JUNE 



127 



senibled to a man that sowed good seede in 

 his field. But when men were a sleepe his 

 enemy came and oversowed cockle among 

 the wheate and went his way." The King 

 James version made the word tares instead 

 of cockle, to our confusion. The plant 

 named in the Greek original is not our 

 cockle; but cockle is none the less a better 

 translation for our purposes than tares. We 

 have no tares; but all that in this case is 

 true of the tares is true of the cockle as 

 well ; and if the Christ were teaching in our 

 land to-day and wished to convey the same 

 lesson, he would certainly say cockle and 

 not tares. 



When cockle springs up, its long tender 

 leaves make it look much like the grain 

 amongst which it grows, and to weed it out 

 at that time would be quite a difficult task. 

 But let it go to maturity, and its warm- 

 colored flowers, lifting themselves out of 

 their swollen, bladdery cups, are easy to 

 see, as we look at this season over the ripen- 

 ing grain. 



I suspect man himself has done much to 



v--i 



