THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN.

: New Testament Stories

Christ said that the kingdom of heaven could be likened unto leaven

(or yeast), which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour,

till the whole was leavened.



Now, this leaven, or yeast, is composed of tiny little plants, each

one so small that it cannot possibly be seen by the sharpest eye

except through a very powerful microscope. So small are they that it

would require three thousand of them, plac
d close together, side by

side, to make up the length of one inch. Like all other plants they

require food, and they find this in the dough they are placed in. You

know that all things are made up of atoms of chemical substances so

wonderfully blended together that only the chemist can separate them,

and when he has separated them they appear very different. Well, in

flour there are certain things so blended, and the yeast-plant takes

one kind of substance as food, and in doing so sets free another

substance called carbonic acid gas. This gas bubbles up and makes the

heavy dough spongy and light. If it were not for these tiny bubbles of

gas your bread would be as heavy and close as suet pudding. This is

the reason why yeast is put into dough for making bread or cake. One

of the most remarkable things about this yeast is, that when it gets

into any substance that contains its food, it at once begins to give

off buds, which, in a few moments, become full-sized and break away.

So rapid is this increase, that if a single yeast-plant were to be put

into a great mass of dough it would very quickly leaven the whole

mass.



And so it is with the love of God. When once it gets into our hearts

it will keep on growing until all our life is filled with it, and we

try in all things to please Him.



More

;