XIV.

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.' "-Gal. vi. 7, 8.

THERE is a close analogy between the world of nature and the world of spirit. They bear the impress of the same hand; and hence the principles of nature and its laws are the types and shadows of the Invisible. Just as two books, though on different subjects, proceeding from the same pen, manifest indications of the thought of one mind, so the worlds, visible and invisible, are two books written by the same finger, and governed by the same idea. Or rather, they are but one book, separated into two only by the narrow range of our ken. For it is impossible to study the universe at all without perceiving that it is one system. Begin with what science you will, as soon as you get beyond the rudiments, you are constrained to associate it with another.

You can not study agriculture long without finding that it absorbs into itself meteorology and chemistry: sciences run into one another till you get the "connection of the sciences;" and you begin to learn that one Divine idea connects the whole in one system of perfect order.

It was upon this principle that Christ taught. Truths come forth from His lips, not stated simply on authority, but based on the analogy of the universe. His human mind, in perfect harmony with the Divine mind with which it is mixed, discerned the connection of things, and read the Eternal Will in the simplest laws of nature. For instance, if it were a question whether God would give His Spirit to them that asked, it was not replied to by a truth revealed on His authority; the answer was derived from facts lying open to all men's observation. Behold the fowls of the air -"behold the lilies of the field "-learn from them the answer to your question. A principle was there. God supplies the wants which He has created. He feeds the ravens-He clothes the lilies-He will feed with His Spirit the craving spirits of His children.

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It was on this principle of analogy that St. Paul taught in this text. He tells us that there is a law in nature according to which success is proportioned to the labor spent upon the work. In kind and in degree, success is attained in kind; for example, he who has sown his field with beechmast does not receive a plantation of oaks; a literary education is not the road to distinction in arms, but to success in letters; years spent on agriculture do not qualify a man to be an orator, but they make him a skillful farmer. Success, again, is proportioned to labor in degree, because, ordinarily, as is the amount of seed sown, so is the harvest: he who studies much will know more than he who studies little. In almost all departments it is "the diligent hand which maketh rich."

The keen eye of Paul discerned this principle reaching far beyond what is seen, into the spiritual realm which is unseen. As tare-seed comes up tares, and wheat-seed wheat and as the crop in both cases is in proportion to two condtions, the labor and the quantity committed to the ground -so in things spiritual, too, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Not something else, but "that." The proportion holds in kind—it holds, too, in degree, in spiritual things as in natural. "He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." If we could understand and rightly expound that principle, we should be saved from much of the disappointment and surprise which come from extravagant and unreasonable expectations. I shall try first to elucidate the principle which these verses contain, and then examine "the two branches of the principle.

I. The principle is this, "God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

There are two kinds of good possible to men: one enjoyed by our animal being, the other felt and appreciated by our spirits. Every man understands more or less the difference between these two: between prosperity and well-doing-between indulgence and nobleness-between comfort and inward peace-between pleasure and striving after perfection -between happiness and blessedness. These are two kinds of harvest, and the labor necessary for them respectively is of very different kinds. The labor which procures the harvest of the one has no tendency to secure the other.

We will not depreciate the advantages of this world. It is foolish and unreal to do so. Comfort, affluence, success, freedom from care, rank, station-these are in their real way

goods; only the labor bestowed upon them does not procure one single blessing that is spiritual.

On the other hand, the seed which is sown for a spiritual harvest has no tendency whatever to procure temporal wellbeing. Let us see what are the laws of the sowing and reaping in this department. Christ has declared them: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (with righteousness). "Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted." You observe, the beatific vision of the Almighty-fullness of righteousness-divine comfort. There is nothing earthly here-it is, spiritual results for spiritual labor. It is not said that the pure in heart shall be made rich; nor that they who hunger after goodness shall be filled with bread; nor that they who mourn shall rise in life and obtain distinction. Each depart ment has its own appropriate harvest-reserved exclusively to its own method of sowing.

Every thing in this world has its price, and the price buys that, not something else. Every harvest demands its own preparation, and that preparation will not produce another sort of harvest. Thus, for example, you can not have at once the soldier's renown and the quiet of a recluse's life. The soldier pays his price for his glory-sows and reaps. His price is risk of life and limb, nights spent on the hard ground, a weather-beaten constitution. If you will not pay that price, you can not have what he has-military reputation. You can not enjoy the statesman's influence together with freedom from public notoriety. If you sensitively shrink from that, you must give up influence; or else pay his price-the price of a thorny pillow, unrest, the chance of being to-day a nation's idol, to-morrow the people's execration. You can not have the store of information possessed by the student, and enjoy robust health: pay his price, and you have his reward. His price is an emaciated frame, a debilitated constitution, a transparent hand, and the rose taken out of the sunken cheek. To expect these opposite things: a soldier's glory and quiet, a statesman's renown and peace, the student's prize and rude health, would be to mock God, to reap what has not been sowed.

Now the mistakes men make, and the extravagant expec tations in which they indulge, are these: they sow for earth, and expect to win spiritual blessings, or they sow to the Spirit, and then wonder that they have not a harvest of the good things of earth. In each case they complain, What have I done to be treated so ?

The unreasonableness of all this appears the moment we have understood the conditions contained in this principle, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

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It is a common thing to hear sentimental wonderings about the unfairness of the distribution of things here. The unprincipled get on in life, the saints are kept back. The riches and rewards of life fall to the lot of the undeserving. The rich man has his good things, and Lazarus his evil things. Whereupon it is taken for granted that there must be a future life to make this fair: that if there were none, the constitution of this world would be unjust. That is, that because a man who has sown to the Spirit does not reap to the flesh here, he will hereafter; that the meed of well-doing must be somewhere in the universe the same kind of recompense which the rewards of the unprincipled were herecomfort, abundance, physical enjoyment-or else all is wrong. But if you look into it, the balance is perfectly adjusted even here. God has made his world much better than you and I could make it. Every thing reaps its own harvest, every act has its own reward. And before you covet the enjoyment which another possesses, you must first calculate the cost at which it was procured.

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For instance, the religious tradesman complains that his honesty is a hindrance to his success: that the tide of custom pours into the doors of his less scrupulous neighbors in the same street, while he himself waits for hours idle. My brother, do you think that God is going to reward honor, integrity, high-mindedness, with this world's coin? Do you fancy that He will pay spiritual excellence with plenty of custom? Now, consider the price that man has paid for his success. Perhaps mental degradation and inward dishonor. His advertisements are all deceptive; his treatment of his workmen tyrannical; his cheap prices made possible by inferior articles. Sow that man's seed, and you will reap that man's harvest. Cheat, lie, advertise, be unscrupulous in your assertions, custom will come to you. But if the price is too dear, let him have his harvest, and take yours; yours is a clear conscience, a pure mind, rectitude within and without. Will you part with that for his? Then why do you complain? He has paid his price, you do not choose to pay it.

Again, it is not an uncommon thing to see a man rise from insignificance to sudden wealth by speculation. Within the last ten or twenty years England has gazed on many such a phenomenon. In this case, as in spiritual things, the law seems to hold: He that hath, to him shall be given. Tens of thou

sands soon increase and multiply to hundreds of thousands. His doors are besieged by the rich and great. Royalty banquets at his table, and nobles court his alliance. Whereupon some simple Christian is inclined to complain: "How strange that so much prosperity should be the lot of mere clever

ness!"

Well, are these really God's chief blessings? Is it for such as these you serve Him? And would these indeed satisfy your soul? Would you have God reward his saintliest with these gauds and gewgaws-all this trash-rank, and wealth, and equipages, and plate, and courtship from the needy great? Call you that the heaven of the holy? Compute now what was paid for that? The price that merchantprince paid, perhaps with the blood of his own soul, was shame and guilt. The price he is paying now is perpetual dread of detection; or worse still, the hardness which can laugh at detection; or one deep lower yet, the low and grovelling soul which can be satisfied with these things as a paradise, and ask no higher. He has reaped enjoymentyes, and he has sown, too, the seed of infamy.

It is all fair. Count the cost. "He that saveth his life shall lose it." Save your life if you like, but do not complain if you lose your nobler life-yourself: win the whole world, but remember you do it by losing your own soul. Every sin must be paid for; every sensual indulgence is a harvest, the price for which is so much ruin for the soul. “God is not

mocked."

Once more, religious men in every profession are surprised to find that many of its avenues are closed to them. The conscientious churchman complains that his delicate scruples or his bold truthfulness stand in the way of his preferment; while another man, who conquers his scruples or softens the eye of truth, rises, and sits down a mitred peer in Parliament. The honorable lawyer feels that his practice is limited, while the unprincipled practitioner receives all he loses; and the Christian physician feels sore and sad at perceiving that charlatanism succeeds in winning employment; or, if not charlatanism, at least that affability and courtly manners take the place that is due to superior knowledge.

Let such men take comfort, and judge fairly. Popularity is one of the things of an earthly harvest for which quite earthly qualifications are required. I say not always dishonorable qualifications, but a certain flexibility of disposition; a certain courtly willingness to sink obnoxious truths, and adapt ourselves to the prejudices of the minds of others; a certain adroitness at catching the tone of those with whom