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1. The first law which invites our attention in the field of reproduction is, that like produces like. The seed of a fig never can be made to produce a thistle, nor the thistle-seed a fig. The corn, concealed for three thousand years in the hand of an Egyptian mummy, and last year discovered and planted in the earth, produced precisely the same sort of grain which grew so many centuries ago from similar seed. The same law is equally imperative as relates to every variety of the animal species. Sheep and goats, though mingling for centuries in flocks cared for by the same shepherd, never confuse their distinctive features. The ant which to-day runs athwart our path is the same insect, in kind, to which Solomon directed the sluggard, to learn a lesson of wisdom in industry. The lark which now rises upon the wing of song to meet the early morning rays is the same songster, in kind, which regaled the ears of Adam in Eden's bowers. Like produces like; and whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Words, thoughts, desires, are seeds; eye-glances, and ear-attentions, and hand. operations, and feet movements are seeds; habits are seeds. The lives of others are gardens; so likewise the home circle, the social assembly, the church, the congregation, the office, the warehouse, the public conveyance — ay, every child or adult — the very laws and elements of nature are gardens in which we are sowing these seeds; and "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." God has so ordered the vast machinery of our earthly habitation that we shall be paid in the harvest that which we have scattered in the seeding-time. It is the law in individual sympathies. Love begets love, and hate excites hate, and anger arouses anger, and the results of our mental dispositions return into our own bosoms. Impatience provokes impatience, and violence awakens violence, and we reap the harvests of our own moods and humours. But that like produces like is most clearly evinced in this: that that state and temper which we cultivate assumes a more intensified form. The man who once gives way to forbidden pleasure reaps the harvest of a stronger and stronger desire, till, upon further indulgence, the desire is followed by a craving, which, in turn, is succeeded by insatiable rage. A moderate heat is agreeable, but a burning fire is torture. So the early indulgence of unlawful passion (though for a season it be pleasurable), the harvest of misery and corruption will but too quickly and surely succeed. What is the consuming thirst of the inebriate but the harvest of a once manageable but indulged desire! What is the wasting passion of the debauchee but the harvest of those urgencies which could once have been controlled! What is the maddening passion of the gambler but the harvest of that seed which was scattered in the earlier indulgence of the spirit of venture! What is the idolatry of the covetous man but the reaping of those habits which were sown in the cultivation of desires for gain forbidden by the Tenth Commandment! What is that dolorous and destructive emulation of the ambitious man but the returning into his own bosom of the harvest which was sown by the indulgence of vanity and pride! What is that outward and ragged filth of the blear-eyed and staggering prodigal, but the harvest of indulged inward impurity! Can a more terrible harvest be reaped than that self-consuming, ever-increasing intensity of passion which is the necessary result of indulged and unlawful desire? Like produces like, and we cannot sow vice and reap the reward of virtue. Idleness can never rise to gather in the rewards of industry. Unbelief never can be followed by the golden harvest of faith. The acceptance of error never can be made to produce the good effects of truth, nor can truth ever he made to damage the soul, like its opposite. The only possible way in which we can reap good is to sow good; for an unchangeable law of God it is, that like must produce its like.

2. A second law of reproduction is, that the harvest multiplies upon the sowing. One grain may produce a hundred. This is true of good seed, and likewise of the bad. One thistle-down, which blew from the deck of a vessel, is said to have covered with full-grown thistles the entire surface of a South Sea island. A single error or sin of youth may overspread our whole life with misery; and a life spent in impenitency here will be followed by an eternity of regret hereafter.

3. A third law of reproduction is, that the bad is voluntary and the good is involuntary. Marvellous it is to behold how prolific the earth is of the useless and the vile. The ground owes the weeds to itself, and the corn to the hands of the husbandman. The seeds of evil lie deep and lie long, and are instantly responsive to circumstances favourable to their growth. For sin we are indebted to ourselves; for righteousness to the gracious purpose and intervening hand of God. In the kingdom of grace there may be examples — like Samuel and John the Baptist — who display the fruits of the Spirit at the early dawn of life; still, it is none the less true, in these cases as in others, the fear of God is planted by the agency of the Holy Ghost. In a tropical latitude the fields may be waving their golden grain when, further from the equator, the mantle of winter is still enshrouding the earth. But at the South the ground, covered with fruit, is as much indebted to the hand of the husbandman as, at a later period, the northern fields are dependent upon the seed of the sower, and the care of the labourer. So, whether piety be exhibited earlier or later in life, we are equally indebted to the gracious and merciful intervention of the Divine Husbandman.

(A. McElroy Wylie.)

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KJV: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

WEB: Don't be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.