CHAPTER IX.
JESUS AT THE SEA-SHORE.
While Je-sus was down by the sea, the crowd grew so great that he went in-to a boat and sat down to teach them as they stood on the shore.
THE SOW-ER.
He said, A man went out in the field to sow his seed. And as he threw the seed from his hand, some of it fell on the hard path by the road-side, and the birds flew down and ate it. Some fell on the rocks and stones where there was not much earth, and it soon grew up on top of the ground. But the sun's warm rays made it droop, and as it had no root, in a few days it was all dried up.
Some of the seed fell where thorns and weeds were, and these took up all the room, so that there was no space for the seed to grow. The air and the sun could not get at it, and soon it was choked to death.
But some of the seed fell in good ground, that the plough had made soft. The rain fell on it, the sun shone on it, and it sprang up and bore a large crop of grain.
When the crowd had left Je-sus, the twelve came near to ask him what he had meant to teach by this talk of seeds that were sown here and there.