When you say, then, that Christianity has produced but partial results, you are but saying that men are frivolous and thoughtless, that there are many who do not listen to religion, or do not listen to it with earnestness and lay to heart its practical lessons. "_Wisdom preacheth abroad; she uttereth her voice in the streets; at the head of multitudes she crieth out;_" but it is of no avail to the greater number, "_because they have hated instruction, and received not the fear if the Lord_." [Footnote 55] [Footnote 55: Proverbs i. 20, 21, 29] {295} Moreover, our Lord foresaw that the success of His gospel would be but partial. We see this in the very passage from which the text is taken. There is something melancholy in the way the evangelist introduces the parable of the sower: "_And when a very great multitude was gathered together and hastened out of the cities to Him, He spoke by a similitude: A sower went out to sow his seed_," etc. This was the thought which the sight of a very great multitude pressing around Him awoke in the mind of our Lord: how small a part would really give heed to His words, or really appreciate them: how in some hearts the word would be trodden down, in others be choked or wither away; and this is the secret of the energy with which He cried out at the end of the parable, "_He that hath ears to hear, let him hear_." The same thought comes out in the conversation which he had afterward with His disciples, when they asked an explanation of the parable: "_The heart of this people is grown gross; and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear_." [Footnote 56] [Footnote 56: St. Matt. xiii. 15, 16.] Our Lord was as far as possible, then, from expecting that the course of things would stand still, and all men comply instantly with his preaching. Nor were His predictions respecting His Church such as to warrant more sanguine expectations of her success. {296} In His charge to His disciples, He let them know what they were to expect: "_When you come into a house salute it, saying: Peace be to this house. And if that house be worthy, your peace shall come upon it; but if it be not worthy, your peace shall return to you. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another_." [Footnote 57] [Footnote 57: St. Matt. x. 12, 13, 23.] Nor were their trials to be altogether external. "_And then shall many be scandalised, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall wax cold_." [Footnote 58] [Footnote 58: Ib. xxiv. 10, 12.]