30. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but 1 gather the wheat into my barn.

he left

1

up

36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.

Explain

answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is

the Son of man;

2 The

sons

38. and the field is the world; and the good seed these are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are 3 the children of the wicked

The

and

sons

evil one:

and

39 and the enemy that sowed them is the devil 4 the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40. As therefore the tares are gathered it be in the end of this world.

the

up

41. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, 5 and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that and them which do iniquity;

I Matt. 3: 12.

2 Matt. 24: 14; Mark 16: 15; Luke 24: 47. 3 Gen. 3: 15; John 8: 44.

offend, cause stumbling,

that

4 Joel 3: 13; Rev. 14: 15.
5 Matt. 187; 2 Pet. 2: 1, 2.

tians. B. F. Jacobs once said that God had skimmed the church and put the cream into the Sunday school. But it is more true that the purpose of Christian education is to turn the skim-milk into cream.

"Accept the simple thought of the Syrian peasants, who to this day believe that tares can best be kept down by nourishing to the utmost the life of the good seed." - Dr. W. H. Thomson.

(3) Christians themselves are educated and disciplined by contact with the tares. They would not be nearly so good if shut off in a community by themselves. Tares would still come in. If the wheat does not seek to change the tares into wheat, the wheat will degenerate into tares. This is always so when good people would fence themselves in from all contact with the world, whether by monasteries and convents, or by exclusiveness of churches, or neglect of missionary work. Rev. W. H. H. Murray once remarked: "If the good people were removed out of a great city, it would leave hell; whereas were the bad to be removed and the good left, the result would be heaven." This might be true if the good were perfectly good; but since they are all imperfect, to be by themselves would not make them better, but worse. They need the work of helping others in order to develop their own virtues. As Professor Bowne says, "Character cannot be developed by itself regardless of activities of life. When Adam and Eve had sinned, Paradise was the worst place in the world for them.”

IV. The Harvest. The Fate of the Tares. Vs. 30, 39-42. Let both grow together until the harvest, which takes place at the end of the world (v. 39), or age. In the original the word "world" (aiōn) here is an entirely different word from that translated "world" kosmos in v. 38. It does not refer to the physical world, but to the era, or age. It was true of the Old Testament age which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem. It is true of the Christian age. The wheat and tares grow together till the consummation described in Matthew 25, and in Revelation 21, 22. It is also true of the end of each individual life.

the angels (v. 39), (Matt. 16: 27; 24: 31; 2 Thes. 1: 7); any beings or powers which accomplish this work.

To burn them. So as to destroy their power of evil, and to keep them from spreading. They shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend (v. 41), that cause others to stumble in the path of righteousness.

Every one has the choice whether he shall be tares or wheat. If he insists on being tares, there is no other result possible but that which grows out of the tare nature. It is not possible, it is a contradiction of terms, that wicked people, "whoremongers and murderers and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie" should live in the perfected kingdom of God. Evil must be wholly destroyed, "death and hell cast into the lake of

1 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: 2 there shall be and gnashing of teeth.

4

He that

Who hath ears,

2 V. 50; Matt. 8: 12.

42.

43.

3 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of to hear, let him hear.

their Father.

Matt. 3: 12; Rev. 19: 20.

3 Dan. 12: 3; 1 Cor. 15: 42.
4 V. 9.

wailing the weeping

fire." There is only one escape for any one and that is to be changed into the nature of the children of the kingdom.

V. The Harvest. The Blessedness of the Righteous. - Vs. 30, 43. Then, when separated from evil, shall the righteous shine forth as the sun. The Greek word means bursting forth into light as from behind a cloud. This is the symbol of gladness, of truth, of glory, of life in themselves, and of giving light, and life, and cheer to all around. (See Dan. 12: 3.) "Take away the dross from the silver, and there comes forth a vessel for the refiner."

ILLUSTRATION. "Each human soul is like a cavern full of gems. The casual observer glances into it through some cranny, and all looks dark and sullen. But let light enter into it; lift a torch up to the walls, let God's sunlight fall into it and flood its open recesses, and lo! it will flash with crystals and with amethysts, and each separate crystal will_quiver under the touch of brightness with a transporting discovery of its own nature." - Farrar.

PRACTICAL. (1) Here are found hope and cheer amid times of opposition and the flourishing of evil. (2) Make the evil help the good. Overcome the evil by cherishing and strengthening the good. Putting a plant from the hothouse out of doors for freer growth often gives it the victory over the insects which are destroying it.

(3) The good in this world are in life a commingling of good and evil, but, to borrow a phrase from the doctor, his evil is functional not organic. His heart, his choice, his will, is right. The right heart will overcome the evil.

(4) Read" Jerusalem the Golden."

Is my life wheat, or tares?

Am I prepared for the great harvest day?

How am I helping to prepare others for that day?

VEDDER'S PICTURE OF THE DEVIL SOWING TARES. "In the autumn of 1894 a painting by Vedder was exhibited in New York City, which showed, as few modern works of art do, the innermost fact in the problem of the world's moral life, now up for solution. The painter called his parable of life, as it was put on the large canvas, 'The Devil Sowing Tares.' The whole atmosphere was dark, mysterious, and lowering, set in a light that struck the observer with awe, as in the presence of some dread problem going on beneath those portentous clouds. Before him was a bare and rock-paved slope, curving upward, like another Golgotha, to an upright post, at the base of which the letters IN RI (Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews) plainly intimated that it was the foot of the cross, the center of redeeming influences streaming forth down the eastern slope of Golgotha into the cold, dark, worldly mystery around, and off toward a horizon with faint streaks of light breaking on it. In the foreground was Satan, with malignant leer, holding beneath one brawny arm a pot of gold, and with the other he was sowing the coins, as a sower flings the seed, up toward the cross. He was poisoning the very fountain of redemption. He was setting gold to work against the gospel, the seduction of luxury, the charm of opulence, the fierce temptation to be rich, the looming up of worldly grandeur, coins of different size and shape, but all the devil's gold, and all now thrown into the garden soil of Christian life and character, to seed it with tares, or into the fountain of faith to poison it at the source. This is the painter's parable of the church's trial in the present age. This is the parable of the devil poisoning the fountains; not for the slums, but for the Christian churches and homes." The Independent.

THIRD QUARTER, 1910.

THE MINISTRY OF OUR LORD AS NARRATED IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. CHAPTERS XIII TO XXII. FROM JULY 3 TO SEPTEMBER 25, 1910.

LESSON I. - July 3.

PICTURES OF THE KINGDOM. Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52.

GOLDEN TEXT.

COMMIT v. 44.

The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.-ROM. 14: 17.

THE TEACHER AND HIS CLASS.

In the Sunday school of William Byron Forbush, Ph.D., in Detroit, "each pupil has a work book, in which he writes all the answers to the questions about the lesson. Some classes have, in addition, a picture book for each pupil, in which the pupil arranges pictures to illustrate the lessons. Each class has a class book, a large notebook in which is written or pasted week by week any report or piece of coöperative work which the teacher or superintendent may call for. After each lesson space two or three blank pages are left to insert pic

tures. Each class also has a class envelope in which pictures are placed awaiting the proper time for insertion in the book. There are, of course, lead pencils for each pupil. The school is building up a labora tory and museum, consisting of pictures, postcards, oriental curios, pressed flowers, etc. There is a table in front of the superintendent's desk and each Sunday the children gather round it to see what has been brought during the week, to add their own contributions, and to handle the objects upon the table."

For this lesson there could be a pearl, a mustard seed, a picture of a mustard plant.