Oh! if Christians would only learn this one great truth, how the whole face of things would change! How the most obstinate vices, the most deep-rooted spiritual disease, would melt away at the touch of the Great Physician of our souls, if we would only go to him continually for their cure! How easily we should overcome the enemy if we would only understand that of ourselves we cannot overcome him, but that we can do all things in Him who strengtheneth us; and, understanding this, would go to him for the strength that we cannot get elsewhere! {137} My brethren, you who have fallen and now fall so often, I beg you to put this truth in practice. You fail, and why? Because you have undertaken more than you can do. You wish to succeed? I hope so. Well, there is only one way. Do as you have done before, but also call God to the rescue. Pray frequently and fervently, and go often to confession and Communion, and success, instead of being hopeless, will be sure. ------------------- Sermon XXXIX. Good Seed But No Harvest. The Gospel of to-day, my brethren, is the parable of the sower who went out to sow his seed. Our Lord himself explains the parable, and tells us that the seed is the word of God; and the real sower of this word, of course, is God, from whom it comes, and from whom it has all its life and power. The ground in which this seed is sown is the mind and heart of man; or, to put the matter in a practical shape, it is your heart and mine. There are many people in this world to whom very little of it has come, at least compared with what we have had; but we cannot complain that we have not had our share. The word of God spoken by the mouth of man, in sermons, instructions, counsels, and warnings, from the altar and in the confessional, and not only from the priests but also from others who have been the ministers of God and the channels of his grace to us--it is certainly no strange or new sound in our ears. And not only in this way have we continually heard God's voice, but often, perhaps even more frequently, have we heard it coming immediately from him, and speaking in our own souls. {138} Plenty of this seed has, then, been sown in us; but where is the fruit, the harvest that should have come from it? Seed is not put in the ground merely to be kept there. No, it cannot be kept there; if it is not destroyed or carried away it must grow and multiply. The seed of God's word should, therefore, have grown in us. It should have been the beginning and the increase in us of the spiritual life, which should have grown stronger in us day by day from the time when we first came to the use of reason until the present moment.