Thorny soil is full of the germs and roots of useless and hurtful plants. In such ground, says our Saviour, the good and bad seed started up and for a time grew together. Soon the thorns shot ahead, sucked up for themselves all the juices of the earth, shut out the warmth of the sun from the wheat, closed in upon it, and finally choked it. In our fallen nature are the germs of evil, the hot-bed of concupiscence. They are part of ourselves; we cannot get entirely rid of them, as no ground, however well worked, can be freed from bad seeds. There they are with the good, and will sprout up with it; the mischief is in letting them grow until they kill the grace of God and absorb our souls; then, indeed, we are in a state of spiritual suffocation; the divine seed is choked in us. Now, the thorns, says our Saviour, "are the cares, the riches, and the pleasures of life." As long as we are in the world we shall have to bear with its cares. Yet the great care, you know, is your salvation. All other concerns become choking thorns when they take precedence of this. {140} Riches are not the best claim to heaven. Yet it is only the unjust getting, the absorbing love, and the sinful use of them that choke off the life of the soul. And in riches there is danger for the poor, strange as it may seem. As the shadow of St. Peter cured, so the shadow of wealth diseases by causing envy, want of resignation. The poor should beware of the "evil eye" of riches; it is poverty _in spirit_ which is a passport to heaven. The pleasures of life, as you know from your own experience, unless checked by mortification, are fatal to the growth of God's word within us. The sunshine of the world is peculiarly favorable to the tropical vegetation of noxious or useless weeds. Remember that your soul is a field in which Satan has put germs of evil as well as God, of good. Both are watching the growth and looking out for the final result. On you it depends which crop your soul will produce, wheat or thorns. The wheat will be gathered in God's granary, the thorns are only fit to burn. Be ye, therefore, good ground--_i.e._, "hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience." --------------------- {141} _Quinquagesima Sunday_. Epistle. 1 _Corinthians xiii_. 1-13.