♦The Causal Law♦ Christ has many things to say which reveal His constant consciousness of the Harvest Law, as it may be called. To Him also it was the deepest, the fundamental thought; and He illustrates His teaching continually by reference to it. The Causes already in the field--the ground as well as the seed--determine the harvest of the sower. As surely as tares are sown amongst the good seed, so surely shall there be a mingled harvest of tares and good grain. The kind of harvest will be according to the kind of seed. The tree is known by its fruit. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles.” There is no evasion of the Causal Law; and in the fair universe there is no desire to evade it. For the Causal Law is the Law of Life. “The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear”--the farmer knoweth not how--but “when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come.” * * * * * ♦The First Cause♦ ♦Buddha♦ How the universe came into existence, who enacted the Law, the Buddha did not inquire, and forbade men to inquire. It was enough for them that they found themselves a part of the endless chain of causation; duty lay for them in the practical task of finding their place in the chain, and of adjusting themselves within it. ♦Christ♦ The Christ, on the other hand, assumed a Builder of the universe, and a Purpose in the Law; and He summed the graciousness and the harmony of nature in the only human phrase which conveyed His own conception of its wonderfulness. “My Father worketh.” “Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father.” “Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field...?” THE UNIVERSAL LAW IN HUMAN LIFE