THERE is nothing more common, and seemingly insignificant, than the planting of a garden. There are the simple upturning of the sod, the mellowing of the soil, and the burial of a hard-shelled seed. Let a chemist analyze the soil, and a scientist examine the seed, and they will be unable to find anything signifying relationship between the two. There is nothing, so far as the human eye can see, to suggest that the combination of seed and soil would be other than the combination of stone and stubble. But when once planted all the universe knows about the little brown seed. The earth and the seed were made for each other, and no sooner do they come in proper contact than the whole universe is set in motion about and for the development of that buried germ. There is not a cloud floating afar nor a star gleaming mildly in the distant blue that does not exist for that tiny seed until, through the ministration of sunbeam and moonlight, shower and baptismal dew, the seed arises, clothed in the glory of a resurrection, to lift itself in right royal grandeur above the clod.
No one can explain how the inanimate can thus become living tissue, but the sun keeps warming its leaves with caresses, and the kindly winds bring tribute from distant lands; and the guarding stars keep sending their benign forces, and the cool hand of the darkness offers its chalice of dew, so that the seed becomes a tree, whose nectar attracts the bees and butterflies, and whose wide-extending branches become the home and playground of the birds.
There is nothing seemingly more insignificant than the planting of a garden unless it be the beginning of a good and useful life. It is simply planting a thought in an ordinary human brain. The wise philosopher may examine the thought and pronounce it quite commonplace; the grammarian may test it and say that it could be constructed in a more exact and polished manner; the physiologist may examine the brain and pronounce the texture of its convolutions as being most ordinary. There is nothing anywhere to indicate that the combination of that particular thought and that particular brain could result in anything particularly extraordinary. The possessor of the brain may feel no different after the planting of the thought and have no presentiment of what it shall mean to him in the years that follow. But the whole universe knows about the thought planting. As the stars remember the buried seed, so all the divine forces of earth and heaven are set to work about the planted thought. Days and weeks may pass without the world observing any appreciable results, and it may even forget the planting. But God has not forgotten. He is remembering it, guarding it with divine care, and the results will appear sooner than we think.
That is the reason, I believe, that Christ took the mustard seed for the foundation of a parable. The seed is not only one of the smallest, being so little that it can slip unnoticed from your grasp, and hide within the crevice of a clod, mocking your solicitous search, but it is of most rapid growth. Within a fortnight it will overshadow the garden, and before the season is ended will tower twelve to fifteen feet in height, its sturdy branches affording shelter, and protected nests, for many birds. Divine thoughts within the brain are capable of this marvelous development. The planting may be an unattractive thing to do; the mind itself may be as unresponsive as the soil at the first planting of the seed, but God has not forgotten his truth, and all the universe is working for its fullest development. Soon, very soon, will it manifest its marvelous nature by rapid growth and bloom.
Here is a little lass, living among the forests of Domremy. Day by day she watches the soldiers of hostile powers tramping along the dusty highways to devastate the land she loves so dearly. Her heart aches as she sees her people languishing helplessly under the heavy yoke of oppression. Standing with tear-filled eyes one day she hears an old man say: “God will one day raise a deliverer for the French.” Amid the dust arising from the tramping of an invading army a thought was planted in the mind of a child.
Here is a little girl at Ledbury, near the Malvern Hills, sitting in her father’s dooryard, looking at the mysterious letters of a Greek book, whose secrets refuse to yield themselves to her inquisitive brain. Disappointed, she buries her face in her book and weeps, only to be found by a kind friend who picks her up and whispers in her ear: “There, do not cry. A little girl can learn Greek if she tries.” The world goes along as usual, not knowing that a new thought has been planted, and that girls may learn Greek as readily as do the boys.
Here is a little boy, standing by a harpsichord, watching his father’s fingers find the notes upon the ivory keyboard. His soul is filled with delight as he listens to the melodies that arise. Beholding the nervous twitch of the tiny fingers longing to earnestly and reverently touch the music-making keys, the father bends low, and says: “Be patient, son, and keep loving your music, for some day you will be a great musician.”
Here is a little boy drawing with charcoal upon the white walls of his mother’s kitchen, while a precious old grandmother sits watching the young artist. Taking him in her arms, she said, “Do not paint to rub out, paint for eternity.” Commonplace words uttered in a commonplace home by a very commonplace old lady.
Here is a bright-eyed little boy kneeling at his mother’s side to say his prayers. Having finished his petitions, the Christian mother says, encouragingly, as she strokes his head, “Only be good, my precious boy, and God will use you to help the thousands.”
We have seen these five persons putting ordinary thoughts in what seem to be ordinary brains. These five children felt no enraptured thrill, the ones who sowed the thoughts did not remember the day. But all the universe of spiritual power knew about the planting, and consequently the seeds grew. Watch the little girl among the forests of Domremy, leaning against the trees, buried in thought, and listening to the voices that ever speak of redeeming France. Watch the little girl bending over her Greek book, day after day, finding the key that unlocks the beauty of Homer and Thucydides. Watch the little lad sitting past the midnight hour, his long curls falling in rich folds about his face as he bends over the harpsichord awakening the slumbering strings. Watch the little lad gathering clays of various colors and grinding them into paint, which shall, at the touch of his brush, awaken angels upon the canvas. Watch the little lad who learned to pray at his mother’s knee, gathering the students of Oxford about him to spend the evening hour in prayer. God has not forgotten the good thoughts sown in the days gone by, and all the spiritual forces of the heavens are working for their most complete development. Soon the little lass of Domremy, obedient to the call of the voices, mounts her charger and compels King Charles, the invader, to flee and give back the government of France to her people. Soon the little girl who studied so diligently to learn Greek will become Mrs. Elizabeth Browning, to make the centuries happy with the music of her poems. Soon the little lad at the harpsichord will become the mighty Mozart, whose music lingers like the sweet fragrance of dew-wet flowers. Soon will the little boy, drawing with charcoal, begin to paint for eternity, and the “Angelus” and “The Man with a Hoe” begin their deathless career, as a tribute to toil, and an eternal protest against oppression. Soon the boy of Epworth and the youth of Oxford will become John Wesley, the leader of the great revival which swept England at a critical period and directed her on the right track.
No one can understand the mystery of the growing seed, or the greater mystery of the growing thought, but each individual can have such a love for childhood and its future that he will guard with jealous care each word that leaves his lip, determined that in the sowing nothing but good seed shall find lodgment in any heart. An evil thought planted in a child’s mind grows into a ruined life and blasted character. Let not even the idle word be an evil one for fear of the harvest. What an incentive to become good husbandmen planting righteous thoughts in the minds of childhood, looking forward to harvests that shall never end!