Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/211

 significant. The principle of goodness in man, capable of being increased so that his happiness may be gradually enlarged, is at first so small, and withal somewhat tinged with his own self-love, that it is compared but to a single grain. Even this one grain of good is the Lord's property in the soul; for God is the Giver of all good; man is but a recipient. Hence the Lord himself is truly represented by the man who, sowed this one grain in his own field, the heart or will of man being the ground or field into which the Lord implants the good seed of his kingdom. When this one grain of mustard-seed is grown, it is said to be the greatest of herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches. (ver. 32.) How beautifully does the parable describe the growth of the heaven within! In early life it is small, merely a grain; but as the first good, though barely perceptible, is applied to the purpose of a holy life, nourished by the good or heat and watered by the truth or rain from heaven, it presently springs up and spreads itself in all directions, influencing the understanding to make diligent efforts to acquire a more perfect knowledge of truth, until it becomes so extensive as to be called a tree, in which the birds of the heavens, the truths of spiritual intelligence, lodge and dwell in its branches. As this one grain or seed of heavenly good is sown by the Lord in his own field, in the heart or will of man, it should be our care, not only to love both the Sower and his seed, but to nourish it by every action of our lives; so shall the kingdom of God increase in our own mental land; we shall soon feel the joys of an expansion of goodness, while truth multiplying in us, as the leaves and blossoms of a