LECTURE XIV.

SEED ON THE WAYSIDE; OR, THE HEEDLESS HEARER.

MATT. XIII. 4 and 19. "And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside."

SEED, to be productive, must find a suitable soil. Yet it often occurs to the sower that some seed falls not on the ploughed ground, nor into the mellow furrow, but on the path that crosses the field. There it is either crushed by the foot of man, or seized by the fowls of the air. This path of the field represents the heart of the man who hears the Gospel without attention; hearing, but not understanding, nor retaining it; and therefore producing no fruit of righteousness.

This part of the parable is founded on the principle, that attention is the first claim of the Gospel. The Gospel claims attention from us,

I. AS TRUTH.

By a mental law, truth and the mind can have no connection but through the medium of attention. Even

that most spiritual and inward knowledge which we receive through our consciousness, we obtain only by attending to it. Much more obviously is this true of all we learn by language.

A most affecting narrative may be related to you, which, if you heard it, would move you to tears; and yet, the mind being intent on some other subject, not a fact of the whole story makes any impression on the feelings; or you may read an entire page of a book, word by word, and not be able to tell one idea it contains.

Let us proceed then to notice more precisely the laws under which the Creator has placed this faculty of the mind.

1. The attention is voluntary. If we give ourselves up to waking dreams, the mind will be found floating like a billet of wood on a river full of eddies, and backflowing currents; now running swiftly in one direction, and suddenly rushing in another. To fix the thought steadily in any one direction, to meditate or study; even to see or to hear, a purpose or intention is necessary. But still farther:

2. Attention is under the law of habit. When a child commences to learn the letters of the alphabet, he finds it very difficult to discriminate them, and to remember the differences in their forms, names and powers. But by practice his attention becomes so easily fixed, that he will at length read for many hours, without having the slightest difficulty in discriminating these letters. There is consequently still another law:

3. An obligation rests on man to exercise and improve this power. For, we know that some of the high

est obligations of life involve a right exercise of attention. All intellectual improvement involves it. All moral improvement depends upon it; self-knowledge being essential to the process of self-improvement; and self-knowledge requiring much concentrated attention on our own actions and motives.

The duties and proprieties of life require a most rigorous exercise of attention. A careless or heedless man is not fit to be a member of a civilized community. Every hour, in fact every moment of business or of social intercourse, is calling this power into exercise.

The discharge of every sacred trust calls for a stern exercise of attention, as in the case of the surgeon, the physician, the teacher, or the pilot.

The lowest ground then we can take is, that the Gospel at least stands on a level with other truth, and claims man's attention as truth; and that the exercise of attention is not a thing optional with us, but is in the rank of our highest obligations; for the Word of God cannot be understood by the inattentive. "He heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not." The Gospel, however, has a claim still in advance of that:

II. AS A SYSTEM OF TRUTH HAVING PECULIAR DIFFICULTIES TO THE HUMAN MIND. For, it includes

1. Spiritual facts as its basis and its end. The law to which I here refer, and which all will recognize and admit, without questioning, is this: that the difficulties presented by any duty are only a stimulus to our energies.

The difficulties of life have been the occasion of making all the greatness the world has ever witnessed