Some expositors have made a similar mistake in regard to the parable of the leaven, and the one error will throw light upon the origin and nature of the other. Observing that the Lord in another place represents the doctrines of the Pharisees and the Sadducees as a leaven, some have concluded that the leaven in the parable also must point to the spread of error, and have expounded it accordingly. All judicious critics, however, clearly see and distinctly explain in that case, that the leaven which was in other instances employed to represent the diffusion of evil, was in the parable employed to represent the prevalence of good. Although leaven in one of the Lord's discourses pointed to hypocrisy and unbelief, they teach, and teach correctly, that leaven in another of his discourses points to the progress of saving truth. The same discrimination should be exercised here. It is quite true that the Lord at one time, and in one discourse, compared the ministry of apostles in winning souls to the labour of fishers in the ordinary exercise of their craft; but that does not prevent him from employing at another time the universal sweep of the draw-net to represent the silent, slow, and sure encompassing of human kind, which draws them, good and bad alike, by instruments and agencies which they do not see and cannot resist, from this troubled sea of time toward the shore of the unknown eternity. Because the conception of capturing fishes in the Sea is at one time in the Lord's discourses employed to indicate the benevolent labour of the Gospel ministry, it does not follow that you are compelled to construe that conception in the same way wherever it occurs, although the circumstances manifestly render the application incongruous and contradictory. Let it be observed, moreover, that when the apostles in respect of their work are called fishers of men, not one feature in the process of fishing is specified in detail. Nothing is introduced but the general conception of a fisherman catching fishes in the sea. This conception in the abstract contains nothing incongruous with the labour of the apostles. As long as you abide by the bare general term "fisher," the analogy, as applied to "apostle," is obvious and the meaning easily recognised; but the moment you descend into the details of a net, and the mixture of good and evil, you plunge into inextricable confusion, if you persist in maintaining an analogy between the detailed process of fishing and the labour of apostles for the kingdom of Christ.