The Parables of Jesus

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. THE MUSTARD-SEED AND THE LEAVEN. Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and bccomcth a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Another parable spake He unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.?Matt. xiii. 31-33 See also Mark iv. 30-32; Luke xiii. 18-21. You know Esop's fable of the dog swimming across the river with a bit of flesh in its mouth and noticing the shadow in the water. It let go the flesh that it might seize the shadow. Every parable is made up of a shadow and a substance; and if you are entertained with the story but not instructed by its lesson, you are no wiser than .ZEsop's dog. We must not be like Varelst, the great flower-painter, to whom James the Second sat. All who looked at the portrait took it for a flower-piece, for the king appeared in the midst of a bower of sunflowers and tulips, which drew away every eye from the central figure. The beauties of the story are not to hide from us the royal central truth which they are meant only to set forth. Every parableis like a lump of silver ore, and he should be a very foolish miner who prized the ore but was at no pains to extract the silver. At the same time you should be smit with admiration of the beauty of Christ's stories. More charming stories than these have not yet come from the lips of man. And their simplicity is as perfect as their beauty. They delight and refresh the imagination while they rouse the conscience and lead the soul to God. All children love goo...