So also it is in politics. We hear a great deal about the general diffusion of intelligence in this country, and are told how the sovereign people watch the actions of public men and call them to account. Now, I suppose there is more wide-spread information on public matters in this country than in any other in the world, but what does it amount to after all? A great many read the newspapers without passing any independent judgment on their statements, while those who really shape political opinions and action are but a small clique in each locality.
This being so, it ought not to surprise us that men give but little attention to religion. If learning, business, politics, things that touch our present interests so closely, can only to a superficial extent engage the thoughts of men, will religion, which relates chiefly to man's future welfare, be more successful? In one sense, Christianity is as old as the world; for there has been a continuous testimony to the truth from the first, but it has never yet had a full hearing. How do men act about religion? Some listen to its teaching only with their ears, as a busy man in his office listens to a jew's-harp or a band-organ on the street. So Gallio listened, who "cared for none of these things." Some listen with their hearts, that is, with attention enough to awaken a passing emotion or sentiment. So Felix listened, when he trembled at St. Paul's preaching, and promised to hear him again at a more convenient season. Only a few listen with attentive ears and hearts and hands, the only true way of listening, the way St. Paul listened, when he said, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" [Footnote 54]
[Footnote 54: Acts ix. 6.]
When you say, then, that Christianity has produced but partial results, you are but saying that men are frivolous and thoughtless, that there are many who do not listen to religion, or do not listen to it with earnestness and lay to heart its practical lessons. "Wisdom preacheth abroad; she uttereth her voice in the streets; at the head of multitudes she crieth out;" but it is of no avail to the greater number, "because they have hated instruction, and received not the fear if the Lord." [Footnote 55]
[Footnote 55: Proverbs i. 20, 21, 29]
Moreover, our Lord foresaw that the success of His gospel would be but partial. We see this in the very passage from which the text is taken. There is something melancholy in the way the evangelist introduces the parable of the sower: "And when a very great multitude was gathered together and hastened out of the cities to Him, He spoke by a similitude: A sower went out to sow his seed," etc. This was the thought which the sight of a very great multitude pressing around Him awoke in the mind of our Lord: how small a part would really give heed to His words, or really appreciate them: how in some hearts the word would be trodden down, in others be choked or wither away; and this is the secret of the energy with which He cried out at the end of the parable, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." The same thought comes out in the conversation which he had afterward with His disciples, when they asked an explanation of the parable: "The heart of this people is grown gross; and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear." [Footnote 56]
[Footnote 56: St. Matt. xiii. 15, 16.]
Our Lord was as far as possible, then, from expecting that the course of things would stand still, and all men comply instantly with his preaching. Nor were His predictions respecting His Church such as to warrant more sanguine expectations of her success. In His charge to His disciples, He let them know what they were to expect: "When you come into a house salute it, saying: Peace be to this house. And if that house be worthy, your peace shall come upon it; but if it be not worthy, your peace shall return to you. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another." [Footnote 57]
[Footnote 57: St. Matt. x. 12, 13, 23.]