One Sunday in June, about three years ago, I went to hear the Rev. Dr. Aked, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, in New York city. For his scripture lesson he read the parable of the "Wheat and the Tares." * This is about a farmer who sows good seed in his field. But while he was asleep, his enemies came and sowed tares among the wheat. As the blades sprang up "and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also." The farm-hands, when they saw this, asked the owner for permission to destroy the tares. "Nay," replied the master, "lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn." * Matthew xiii, 24-30. What edification is there in such a story? To bring a church full of people together--tired, busy, perplexed, hungering for ideas, for truth, for beauty--only to tell them that the tares must not be touched or separated even from the wheat until some day in the future, some judgment day in the clouds, when the Lord of the harvest shall gather up the tares to be burned, and the wheat to be deposited in his chests! Could anything be more destructive of human endeavor and hope than this shifting of all responsibility upon God and the future? If the parable has any meaning, it is this: Let every field become rank with weeds, and let nothing be done to destroy the weeds _now_--the future will take care of that. The _future_ is the one great asset of the priest. "Wait until you die," is his answer to every challenge to show present results. The weeds injure the wheat during the time that the crop is growing, and not after it is ready to be harvested. What is gained by burning up the tares when they can no longer hurt the wheat and after they have done all the harm they could to the grain by stealing sun and moisture from them? Besides, there is just as much danger of gathering up the wheat with the tares at harvest time as there is of rooting up the wheat with the tares while they are growing together. Why postpone the purging process? Why let a child, for example, grow up to be a criminal to be hanged, if there is a way of saving him from evil associations earlier in life? What farmer or educator will follow the advice of Jesus, to let the bad and the good alone until judgment day?