asting bread upon the waters;" or whether
there is a reference to Egyptian husbandry, which might seem just as
futile a method, did not experience prove that a harvest of splendid
abundance is the well-nigh certain result. I do not think that it is
needful to settle the rival claims of the two interpretations,[B]
inasmuch as the essential point of the author's meaning is involved in
both. In either case you have a husbandry of faith; and in either case
you have a grand image of all noble spiritual work. All husbandry is of
faith to an extent which we little realize, but most especially this
husbandry. The seed-corn scattered from the hand vanishes from sight,
the very bed in which it is hidden lies buried, and an uncongenial,
impenetrable element spreads its barrier between the sower and the seed,
which he must leave in the hands of God. The farmer who has ploughed his
field and settled his seed in the furrows feels less shut out from it;
he sees at least where it lies, he can test its condition, he can trace
the first green bloom on the brown surface of his fields, which is the
prophecy and the pledge of harvest. But seed cast into the waters! where
is it? who can trace it? what can withhold the waters from rotting it,
and burying the promise of the seed and the hope of the husbandman in
their depths? And the seed dropped into the furrows of the human
seed-field, the heart that has been broken up by the deep ploughshare of
God's discipline, and over which a fertilizing flood of quickening
influences has passed,--where lies it? What glance can follow it? What
hand can touch it? What eye can foresee, what brain can forecast, its
destiny? There is a dread likeness here, to the eye of the
understanding, between this perilous husbandry and spiritual labour;
man's knowledge is so limited, man's hand is so powerless, the seed
passes so far out of his ken, and lies buried in such deep depths
within.

There is a mystery in all husbandry which it is manifestly the purpose
of God to keep clearly before the eye of the soul. He will not suffer us
to forget it. "_And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man
should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and
day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the
earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear,
after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought
forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle,