then said a voice from heaven, 'Thou art my Son, the Beloved, in thee is my delight.'

"See, you are not to say a word to anybody; away and show yourself to the priest and offer what Moses prescribed for your cleansing, to notify men."

and a large number at once gathered, till there was no more room for them, not even at the door. He was speaking the word to them,

The sower sows the word.

As for those 'on the road,' when the seed is sown there ??as soon as they hear it, Satan at once comes and carries off the word sown within them.

Similarly those who are sown 'on stony soil' are the people who on hearing the word accept it with enthusiasm;

but they have no root in themselves, they do not last; the next thing is that when the word brings trouble or persecution, they are at once repelled.

Another set are those who are sown 'among thorns'; they listen to the word,

but the worries of the world and the delight of being rich and all the other passions come in to choke the word; so it proves unfruitful.

As for those who were sown 'on good soil,' these are the people who listen to the word and take it in and bear fruit at the rate of thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."

In many a parable like this he spoke the word to them, so far as they could listen to it;

That is repealing the word of God in the interests of the tradition which you keep up. And you do many things like that."

while they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the miracles that endorsed it. (b) But they gave Peter and his companions a brief account of all these injunctions. And, after that, Jesus himself sent out by means of them from east to west the sacred and imperishable message of eternal salvation.