It is a vast " field" in which " wheat and tares" grow side by side. We must expect to find believers and unbelievers, converted and unconverted, " the childreji of the king- dom, and the children of the wicked one," all mingled together in every congregation of baptized people.
The purest preaching of the Gospel will not prevent this. In every age of the Church, the same state of things has existed. It was the experience of the early Fathers. It was the experience of the Eeformers. It is the experience of the best ministers at the 2:)resent hour. There has never been a visible Church or a religious assembly, of which the members have been aU '^ wheat." The devil, that great enemy of souls, has always taken care to sow " tares."
The most strict and prudent discipline will not prevent this. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, all alike find it to be so. Do what we will to purify a church, we shall never succeed in obtaining a perfectly pure communion. Tares will be found among the wheat. Hypocrites and deceivers will creep in. And, worst of all, if we are extreme in our efforts to obtain purity, we do more harm than good. We run the risk of encourag- ing many a Judas Iscariot, and breaking many a bruised reed. In our zeal to " gather up the tares," we are in. danger of " rooting up the wheat with them." Such zeal is not according to knowledge, and has often done much harm. Those who care not what happens to the wheat, provided they can root up the tares, show little of the mind of Christ. And after all there is deep truth in the charitable saying of Augustine, " Those who are tares to-day, may be wheat to-morrow."