The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 192

through a funnel down thoee gnlleye and ravines. This was known to the sailors, yet the storm was unexpected. Life is the lake ; change may come at any moment, we know; and yet it ie the "unexpected which always happens," II. PBEBENOE OF MIND 1B NEEDED. To know that the mind is our real place, e.nd all the.t happens elsewhere is not our affe.ir,-thie makes ne independent of change, calm amidst scenes of terror. Nature ie for mind. Divine reason subdues the wild forces of nature. Faith in that reason is what we need. It ie the true and deepest source of "presence of mind." ill. THE ABSENCE OF CONFIDENCE AND COURAGE IS BLAMEWORTHY. Cl Why are you so fearful?" You may know at any time the worst. Fear is the reflection in our mind of some image of overwhelming power, threatening our existence. With Christ on board, our spiritual existence is safe. Perfect abandonment to duty, truth, and God alone, lifts above this anxiety. "If my bark sinks, 'Tie to another sea." J. Vere. 1-20. Parallel passages: Matt. xiii. 1-23; Luke viii. 4-18.-Parabolic teaching. I. THE PARABLE OF THE BOWER. 1. Benefit of acquaintance with Scripture topography. To the right comprehension of Scripture acquaintance with Scripture topo- graphy is indispensable. This is easily obtainable at the present day from several books of travels now accessible to all. Much may be gained in this way even by those who have not had any opportunity of visiting Bible lands. 2. Peculiarities in this parable. Here several things are peculiar, and only such as are to be met with in the East. First, the sower went forth ( l(ijM,v) from his homestead, for his fields evidently lay at a considerable distance from his dwelling. In the next place, the different kinds of soil are represented in close proximity. Further, the seed is scattered on the highway as well as on the ordinary and proper ground. The produce likewise in one case appears unusually large. Now, on turning to Stanley's book on• Palestine,' or to Thomson's' The Land and the Book,' we get a glimpse at the state of things in the East, which proves all this to be clear, correct,and consistent. From those interesting records of Eastern travel, with their graphic sketches of Eastern scenes, we learn that the sower has to go forth frequently a distance of some miles from his home in order to deposit his seed in the ground. On reaching the corn-land, he finds it devoid of fences, e. pathway passing through it, thorn bushes growing in clumps together, with rocks here and there peering through the surface of sparse and scanty soil, while not far off are patches of exceeding fertility; the produce at the same time amounting to the high figure of a hundredfold, but reckoned in the following pecnliar fashion :-Of three bushels sown one is lost by the birds, particularly the crows ; another third is destroyed by mice and insects, but out of the one remain- ing bushel one hundred bushels are reaped. 8. Confirmatory facts. Speaking of the verification of the parable with respect to the different kinds of ground, Thomson, in his entertaining manner, proceeds thus: "Now, here we have the whole four within 11, dozen rods of us. Our horses are actually trampling down some seeds which hav" fallen by the wayside, and larks and sparrows are busy picking them up. That man, with bis mattock, is digging about places where the rock is too near the surface for the plough; and much that is sown there will wither away, because it bas no deepness of earth. And not a few seeds have fallen among the bellan, and will be effectually choked by this most tangled of thorn bushes. But a large portion, after all, falls into really good ground, and four months hence w. .J exhibit every variety of crop, up to the richest and heaviest." Stanley's accou'!l.t, though quite independent, is remarkably similar ancl confirmatory of the foregoing in all the main particulars. The following extract contains the substance of it :-Referring to the plain of Gennesaret, he says, "There was the undulating corn-field descending to the water's edge. There was the trodden pathvi:ay running through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on either side of it or upon it; itself hard with the constant tramp of horse and mule and human feet. '!'here was the ' good,' rich soil, which distinguishes the whole of that plain and its neighbourhood. . . . There was the rocky ground of the hillside protruding here and there through the corn-fields .... There were the large bushes of thorn. the 'nabk,' that kind of which tradition says that the crown of thorns wa9  188 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING 'l'O $1'. MAtm:. [cu. iv. 1-41.