mustard-seed and sowed it in his field; a woman took the leaven and hid it in three measures of meal. The two parables are in this respect strictly parallel; in both alike an ordinary act in rural economy is performed, and in either it is performed by a person of the appropriate sex. The converse would have been startling and inexplicable. Whatever the operator may represent in the sowing of the seed, the operator in the hiding of the leaven represents the same. To neglect the strict parallelism between the two cases, and attribute some meaning to the selection of a woman as the operator in the one, which the selection of a man in the other does not convey, is, as I apprehend the matter, to forsake the main track of the analogy, and follow by-paths which lead to no useful result. The same divine hand that dropped the word of eternal life as a mustard-seed into the ground, also hid the word of eternal life as leaven in the ephah of flour. Looking to the spiritual significance of the two parables, we have in both cases the same act, and in both cases, therefore, the same actor.[19] [19] To the question what the woman specially represents in the parable, Dräseke answers, "The grace of God."--ii. 263. A question of deep interest and considerable difficulty arises from the fact that here, and here only, the greatest good--the kingdom of God in the world--is unequivocally compared to leaven, whereas this similitude, in all other places of Scripture where it occurs, either stands indefinitely for progress of any kind, or expressly represents the energy of evil. I assume without argument that in this parable the diffusion of leaven through the mass represents the diffusion of good in the world, although here and there, both in ancient and modern times, an inquirer appears who understands the leaven in this place to predict the prevalence of false doctrines and practices in the Church. This interpretation no man would voluntarily adopt in the first instance, for it is obviously incongruous with the signification of the kingdom in every other parable of the group; but some have permitted themselves to be driven into it by a difficulty that threatens on the opposite side. Because in other portions of Scripture they find leaven employed as an emblem of evil, they think themselves obliged to take it as a representative of evil here. But the difficulty which is presented by the use of a type to denote good, which is elsewhere employed to denote evil, must be fairly met and explained: to escape an imaginary difficulty we must not plunge into a real mistake. I am convinced that here, as in many similar cases, that which at first sight and on the surface wears the appearance of harshness, will be found, on fuller consideration, to contain a new beauty, and impart additional power.