126 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. , 



are covered over with corn : they shout for joy, they 

 also sing." (Psalm Ixv. 13.) Our blessed Lord, whilst 

 upon earth appears to have participated in such feelings, 

 and to have taken a deep interest in such scenes. 

 We find him on one occasion passing through the corn- 

 fields on the Sabbath-day, and taking advantage of the 

 circumstances of his walk there, to instruct his disciples, 

 and to reprove the Pharisees who accompanied him. 

 Three of the Evangelists have recorded the fact, as if 

 they deemed it especially worthy of notice. St. John 

 also has described him on another occasion, as drawing 

 one of his most beautiful ilhistrations of divine truth 

 from the ripening corn-fields which surrounded that 

 spot where he had first been conversing with the Sama- 

 ritan woman. •* Say not ye there are yet four months, 

 and then cometh harvest : behold, I say unto you. Lift 

 up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white 

 already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth 

 wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal ; that both 

 he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice toge- 

 ther." 



That we may imitate this custom of our blessed 

 Saviour, let us reflect while walking in the corn-field at 

 this season, upon the ideas which it most forcibly sug- 

 gests to the Christian. 



