Sowing Seed by Jennie Deans

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 21, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 20.

Sowing Seed.

By Jennie Deans

WHEN spring-time opens, farmers think of the sowing soon to be. Seeds selected with care in the autumn, are now assorted, and the fullest kernels of corn, plumpest spikes of wheat, chosen. Nothing but the best for sowing. Following the farmer's thought comes the one that all are sowing seeds in life by constant and daily acts. This is a fact from which none can escape. Now what of the seed? Is it the best, garnered with care and treasured with watchfulness? We sometimes think of the poorly-paid minister toiling through summer's heat and winter's cold sowing seeds of a virtuous, moral, and Christian life. With what carefulness and prayerfulness are such selected, and are they not eminently worthy? How often the power behind a noble life, fruitful in deeds of benevolence and love, has been the little seed sown by the faithful man of God long years before. It may have been in weakness, amid doubts and fears, half thinking the ground stony; but ah! the seed was good, and behold the harvest!

Educators and teachers are none the less sowing seed, scattering it broadcast with a bountiful hand. The teacher who daily brings before her pupils the best of each lesson, who seeks to impart moral lessons as well, that shall be remembered when the young and eager learner has passed beyond her reach, is sowing good seed. If on in the years one, only one shall say, "When beset by fierce temptation, when the better nature had almost yielded, words of yours, teaching and instruction of yours, the little seed sown in the far-away school-room, saved me from sinning, and held me to duty and right," what teacher will not feel amply repaid for every effort, every sacrifice, every seemingly unappreciated endeavor, and will not the crown of her rejoicing be great?

It is true no person can revolutionize a nature. The results of careful, faithful teaching are sometimes long hidden. But this does not excuse from the attempt in the right direction. The good seed may be sown, though the harvest come in later time.

But pastors and teachers are not the only seed-sowers. Everybody everywhere is sowing seed with a plentiful hand, yet the question is not how much or how little, but what of the kind, and—the reaping? Will it be thirty, sixty, or an hundred-fold, or such that the sower will not desire said, "Behold the fruits of my toil?" If any are sowing seeds of strife, discord, dissension, planting tares among the wheat, thorns among the roses, their reward is certain, it cannot be escaped; and if seeds of love, kindness, good-will, honesty, charity and righteousness, their reward is none the less sure.

"Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." Though the heavens fall, these words shall not fail. In the hurry and rush of this pushing nineteenth century; amid the Yankee cleverness for gain and the American ability to win a name high on the roll of fame, let him remember along with the Rothchilds and Vanderbilts, only the treasures in the better kingdom are those that will afford lasting satisfaction.

Thus as the farmer selects with care his seed for spring-time sowing, so let us look well to it that we choose the best for daily planting. Knowing men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, never can we expect a noble life unless actuated by firm principle and high resolve. May we choose so wisely and sow so well that of us it may be said:—

The seed that in these short and fleeting hours, Thy hands untiring and unsparing sow, Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, And yield ye fruits divine in Heaven's unfading bowers. —Jennie Deans, in Christian at Work.