The Mustard Seed; or, The Growth of the Gospel
The plant which yields mustard is pretty well known; at least, every one knows the bright yellow flower which too often in the months of May and June makes the corn-fields golden. The hard black seed of that charlock, when crushed, is hot and pungent, and is extensively sold as mustard; and the true mustards are species of the selfsame genus. In England they grow to a height of four or five feet, and in the warmer climate and rich soil of Palestine they become much taller and more luxuriant. Speaking of the progress which His gospel was destined to make, the Lord Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, (or ‘garden,’) which is indeed the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”
Few interpreters, however, are content with such an “herb” or vegetable. They want a literal “tree,” with a wooden trunk, and large enough for birds to build nests in the branches. So they suggest the Cissus arborea and Salvadora Persica — trees which no man was likely to sow in his “garden,” and which the original word would never suggest to a Greek or Hebrew hearer. Others, aware that Sinapi is the well-known herbaceous mustard-plant of husbandry, are naturally anxious to magnify it as much as possible. Thus Rabbi Simeon Ben Chalaphta is frequently quoted, who says: “There was in my field a stalk of mustard, into which I was wont to climb, as men are wont to climb into a fig-tree.” The Rabbi does not tell us his size, but either he himself must have been very small, or his powers of imagination very great.
If we look at Matt. xiii. 31, Mark iv. 31, and Luke xiii. 19, in the light of those locutions and usages which govern every language, we shall find no difficulty. This seed is sown, and when it is sprung up it becometh “greater than all herbs” — taller than the pulse and dill and other pot-herbs around it — in fact, “a tree;” so arborescent that the finches and other little birds which are so fond of its seeds alight in its branches. Not a word is said about their build-The Mustard Seed; or,
ing their nests, as some have imagined: they simply perch or “lodge,” {KaracrK^vow “tabernacle;”) and there is no need to picture up among the boughs an eagle, or ospray, or any such rara avis as Rabbi Simeon. The mustard is a little seed; but sown in a favourable soil it shoots up, and by and by can scarcely be called an herb: it is quite a tree, so that the birds which come to devour its seeds are hidden in the branches.
Such is the meaning of the words. Then for the purport of the parable. Some of the fathers take occasion from it to descant on the medicinal virtues of the substance itself. Augustine says that mustard has the power of expelling poison, and just as the mustard-plant overtopped the other herbs, so the true doctrine will outgrow and cast into the shade sectarian dogmas. Hilary remarks, that just as the sharp flavour of the mustard seed is brought out by tribulation — by crushing and grinding — so the efficacy of the gospel is brought out by persecution and affliction. The other “herbs” are the prophets, whose preaching was given to the weak and sickly Israelites; but the branches of the mustard-tree are the apostles, to whom — like little birds tossed in the tempest — the nations resort, and wearied with the storms raised by the prince of the power of the air, seek refuge in the branches.
All this may be ingenious, but it is quite irrelevant. The design of the parable is obvious. The underlying thought is simple and single. A little germ and a large result — a small commencement and a conspicuous growth — an obscure and tiny granule, followed by a vigorous vegetation — the “least of all seeds” and “the greatest of herbs” — such is the avowed contrast of the parable; and the resemblance of this to the gospel, or the Christian dispensation, is the declared lesson of the Lord.
Is it not so when we glance at the history of real religion in the world, in communities, in the individual soul f
I. For instance: What a little and unlikely thing was the cradle of Bethlehem! Most cradles come to nothing; most infancies result in very ordinary specimens of upgrown humanity; and to the outside spectator there was no particular promise in the cradle watched by that Hebrew mother. It was not a cot of ebony or ivory, curtained with tapestry and covered with some wonder of the loom, and beneath such silken canopy as guards and glorifies the slumbers of imperial infancy. It was placed in a stable, and was in fact the manger where a little while before the ox had munched his provender — cobwebs the canopy, a carpenter’s cloak the covering. Nothing could look liker the outset of an abject existence, the germ from which you
The Mustard Seed; or,
would expect a very poor and vulgar history to spring. Thirty years after you could only expect to find the occupant of that manger grown up into a rough, hard-handed, toil-worn man, tramping out and in among the boors of Bethlehem, tending these cattle like the foster-brother who had grown up among them, and exerting rude energy in feats of rustic sport or prowess.
Thirty years passed on, and the tender plant had grown up, the root out of a dry ground began to bud forth and blossom. Jesus was manifested to Israel — the Son of Mary had become the marvel of Palestine. In words such as earth had never heard, because man had never spoken, He was revealing the Father: He was bringing God into the abodes of men — into the hovel of the fisherman and the haunts of the trader; and with prodigies of power, such as seemed a natural accompaniment of supernatural sanctity, He was healing the sick, was raising the dead, was stilling the tempest, was feeding the hungry, and was on every side awakening the question, When Messias cometh, will He do greater miracles than this man doeth? Even so. Blade by blade and branch by branch the seedling of Heaven had expanded, till a shekinah was visible in its Burning Bush; and the child born in the stable, the infant cradled in Bethlehem’s manger, answered to the name, Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Dark, hard, unlovely, there is no resemblance between that seed and the luxuriant plant so broad in its branches, in its blossoms so golden. Such a mustard seed was the Cross of Calvary. To those who had begun to look for redemption in Israel, that Cross was a crushing disappointment: to priests and Pharisees it was a source of savage exultation: to the rabble of Jerusalem it was an exciting spectacle, and the tragic finish of a strange career; and whilst like a sword it pierced through Mary’s soul, it was the tombstone under which disciples saw buried their hope and joy. The grain of seed fell into the ground and died. How different the scene two months thereafter! Jesus by this time is risen: He has gone back to His glory: the Holy Ghost is given, and in the new light which from prophets and psalmists has broken forth, the gloom has cleared off Golgotha: Gethsemane’s crushed and blood-stained sod comes out the battle-field, where the Captain of man’s salvation has conquered; and the Cross of Calvary, instead of the extinction of man’s best hope, because the destruction of man’s best Friend, stands forth the altar of the one accepted Sacrifice — the door of hope in our dark valley, the ladder with its foot on our sinful world, and heaven reconciled at its summit. Not two months, when this seed has begi n to
The Mustard Seed; or,
shoot forth gloriously. Not two months, when that Cross is lifted up, and looking to Him whom they have pierced, Jerusalem’s inhabitants begin to weep. Again it is lifted up, and thousands more are melted. It travels out of Palestine, speeds across the seas, penetrates strange lands, and still God’s Spirit goes with it. The savage, coarse and hisped, learns from it God’s mercy, and rises from his knees a new, a mild, and gentle creature. The scorning sage, as he struts along, and with curled and contemptuous lip disdains mankind, espies its love divine, and conscious of a mysterious magic, a benignant balm which has got somewhere in about his heart, the great deep opens, a fountain begins to flow in his once arid but now dissolving nature, and he goes forth amidst his fellows, a sunshine in his face, and a hand open as day to melting charity. With red arms the robber clasps it, and in its mighty expiation the crimson turns to snow. With remorse already stinging, the blasphemer presses to his burning bosom the healing tree, and the undying worm is no longer there. In life’s last hour, the awakened reprobate sets in Christ crucified the full range of God’s mercy, and from the jaws of perdition is transported to Paradise. And thus, with the powers of darkness in its front; and an altered world behind it, the Cross of Christ moved on; and though some Jews stumbled, and some Greeks were foolish, it soon proved itself to the various races of mankind God’s saving power — till of all seeds the least and most unlikely had overtopped all other herbs — had outgrown the philosophies and supplanted the religions of the East and West, and sent out its branches to the world’s end.
II. So with communities: so with the history of religion in given regions or localities. In the year 1789, the crew of the ship Bounty turned their captain and officers adrift and carried the ship away. After many adventures, the nine surviving mutineers landed in the little island of Pitcairn, with the heathen wives they had brought from Tahiti, and some Tahitian men. Their first years passed in quarrels and feuds, in drunken brawls and deliberate murders, till, in 1800, John Adams found himself the only man in all the island. His conscience was awakened by frightful dreams; but though the island was cut off from all the world, happily he had a Bible and a Prayer-Book, which still remained from the stores of the old Bounty. By reading that Bible, he found how a sinner may obtain forgiveness; and as the patriarch of the island, he set to work to instruct the children and the Tahitian women; and such was his success, that when, in 18 14, Captain Beechey visited Pitcairn, he found it peopled by a race virtuous, religious, cheerful, and hospitable beyond all precedent —
The M ustard Seed; or,
patterns of conjugal and filial affection, devoting the Sabbath entirely to reading and serious meditation and prayer, permitting no work to be done that day, and with a standard of truth so strict, that even irony was frowned on as a sort of falsehood; and all this truth, probity, and mutual affection had sprung from the single mustard seed, the one copy of the Scriptures, to which the awakened conscience of John Adams went for consolation.
Nearer home, but far out in the Western main, is a little island, round which for nearly half the year the Atlantic clangs his angry billows, keeping the handful of inhabitants close prisoners. Most of it is bleak and barren, but there is one little bay rimmed round with silvery sand and reflecting in its waters a slope of verdure. Towards this bay, one autumn evening, 1300 years ago, a rude vessel steered its course. It was a flimsy bark, no better than a huge basket of osiers covered over with the skins of beasts; but the tide was tranquil, and as the boatmen plied their oars, they raised the voice of psalms. Skimming across the bay, they beached their coracle and stepped on shore, one, two, three, as many as twelve or thirteen, and on the green slope built a few hasty huts and a tiny Christian temple. The freight of that little ship was the gospel, and the errand of the saintly strangers was to tell benighted heathen
The Growth of the GosfieL 81
about Jesus and His love. From the favoured soil of Ireland they had brought a grain of mustard-seed, and now they sowed it in Iona. In the conservatory of their little church it throve, till it was fit to be planted out on the neighbouring mainland. To the Picts with their tattooed faces, to the Druids peeping and muttering in their dismal groves, the missionaries preached the gospel. That gospel triumphed. The groves were felled, and where once they stood arose the house of prayer. Planted out on the bleak moorlands, the little seed became a mighty tree, so that the hills of Caledonia were covered with the shade; nor must Scotland ever forget the seedling of Iona, and the labours of Columba with his meek Culdees. And if God give the increase, who can tell to what mighty trees those little seedlings may grow, from that hardy nursery transplanted to Canada and Australia, to Calcutta and Amoy, to Caffraria and Old Calabar?
III. So with the rise and progress of religion in the individual soul. “The just shall live by faith “— a text so small, long latent in Luther’s memory, and long dormant, when quickened by God’s Spirit, became not only gladsome liberty to himself, but the germ of a glorious Reformation. And so,” a word, a thought, a passing sentence, may prove to be the little seed which eventually fills and shadows the whole heart and The Mustard Seed; or,
being, and calls all thoughts, all passions, all delights to come and shelter under it.”*
A great encouragement to those who are teaching others. Whether it be your Sabbath scholars or your own children, it is not so important that they should commit to memory great quantities of Scripture, long chapters or long psalms, as that they should have indelibly engraven on their hearts a few of the most precious portions, psalms like the xxiii. and ciii., hymns like “Rock of Ages” and “I lay my sins on Jesus,” texts like those faithful sayings which proclaim the love of Gcd, the cleansing blood of Christ, the power of believing prayer. A tract in the pocket, a Testament in the trunk, is a good thing, and may lead to the happiest results; but as the youth goes away and leaves you, a text in the memory is better — some great saving truth, terse and simple as it occurs in the lively oracles, or as it has been inwoven in immortal verse or more immortal music, or as it has been embalmed and made for ever sacred by some tender association — some touching incident or earnest exhortation. When the set time comes — in the distant colony, in the tropic ship, in the house of bondage, serving the citizen of a far country, and envying the husks which the swine do eat — that faded but familiar truth may return upon his memory, and, as he pon- * AlfordL ders, long closed founts of feeling may reopen, till the resolve is made, “I will arise and go to my Father.”
And a great encouragement to those who are trying to find favour for any useful plan or good idea. As long as it remains in your own mind, it is the seed in the mustard pod; but cast into the field, or the garden, it will grow. Thus David Nasmith’s notion of a house to house visitation of the London poor has grown into those town and city missions which are the salt, the saving element, in our over-crowded centres. Thus the first Bible-woman has been repeated, till they are counted by hundreds. Thus John Pounds’s little scapegrace, bribed by a hot potatoe to come for his daily lesson, has multiplied into our ragged schools, with their thousands of teachers, and myriads of scholars. Thus the system of total abstinence in the hands of Father Matthew reduced the whisky-drinking of Ireland from twelve millions of gallons in one year, to not more than five millions. And thus any true and living thing will grow, if it gets but a good and honest soil, and is so happy as to receive its fair proportion of sun and shower.
Which suggests our concluding thought — the treatment we ourselves should give the truths of God. An acorn on the mantel-piece, a dry bulb in a dark cupboard, a mustard seed in your pocket or a pill-box, will not grow. The
The Mustard Seed, &c.
only crop you can hope for is from the seed which you cast into the ground, and take pains with, till it sends up first the tender blade, and by and by the branching stalk. So texts or truths in the memory, are acorns on the shelf, seeds in the pill-box. It is good to have them, but do not leave them there. Take out any one you like and plant it. Ponder the saying till it grows wonderful — till its meaning comes out, and you feel some amazement at its unsurmised significance. Ponder it, till, like the phosphorescent forms of vegetation, the light of its expanding falls on other passages, and revelation is itself revealed. Ponder it, till the smallest of seeds becomes the greatest of herbs, and a brief maxim of heavenly wisdom develops in your conduct a beauty of holiness. Ponder it, till like the bulb taken out of the cupboard, it is no longer dead and dry, but with the scent of water at its roots, and looking forth at your lattice from its pedestal of amethyst or beryl, it warms with summer hues the wintry weather, and sends through all the hidden chambers of your heart exotic perfume, suggestions of joys which even now exist elsewhere, though outside and around the trees are stripped, and the world is cold.