Part 4 (1/2)

. after his kind_.”--Gen. i: 12.

”_Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?_”--Matt. vii: 16.

”_For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live_.”

--Romans viii: 13.

CHAPTER IV.

A Man Expects to Reap the Same Kind as He Sows.

If I should tell you that I sowed ten acres of wheat last year and that watermelons came up, or that I sowed cuc.u.mbers and gathered turnips, you wouldn't believe it. It is a fixed law that you reap the same kind of seed you sow. Plant wheat and you reap wheat, plant an acorn and there comes up an oak, plant a little elm and in time you have a big elm.

One day, the master of Lukman, an Eastern fabulist, said to him, ”Go into such a field, and sow barley.” Lukman sowed oats instead. At the time of harvest his master went to the place, and, seeing the green oats springing up, asked him:

”Did I not tell you to sow barley here? Why, then, have you sown oats?”

He answered, ”I sowed oats in the hope that barley would grow up.”

His master said, ”What foolish idea is this? Have you ever heard of the like?”

Lukman replied, ”You yourself are constantly sowing in the field of the world the seeds of evil, and yet expect to reap in the resurrection day the fruits of virtue. Therefore I thought, also, I might get barley by sowing oats.”

The master was abashed at the reply and set Lukman free.

Like produces like in vegetation, and like produces like in labor.

If a man has learnt the trade of a carpenter, he does not expect to excel as a watchmaker. If he has toiled hard to acquire a knowledge of the law, he does not expect to practice medicine for a livelihood. Men expect to reap in the same line as they have learned.

This law is just as true in G.o.d's kingdom as in man's kingdom; just as true in the spiritual world as in the natural world. If I sow tares, I am going to reap tares; if I sow a lie, I am going to reap lies; if I sow adultery. I am going to reap adulterers; if I sow whisky, I am going to reap drunkards. You cannot blot this law out, it is in force. No other truth in the Bible is more solemn.

Suppose that a neighbor, whom I don't want to see, comes to my house and I tell my son to tell him, if he asks for me, that I am out of town. He goes to the door and lies to my neighbor; it will not be six months before that boy will lie to me; I will reap that lie.

A man said to me some time ago, ”Why is it that we can not get honest clerks now?”

I replied, ”I don't know, but perhaps I can imagine a reason. When merchants teach clerks to say that goods are all wool when they are half cotton, and to adulterate groceries and say they are pure, when they grind up white marble and put it into pulverized sugar, and the clerk knows it, you will not have honest clerks.”

As long as merchants teach their clerks to lie and to misrepresent, to put a French or an English tag on domestic goods and sell them for imported goods, so long they will have dishonest clerks.

Dishonest merchants make dishonest clerks. I am not talking fiction, I am talking truth. It is not poetry, but solemn prose that a man must reap the same kind of seed that he sows.

This is a tremendous argument against selling liquor. Leaving out the temperance and religious aspects of the question, no man on earth can afford to sell strong drink. If I sell liquor to your son and make a drunkard of him, some man will sell liquor to my son and make a drunkard of him. Every man who sells liquor has a drunken son or a drunken brother or some drunken relative. Where are the sons of liquor dealers? To whom are their daughters married? Look around and see if you can find a man who has been in that business twenty years who has not a skeleton in his own family.

I threw that challenge down once, and a man said to me the next day, ”I wasn't at your meeting last night, but I understand you made the astounding statement that no man had been in the liquor business twenty years who hadn't the curse in his own family.”

”Yes,” I said, ”I did.”

”It isn't true,” he said, ”and I want you to take it back. My father was a rumseller, and I am a rumseller, and the curse has never come into my father's family or into mine.”

I said, ”What! two generations selling that infernal stuff, and the curse has never come into the family! I will investigate it, and if I find I am wrong I will make the retraction just as publicly as I did the statement.”