Article February 17, 1917 Issue

The Seed and the Soil

REV. WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE

An earnest and successful practitioner put a question like this: How is it that in some cases there will be great improvement, and the patient will be a wonder to friends and acquaintances, and then sometimes he will apparently forget what has been gained, allow his enthusiasm to cease, or perhaps turn aside into worldly involvements, until it seems to the practitioner as if his work must begin all over again? Now the answer apparently involves some knowledge of husbandry, and consideration of the parable of the sower will make this clear.

The old theological teaching made the parable of the wheat and the tares refer to persons. A certain group of persons, those inside the fold of the creed believed in, were the what to be garnered; and the unbelievers not knowing the creed, or the disbelievers rejecting it, were the tares which were to be delivered to the fire. And yet the parable referred to one field, and to good seed lovingly sown in that field in sunny days; and then to a deed of darkness, when in the night the slinking enemy came and with subtle diabolism cast into the soil the evil seed. Clearly the illustration refers to human consciousness when unguarded, showing how that which is to man always "enemy" will inoculate thought with arguments adverse to the rule of the kingdom of heaven. On page 72 of the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says, "Mortal belief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth (the spiritual sense) are the tares and the wheat, which are not united by progress, but separated."

With similar misunderstanding the beautiful parable of the sower has been interpreted as if it referred to persons, and many a sermon has been preached in which an attempt has been made to divide mankind into classes, three of which classes were slated for destruction, and only one was assured of eternal blessedness. Even the disciples to whom the parable was spoken failed to understand it; hence the Master's remark, "Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?"

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