits are strong; and so every
day the echo of the Sunday's teaching grows fainter, and at last the
end of the week comes, and finds you no nearer God or the fulfilment
of your good resolutions than the beginning. The thorns have sprung
up--the cares and pleasures of this world--and choked the good seed
that was beginning to grow. And then, again, perhaps, there are some
of you who would like very much to be pious, only you are afraid of
being unlike others, afraid of being teased for being strict, or
laughed at; for persecution does not only consist in burning or
hurting the body,--little annoyances are often harder to bear than
great sorrows. But think how very cowardly this would be, how very
ungrateful and ungenerous to Jesus. He bore the sneers and taunts of
crowds for your sake, and bore them too when he was suffering _great
pain_; and can you not bear a little laugh for his sake? Think how
happy it is to be able to bear a little for him who bore so very much
for us; think what joy to have his eye on us, and to hear his kind