There are others whose hearts are like the pebbly beach. The seed falls there, and then the sea of their pride comes and washes it all away. They know what is said from the pulpit is true, they know the advice in the confessional is good, but they are too proud to change their lives, too proud to own that the priest knows better than they do. They say: Why should the church interfere between my wife and me, or between my children and myself? Why should the head of the family be ruled by the clergy? and the like. On such as these the word falls, but it falls on stony ground. To all of you, then, the Gospel says this morning, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Open your ears and soften your hearts. Sermons are not for you to criticise; they are for you to profit by, for you to form your lives upon. The words of the priest are the words of God. The seed that he sows is the good seed. Woe to you if your hearts are stony ground! There is a rank growth which is called stone-crop, which clings to walls and stones; there is a weed-like, yellow grass that sprouts upon neglected house-tops. What do men do with such plants? They cast them forth into the smouldering weed-fire. And so will God cast into the fire that is never quenched those who receive the word of God on stony ground. Rev. Algernon A. Brown. ------------------------- {136} Sermon XXXVI. _A sower went out to sow his seed._ --St. Luke viii. 5. You all know, my brethren, what this seed is, and who it is that sows it; for our Lord himself explains the parable, and you have just heard the explanation. The seed, he says, is the word of God; and it is God that sows it. And what is the word of God? Protestants tell us that it is the Bible; and their idea of sowing it is to leave a copy of it with everybody, whether they can read and understand it or not. That is not the way, however, that the Divine Wisdom has followed. He has put his word, of which the Bible is no doubt a great part, in the hands and the heart of his church, and told her to preach it to all nations--not to leave copies of it with them. The word of God is, then, the religious instruction which you are all the time receiving, mainly from the priests of the parish to which you belong. It is God that gives it to you through them. It ought to bring forth fruit a hundred-fold, like the seed falling on good ground. You ought not only to hear it but to keep it. Do you?