At last the seed fell into good ground.  Mr. Braxton had been a “way-side” hearer; but, ere the good seed had time to germinate, fowls came and devoured it.  He had been a “stony-ground” hearer, receiving the truth with gladness, but having no root in himself.  He had been as the ground choked with thorns, suffering the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches to choke and hinder the growth of heavenly life.  Now, into good ground the seed had at last fallen; and though the evil one tried to snatch it away, its hidden life, moving to the earth’s quick invitation, was already giving prophetic signs of thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold, in the harvest time.

Why was there good ground in the mind of Mr. Braxton?  Good ground, even though he was wedded to external life; a self-seeker; a lover of the world?  In the answer to this question lies a most important truth for all to whom God has committed the care of children.  Unless good ground is formed, as it was in his case, by early instruction; by storing up in the memory truths from the Bible, and states of good affection; by weaving into the web and woof of the forming mind precepts of religion—­there is small hope for the future.  If these are not made a part of the forming life, things opposite will be received, and determine spiritual capabilities.  Influx of life into the soul must be through prior things; as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined; as the child’s memory and consciousness is stored, so will the man develop and progress.  Take heart, then, doubting parent; if you have in all faithfulness, woven precious truths, and tender, pious, unselfish states into the texture of your child’s mind—­though the fruit is not yet seen, depend on it, that the treasured remains of good and true things are there, and will not be lost.

VIII.

Giving that doth not impoverish.

OF all the fallacies accepted by men as truths, there is none more widely prevalent, nor more fatal to happiness, than that which assumes the measure of possession to be the measure of enjoyment.  All over the world, the strife for accumulation goes on; every one seeking to increase his flocks and herds—­his lands and houses—­or his gold and merchandise—­and ever in the weary, restless, unsatisfied present, tightening with one hand the grasp on worldly goods, and reaching out for new accessions with the other.

In dispensation, not in possession, lies the secret of enjoyment; a fact which nature illustrates in a thousand ways, and to which every man’s experience gives affirmation.  “Very good doctrine for the idle and thriftless,” said Mr. Henry Steel, a gentleman of large wealth, in answer to a friend, who had advanced the truth we have expressed above.

“As good doctrine for them as for you,” was replied.  “Possession must come before dispensation.  It is not the receiver but the dispenser who gets the higher blessing.”