And so he takes his lesson from the prodigality of Providence. Of course it will happen that the great proportion of his efforts will come to nothing. Of course he is to be misjudged and ineffective and barren of results; but if only one word in a hundred falls in the right soil, if only one effort in a hundred touches the right soul, the hundred-fold fruitage brings with it ample {115} compensation. Thus he strides cheerfully over the fields of life with the broad swing of an unthrifty mind, expecting that much of his seed will fall among the thorns and rocks, but with faith that the harvest—even if he is not himself permitted to reap it—is yet made safe through his fidelity to that prodigal Providence which miraculously multiplies the little he can do, and makes it bear fruit, sometimes a hundredfold.
{116}
XLVI
THE HARD LIFE
Matthew xiii. 1-9.
Let us look still further at this parable of the sower. There are described in it various kinds of lives on which God's influences fall, and fall in vain. The first of these is the hard life,—hard, like a road, so that the seed lies there as if fallen on a pavement, and gets no root, and the pigeons come and pick it up. We usually think of the hard life as if it were a life of sin. We speak of a hardened sinner, of a hard man, as of persons whom good influences cannot penetrate. But the hard soil of the parable is not that of sin. It is that of a roadway, hardened simply by the passing to and fro. It is the hardening effect of habit. Sometimes, the passage says, your life gets so worn by the coming and going of your daily routine, that you become impenetrable to the subtle suggestions of God, as if your life were paved. Some people are thus hardened even to good. They lose capacity for impressions. {117} Some people are even gospel-hardened. They have heard so much talk about religion that it runs off the pavement of their lives into the gutter. Thus the first demand of the sower is for receptivity, for openness of mind, for responsiveness. Give God a chance, says the parable. His seed gets no fair opportunity in a life which is like a trafficking high-road. Keep the soil of life soft, its sympathy tender, its imagination free, or else you lose the elementary quality of receptiveness, and all the influences of God may be scattered over you in vain.
{118}
XLVII
THE THIN LIFE
Matthew xiii. 1-9.