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This is the way the song ends: "Brethren, the sower's task is done, The seed is in its winter bed. Now let the dark-brown mould be spread, To hide it from the sun, And leave it to the kindly care Of the still earth and brooding air, As when the mother, from her breast, Lays the hushed babe apart to rest, And shades its eyes, and waits to see How sweet its waking smile will be.
Both uncle and niece approve of the youthful sower's occupation. There are seasons for distributing untamed oats. Pierre Lanier accepts frequent invitations to call upon these aristocratic friends. He and Sir Charles are growing still more confidential. The matrimonial decision is further postponed, but in such frank, honest manner, that waiting is not difficult.
There is first the long line on the Sower's right side, beginning at the shoulder and following the outer edge of the right leg to the ground.
He veils spiritual truth in common things that He may reveal it by common things taking fishermen's boats, their nets, a sower's basket, a baker's dough, and many another homely article, and finding in them the emblems of the loftiest truth. Is not that the meaning of His own Incarnation?
A parent or minister or teacher has committed the good seed of the word to the hearts of his young people, with all due solemnity and care; and thereafter permits them to be steeped in a flood of folly, which he could easily have drained away. The good seed is drowned in that deluge; but it is the sower's fault.
In the bas fonds the oaks of many kinds and the tupelo-gums were hiding all their gray in shimmering green; in these coverts and in the reedy marshes, all the feathered flocks not gone away north were broken into nesting pairs; in the fields, crops were springing almost at the sower's heels; on the prairie pastures, once so vast, now being narrowed so rapidly by the people's thrift, the flocks and herds ate eagerly of the bright new grass, and foals, calves, and lambs stood and staggered on their first legs, while in the door-yards housewives, hens, and mother-geese warned away the puppies and children from downy broods under the shade of the China-trees.
The Sower's task ended, a series of strange transformations begins in the life of the seed. The winter rain softens and swells it, and when spring comes it pushes its way up in a tiny shoot. Soon the slender blades appear in close lines; by and by the stalks grow tall and strong, and the field is full of the beautiful green grain.
Men become children of the kingdom by taking the Gospel into their hearts, and thereby receive a new principle of growth, which in truth becomes themselves. Side by side with the sower's beneficent work the counter-working of 'his enemy' goes on.
'Immediately, says Mark, 'Satan cometh. His agents are these light-winged thoughts that flutter round the hearer as soon as the sermon or the lesson is over. Talk of the weather, criticism of the congregation, or of the sower's attitude as he flung the seed, or politics, or business, drive away the remembrance of even the text, before many of our hearers are out of sight of the church.
It would lie bare on the surface of the hard ground, and would not be there long enough to have a chance of germinating, but as soon as the sower's back was turned to go up the next furrow, down would come the flock of thievish birds that fluttered behind him, and bear away the grains. The soil might be good enough, but it was so hard that the seed did not get in, but only lay on it.
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