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THE


P.A RABLE


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BY
THOMAS GUTIHIRIE, D. D.,
AUTHIOR OF " TIIiE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEI," " THE SAINT'S INIIEITANOE," "WAY TO
LIFE," " SPEAKING TO TIE HEART," ETO.


NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
No. 530 BROADWAY.
1868.










CONTENTS..
INTRODUCTORY...... 0, 0          0 0 0 a0 00 90         7
I. THE PARABLE OF THELE AVN....                   15
if.   f     f   it if TEN. VIRGINZS.....        30
III. it    "     "     PRODIGAL SON............          4-7
Iva "      "    "      GOOD SAMARITAN..................73
V.    9    "f    4  it UNJUST JUDG.E....a....................a -97
VI.        cc   it"    PH-ARISEE AND PUBLICAN.... a9 123
VII. "      4    9 "    -1HID TREASURE.......,...........14:9
VIII."     it   it" PEARL OF, THE GitEAT PnICE.......171
IM. it     It   "9     LOST PIECE, OF MONEY.............191
X.    it   "f   "4     SOWER................ --......209
XIO "       9    It If UNMERCIFUL SER-VANT..........235.XIeIs     it   49  " LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD,..      261










THE PARABLES
READ IN THE LIGHT OF THE PRESENT DAY.
I ONCE saw Moffat, the South African missionary,
address a thousand children-the most formidable congregation, in one sense, before which any speaker
could appear.   The difficulty, after having aroused
their attention, of keeping it awake, was increased on
that occasion by two things. His address extended
beyond an hour, and the time was evening, when sleep
is so apt to fall on young eyes; yet there was not a
sleeper in the whole house. The sea of young faces was
all turned radiant on the orator; he was the centre
for two thousand eager glancing eyes; and for more
than the time usually occupied by a sermon he held his
audience by the ears. It was a great achievement:
and how accomplished? In a very simple way. Suiting the action to the word, and drawing on his own
observation and experience, he told them stories, illustrative of the labors and purposes, of the difficulties
and dangers of a missionary's life. In giving this form
(7)





INTRODUCTORY.


to an address which was not childish, though suited to
children, he dexterously availed himself of one of the
strongest and   earliest developed principles of our
nature. How often have I seen a restless boy, whom
neither threats nor bribes could quiet, sit spell-bound
by a nursery tale!    We can all recollect the time
when we sat listening to a mother's or nurse's stories
for long hours around the winter hearth. So passes
the time with the soldier by his watch-fire; with the
sailor on the lonely deep; and so, when the day's journey is done, and tents are pitched, and they have had
their evening meal, the Bedouin, seated beneath a
starry sky, on the sands of the silent desert, will spend
half the night.
Now, parables are just stories; they are told for
instruction through means of entertainment; and when
Moffat, by anecdotes, analogies, and illustrations,
sought to win the attention of his hearers, and convey
truth into their hearts, as the arrow, by help of its
feathers, goes right to the mark, he was only copying
his Master. No addresses recorded in history, common
or sacred, have so much of the parable character as
our Lord's. Not dry bones, nor, though skillfully put
together, mere naked skeletons, they are clothed with
flesh and instinct with life.  Man has a threefold
character: he is a being possessed of reason, of affection, and of imagination; he has a head, a heart, and
a fancy. And now proving, and now painting, and
now persuading, our Lord's discourses, unlike dry and
heavy sermons, along with the strongest arguments,
the most pointed and powerful appeals, are full of





INTRODUCTORY.


9


stories, illustrations, and comparisons; and by this
circumstance, as well as by the divinity of his matter,
and the blended mildness and majesty of his manner,
we explain the fact that Jesus was the prince of
preachers,-one whom the common people heard gladly,
and who, in the judgment even of his enemies, spake
as never man spake. The suitableness of this style of
preaching a gospel, intended as well for the unlearned
as the learned, for converting the unlettered poor,
whose souls are as precious in God's sight as those of
philosophers or kings, is obvious; and was well expressed by an humble woman. Comprehending best,
and most interested and edified by those passages
of Scripture which present abstract truth under concrete forms, and of which we have examples in such
comparisons of our Lord's as these-the kingdom of
heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, unto a
treasure, unto a merchant, unto a householder, unto a
king, she said, "I like best the likes of Scripture."
These are all parables, a form  of speech which our
Lord used, indeed so often, and to such an extent, that
the evangelists say, "Without a parable spake. he not
unto them." Occasionally used to conceal for a time
the full meaning of the speaker, the chief and common
object of a parable is by the story to win attention and
maintain it; to give plainness and point, and therefore
power, to truth. By awakening and gratifying the
imagination, the truth finds its way more readily to the
heart, and makes a deeper impression on the memory.
The story, like a float, keeps it frDm sinking; like a
nail, fastens it in the mind; like the feathers of an





10


INTRODUCTORY.


arrow, makes it strike, and, like the barb, makes it
stick.
While parables differ from fables, also a very ancient
form of speech and instruction, in this, among other
things, that fables use the fanciful machinery of beasts
and birds and trees, they are allied to proverbs and
allegories. They are stories of events that may or
may not have happened, but told for the purpose of
conveying important truths in a lively and striking
manner. They need not be in words, they may be
acted; and sometimes men inspired of God, have, instead of telling, acted them with dramatic power. Go,
said the Lord to Jeremiah, and get a potter's earthen
bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of
the ancients of the priests; and go forth unto the valley
of the son of Hinnom, and proclaim there the words
that I shall tell thee. To his summons they assemble,
and the preacher appears-nor book, nor speech in
hand, but an earthen vessel. He addresses them.
Pointing across the valley to Jerusalem, with busy
thousands in its streets, its massive towers and noble
temple glorious and beautiful beneath a southern sky,
he says, speaking as an ambassador of God, I will make
this city desolate and an hissing: every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss: I will cause
them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of
their daughters, in the siege and straitness wherewith
their enemies and they that seek their lives shall straiten
them. He pauses-raises his arm-holds up the potter's vessel-dashes it on the ground; and planting
his foot on its shivered fragments, he adds, Thus saith





INTRODUCTORY.


11


the Lord of Hosts, Even so will I break this people,
and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel. The
scene, the aspect of the man, the beautiful but fragile
vase, the crash, the shivered fragments, these, allimportant aids to the speaker, were calculated to make
an impression through the senses and the fancy, much
deeper than the mere message could have done.
After the same manner, we find another acting his
parable, charged also with a burden of coming sorrows.
To the amazement of the people, setting them all a
wondering what he could mean, Ezekiel appears one
day before them with fire, a pair of scales, a knife, and
a barber's razor. These were the heads, and doom
was the burden of his sermon. Sweeping off, what an
Eastern considers it a shame to lose, his beard, and
the hair also from his head, this bald and beardless
man divides them into three parts; weighing them in
the balance. One third he burns in the fire; one third
he smites with the knife; and the remaining third he
tosses in the air, scattering it on the winds of heaven.
Thus-he himself representing the Jewish nation; his
hair the people; the razor the Chaldeans; the cutting
off of the hair impending national disgrace; the balances, God's righteous judgment; the part burnt, those
destroyed in the city; the part smitten with the knife,
those slain when attempting to escape; and the remaining part scattered to the winds, the dispersion of
the survivors,-by this acted parable, and in a way
most likely to imprint the truth on their memories and
impress it on their hearts, he foretells the desolations
that were impending over them.





12


INTRODUCTORY.


The parable may assume a variety of forms, but the
rule of interpretation is the same in all cases. The
nearer we can make everything in the parable apply,
and stand out as the medium of an important truth, so
much the better. But while there may be a meaning
in many of the circumstances, the clothing, as you
might say, of the story-and it is our business to find
that out-any attempt to regard everything as charged
with a distinct meaning, to find a spiritual truth in
each minute circumstance, would often land us in the
regions of fancy; and sometimes in those of error.
Take, for example, the parable of the Rich Man and
Lazarus.   Our Lord represents Abraham and Dives
as talking to each other across the gulf which yawns,
unbridged, between heaven and hell. But are we to
infer from this that the intercourse of this world is
maintained in the other, and that sights or sounds of
misery disturb the blessed rest of the saints of God?
Certainly not. It would be as contrary also to all that
we believe, to infer from the rich man expressing a
desire for the welfare of the brothers he had left behind
him, that virtues grow amid these fires which grew not
in the more genial clime of earth. The lost are not
certainly improved by their association with devils. If
the longer in prison the greater criminal, the longer in
perdition the greater sinner! The dead fruit grows
more rotten, and the dead body more loathsome in its
change to dust; even so they that are filthy shall
not only be filthy, but shall be filthier still.
Take another example in the parable of the Ten
Virgins. I read that as a solemn warning. It calls





INTRODUCTORY.


13


us to be up and doing; to hold ourselves ready for the
Lord's coming, since we know neither the day nor the
hour the Bridegroom may come; to work while it is
called to-day, seeing how the night cometh when no
man can work-when shops are shut, and there is no
oil to buy. But if, allowing nothing for what might be
called the drapery of the story, we are to find divine
truth set forth not only in the main but in the minor
circumstances, in every particular of the parable, see
where this leads us! There were five wise and five
foolish; five taken in, and five shut out, to whose applications for admission, and earnest, long, loud knocking no answer came but, The door is shut. The first
five represent the saved, and the second the lost. But
are we to infer, since the number of the wise and the
foolish virgins was equal, that the lost are as numerous
as the saved? This would be a dreadful, and, I venture to say, a very rash conclusion. Nowhere has
God revealed such solemn secrets. Our Lord rebuked
the curiosity that asked, Are there few that be saved?
-replying, Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for
many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall
not be able. To force such an utterance from the parable, to conclude because there was an equal number of
wise and foolish virgins, that the lost are as numerous
as the saved, has no warrant in the Word of God, and
is contrary to the ideas we fondly cherish of Christ's
final, glorious, and most triumphant conquest. If, at
the close of the war, Satan retains half his kingdom,
his head is not crushed, nor, if he carries off half his
forces from the battle-field, is he defeated, as I would
2





14


INTRODUCTORY.


hope he shall be. We cling to the hope that equal
numbers will not stand on the right and on the left
hand of the Judge, and that the wail of misery, piercing as it is, shall be drowned and lost in the louder
burst of praise. It were a sad account of any government were half its subjects immured in prison; and I
would not believe without the strongest evidence that
under the reign of a benign and merciful God, and
notwithstanding the blood poured out on Calvary, half
the inhabitants of a world are lost upon which the
Saviour descended on wings of love, while his angel
escort sang, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will toward men.
In explaining a parable, what we are therefore to
seek is its great central truth, the one, two, or three
grand lessons which the story was told to teach-setting
aside such parts as are no more than color, clothing,
drapery thrown around it, to impart life and interest.
Keeping this in view, let us now turn to study this
woman at her household work, and learn the lesson
that she teaches.





I.
SThe kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took
and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."MATTHEW xiii. 33.
THE Kingdom of Heaven is sometimes used in Scripture as equivalent to the kingdom of God, but it has
not here the wide meaning of that expression.   There
are kingdoms, our own for instance, which embrace so
many different and such distant countries, that, as is
said and boasted of, the sun never sets on them-before he has set on one province he has risen on another.
But how much greater the kingdom of God?     The sun
never sets on it! The sun never rose and shone but
on a corner of it. Its provinces are not countries, nor
even continents, but worlds. It stretches not from
shore to shore, but from sun to sun, and from   star to
star. Its extent was never surveyed; its inhabitants
never numbered; its beginning never calculated. It
had no beginning, and it has no bounds. Its beginning is in eternity, and its bounds are lost in illimitable space.  Over this kingdom, which includes heaven
and hell, the angels that kept and those that lost their
first estate, all things visible and invisible, Jehovah
reigns---glorious in counsel, fearful in praises, contin(15)





16


THE PARABLES.


ually doing wonders. Sole monarch of this empire,
he has made all things for himself, yea, " he hath made
the wicked for the day of evil."
It is not of this, but of the gospel kingdom, or the
kingdom of grace, that the parable speaks; and before
showing how it is like leaven, we may turn our attention on some of its peculiar characteristics.
Different and distinct from that kingdom of Jehovah's
power and providence, which embraces all created
beings from angels down to insects, this has men alone
for its subjects. It does not concern itself, unless indirectly, with matter, but only with mind; controlling
not the waves of the sea or the winds of heaven, but
what are more uncontrollable than either, the passions
and wills of men. Again, this kingdom is felt, but
not seen; "the kingdom     of God cometh not with
observation:" it is in the world, but not of it; " My
kingdom is not of this world," said Jesus;  if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight:"
a spiritual kingdom, its foundations have been laid in
the death of its King, and with a far higher object
than any for which mortal men are raised to tottering
thrones, its purpose is the salvation of lost, but precious
and immortal souls.
See how many and important differences there are
between it and any earthly kingdom! There never
was a man born in it; but many have been born for it.
Its subjects are all twice born; for " except a man be
born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
heaven."  Never in a sense did an old man enter its
gates; for who would enter here must retrace his steps





THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVENt,


17


along the path of life; return the way he came, and
born again, become a little child. Calling a little child
to him, Jesus set him in the midst of them, and said,
Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the
kingdom of heaven. There gold, for which so many
here slave, and drudge, and scheme, and sin, is reckoned of no more value than common dust. They buy
and sell, indeed; buy the most precious wares, bread
of life, immortal beauty, sinless purity, pearls of great
price, and crowns of eternal glory; but then it is without money-what is priceless is got without price, got
for the asking: "Whatsoever ye ask in my name
believing, ye shall receive."  And so far from gold
being of any advantage here, it is rather an incumbrance than otherwise: "It is easier," said the King,
"for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
Nor is that which secures man great advantages here,
industry, sobriety, honor, honesty, or virtue, any passport into this kingdom; the worst are as welcome as
the best: " Whosoever cometh unto me," says the
King, "I will in no wise cast out."  Beggars whom
armed sentinels would challenge, and servants turn
from the gates of earthly palaces, are here admitted
as freely as the highest nobles. See there, outside the
gate, the Pharisee I while the poor, despised, detested
publican, who stood afar off, beating his breast in conscious guilt, is invited in, and, going down to his house
justified rather than the other, sings wiih Hannah,
" The Lord bringeth low and liftoth up; he raiseth up
2:fi





18


THE PAIABLES.


the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from
the dunghill, to set them among princes."  Yes, this
is the kingdom for the poor! In its palace there are
more peasants to be met than peers; many subjects
and few kings. In your earthly kingdoms the rich and
noble carry off the lion's share.   It is high-born
men and women that fill high places, and stand near
our Queen's throne; but this kingdom bestows its noblest honors on the humble, the poor, the obscure, the
meek, the lowly; for "to the poor the gospel is
preached," and "not many mighty, not many noble
are called."  More extraordinary than any of these
things, all the ordinary rules of other kingdoms are
reversed in this. Here, the way to grow rich is to
become poor-the path to honor lies through shameto enjoy rest we must plunge into a sea of troublespeace is only to be enjoyed in a state of war-who
would live must die-and who would gain must part
with all that men hold most dear: Verily, verily, says
the King, there is no man that leaveth father, or
mother, or wife, or children, or houses, or lands, for
the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this life, and in the world to come life
everlasting. Blessed are they who have been brought
into this kingdom!    Robed in the white linen of
Christ's righteousness, they shall be priests, and,
crowned with glory, they shall be kings to God.
In regard to the leaven to which our Lord likens the
kingdom of heaven, it may surprise some to find that
which is usually employed in a bad sense otherwise employed here. I am aware that leaven is often, and





THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN.


19


indeed usually, in the Sacred Scriptures, an emblem of
sin; and a very suitable one it is, seeing, as is known
to all who are familiar with its action in household or
other arts, that it changes the natural properties of
those substances on which it acts, breeds in liquids a
poisonous gas, and applied to meal, for instance, swells
it up and sours it. But to infer from this that leaven
stands here for unsound doctrine and ungodly practice,
and that the parable itself is a prophetic description of
the corruptions which early crept into the Church of
Christ, and had leavened and corrupted the whole mass
of Christendom in the dark ages of Popery, were inconsistent with the plain meaning of the parable; and is
not required by the rules which should guide us in
studying the Word of God. There are other instances
in which the sacred writers employ a figure, sometimes
in a good sense, sometimes in a bad one. For example,
Satan is compared to a lion; and what emblem could
be more appropriate, if you take into account its cruel
nature, its stealthy approach, its frightful roar, its
terrible aspect, its bloody jaws, its ravenous appetite,
and the death that follows a blow of its paw? Yet if
the destroyer of souls is a lion, so is their Saviour; lihe
is "the Lion of the tribe of Judah."  The other most
common scriptural emblem of the devil is a serpent. It
was in the form of that reptile he stole into Eden;
and, with malice gleaming in its fiery eye, poison concealed in its crooked fangs, fascination in its gaze,
death in its spring; and this peculiar habit, that while
other creatures usually content themselves with a portion of their prey, the serpent, crushing the bones and





20


THE PARABLES.


covering the body with slime, swallows it entire-the
animal world furnishes no creature that represents so
well the deceiver and destroyer of souls as this hateful,
horrid reptile. But who, on the other hand, does not
know that a serpent was employed as a type of the
Redeemer? Referring to that scene in the desert,
where, raised high upon a pole, the brazen serpent
gleamed over the dying camp, and whosoever caught
sight of it revived and lived, our Lord says, As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Having removed a difficulty which has staggered
some and set others on a wrong track, we are now
ready to see in what respects the kingdom of heaven
is like unto the leaven which this woman takes and
hides in meal till the whole is leavened. We may
understand our Lord as describing either the influence
of the gospel on the world, and its final universal manifestation; or the influence, and operation of divine
grace on those in whose hearts the Spirit of God has
lodged it. The parable may be applied either way;
but we prefer the latter.
I.
The woman takes the leaven to lay it not on, but in
the meal, where, working from within outwards, it
changes the whole substance from the centre to the
surface. It is through a corresponding change that
the man goes to whom the Spirit of God communicates
his grace. It is hidden in the heart. The change















THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN.


21


begins there; the outward reformation not preparing
the way for regeneration, but springing from it; growing out of it as a tree grows out of its seed, or a stream
flows out of its spring.  Observe that this view is in
perfect harmony with God's requirement, " Give me
-not thy habits, or thy service, or thy obedience, but
"thy heart, my son;" in perfect harmony, also, with
his promise, " I will take away the stony heart out of
your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh, and
I will put my Spirit within you "-then, as following
such a change, " I will cause you to walk in my statutes,
and ye shall keep my judgments and do them;" and in
perfect harmony also with the remarkable saying of our
Lord, " The kingdom of God is within you;" in other
words, religion does not lie in the denomination we belong to, in attendance on churches whose stony fingers
point to heaven, in having a pew in the house of God,
or even an altar in our own, in professions of piety, or
even in works of benevolence. It lies in the heart.
If it is not there, it is nowhere; these other things
being but the dress which may drape a statue, and give
to a corpse the guise, or rather the mockery of life. In
consequence of its being lodged in their hearts, true
Christians, so far from being hypocrites, have more of
the reality of religion than of its appearance. They
are better.han they seem to be; and less resemble
those fruits which, under a painted skin, and soft,
luscious pulp, conceal a rough, hard stone, than those
within whose shell and husky covering there are both
milk and meat. With more religion in his heart than
you would infer from outward appearances, or than he





22


THE PARABLES.


is able to carry out in his daily life and conversation
but after a long struggle with old habits, a converted
man may be like Lazarus, when, standing before his
tomb, still bound in grave-clothes, he looked as much
like a dead man as a living. Even Paul himself said,
The good that I would, I do not; but the evil that I
would not, that I do. His heart, burning with love to
Christ, set on fire not of hell but heaven, was better
than his habits; his desires were purer than his deeds;
his aims were loftier than his loftiest attainments. And
those who, though it is a confession of shortcoming, can
say so of themselves, have good reason to hope that the
leaven has been hid in the meal. Their hearts have
received that grace which works in holy desires toward
holy efforts: and which shall never cease to work till,
extending its influence over all their nature, the whole
is leavened, and they, however imperfect now, become
perfect men in Jesus Christ.
II.
Suppose that the woman, taking instead of leaven, a
stone-a piece of granite, a common pebble, or even a
precious jewel, or any metal such as gold or silver, or
any like inert and inactive substance, had placed that
in the heart of the meal, the meal had remained the
same; changing neither to stone nor metal. But so
soon as leaven is imbedded in its substance, a change
immediately ensues; a process of fermentation is set
a-going, and, extending from within outwards, goes on
till by a law of nature the whole lump is leavened.
Neither art nor nature could supply a better simile of





THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN.


23


the grace of God than this. An active element, so
soon as it is lodged in the heart, it begins to work; nor
ceases to extend its holy influence over the affections
and habits, the inward and outward character, till it
has moved and changed the whole man, and that consummation is reached which is to be devoutly wished
for, and which the Apostle prays for, in the words,
May the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.
There are influences which may powerfully affect
without permanently changing us.     There may be
motion, and even violent emotion, without change. In
the valley where Ezekiel stood with the mouldering
dead around him, there was motion-the bones were
shaken. He saw bone approach bone, till, each nicely
fitted to the other, they formed perfect skeletons; and,
clothed with flesh and covered over with skin, each
seemed a warrior taking his rest, and sleeping on under
a wizard's spell till his sword had rusted beside him.
Still, in all that was essential they were unchanged;
as breathless, lifeless, dead, as when the bones lay
scattered, withered, and dry on that old field of battle.
To borrow an illustration from  familiar objects-the
sea which reflects like a liquid mirror ship and boat
that lie sleeping on its placid bosom, is thrown by the
storms of heaven into the most violent commotion. Its
calm depths are stirred, and foaming breakers beat its
shore; but it is still the salt, salt sea. And when the
wind falls, the storm blows past, and the waves sink to
rest, it presents the same characters as before-the
tempest came and the tempest went, nor has left one
trace behind. So it is, alas, too. often and too much





24:


THE PARABLES.


with the impressions of sermons, and sacraments, and
revival seasons.
All changes truly are not from bad to good, or from
good to better. They may be from good to bad, or from
bad to worse. Moisture dims the polished blade, and
turns its bright steel into dull, red rust; fire changes
the sparkling diamond into black coal and gray ashes;
disease makes loveliness loathsome, and death converts
the living form into a mass of foul corruption. But
the peculiarity of grace is this, that like leaven it
changes whatever it is applied to into its own nature.
For as leaven turns meal into leaven, so divine grace
imparts a gracious character to the heart; and this is
what I call its assimilating element. Yet let there be
no mistake. While the grace of God changes all who
are brought in conversion under its influence, it does
not impart any new power or passion, but works by
giving to those we already have a holy bent; by impressing on them a heavenly character. For example,
grace did not make David a poet, or Paul an orator,
or John a man of warm affections, or Peter a man of
strong impulses and ardent zeal. They were born such.
The grace of God changes no more the natural features
of the mind than it does those of the body-as the
negro said, it gave him a white heart, but it left him
still, to use the language of another, the image of God
carved- in ebony. Be the meal into which that woman
hides the leaven, meal of wheat or meal of barley, it
will come from her hands, from the process of leavening,
from the fiery oven, cakes of the same grain. For it
is not the substance but the character of the meal that





THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN.


25


is changed. Even so with the effect of grace. It did
not give John his warm affections; but it fixed them
on his beloved Master-sanctifying his love. It did
not inspire Nehemiah with the love of country; but it
made him a holy patriot. It did not give Dorcas a
woman's heart, her tender sympathy with suffering;
but it associated charity with piety, and made her a
holy philanthropist. It did not give Paul his genius,
his resistless logic, and noble oratory; but it consecrated them to the cause of Christ-touching his lips
as with a live coal from the altar, it made him such a
master of holy eloquence that he swayed the multitude
at his will, humbled the pride of kings, and compelled
his very judges to tremble. It did not give David a
poet's fire and a poet's lyre; but it strung his harp
with chords from heaven, and tuned all its strings to
the service of religion and the high praises of God. So
grace ever works! It assimilates a man to the character of God. It does not change the metal, but
stamps it with the divine image; and so assimilates all
who have received Christ to the nature of Christ, that
unless we have the same mind, more or less developed,
in us that was in him, the Bible declares that we are
none of his.
III.
It is said of the meal in which the woman hid the
leaven, that, " the whole," not a portion of it, large or
small, "was leavened."   The apostle brings out the
same diffusive character of this element where he says,
"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."  Even so,
3





26


THE PARABLES.


teaching us not to despise the day of small things, a
little grace lodged in the heart spreads till it sanctify
the whole man. Some things diffuse themselves rapidly.
There are deadly poisons so rapid and indeed sudden in
their action that the cup falls from the suicide's hand; he
is a dead man before he has time to set it down. To these
grace stands out in striking contrast, not only because it
is saving, but because it is ordinarily slow in bringing its
work to a holy and blessed close; and in that respect
grace and sin correspond well to their figures of life
and death. Five hundred summers must shine on an
oak ere it attain its full maturity; and not less than
twenty or thirty years spent in growth and progress
must elapse ere an infant arrives at perfect manhoodere mind has acquired its full power, and bones and
muscles their utmost strength. And besides the lapse
of so many years, how much care and watching, how
much meat and medicine, are needed to preserve our
life, and guard it from the accidents and diseases
which are ever threatening its destruction! Yet this
work of years it needs but an instant of time, a wrong
step, a drop of poison, a point of steel, a pellet of
lead, to undo. Death is perfected in a moment; the
shriek, the prayer may die unuttered on the lips. Look
at Adam! Sin, a sudden as well as subtle poison,
shoots like lightning through his soul; and he falls in
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, from the state
of a pure and happy, into that of a sinful, and wretched, and lost, and ruined being. Unless in such rare
and extraordinary cases as that of the dying thief, what
a contrast to this the progress of the best in grace!





THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN.


27


Years have come and gone, perhaps, since we were converted, and how many Sabbaths have we enjoyed, how
many sermons have we heard, how many prayers have
we offered, how many communions haye we attended,
how many providences have we met to help us on in
the divine life-goodnesses that should have led us
to repentance, and waves of trouble that should have
lifted us higher on the Rock of Ages, and yet, alas!
how little progress have we made, how far are we from
being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect! Have
we not learned, by sad experience, that there is nothing so easy as to commit sin, and nothing so difficult as
to keep out of it-even for one hour to keep the heart
holy, and the garment unspotted of the world?  It
seems as natural for man to fall into sin as it is for
water to sink to the lowest level, or for a stone to fall
to the earth. But to rise! ah, that requires such sustained and continuous efforts as those by which the lark
soars to the skies, through constant beating of its
wings. The devil can make man a sinner; nor is there
a poor, miserable, mean, wretched creature but may
tempt us into sin. But it needs the Almighty God to
make a man a saint. The vase, statue, beautiful machine which it required the highest skill and long hours
of thought and labor to make, may be shattered by
the hands of a madman or of a child.
Still, let God's people thank him, and take courage.
Though grace, unlike sin, and like leaven, is slow in
its progress, it shall change the whole man betimes;
and the motto which flashed in gold on the High Priest's
forehead shall be engraven on our reason, heart, and





28


THE PARABLES.


fancy; on our thoughts, desires, and affections; on our
lips, and hands, and feet; on our wealth, and power,
and time; on our body and soul-the whole man shall
be " Holiness to the Lord."
These three characters of grace form three excellent
test of character, of the genuineness of our religion.
It is internal: have we felt its power within us, on our
hearts? It is assimilating: is it renewing us into the
likeness of Jesus Christ, into the image of God? It
is diffusive: is there a work begun in us, and on us,
which shall at length " sanctify us wholly"? If not
so, we need to begin at the beginning-by the Holy
Spirit of God to be born again. But if so, though in
many respects defective, and having often to confess
with Paul, " The good which I would I do not, and the
evil which I would not, that I do," happy are we!
Happy are the people that are in such a case, for the
Lord will perfect that which concerneth us-the whole
shall be leavened.
Be it our business, by earnest prayer and diligence,
to hasten on such a blessed consummation; and also
to bring the grace that is within us to act as well without as within! No candle is lighted for itself: no man
lights a candle to lock the door, and leave it burning
in an empty room. We are not lighted for ourselves;
nay, nor leavened for ourselves. No man liveth for
himself. Let us be as leaven in our families; among
our friends and fellows; in the neighborhoods around
us. Nor let us rest till there is not one within the
sphere of our influence whom we have not, through
God's blessing, leavened, or attempted to leaven, by





THE PARABLE OF TIHE LEAVEN.          29
our grace. Freely we have received; freely give! At
the fires of our piety let others be warmed; at the light
of our grace, let other lights be kindled. Let us act
like leaven on the inert, dead mass around us-every
living Christian a centre from which living influence
shall emanate toward all around him. Were we so,
how soon would the dull mass begin to work, ferment,
move, and change! Then would it be seen, to the
glory of God, and the well-being of society, and the
happiness of many a family, and the saving of many
souls, that through the influence of those who had little
influence, and seemed to have none, as in the case of an
humble domestic, or little child, " a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."





II.


Valat|   vlt of tilt ttu Virpso
Matthew xxv. 1-13.
THIS parable is founded on a marriage scene.
Though-as, for example, in wars, or in the Corinthian
games-the Scriptures are not to be regarded as approving of all things which they may employ as figures,
approbation and honor are bestowed on marriage by
the lofty uses to which the sacred writers turn it. With
prophets and apostles it shadows forth the holy, intimate, eternal union which is formed between God's beloved Son and his chosen people. Those who feel a
Christian interest in the purity and happiness of society, will not regard that as a circumstance of no value.
Such discredit as the Popish Church throws on marriage, by representing it as less holy and honorable
than celibacy, and such impediments as pride and ambition throw in its way, should be denounced by those
who, as Christian ministers, ought to be Christian moralists,-preaching to the times.  One of their most
evil features is the false standard of income and position
which it is considered proper they who intend to marry
should in the first place secure. This has led to the
(30)





THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.


31


bitterest disappointments; to breach of vows; to broken
hearts,-besides being the fruitful source of much crime,
and furnishing the licentious with an apology for their
immoralities.  On this altar, human happiness, as well
as the best interests of morality, are offered up in cruel
sacrifice. A man's life, as Scripture saith, consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,a dinner of herbs where love is, is better than a stalled
ox, and hatred therewith.
The institution which forms the basis of this parable
is one of the two, belonging to innocence and Eden,
which the Fall that shook the world and turned it, as
an earthquake does a city, into a scene of ruins, left
standing. These are the Sabbath and Marriage-the
first forming the foundation on which religion, and the
last that on which the social fabric, stands. And in looking back to the first marriage, I cannot but think that
it was to make its tie more tender that God chose the
singular plan he pursued in providing the man with a
mate. No other way would have occurred to our fancy
of making woman than that of another clay figure,
modelled by God's hands in the female form, and inspired by his breath with life. In making her out of
Adam, and from the part of his body lying nearest to
the heart, while he lay in the mysterious sleep from
which he woke to gaze on a beautiful form reposing by
his side, God gave a peculiar emphasis and power to
the figure "they twain shall be one flesh,"-one in
sympathy, in mind, in affections, and in interests; nothing but death afterwards to divide them.
Though thus a sacred, marriage was originally a





32


THE PARABLES.


simple, institution. God married the first couple that
were husband and wife; but though it had the sanction, it was not till long ages afterwards that marriage
was invested with the ceremonies of religion,-and
priests were introduced on the scene. In none of the
cases recorded in Scripture did the parties repair to a
place of worship, or call on a minister of religion to
tie the nuptial knot. Though such a custom might be
proper, and did to some extent prevail even among the
heathen, it derives no authority from the Word of God;
and may, as existing among us, perhaps be traced to
our early conuection with the Church of Rome. Animated by that insatiable ambition which, grasping at
all power, has made her the enemy of the liberties of
mankind, she seized on marriage, and, exalting this institution into a sacrament, turned it into a tool to serve
her own selfish ends. Having persuaded mankind that
there could be no holy or valid union without her sanction, she had the thing she sought, the world at her
feet,-and there not peasants only, but crowned kings
humbly crouched, soliciting a liberty which God had
already granted.
Long years, however, before this institution was invested with religious forms, it had been the custom to
celebrate it with festivities,-a custom  observed by
none more than the Jews. For these joyous and festive
habits they had the highest sanction. Our Lord accepted an invitation to a marriage scene, and honored
it by the performance of his first miracle; and, though
we are to set our hearts on that world where they
neither marry nor give in marriage, we should learn





THE PARABLE OF TEIE TEN VIRGINS.


33


from the story of Cana to rejoice with them that do
rejoice, as well as to weep with them that weep. It is
not religion to turn away from scenes of harmless
mirth; such as that on which Jesus put the seal of
his approbation, and shed the sunshine of his presence.
It is the last act in the drama of such ceremonies as
were observed in Cana of Galilee that this parable presents. The marriage has been celebrated. Accompanied by his bride, the bridegroom is about to return
to his own house, their future home. The time, as is
still the case in many eastern countries, is night; and
the scene has all the picturesque effect of a torchlight
procession. While one band of maidens accompany her
from her father's house, another wait near the bridegroom's to welcome them home. The hours wear on;
eyes peer through the darkness to discover the gleams,
and ears listen to catch the sound of the advancing
party. By and by, lights sparkle in the distance; by
and by, at first faintly heard, shouts and songs break
the silence of the night; and now the cry rises, Behold,
the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. All
are roused-sleepers wakened, lamps trimmed, torches
made to blaze with strong and lively flame; and forth
from their places go, trooping, singing, rejoicing, the
train of waiting maidens. Mingling with the advancing crowd, above whose heads sit the bridegroom and
his bride, in gorgeous attire, their jewels flashing back
the gleams of lamp and torch, they pass into the house.
And now the door is shut. Those ready enter with
the bridegroom; such as are unready are kept out,
and to their knocking get no other answer but that





34


THE PARABLES.


of the parable, "I know you not."   In considering
this parable let us look at
THE BRIDEGROOM.
He represents our Lord Jesus Christ, the divine
head and loving husband of that Church which is his
bride, "' the Lamb's wife,"-the union which faith forms
between him and his people being represented as a
marriage. It is one of love; for though a wealthy marriage to the bride, it is on her part as well as on his, one
of endearment-We love him because he first loved usThy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.
It is one which grim death shall never dissolve, and
leave Christ's Church a mourning widow. It is one
which holy prophets sung, and long ages prepared for.
It is one which the Son, though stooping to the lowliest
object, entered into with his Father's full consent. It
is one in which heaven took a part, and angels were
wedding-guests,-their harps lending the music and
their wings the light. It is one over which all the
hosts of heaven rejoiced in the fullness of generous
love-I heard, says John, as it were the voice of a
great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and
as the voice of many thunderings, saying Alleluiah:
for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad
and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage
of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself
ready. May we know the truth of the words that follow: Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage
supper of the Lamb!
The story of rqdeeming love, of this marriage, sur




THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.


85


passes anything related in the pages of the wildest romances. These tell of a prince, who, enamoured of an
humble maid, assumed a disguise; and doffing his crown
and royal state for the dress of common life, left his
palace, travelled far, faced danger, and fared hard, to
win the heart of a peasant's daughter, and raise her from
obscurity to the position of a queen. Facts, as has
been said, are more wonderful than fables. The journey
which our divine lover took, was from heaven to earth;
to win his bride, he exchanged the bosom of the eternal
Father to lie, a feeble infant, on a woman's breast.
Son of God, he left the throne of the universe, and assumed the guise of humanity, to be cradled in a manger
and murdered on a cross.
Besides, in his people he found a bride, deep in debt,
and paid it all; under sentence of death, and died in
her room; a lost creature, clad in rags, and he took
off his own royal robes to cover her. To wash her, he
shed his blood; to win her, he shed his tears; finding
her poor and miserable and naked, he endowed her with
all his goods; heir of all things, everything that he
possessed as his Father's Son, she was to enjoy and
share with himself, for are not his people "heirs
of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that
we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together."
Nor was his a love of yesterday-leaving its object
to fear that, mushroom-like, its decay might be as rapid
as its growth. Older than the hoary hills, it dated
from a period when there were no depths, before the
mountains were brought forth:





THE PARABLES.


"He loved us from the first of time,
He loves us to the last."
Neither is his love, like man's, capable of coldness or
of change; of diminution or decay. Whom he loveth,
he loveth to the end. It is stronger than death. Many
waters cannot quench it; and no time can cool it. With
the fondness of a first love, it has the, stability of an
old one; what trials does it endure; what ingratitude;
what coldness; what contempt! See how he stands at
the door knocking, till his head is wet with dew, and his
locks with the drops of night! nor counts that anything
if he can but win you at the last! And never desisting
from pressing his suit on any sinner, lover of our souls,
he lingers by the door till another arrive-not with a
suit but with a summons-Death himself, come to bear
it with a hand that brooks no delay, and takes no
refusal.
And why should any refuse the suit of him      who
stands at their door-a lover, suitor, follower, crying,
Behold, I stand at the door and knock-open to me?
Setting their affections on unworthy objects, some have
repelled addresses which offered them great wealth
and high honors; better still, happiness as much as
earth can afford. But none ever rejected such an offer
as Jesus makes you in the offer of his heart and hand.
They never had an opportunity. This the lover of
whom it is said, He is the chiefest among ten thousand,
he is altogether lovely, his person is the most beautiful, his heart is the kindest, and his bride shall be the
happiest and richest the world ever saw-her home a
heavenly palace, and her rank higher than any queen's.





THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.


37


Happy are they who have yielded to his suit; and,
joining hands with him, have become his in the bonds
of the marriage covenant! With the Lord for his
shepherd, David felt certain that he could never want,
and went down singing into the valley of the shadow of
death; but much more may we who, closing with Christ's
offer, have given him our hands and received him into
our hearts; for how much better does a bridegroom
love his blooming bride than shepherd ever loved his
sheep?   "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over his bride,
so shall thy God rejoice over thee."
THE VIRGINS.
Fair women in the prime and flower of life have
formed a part, and not the least ornamental part, of
nuptial scenes in all ages of the world; and we have still
the representatives of the virgins of this parable in the
bridesmaids of modern marriages. Ten is their number
here. Why ten, and not five, or twenty? The key to
this is similar to that which explains the frequent recurrence of seven in the Scriptures-seven golden
candlesticks, seven stars in Christ's hand, seven vials,
seven plagues, seven thunders; for as the number
seven among the Jews denoted perfection, ten was the
number that made a thing complete. A company was
considered complete when there were ten present-we
have Elkanah saying to his wife to comfort her when
grieving because she was childless, Am I not better to
thee than ten sons? And so also we have the angels of
God reckoned as ten times ten thousand. Here, then,
blooming like a bed of flowers, are a band of virgins:
4





38


THE PARABLES.


beauty in their looks; grace displayed in every movenient; joy sparkling in their bright black eyes, and
jewels, as they move their lamps to and fro, sparkling
in their rich, oriental attire. Now they are watching
through the evening hours; now, as the night wears on,
slumber falls on their eyelids, and stretching themselves
out, one after another, they drop off into sleep; now,
roused by the cry of the Bridegroom's coming, all start
to their feet to arrange their attire and trim their
lamps; now, some revive the dying flames of oil, and
others, looking with dismay on empty vessels, with
urgency and tears beseech their companions to give
them oil. Whom do these represent?    Christ is the
bridegroom; and the bridesmaids, these virgins, the
foolish as well as the wise, who are they?
They stand here the representatives of the visible
Church-of every church, and congregation of professing Christians-a picture this which should fill
many of us with alarm, and set all to the task of examining the foundation of their hopes, in the view of death
and judgment. The five wise virgins are those who are
saved at last; the five foolish are those who are lostand lost, though many of them, at one time, entertained
no doubt whatever that they should be saved. They
never so much as fancied that they would be shut out.
Such a thought never damped their joy, nor disturbed
their dreams, as they slept on with dying lamps beside
them.   Most alarming picture and solemn warning!
These poor virgins do not, let it be observed, represent
the openly godless; the licentious; the profane; such
as are manifestly the enemies, and not the friends





THE PARABLE OF TIE TEN VIRGINS.


89


of Christ. On the contrary, they could not be, in any
plain sense, and were not regarded as, the enemies of
the Bridegroom. They had not treated his invitation
with contempt; nay, nor even with plain neglect. To
some extent they had prepared for his coming; and,
till the hour of trial came, they seemed as well prepared to meet the Bridegroom as any of their wise
companions. I know nothing in the Bible which more
than this parable, and little which so much, should so
strongly and so solemnly enforce on us the advice,
"Give all diligence to make your calling and election
sure."
Unhappy virgins, to whom the Bridegroom brings
such unlooked-for woe, who gaze with eyes of horror on
your empty lamps, who, with such imploring looks and
unavailing tears, entreat aid from your happy companions, who rush out into the darkness only to find the
shops all closed, no oil to be bought at so late an hour,
who hurry back, alas! to find the door shut-you do
not represent hypocrites; or mere formal professorssuch as never felt anything of the powers of the world
to come; as were never alarmed; never moved by the
truth; never thrown into any anxiety about their
souls' salvation! Uuhappy virgins, at one time all
looked so promising-you watched for a while; you
had lamps; you had more, you had oil in your lamps;
and, though they did not endure, but, unfed, went out,
they burned for a time!
Notwithstanding all this, they are lost-teaching us
that it is not enough to make a fair appearance; to
have been the subjects once of religious impressions;





40


THE PAIRABLES.


to have heard the Word of God gladly; to have felt
some anxiety about our souls, and to have made some
movements in the direction of salvation. We see in
them how they who are near to the kingdom may yet
never reach it-wrecked at the harbor-mouth, within
hail of friends and sight of home. If such things are
done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
Let this case induce every man to prove his own
work by such questions as these. Have I been converted? Do I know my heart to be changed? Have
I something else to rest on as evidence of being in
Christ than merely serious impressions, some occasional
good thoughts, and fitful seasons of religious feelingsbeing well-inclined, to use a common expression?
Have I oil not only in the lamp but in the vessel?-in
other words, have I the grace of God in my heart?the love that burns, the faith that endureth to the end?
Not he whose light is blown out by every gust of
temptation; nor he whose light, a mere lamp of profession, fails amid the trials of death, and, going out,
leaves him to darkness and despair; but "he," says
our Lord, "that shall endure unto the end, the same
shall be saved."
THE SLEEP OF THE VIRGINS.
The scene is one of repose-no sounds but measured
breathing; and by the lamps dimly burning, ten forms
are seen stretched out in various attitudes, but all locked
in the arms of sleep. How unlike sentinels; watchers;
persons waiting a Bridegroom's arrival, and ready at
any moment for the call to go forth to meet him---they





THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.


41


sleep like infants who have nothing to do or care for;
or like sons of toil at the close of day, when their day's
work is done.
Were even the wise virgins right in yielding to sleep
in such  circumstances?  They are not distinctly
blamed; and so far as their own safety was concerned,
they suffered no loss by it. With oil not in their lamps
only, but in their vessels, being constantly prepared
for the Bridegroom's coming, they might go to sleep
-they had at least some excuse for sleeping. In one
sense, their work was done; and so, in one sense, is
ours, if, having received Christ and the grace of God
into our hearts, we have made our calling and election
sure.
Firstly, The sleep of the wise virgins may indicate
that peace which they are invited and entitled to enjoy
who have sound, scriptural, indubitable evidence in
their hearts and lives, that justified by faith they are
at peace with God-and so, as Paul says, may 1"be
careful for nothing." If that is all which is meant by
their sleep, let those, whom they represent, sleep on,
and take their rest. The peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through
Jesus Christ! Never trouble yourselves about death
-to you it is gain, and cannot come too suddenly, or
too soon. He who lives in Christ is habitually prepared to die; and what more grace is needed for that
hour, will come with it. "My God shall supply all
your need."
But what is wisdom in some, is folly in others. He
may sleep, rocked in the cradle of the billows, whose
3*





42


THE PARABLES.


vessel rides at anchor; not he.who is drifting broadside
on to the roaring reef. He may sleep who pillows his
head on a royal pardon; not he who, pallid and exhausted by the trial, a down-stricken and haggard
wretch, enters a cell which he leaves not but for the scaffold, unless he obtain mercy. These foolish virgins ought
never to have slept till, applying to the proper quarter,
and, if necessary, selling their very jewels for oil, they
stood prepared for the Bridegroom's coming.    Nor
should any rest, seeking their souls' salvation, having
it for their first thought in the morning, and their last
at night, till they have found it; and obtained a good
hope that their sins have been washed away in the blood
of the Lamb and Son of God-that God himself is now
their Father, and heaven shall be hereafter their
blessed home.
Secondly, By the sleeping as well of the wise as of
the foolish, our Lord perhaps teaches, what the best
will be readiest to admit, that even God's people are
not so watchful as they should be; and would be, were
they constantly to live under the feeling that they
know neither the day nor hour when the Son of Man
cometh. Should he come this moment, who, in a sense,
are ready to meet him? Are your faith and love, your
humility and holiness in as lively exercise; are your
thoughts, all your wishes and imaginations, is the
tone of your conversation, and the daily tenor of your
life, such as you would wish them to be at the Bridegroom's coming? None will say so.     Therefore, let
us not sleep; nor, with so much to do, act as if we had
nothing to do. 0, that we could enter on each day's





THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.


42


duties, and close each day's work, as if we had possibly seen our last sunrise, or last sunset. That were
not a frame of mind inconsistent with earthly enjoyments. No! How bright the sky, how sweet the
song of birds, how beautiful the wayside flowers, how
full of pleasure everything to that sun-browned man,
who expects, in a few more hours, and after long years
of exile, to find himself at home.
Besides, these virgins who lie there asleep, ignorant
of their wants and insensible to their danger, what
reasons do they form for the wise employing the precious hours otherwise than in slumber! It might have
proved another night to them had the wise been wakeful. Had they shaken up the sleepers, pointed them
to their empty vessels, pleaded with them, and entreated them, while there was time, to go and buy, the
lost might have been saved-the door that shut them
out might have shut them in. And what true Christian may not have his hands full of such Christ-like
work? Among our acquaintances, the members, perhaps, of our families, are there not some who, careless
of their souls, and with less appearance of religion than
these foolish virgins, are not prepared for a dying hour?
They would, I fear, be lost, were the Bridegroom to
come now. May the idea of that, of seeing them shut
out, hearing their plaintive cries, seeing them stand at
the bar of judgment pictures of despair, wringing their
hands in hell, saying to themselves, 0, if my father,
my mother, my brother, my sister, my friend, my
minister had only warned me, and pleaded with me, I
might never have been here,-haunt us, and lie so





44


THE PARABLES.


heavy on our consciences that we shall find no rest till
we have implored them to seek a Saviour,-to flee
from the wrath to come. Thus, going to the work in
dependence on the Spirit of God, and with the tenderness, gentleness, modesty, and humility of the true
Christian love, have many who had neither genius nor
intellect been wise to win souls to Christ.
THE SUDDENNESS OF THE BRIDEGROOM'S COMING.
Every stroke which our pulse beats, strikes the knell
of a passing soul.  There are sixty human lives go
out every minute. But while that is the average number, death each day, like the tide, has its flow and ebb.
As harmonizing with its gloomy scenes, night is the
most common period for dying. She throws her sable
veil over the appalling features of life's last struggle.
It is most frequently at what is called " the turn of the
night," that, in those rooms whose lighted windows
contrast with darkened streets, and within whose walls
spectators watch through their tears the last throes
of expiring nature, the cry arises, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh! At that hour, the cry rose in Egypt
when a startled nation woke-and there was not a
house in which there was not one dead.' So also often
on the deep-at midnight, a shock, a crash; and
springing from their beds, alarmed passengers rush on
deck to see a strange ship vanishing like a phantom in
the gloom, and their own, by a gaping wound that admits the sea, sinking into a sudden grave-there is a
fearful cry, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: they wake
to hear it, and, sinking, hear no more. How loud and





f, ~ NlII2ý   ýIDI










THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.


45


sudden that cry rose at midnight in the mighty tenement that a year ago shook this city by its fall, and
buried in its ruins half a hundred corpses. They slept,
nor woke, but to find themselves, to their astonishment,
out of this world, and in another-standing before
their Judge. How great their surprise; happy if not
how great their dismay!
Nor does death surprise its victims only in such accidents. Foreseen by others, how unexpectedly does
he often come to the person most concerned! 0, the
lying that is practised beside many death-beds!-all
engaged in a conspiracy to deceive the victim. Verily
the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Everything serious forbidden; every hint of death forbidden;
everything that could excite alarm forbidden,-a dyingchamber is turned into a stage for players, who wipe
away their tears before they enter, and wear a lying
mask of case and smiles and hopes, when hope herself
is dead. Everybody sees the approach of death, yet
not one is found kind and honest enough to speak of
it. And they talk of spring who know that its flowers
shall bloom on the victim's grave; they talk of journeys who know that these poor feet are journeying onwards to the tomb; they talk of dresses who know that
that emaciated form shall wear no robe but the shroud
of death,-the whole scene is like that old pageant ofheathen worship, where they crowned the lambs with
garlands, and led them to the slaughter with dances
and music.
In various ways it belongs, if I may say so, to the
chapter of accidents, whether our death may not be as





46


THE PARABLES.


sudden and unexpected as the coming of the Bridegroom here; or as the second advent in which our Lord
shall appear with the surprise of a thief in the night.
What may happen any day, it is certainly wise to be
prepared for every day. So mpn make their wills;
but so, alas, they don't mind their souls! This ye
should have done, but not have left the other undone.
There is no lawyer, but, if you have any property to
dispose of, and would not have your death the signal
for quarrels and lawsuits and heart-burnings, will advise
you to make a settlement, nor delay one day to do so.
0, how much more need to make your peace with God,
and prepare your eternal rather than your temporal
affairs for death,-to make it all up with him who is
willing to forgive all, and is now tarrying on the road
to give you time to get oil, and go forth with joy to
the cry, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh! Seek Christ
this day-this hour-this moment.   On its decision
may hang your irrevocable, fixed, eternal destiny.
There is hope for you now; to-morrow there may be
none.





III.


Vy tarab oMf tlp Rr fgal 5n
Luke xv. 11-32.
YEARS ago, a traveler found himself in a fishing
town, where he intended to pass the night. The sun
had gone down on a sea of glass; but, as the night
fell, the wind began to moan, and ere long a glaring
flash and rattling peal announced the storm that broke
out over sea and land with tremendous fury. By and
bye, the voices of men and women were heard in the
streets-mingling with the roar of the tempest. There
was none to answer his call; and surprised to find himself the only tenant of the inn, he sallied forth to join
the crowd, which, seized with a terrible alarm, and
consisting chiefly of old men, women, mothers, and
little children, was hurrying to the shore.  Their
fathers, children, husbands, brothers, had gone off to
the fishing; and must now be running for the haven
through that black night and roaring sea.   There,
drenched with rain and the salt spray, clinging to
wall, rock, and each other, a crowd was gathered, over
which, as they stood, some looking seaward, and some
in silent prayer to heaven, a blazing fire, kindled at
(47)





48


THE PARABLES.


the pier-end, threw fitful and ruddy gleams. Another
light, gleaming like a star over the waves, with which
it rose and sank, shone from a life-boat that gallant
hands had rowed out to the tail of a reef, between
which and the pier the boats must run to make the
harbor's mouth. Could they live in such a sea.? If
they did, could they, guided by these lights, dash
through between the shore on this side and the reef on
that?  Some hoping, some despairing, but all straining their eyes to pierce the gloom, two hours of
terrible suspense drag on; at length a faint cheer is
raised, as, dimly seen, the headmost boat is descried
running for the harbor. They hold their breathprayers are on their lips, and lives are in that helmsman's hand.    Lying on the rudder, he steers her
aright. She clears the point of danger; and, as the
forms of the boat's crew flash by in the gleam of the
pine-wood fire, there is a scream-a voice cries, " It is
he! it is he! he's safe!"-and a woman, who had
caught sight of her husband in the boat, fell fainting,
for very joy, into an old man's arms.
No wonder the stranger, careless of the tempest,
mingled with that eager crowd; for, where such a
scene was transacting, and men's lives were in the
greatest jeopardy, and human bosoms were agitated
by as great a tumult as roared above in the stormy
skies, and in the waves of that foaming sea, who could
sit to enjoy the comforts of a bright fireside and curtained room.? Where men's lives, their souls, or great
interests are in danger, nothing is so exciting as to
watch the uncertain issue; or more gratifying than to





THE PARABLE OF TIE PRODIGAL SON.


49


see life saved-the dead alive, the lost found. To such
stirring sights men and women crowd; to such tales
old age, as well as childhood, turns with ear intent.
To this, in part, the parable of the Prodigal, with
its strong lights and shadows, with the wickedness of
the son, and the father's kindness, forgiveness, and
touching joy over one who had been lost and was
found, owes the universal interest with which it is
read; and the garland with which men have agreed to
crown it as, both for the beauty of its story, and the
importance of its truths, the finest of all the parables.
THE OCCASION OF THE PARABLE.
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come-so said
the dying Jacob. In accordance with that old prophecy,
the Jewish State, at Christ's advent, merged into the
Roman Empire; and was, in consequence, taxed to
maintain a foreign, and what was particularly offensive to the Jews, a heathen government. The parties
employed in raising this public revenue, and who were
therefore called publickns, were obnoxious to every
pious and patriotic Jew. Some were heathens; and
such as were not, being regarded as traitors, were held
in double abhorrence-the very beggars refused their
charity. With few exceptions, no man of character
would accept the office. Excluded from the ranks of
respectable society, the publicans acquired the habits
of the dregs amongst which they sank; and associated
in fact, as well as in common speech, with fallen women,
they became notorious for their vices.
-5





50


THE PARABLES.


Orpheus is said to have drawn savage beasts around
him by the charms of music; but our Lord so charmed
the world by his preaching, that he drew to him, in
publicans and sinners, multitudes more brutal than the
beasts. Finding in him a Jew who did not hate but
love them, despise but pity them, trample them beneath
his feet but stooped to raise them, as if each were a
diamond sparkling in the mud, they gathered in crowds
to hear him, and listen to one who offered mercy, and
held out the flag of hope even to publicans and sinners.
The Pharisee, as he swept in full sail to the Temple to
thank God that he was not as these, dreading their
touch, said, Stand aside; I am holier than thou!
Not so Jesus Christ-abhorrent to his holy nature as
was their impiety and impurity! Passing like a sunbeam through the foulest atmosphere without pollution,
touching pitch and not defiled, breathing infected air
but proof against contagion, he rather sought than
shunned the company of publicans and sinners. Where
should he be found, who came to save, but in the thick
of the lost? The selfish, bigoted, narrow-minded Jew,
who would have none saved but himself, took offence
at this: This man, they said, "receiveth sinners and
eateth with them;" and, by way of reproach, they
called him " a friend of publicans and sinners."
We accept the picture. Each time heaven's gate is
thrown open, he receiveth a sinner; and what keeps
our hopes alive, and in the solemn prospect of death or
judgment inspires us with any degree of fortitude, but
that we shall fall into the hands of him who is " the
fiiend of sinners?"  These Pharisees did not under




THE PFARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SOTN.


51


stand Jesus Christ any more than vice understands
virtue, or blindness colors. Ignorant of his mission,
they could not comprehend how one who was holy
should rather seek than avoid the lost and reprobate.
And it was to reveal the riches of gospel grace, God's
purpose of mercy, and the delight he has in converting
and saving the greatest sinners, that, with the other
parables of this chapter, Jesus told the story of the
prodigal.
Regarding the son here as a type of man, and the
father as a type of God, as he is seen in his Son and set
forth in the gospel, let us now study these, the two
prominent figures in this beautiful parable-beginning
with the Prodigal.
HIS CONDUCT.
In the case of entailed estates, and in every case
where a man in our country dies without leaving a will,
the heritable property, according to what is called
feudal law, belongs to the eldest son. -By the udal
law, as in Norway, the whole estate is divided equally
among the members of the family. The Jewish law,
as appears by the book of Deuteronomy, held a middle
course between these two. If a man had two sons, as
was the case here, his goods were divided into three
parts-two of them falling to the eldest; but to his
effects as thus divided, the children did not succeed
till the father died.
Tired waiting in his father's death for an event
which some sons have hastened, and impatient to
possess the means of indulging vices i11o which wo





52


THE PARABLES.


have seen others leave a father's grave to plunge, carelessly scattering what he had too carefully gathered,
this youth requests, or rather demands, such share of
the property as would by law fall to him at the father's
death. Fancy this father's case yours; your feelings
at such unnatural and insolent conduct! What a shock
to him to find that in his son's heart all home affections
were dead, and that he himself was no longer regarded
with love, or his gray hairs with respect! The father's
presence, and the virtuous habits of a pious home,
have become an irksome restraint. This youth would
be his own master-rid of his father's strict, pious,
and old-fashioned ways of keeping God's law and day;
and so, type of man whose heart sin has estranged
from God, so soon as his request is granted, he turns
his back on home, and takes his departure to a far
country.
The father did not compel his son to remain; nor
does God us, or indeed any of his creatures. In Eden
he left our first parents to the freedom of their own
will. There man sought. to be independent of God;
and here, in the condition of the prodigal, we have a
picture of the misery into which sin, having estranged
us from our heavenly Father, has plunged its wretched
votaries. Devoured by harlots, the portion was soon
spent, Want followed on the heels of waste. Driven
by hard necessity to become a swineherd, he accepted
the meanest, and to a Jew the most degrading employment. A stranger in a strange land; cast away as
an orange when men have sucked it; turned off, as I
have seen a poor, ragged wretch, from the drinking




THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


53


shop where he had wasted his means; neglected by old
associates; laughed at as a fool by many, and pitied by
none, he is reduced to the direst extremity. None
offering him better fare, he tries to satisfy his hunger
with swine-husks.  Type of the sinner who departs
from God, and a beacon to such as feel irksome under
the restraints of a pious home, he seeks happiness to
find only misery-ambitious of an unhallowed liberty,
he sinks into the condition of the basest slave.
HIS CHANGE OF MIND.
The words, "He came to himself," here employed
to describe the change on the prodigal, imply that he
had been beside himself-acting the part of a madman
or a fool.
He had the best of fathers; and was not he a fool
to leave him?-as if among these vile women and boon
companions there were any to love him as his father
had done! In a home where he had rings and robes,
servants to attend and fatted calves to feed him, music
and dancing, when he was sad, to cheer him, was not
he a fool to leave it?-as if in a far country, and in
the haunts of vice, he would find any place like home.
When from the last height that commanded a view of
home, he looked back, casting a lingering look behind,
was not he a fool, as he suppressed the rising of old
affections, and the fancy that he heard the voice of his
dead mother calling him back, to dash the tear from
his eye, and rush, like a war-horse plunging into the
battle, headlong on a course of dissipation-blind to the
wretchedness which ever terminates a career of vice?
5*





54


THE PARABLES.


" The path of transgressors is hard "-to this, God,
using his sufferings for the purpose, was pleased to
open his eyes. Saved beside the swine-troughs, his
sorest misery, as in other cases, proved his greatest
mercy. Left to chew the cud of bitter reflection, sitting where all his bones through his rags did look and
stare on him, the past, with its sin and folly, rose up
before his eyes. 0, what a fool he had been!l He
was convinced of that; and of this also, that to remain there was to die-that it were better to return,
and cast himself on his father's pity; better to be his
servant'than the drudge and slave he was; better to
go and unburden his conscience, and acknowledge his
wickedness, though he should die at his father's feet.
Feeling thus, humbled and penitent, prepared to accept
thankfully the smallest favor, and if he is forgiven to
be content even with a servant's place, he is now like
a maniac restored to reason; as is said, "lie came to
himself."  Happy all of whom the same can be said!
Sin is represented here as a madness; and who acts
so contrary to sound reason, his own interests, and the
reality of things, as a sinner?  Transport yourself to
such scenes as Hogarth painted. Here is a man in a
damp, dark cell, seated on a heap of straw, and
chained like a wild beast to the wall. Does he weep?
Is he haunted by recollections of a happy home? Does
he, as you look through the bars, entreat you to take
pity on him, to loose his fetters, and let him go free?
No. He smiles, sings, laughs-the straw is a throne;
this bare cell, a palace; these rough keepers, obsequious courtiers; and he himself, a monarch, the





THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


55


happiest of mortals; an object of envy to crowned
kings. Strange and sad delusion! Yet, is that man
not more beside himself who, with a soul formed for
the purest enjoyments, delights in the lowest pleasures; who, content with this poor world, rejects the
heaven in his offer; who, surest sign of insanity, hates
in a heavenly Father and his Saviour, those who love
him; who, in love with sin, hugs his chains; lying
under the wrath of God, is merry; sings, and dances
on the thin crust that, ever and anon breaking beneath
the feet of others, is all that separates him from an
abyss of fire?  The spectacle recalls the words of
Solomon: "I said of laughter, it is madness; of
mirth, what doth it?" Happy, such as, through the
Spirit of God, working by whatever means, have come
to themselves, like the prodigal; and are seated, like
the maniac who dwelt among the tombs, at the feet
of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind!
HIS DISTRESS.
I perish, he said, with hunger. Dreadful fate!-a
death attended with pangs that have turned the softest
hearts to stone, and even women into savage beasts.
Maddened by hunger, the mother has forgot her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the
fruit of her womb. But how much worse the condition
of him of whom the wretched prodigal is a type! The
pleasures of sin can never satisfy the cravings of an
immortal soul-far less save it. The pangs of the
body, besides, come to an end; in the grave, that
poor, emaciated form hungers no more, and thirsts no





56


THE PAEABLES.


more, and shivers no more-but the wrath of God
abideth forever.  " Their worm dieth not, and their
fire is not quenched."  Awful words!-made more
awful by the circumstance that they came from the
lips of a tender and compassionate Redeemer; and
were by him repeated thrice-hammered, if I may say
so, into the mind, as a nail is driven to the head by
successive blows.  Besides, if a man is dying of
hunger, he feels it, or of thirst, he feels it; but the
misery of a sinner is not to know his misery. Here
the type of the prodigal fails. I offer a man the bread
of life, and he tells me he is not hungry; living water,
and he puts aside the cup, saying, I am not thirsty; I
find him stricken down with a mortal disease, but, on
bringing a physician to his bed-side, he bids us go, and
not disturb him, but leave him to sleep, for he feels no
pain. Insensibility to pain is his worst symptom, fatal
proof that mortification has begun, arid that, unless it
can be arrested, all is over-you may go, make his
coffin, and dig him a grave. But let sensibility return,
so that on pressure being applied to the seat of disease, he shrinks and shrieks out with pain; alarmed
and ignorant, his attendants may imagine that now his
last hour is come, but the man of skill knows better.
There is life in that cry-it proves that the tide has
turned, that he shall live.  Sign as blessed, when
brought to a sense of his sins, a man feels himself perishing; cries with Peter, sinking among the waves of
Galilee, I perish; with the prodigal, sitting by the
swine-troughs, I perish; with the jailer, at midnight
in the prison, What shall I do to be saved?  Have we





THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


57


ever felt thus?  A most important question! For
unless we have felt ourselves lost, we have not yet
been saved, and have yet to be converted. Happy
such as are so! And as to those who are still far from
God, let them arise, with the prodigal, and go to their
Father.  He waits for them.   I promise them the
kindest welcome-in his heart there is love, and in his
house "bread enough, and to spare."
HIS BELIEF.
I perish! cried the poor prodigal. Why should I?
Behind yonder blue hills, away in the dim distance, lies
my father's house-a house of many mansions and such
full supplies that the servants, even the hired servants,
have bread enough, and to spare.
Is there in Jesus Christ a provision as ample for our
wants-for the wants of every humble, returning, believing penitent? I might reply by asking, who ever
sat at God's table without finding not only bread
enough, but to spare? Go back to the days when
Israel was in the wilderness. The camp is astir with
early dawn. Men, women, and little children troop
forth, in the gray morning, to gather the manna that,
type of the blessings of salvation, has dropped from
bountiful skies on the desert sands. And, when these
millions are supplied, there is bread to spare, more
meat than mouths-the sun, shooting up, shines on the
gleanings of the harvest, as on the hoar-frost of a
grassy lawn. Or look at another feast, where five
thousand guests are met on a mountain-side, with its
green sward for their carpet, the azure sky for a





68


THE PARABLES.


canopy, the twelve apostles for attendants, and Jesus
Christ for their host, and master of the feast! In
three loaves and some small fishes, the provision does
not look Godlike-the counterpart of the desert's daily
banquet.  The disciples are ashamed; the guests astonished. But our Lord stands up unabashed, and calm
in conscious power, up to the blue heavens he turns
his eyes; and, his voice sounding clear over silent
thousands, he asks a blessing on the scanty meal.
Again there is bread enough, and to spare-and these
few  loaves and fishes, after feeding five thousand
hungry guests, fill twelve baskets with their fragments.
In their divine fullness, the desert manna, the mountain fare, were substantial symbols of the mercy,
pardon, peace, holiness, and happiness stored up in
Christ.  Yes.  We also can s ay, there is enough and
to spare-for my needs, grace enough; for my sorrows,
comfort enough; for my nakedness, raiment enough,
and to spare; in that fountain filled from Immanuel's
veins, blood enough to wash away my sins, and the
sins of the whole world, would the world come to Jesus
- but listen to the voice of babes, as they sweetly
singSCome to Jesus, come to Jesus;
He will save you, he will save you
Just now.
"0 believe him, 0 believe him,
0 believe him, 0 believe him,
Just now."





THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


59


HIS RESOLUTION.
I will arise, said the prodigal, and go to my father,
and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before thee! He might well say so. I can detect
in him no redeeming trait but one. When he had
brought himself to poverty, he had-the fruit of early
training-too much honor to beg, and too much honesty
to steal, and independence enough to be willing to earn
his own bread by stooping to the humblest employment.
Better a hard bed, humble fare, and rags that are our
own, than to live preying on others, or shining with
borrowed splendor!
View it, however, in what light you may, his conduct
had been atrociously bad. He preferred the company
of harlots to his father's society, and songs of lewd
revelry to the melody of his father's worship; a thorn
in the old man's side, he had well nigh broken his loving heart, and brought down his gray hairs with sorrow
to the grave. There are more dreadful sights than
that which filled Jacob with horror when, spreading
out the blood-stained garment, Joseph's brothers said,
Is this thy son's coat, or no? A dissipated son is a
greater trial than a dead one; and more bitter the
tears shed over the wreck of such an one's character
than those which bedew the coffin where his dead
brother lies. Such were the tears this father shed, as
with many a bitter thought and agonizing prayer he
followed the wanderer, whose name he never mentioned
but in secret to his God.
Remove the prodigal, and setting Conscience on the





60


THE PARABLES.


bench, let us take his place! As sinners against our
heavenly Father, who is not as bad as he? Be not
offended, or mistake my meaning!   We may never
have proved thorns in a father's flesh, cost his eye one
tear, or a mother's heart a groan-giving them occasion to wish that, lifted from a cradle to a coffin, we
had been buried in an early grave. Still, no prodigal
ever sinned against an earthly, as we have done against
our heavenly Father.
I can measure parental love-how broad, and long,
and strong, and deep it is. It is a sea-a deep sea,
which mothers and fathers only can fathom.    But
the love displayed on yonder hill and bloody cross
where God's own Son is perishing for us, nor man nor
angel has a line to measure. The circumference of
the earth, the altitude of the sun, the distance of the
planets-these have been determined; but the height,
depth, breadth, and length of the love of God passeth
knowledge. Such is the Father against whom all of
us have sinned, a thousand and a thousand times!
Walk the shore when ocean sleeps in the summer calm,
or, lashed into fury by the winter tempest, is thundering on her sands; and when you have numbered the
drops of her waves, the sands on her sounding beach,
you have numbered God's mercies and your own sins.
Well, therefore, may we go to him with the contrition
of the prodigal in our hearts, and his confession on our
lips-Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy
sight. The Spirit of God helping us thus to go to
God, be assured that the father, who, seeing his son
afar off, ran to meet him, fell on his neck, and kissed





THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


61


him, was but an image of Him, who, not sparing his
own Son, but giving him up to death, that we might
live, invites and now waits your coming.
THE FATHER.
The representations of God the Father in the most
splendid paintings of the ancient masters are worse
than in bad taste. His Son assumed the human form;
and far short as the highest art comes of expressing
the love and mildness and majesty that beamed in the
face of Jesus, we are not offended by its efforts.
Though they may not satisfy, they do not shock us.
But to set forth the invisible God, in the character of
the "Ancient of Days" as an old man, or even in the
noblest aspects of humanity, is an irreverence-offensive and revolting.
Yet there have been representations of our heavenly
Father more revolting. He has suffered less injustice
from painters than from preachers. Thundering out
the terrors of the law, armed with bolts of vengeance,
and scowling down from pulpits, they have stood there
as unlike as possible to him who wept over Jerusalem,
and when he saw the multitudes had compassion on
them.   By representing God in dark and gloomy
colors, with an expression on his countenance of stern
severity, and as more prone to punish than to pardon,
the preacher's offence is greater than the painter's.
IHe may quench a sinner's hopes, extinguish the light
that is dawning on a darkened soul, and repel a poor
prodigal whose steps are turning homeward to his
father's house. A physician who kills the patient he
6





62


THE PARABLES.


should have cured, such a man is practically the enemy
of souls; to use Paul's words, he destroys him for
whom Christ died.
To such false and forbidding representations of the
Father, what a contrast is the beautiful, most touching,
affecting, winning portrait which we. have here, from
one who knows him well-from the hand of his own
Son. This picture might kindle hope in the bosom of
despair.  Some have been afraid to present God in
such a gracious light, lest men, taking encouragement
to plunge headlong into sin, should, like this prodigal,
depart from the living God. Depart from the living
God? Ah, that is not to do! Like lost sheep we
have all gone astray-all departed from him. But for
one person who, abusing the grace of God, takes occasion from this parable to go on in sin, with the intention, when the worst comes to the worst, of returning
to the arms of an indulgent Father, thousands have
been saved by it from sinking into despair, and plunging into deeper guilt. Inspiring them with hope, it
has raised many a poor wretch from the swine-troughs,
and brought them home. Followers of the prodigal,
they have gone in to sit down in the kingdom of
heaven-the angels who rejoiced over them, now rejoicing with them. In contemplating this picture, see
HOW THE FATHIER RECEIVED HIS SON.
When he was yet a great way off, it is said, his
father saw him. How did that happen? I knew a
sailor's widow who had parted with her husband after
some brief, bright days of marriage. He went to sea





THE PARABLE OF TIIHE PRODIGAL SON.


63


and never came back; his ship, probably foundering
with all her crew, was never more heard of. When the
time expired for her return, but no ship came, this
woman would repair to a rocky headland, and, looking
out, watch every sail on the wide ocean in the hope, as
some ever and anon made for the harbor, that each
was his-bringing the lost one home. And at night,
on her lone bed, she used to lie awake, listening to the
footsteps of belated travellers, fancying that she recognized his step-but only, as the sound passed her
door, to weep over her disappointment; and long after
hope had died in the breasts of others, on rocky cliff
or lonely bed she waited his coming who never, never
came home.
Such love, I can fancy, often led this father's steps
to some rising ground, where others knowing his purpose but appearing not to notice him, he repaired; and,
with a heart yearning for his son, turned his eyes in
the direction the prodigal went off, hoping to see him
return. One day when on his watch-post, he descries
a new object in the distance.  He watches it.   It
moves; it advances; it is not a beast, prowling lion,
or hungry wolf; it is a man; it may be his son.  His
heart beats quick. One long, earnest, steadfast gaze,
and, joy of joys, happy hour, often prayed for and
come at last, the keen eye of love recognizes it-it is
the prodigal come back! Painfully, for he was footsore and weary; slowly, for he bent under a load of
guilt; sadly, for the scene around reminded him of departed joys and blighted innocence, his mother mouldering in her grave, and his father with gray hairs, he





64


THIE PAItIABLES.


had almost, perhaps, brought down to his; tremblingly,
for he was in doubt of his reception-with head hung
down, and slow, halting, hesitating step, the prodigal
comes on. Like one agitated by contending emotions,
uncertain how to act, with what measure of indulgence
to temper severity, does the father wait his son's approach? No. He does not stand on his dignity; nor
say, Let him make the first advances, and ask forgiveness. His one thought is, This is my son, my poor
son; his one feeling a gush of love; his only impulse
to throw his arms around his child, and clasp him to a
bosom that has never ceased to love and hope for his
return. As soon, therefore, as the wanderer is recognized, on flying feet the old man runs to meet him;
and ere the son has time to speak a word, the father
has him in his arms, presses him to his bosom, and,
covering his cheek with passionate kisses, lifts up his
voice and weeps for joy.
And this is God! the God whom we preach, as he is
drawn by the hand and seen in the face of Him whom he
sent to seek and save us, to bring us back, to open a
way of reconciliation-the God whose Spirit inspires
us with our first feeble desires to return-the God who,
unwilling that any should perish, invites and waits our
coming. "Therefore," like that father, often looking
out for his son, " will the Lord wait, that he may be
gracious unto you, and therefore," as was fulfilled by
Jesus on his cross, "will he be exalted, that he may
have mercy upon you. Blessed are all they that wait
for him:' The people shall dwell in Zion; thou shalt
weep no more. He will be very gracious unto thee at





THE PARABLE OF TIE PRODIGAL SON.


65


the voice of thy cry: when he shall hear it, he will
answer thee."
HOW HIS FATHERI TREATED THE PRODIGAL.
"The king kissed Absalom"-an act that here as
there expressed more than mere affection.    As in
David's palace, where Absalom was brought back after
years of banishment, and his crimes were forgiven by
a father who, all the time his face was turned from his
wicked son, had, as Joab perceived and the Bible says,
his heart toward him, the kiss here is a sign of reconciliation--a pledge that the past is all forgiven. Forgiven, but deeply penitent; sorrowful, yet rejoicing;
happy with his father, but more than ever vexed with
himself that he should have wronged and injured him,
the prodigal is conducted home. The tidings spread
like wild-fire; the house is moved; the servants hurry
to the scene; and the joyful father issues orders that
teach them, and. reassure his son, that the long-lost one
is to be reinstated in all the privileges which his crimes
had forfeited.
Bring forth the fairest robe and put it on him, says
the father. It is done; and, the rags of the swine-herd
stript off, the best robe in the house is thrown over his
naked shoulders, and flows in rich beauty to his bleeding feet; and there now he stands-a beautiful type
of the investiture of a sinner in the righteousness and
imputed merits of the Saviour-that best robe in God's
own house, a garment
"Fairer tlhan ever angel wore."
6*





66


THE PARABLES.


Put a ring, says the father next, on his finger.  Ani
what to him was an unexpected honor, is to us, since
rings were used of old as seals, a type of those graces
whereby the Holy Spirit seals believers unto the day
of redemption.    That ring, as the diamond on its
golden hoop flashes with many colors, may have other
meanings; signifying here the espousals between Christ
and his Church, it may be the token of her marriage,
the passport of those who are blessed to go in to the
marriage-supper of the Lamb. Put shoes on his feet,
says the father next,-a command that indicates more
than a tender regard for him, whose bare, bleeding
feet touch his father's heart. In these days, the
servants and slaves wore no shoes, and were thus distinguished from  the members of the family.      The
naked foot was a sign of servitude. This order, meant
for more than his son's comfort and a covering to
those wayworn feet, was therefore tantamount to a
declaration from  the father's lips that the prodigal
was not to be regarded as a servant, but as a son;
that to him belonged all the privileges and possessions of sonship; that he who had never lost his place
in the father's heart, was now to resume it at his table
and in his house.
Nor is this all--   Kill the fatted calf, and let us
eat and be merry: for this my son was dead and is
alive again; he was lost, and is found."    He shall
be feasted. As these hollow eyes and sunken cheeks
and wasted form bear witness, he has starved long;
but he shall be filled now. So the board is spread,
the wine-cup   circles, joy abounds, pleasure beams





THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


67


from every face, music shakes the air, and dancers'
feet the floor; and there is more joy in that house
over the lost one than over the one that was never
lost. Poor prodigal! he needed it-" Give strong
drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine
unto those that be of heavy hearts." Thus some of
the greatest sinners, on being converted, have experienced a joy and peace and sense of divine love
with which others were never blessed-even as a poor
child, that has been brought down to the gates of
death, receives the richest food, the sweetest cordials, and the tenderest nursing; hence the prayer
which God delights to answer"According as the days have been
Wherein we grief have had,
And years wherein we ill have seen,
So do thou make us glad."
And this is God, Christ's Father and ours! Who,
says David, shall not fear thee, O Lord! How may
we, as we contemplate this picture, alter the words,
saying, Who will not love thee, O Lord?-all the more
when we remember, that while it cost that father
nothing to save and receive his son, we were bought
with a price. With what a price! The story of redemption is written in blood; God having sent his
only begotten and beloved Son to the far country, to
become a bondsman to set us free-to suffer and tc
die for us. Ring and robe, feast and fatted calf, the
sound of music, and the sight of dancers, as the scene
swims before the prodigal's eyes, convey to him the
happy assurance of a father's love; yet how far inferior





68


THE PARhABLES.


that evidence to the bleeding form that hung and
groaned and died on Calvary! Love beyond parables
and all images to express! God so loved the world,
that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting
life!
HOW HIS FATHER REJOICED OVER THE PRODIGAL.
In Iceland are some springs called Geysers. Hot,
and rising from basin-shaped fountains, they present
very remarkable appearances. Like the tides of ocean,
they have their ebb and flow.   The water now flies
from the spectator; and shunning the light, leaves
its basin to bury itself in the bowels of the earth-nor
gives any intimation of iis existence but an occasional
groan, a low, deep moaning. At the flow, which alternates with the ebb, it rises in its funnel, overflows
its margin, and, with noises like salvos of artillery,
sends up, amid clouds of snow-white vapor, a flashing,
liquid column as high as a hundred feet.
So act the passions of joy and sorrow. Grief retires
from observation. Hiding herself, she conceals rather
than proclaims the sorrows that she feeds on; and as
the stricken deer leaves the herd, the bereaved court
retirement that they may weep in secret over their
bleeding wounds.   It is otherwise with joy.   The
Greek on making a discovery, of which he had long
been in pursuit, was so transported, as to rush naked
into the street, and, leading the people to believe him
mad, cry, Eureka, Eureka-I have found it, I have
found it! Joy must have vent. A fountain which not





THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


69


only flows but overflows, it bursts up and out, seeking
to communicate its own happiness to others.
Thus some have been moved to proclaim their conversion, and tell others of the peace which they enjoyed
in believing.  Come all ye that fear the Lord, says
the Psalmist, and I will tell what he hath done for my
soul; and it is just as natural for a heart full of happiness and God's love to do that, as for a thrush,
perched in a summer evening on the top of a cherrytree, to pour out the joy that fills its little breast in
strains of melody. It is the great President Edwards,
I think, who relates how, on one occasion, he had such
a sense of God's love, that he could hardly resist telling it to the woods, the flowers beneath his feet, and the
skies above his head. No wonder, therefore, that when
the pure and powerful joys of salvation are poured into
a heart which sin had weakened, and never satisfied,
the new wine should burst the old bottle,-flowing
forth in what seems to those who know no better, but
ostentation and parade. It is not so. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh.
In this parable, so true in all its parts to nature,
this feature of joy stands beautifully out. To these
servants the father had never told his grief; but now
the prodigal is come back, and his heart is bursting
with joy, he tells them of it. He cannot conceal it.
He does not seek to conceal it. He says, let us eat
and be merry-I am so happy myself, I wish all others
to be happy. Banish all care; drop your toils; let
the shepherd come from the hill, the plowman from
the furrow, the herd from the pastures, the meanest





70


THE PARABLES.


servant come; and all wearing smiles and joining in
the song, hold holiday with my heart. My son that
was dead is alive again; that was lost, is found. And
this happiest of fathers, rejoicing over the returned
prodigal, blotting out of memory all his offences, doating on him, drawing him to his side, clasping him in
his arms, ever and anon bending on him looks of
deepest love, pleading his cause with his unamiable
brother, saying, It was meet that we should be merry,
-is Christ's picture of his Father!-so he rejoices
over every repenting, returning sinner.
Who that elder brother stands for, it is not so easy
to settle-whether for Jews jealous of the Gentiles
receiving an equal share with them of the blessings
of grace; or, still more likely, for the Pharisees, who,
proud of their ceremonial righteousness, regarded themselves as injured by the favor shown to publicans
and sinners. Proud and boastful, heartless, selfish
and sulky, he makes an excellent background to the
picture-bringing out into striking prominence the
kindness of the father's heart. That is man's heartturned by sin and selfishness into a stone; this is
God's. Is there no kind Christian father or mother,
did they, on a wild winter night, when the heavens
were black with drift, and flocks were perishing on the
hill, and ships were sinking in the sea, and travellers
were lost on the pathless moor, hear a prodigal child
knocking at their door, and with wailing, sinking,
dying voice, crying, Open and let me in! but would
rise-ay, would spring to the call?  They know how
ready. God is to receive every poor sinner to his mercy,





THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON.


71


and poor penitent to his bosom. He rejoices in his
ransomed; let them rejoice in him! Rejoice in the
Lord, says Paul, alway, and again I say, rejoice. The
sun that shines on you shall set, and summer streams
shall freeze, and deepest wells go dry-but not his
love. His love is a stream that never freezes, a fountain that never fails, a sun that never sets in night, a
shield that never breaks in fight; whom he loveth, he
loveth to the end.
Are any alarmed lest such a picture of God as we
have attempted to draw from this parable, should lead
penitents to think lightly of sin? There is no ground
for alarm.   God forgives offences; but the forgiven
never forget them. Does the prodigal forget his sins
so soon as they are forgiven-freely, readily, kindly
forgiven?  No.    On the contrary, though now assured of his father's love, he drops out all mention of
a servant's place, he confesses and deplores his sins
-does that when he knows them to be forgiven. A
sense of God's kindness is the spring of deepest sorrow;
and the repentance that succeeds forgiveness is truer
and deeper than any which precedes it.     Therefore
when God says, "I will establish with thee an everlasting covenant," he adds, " then shalt thou remember
thy ways, and be ashamed." It was when Jesus, whom
Peter had denied, turned a look of love and pity on
him, that Simon, pierced to the heart, went out to
weep bitterly. The repentance that needeth not to be
repented of, has its truest emblem in the rivers that,
lending flowers and emerald verdure to their banks,
wind through the valleys of the Alps. It is not when





72                 THE PARABLES.
stern winter howls, but in spring, and the sweet summer-time, when birds are singing, and flowers are
breathing odors, and the sun, from azure skies, pours
down his beams on the icy bosoms of the mountains,
that the rivers, fed by melted snows, rising and overflowing all their banks, roll their mightiest torrents to
the lakes. And so it is when a sense of God's love,
and peace, and forgiveness is poured into our hearts,
that they thaw, and soften, and melt into streams of
fullest sorrow. " They shall look on him whom they
have pierced; and mourn as one mourneth for an only
son, and be in bitterness, as one is in bitterness for a
first-born."





IV.


Luke x. 30-37.
ON those summer mornings, when dews-sowing, as
Milton says, the earth with orient pearl-lie thick on
the meadow, and hang the trees with diamonds, and
the smoke from cottage chimneys rises through the still
air in blue and wreathed and graceful columns, the
water of a lake looks like a mirror for Nature to admire her beauty in; cloud and mountain, rocks and
hanging woods, the cattle that pasture and the flowers
that adorn the banks, all faithfully reflected in this
beautiful image of a soul at peace. On such an occasion, let a stone be thrown far out into the bosom of
the quiet waters, and so soon as it goes down with a
sullen plunge, a wave rises. This assumes the form of
a circle, and, widening out equally on all sides, extends
itself to embrace a larger and larger sphere. Symbol
of our love, such it should be.
To love all in an equal degree is indeed impossible,
because though some have larger hearts than others,
the affections, like our other powers, act within certain
limits. Our understanding is confined within bounds
'(73)





74


THE PARABLES.


that it cannot pass; many subjects lie beyond its reach.
Our eyes have a limited range of vision; we see the
stars, not those who inhabit them. Our ears have a still
more limited range of hearing; we see the flash of lightning when, too distant on the horizon or in the upper
regions of air for. us to hear the thunder, no sound
reaches us. On the other hand, God embraces all
creatures-those which are farthest removed from him,
as well as the lofty archangels that stand nearest his
throne. His heart has room enough to hold them all.
Infinite, not less than eternal and unchangeable, unaffected by space or place, knowing neither distance
nor nearness, he embraces this world with all its creatures, and all other worlds with theirs, in his heart, as
he embraces them   all in his arms. But though we
were originally made after his image, our affections are
of limited capacity. They diminish in strength in proportion as the objects we love are removed from usas the circle in the lake, the larger it grows in size
grows the less in height, till it is lost in the distant
waters, or dies with a feeble ripple on the shore. It
cannot be otherwise, else we were gods, not men.
We must admit this, and that, as a candle, shining
brighter on near than remote objects, gives more light
to the room where it burns than to the traveller who
sees it gleaming afar in the cottage window, our love
necessarily grows weaker the more it is diffused. Still,
like light, or the circle in the water, it ought, not moving in one direction rather than in another, nor limited
in its outgoings to our own party, or sect, or race, or
country, to diffuse itself on all around. Such is the





THE PARABLE OF TIE GOOD SAMARITAN.


75


grand and most necessary lesson which the parable of
the Good Samaritan was designed to teach. In considering it, let us attend to
ITS OCCASION.
The Jews had no class whose office corresponded
exactly to that of Christian ministers.  But in their
synagogues, where they met Sabbath by Sabbath to
worship, and hear the Word of God enforced and explained, they had assemblies which corresponded more
or less with our churches. There, after a fashion now
only found among some Baptists and the Society of
Friends, the public speaking was not engrossed by the
leaders; but any person had the opportunity-which
our Lord sometimes embraced-of addressing the congregation. Still, there was a class among the Jews
who made the Bible their peculiar study; and who
were therefore regarded as authorities on all questions
connected with the laws of Moses. These men, the
divines as we might call them and probably the common preachers of the country, were therefore called
lawyers; and to the question of a man of that class,
the world and church owe this beautiful parable.
The Evangelist says that he stood up and tempted
our Lord, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? But we should do this lawyer injustice,
and violate the charity which, thinking no evil, puts a
favorable rather than an unfavorable construction on
other men's conduct, were we to rank him with those
who sought by their question about tribute to entrap
our Lord. No doubt the same word is used in both





76


THE PARABLES.


instances. But to tempt-as when it is said that God
tempted Israel, which in a bad sense we know he could
not do-is simply to try; and by the law of charity,
as well as from a regard to his answers and whole
bearing, this man is entitled to a favorable construction both of his motives and object. He had heard of
him whose fame filled the whole land; and to ascertain whether he was as great a teacher as fame, prone
to exaggerate, reported, to measure his ability, perhaps
to try his soundness, he tested him by this fair and momentous question: "Master, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life?" It involved a weighty matter; and
would God that all of us went to Jesus with the same
question but with a still higher object-anxious and
eager to be saved.
The words do and inherit which the lawyer employed,
make it probable that there was such confusion in his
ideas of the method of salvation as we find among
many whose ignorance is less excusable. They seem
to think that salvation is half of God's mercy and half
of their own merits; that they are to do something,
by way of reconciling themselves to an offended God,
Christ doing the rest; his merits supplementing their
shortcomings.  Their prayers and pains, their good
conduct and efforts after a holy life, though not sufficient to save them, are to fit them for being saved by
the blood of Jesus. Now, how did our Lord meet such
a case?  As he treated Peter's-humbling his pride
by bidding him walk the sea. The disciple who would
have lorded it over his fellows, and claimed among
them such pre-eminence as Popery has since given him





THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.


77


in the Church, steps proudly on the billows; but has
hardly left the boat's side, when, turning pale at the
sight of the crested waves, he begins to sink. He
confessed himself unequal to the ambitious task--
crying, Lord, save me; I perish. It was such a course
that our Lord followed here; and also on another such
occasion. He bids this lawyer try the law; keep it
if he can; obtain eternal life through obedience,just to teach him, or rather to make his own failures
teach him, that he cannot. When, in reply to Christ's
question, he has recited the sum of the ten commandments, and shown, to his credit be it admitted, that he
was acquainted with the spirit as well as the letter of
the law, Jesus said to him, "Thou hast answered
right: this do, and thou shalt live."
Whether there was anything in our Lord's tone or
eye which, while his lips said, " Thou hast answered
right: this do and live," said as plainly as words,
You have not done it, and know you have not done
it,-I do not know. But his own conscience smote
the lawyer-telling him that what it was necessary
and right to do, he had not done. To whatever extent
he might deceive himself as to his loving God, he knew
and remembered-as we all do-many cases in which he
had not loved his neighbor as he loved himself. Well
had it been for him had he instantly thrown himself at
the feet of Jesus, to cry, " Save me; I perish!"
And well for us, if convincing us of sin and misery,
and teaching us our inability to obtain salvation by
its works, the law has been a schoolmaster to bring us
to Christ. These words, "This do, and thou shalt
7*





78


THE PARABLES.


live," certainly shut us all up to Christ. Too blind
to see this, or too proud to acknowledge it, the lawyer,
driven to his shifts, attempts to escape from the dilemma in which he finds himself. One door seems
open-offering him escape. If he can confine the term
neighbor within very narrow limits, he may evade the
difficulty, and, though he had failed doing to many
what he would have wished them to do to him, satisfy
himself that he had kept the whole law. So, hoping
to escape by this door-as Luke says, "willing to
justify himself"-he immediately replied: "And who
is my neighbor?"-a question that our Lord answers
by a story, which, launching out beyond its limits,
illustrates, in her active and true benevolence, the
queen of graces-Christian Love. Let us attend now
to the story of the Good Samaritan, as it divides itself
into three distinct parts.
THE FIRST ACT.
The curtain rises to show a district of country lying
between Jerusalem and Jericho. It is wild and rocky;
a savage place-whose mountain caves conceal men,
savage as the scenes they haunt. When one reads
what crimes of violence and robbery were, less than a
century ago, committed on travellers in the immediate
neighborhood of London, and remembers how in their
early days the mails were conveyed along the highroads by guards carrying fire-arms, we cease to wonder
that the road between two such towns as Jericho and
Jerusalem was infested by bold and bloody robbers.
Between these two large cities there was, of course,





THE PARABLE OF TIE GOOD SAMARITAN.


79


much correspondence.    Men of wealth and means
often travelled the road-offering amid these wild and
rocky solitudes a good chance for plunder; and where
the carcase was, in outcasts, desperate men, and roving Bedouins, the eagles were gathered together. The
gospel narrative represents this road as dangerous;
and since some are now getting up objections to the
Bible, which they are ignorant enough to fancy new
-though they be as old as Tom      Paine, and vain
enough to deem unanswerable-though, answered over
and over again, to refute them be to slay the slain,
it may be worth while here to mark the perfect harmony between sacred and common history., Now, to.
say nothing of other authors, Josephus-the Jewish
historian and no Christian, mentions that that road
was in his day infested by robbers. It was the scene
of such crimes as to be called, The Bloody Way; and
so dangerous had it become to travellers, that Jerome
states that the Romans found it necessary to erect a
fort there for their protection.
Now, it is somewhere among its rocky defiles that
the scene of this tragedy is laid. A solitary man appears-travelling from Jerusalem; from which it is
said he went down to Jericho, just as we speak of
going up to London, or coming down from      it, because it is in point of fact our capital. Issuing from
one of the defiles, or springing up from behind some
rock, a band of ruffians fall on him. Very probably
he stands on his defence. Swords are drawn; blows
are struck; overpowered at length by superior numbers, he is felled to the ground. With all haste they





80


THE PAEABLES.


plunder his person, nor stop till they strip him naked;
and parting with a blow or two to finish their work,
on the rule that dead men tell no tales, they hurry
off-leaving him on the ground, insensible, helpless,
dying, in a pool of blood. So the first act closes, and
the curtain falls.
SECOND ACT.
The curtain rises on the same scene-the man is
where he fell, the pool of blood growing larger as life
ebbs away.    But he is not alone now.      Two new
characters appear on the road, travellers also going
down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The foremost is a
priest; the second we might call a priest's assistanta Levite.   He also is a minister of religion, and an
official of the temple. Here again mark the correspondence between this story and what we know from other
sources to be well-attested facts. Judging by these, the
priest and Levite are the very men we would have expected to appear. The Jewish priests, though their
homes were scattered over the country, were required,
somewhat as the canons do in English cathedrals, to
serve by turns in the temple at Jerusalem; and since
no fewer than twelve thousand priests and Levites had
their ordinary residence in Jericho, you will see how
often they must have travelled this road, and how
natural therefore their appearance on the scene.
Ministers of religion, fresh from the service of the
holy sanctuary, men to whom others looked for an example of all that was humane, magnanimous, and
godlike, in them surely help was at hand! It seemed





THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITA'N.


81


a happy fortune for this unfortunate man that countrymen, strangers neither in faith nor speech nor blood;
men devoted to duties calculated not to harden but to
soften the heart; not to secularize and lower, but to
improve and elevate the mind, and to form, in short,
a noble character-should be the first to find him.
Alas! this poor, bleeding victim may live or die for
them. First the one, and then the other approaches
-the Levite making a closer inspection than the
priest. What then? No sooner do they see his naked
form bleeding to death on the ground, than instead of
hasting to his aid, shouting for help, and doing their
utmost to save him, both pass on the other side; and,
pressing forward, leave him to his miserable fate.
David says, Put not your trust in princes; nor-says
this story, and many portions of history besides-in
priests.
Not that some excuse may not be pleaded for the
priest and Levite. Not long years ago, in some cities
of fair and sunny Italy, if a man was assassinated in
broad day, and on the public streets, people fled the
scene, leaving the wretch to die, lest, found by the
bloody corpse, they should be accused of the murder.
Such might be the fears which moved these men to
what seemed a cruel neglect. Besides, it is plain that
they themselves were in some danger of sharing a
similar fate. The ship steers wide of the rock on
which another lies wrecked. Its inhabitants fly from
a house oin fire-consulting their own safety, and
thinking more how they themselves shall escape the
danger, than how they may save others from it. And





82


THIE PAIRABLES.


naturally enough supposing that these rocks, in the
perpetrators of this bloody deed, concealed men who
waited to repeat it on the next passenger, they only
did what thousands would have done-when, leaving
this poor wretch to his fate, they hurried from the
scene. Besides, his case seemed hopeless. To attempt
to save him, therefore, was only to waste time, and
rashly expose themselves-to risk their own lives without any great probability of being able to save his.
Then they had this flattering unction to lay to their
souls, that they had not done this wrong; his blood
was not on their hands: neither their friend, nor
brother, nor acquaintance, he had no special claim on
them.   It was other people's business as much as
theirs to aid him. What was he to them, or they to
him?
I do not say that these were good excuses. Still,
they are as good, and better than many have to offer,
who, passing by misery on the other side, indulge a
hateful selfishness-heaping up riches at the expense
of the poor and needy, to the neglect of such as are
ready to perish. God forbid that I should even seem
to justify this priest and Levite! " With them, mine
honor, be not thou united!"  Yet there are thousands
who have no right to condemn them. Condemning
them, we are happy if we do not condemn ourselves.
The same spirit of hateful and ungodly selfishness still
walks the world; and, though in less tragic circumstances, how often have I encountered it-wearing a
new face, perhaps a fair mask, but the same old enemy
of God and man?   The Jewish economy is gone; its





THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAEN.


83


temple is a ruin; its priests and Levites have passed
from the stage of time-but not that selfish spirit. It
belongs to our fallen nature. Nor will it ever be eradicated till God pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and
Christian love, in millennial days, reigns over a regenerated world, and crime and selfishness, if not all
suffering, banished from earth, the golden rule shall be
universally owned and acted on-" Do unto others as
ye would have others do unto you." Even so come,
Lord Jesus! Come quickly!
THIRD ACT.
This story recalls another which I could not read
without mingled feelings of anger and admiration.
Dismasted and waterlogged on the wide ocean, a
thousand miles away from the nearest land, a bark
had drifted about till all hope of relief was dead in
her starving crew. The cry, a ship! a ship! roused
their flagging energies. Shawl and shirt on the end
of boat-hooks were waved as signals of distress. The
stranger changed her course and bore down on the
miserable wreck. They put forth their utmost strength
to send a long, loud shout over the deep: and as, on
her nearing them, they discovered their country's flag,
they congratulated each other on being saved. Who
can fancy what men felt who had been for days hanging over a horrible death, at this blessed change? But
still less can we fancy the sudden revulsion of feeling,
the terrible sinking of heart, the awful howl which
rose to heaven, when the other vessel, sailing near
enough to see the ghastly wretches who implored their





84


THE PARABLES.


pity, put about, and, going off on the other tack, left
them to despair. JNor was that all. Recalling that
scene in the infernal torments of the heathen poet,
where Tantalus fills the cup, and no sooner raises it to
his thirsty lips, than the water vanishes, the same
hopes had been raised before by another ship-manned
also by their countrymen, to suffer the same cruel
disappointment. Sometimes cold and thin, blood, as
their rescue proved, is not always thicker than water.
When death had seized some, and despair all, a Norwegian bark, by God's good providence, came sailing
across their path. Pity filled the hearts and eyes of
the foreign sailors; nor till they had carried the last
survivor on board their ship, did they desert the wreck,
and leave it to drift away over the ocean-a wandering
coffin with its unburied dead. A noble act! but still
nobler his who now appears on the scene of this bloody
tragedy to redeem the character of humanity, become
an exemplar, in Christ's hands, to all future ages, and
gaining an immortal renown, win for himself the famous
title of The Good Samaritan. To appreciate his conduct aright, let us consider
WHO HE WAS.
He was "a certain Samaritan," is all that we are
told. His name has not been preserved. No matter--
he has left a broad footprint on the sands of time: and
we may hope that, like many more nameless ones, his
memorial is in the "book of remembrance" of which
Micah speaks, saying, "1 They shall be mine, saith the
Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I







~x ~










THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.


85


will spare them as a man spareth his son that serveth
him."   On him, as a Samaritan, the wounded man
has no claim; they are not countrymen-one either
in blood or faith. The Samaritans were not, as some
suppose, a race of degenerate Jews, with the blood of
Abraham, though adulterated by admixture, flowing in
their veins. When the land that had been occupied
by the ten tribes was cleared, and they were carried
away into perpetual captivity, their place was supplied
thus: " The King of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamoth, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the
cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel:
and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities
thereof." Heathen colonists, they brought their gods
with them; and though, with the view of being delivered from  the lions, which, multiplying rapidly
while the country lay waste, disputed possession of it
with the new settlers, they adopted some Jewish forms,
and stood in some awe of him they counted the God
of the land, they clung long by their old faith. It is
said of them in the book of Kings, what is remarkably descriptive of many professing Christians, " they
feared the Lord, and served their own gods." Being
enlightened in the course of time by the truth which
streamed in on them from the Jews, whose territories
surrounded theirs, the Samaritans came at last to
abandon the faith and practices of their heathen
fathers. Setting up a temple and worship in Samaria, in opposition to that which had its seat in Jerusalem, they became worshipers of the true God.
8





86


THE PARABLES.


They had ceased to be heathens; still they were heretics. For, though they admitted the divine authority
of the first five Books of Moses, they utterly rejected
the Psalms, the prophets, and all the remaining portions of the Bible. For these reasons the Jews hated
them-their rivalry, their heresy, and their heathen
blood, breeding a bitterly rancorous hatred. So strong
was this antipathy, that the woman by Jacob's well
was astonished that our Lord would ask of her even a
drink of water, saying, How is it that thou, being a
Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for, adds the evangelist, "'the Jews have no
dealings with the Samaritans."  Refusing them the
common civilities of life, they used their name as a
term of the bitterest reproach-for everything that
was bad and abhorrent. When his enemies, for example, were so transported with rage against our Lord
that forgetting the sacredness of the place, they rose
up in the temple to stone him, their passions found
vent in this speech as the very concentration of the
fiercest hatred: " Say we not well," they cried, as
they gnashed their teeth on him, " Say we not well,
that thou art a Samaritanc and hast a devil?"
It was to one of this race that the priest and Levite
left their wounded countryman. Many a bitter gibe
and sneer had this Samaritan suffered of the Jews;
but now with that wretched man in his hands his hour
of vengeance had arrived-and nobly he avenged himself! Alone with the victim,-no eye on him but the
vulture's that, perched on a rock, waited the close of
life's struggle to descend with foul beak and flapping





TIE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.


87


wing on its prey,-he approaches, and bends over the
dying man; but not to finish what the robbers had all
but completed. Risking his property, venturing even
his life, he treats a fallen enemy as if he had been a
wounded brother-his own mother's son. How beautiful is humanity!
And how hateful the antipathies over which love won
this signal triumph! Hateful in the Jew, they are,
whether connected with churches, sects, nations, races,
or colors, doubly hateful in the Christian-the follower
of the meek and lowly and loving Jesus, of him in
whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free.
Yet see how the laws of humanity and Christian love
are outraged by the antipathy which the white man
bears to the patient and injured African! In America,
for instance, color is worse than a crime. The Bible
declares that God has made of one blood all nations of
the earth, and by one blood redeemed them; and in
practical contempt both of God and his word, they
refuse to eat at the same table, ride in the same carriage, worship in the same church, or, unless under the
pressure of a dire necessity, even to fight in the same
ranks with the negro; it is the old story,-" the Jews
have no dealings with the Samaritans."
Here are the old, bad human passions. What if
time should bring round as remarkable a parallel in
God's righteous and retributive providences? Those
whom one age sees riding on the top of the wheel of
fortune, the next often sees eating dust. The fate of
nations, as of individuals, has not seldom illustrated
the laws expressed in these sayings: Pride goeth





88


THE PARABLES.


before destruction; The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge.   May
those who have enslaved the unhappy negroes, bought
and sold their brethren like cattle, trampled them
under foot, and, using their name also as a term of reproach, repudiated something more sacred than their
State debts-the claims of a common parentage and a
common redemption-take warning! The haughty, intolerant, contemptuous Jews would not hear the warning, "Woe to the crown of pride!" and now they are
a by-word, a proverb, and a hissing,-a nation scattered and peeled. As ages roll on, the providence of
God will continue to show that it is not war with its
bloody triumphs, nor commerce with its wealth, nor
science with its arts, but righteousness that exalteth a
nation. Depend on it, that the bread we cast on the
waters, whether for evil or for good, will return, though
after many days. There is one true policy for nations
and individuals. Regardless of immediate consequences,
let them do what is right; if they have done wrong repent it, and, if possible, repair it-this their rule:
What doth the Lord require of thee? but to do justly,
and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.
WHAT THE SAMARITAN DID.
So soon as he saw the man weltering in his blood, it
is said, "he had compassion on him." So, perhaps,
had the priest and Levite. But observe, no mention is
made of that; no account is kept of it, any more than
we keep account of the blossoms in the orchard that
come to nothing-are beautiful, but nipped by late





THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.


89


frosts or blown away by winds, never turn to fruit.
In that respect, this book is an exemplar of another,
the book of judgment.   It is deeds only that are
entered there. " I was an hungered, and ye gave me
meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was
a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed
me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison,
and ye came unto me."     "Go and do thou likewise."
Now what did the Samaritan do?  Conquering his
prejudices, and those fears for his safety which amid
such scenes and with such a sight before him were not
unnatural, he hastes to the rescue.  Throwing himself from his steed, he bends over the bleeding form,
and finding life still there, applies such remedies as
circumstances permitted and his skill suggested. It
was and is still common in the East, for travellers
to carry their provisions with them; and it providentially happened here that what the Samaritan had for
eating was not unsuitable for healing-the one man's
meat was fit to be the other man's medicine. For
that purpose he uses it-esteeming it better that he
should suffer hunger than that this poor wretch should
suffer death. Nor in oil.and wine were his applications
so unsuitable, and his surgery so rude, as some might
fancy. In ancient times oil was employed to mollify
wounds and deaden their pain; and wine to stanch
their bleeding; and Galen, one of the greatest of
Roman physicians, pronounces them excellent means
for such ends. They were at any rate the best he had.
Like the woman in the gospel, he did what he could--
8*





90


THE PARABLES.


pouring them into the wounds, which he hastily tore his
own robes to bind. And as he watched with eager interest the signs of returning life, I can fancy the joy
that thrilled through all his frame, when the pulse began again to beat, and color returned to the bloodless
cheek, and, opening his eyes, this poor man fixed them
with looks of eloquent gratitude on the face of his
kind benefactor.
Some, on beginning a good work, go at it at first
with zeal; but lacking perseverance, and loving change,
they soon turn to something else-tiring of it, as children of their toys. But the Samaritan stuck by the
cause on which he had embarked; and so presents an
humble illustration of him who will perfect that which
concerneth his people, and wherever he begins a good
work carry it on to the day of the Lord Jesus. Tenderly lifting up the wounded, he places him on his own
beast, and conveys him to an inn, which he (type as we
shall see of our Lord) approaches in the form of a servant-walking while the other rides. In these countries
no other accommodation was commonly provided for
travellers than what the caravanserais still offer in bare
walls and the shelter of a roof; but here the inn was
one of the few which, anticipating our modern civilization, in landlord and other provisions resembled our
own.
Having ventured his life to save the Jew, and
plucked him, I may say, from the wreck, bringing him
safe to shore, the Samaritan's work was in a sense
done. As the prophet said to the Shunamite, when,
having called her boy back to life, he laid him in her





THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.


91


(tappy arms, saying, " Woman, behold thy son," my
work is done, it is yours now to care for him,-so he,
casting the poor Jew on the kindness of his countrymen, might have left him; and had done so crowned
with the highest honors of humanity. But he does
more. He will finish what he has so well begun. Business calls him away next morning, but before leaving
he undertakes all the expenses of this man's board and
cure. "Twopence," the sum he left with the host,
may seem to us inadequate; but money then had a
different value from what it has now-a single penny
being a good day's wages for a good day's work. Moreover, wise as he was humane, provident as he was generous-qualities that commonly shine in conjunction
like binary stars, the Samaritan undertook, in case the
sum should fall short, to make good the deficiency
when he next came that way. So, earning the admiration of the inn, and followed by the blessings of the
wounded man, bringing a blush, let us hope, to the cheek
of priest and Levite, and winning for himself an imperishable renown, this most noble philanthropist went
on his way-his purse lighter, but his heart happier;
in one sense poorer, but in another richer; finding a
fame he never sought; and little dreaming of the finger that pointed the eyes of the world to his example,
or the voice that said in words which shall ring, in
never-dying echoes, on its ear, Go, and do thou likewise.
" Go, and do thou likewise"-this is the moral of
the story. It was told to rebuke the narrow-minded
prejudices and selfishness of the Jews. May it rebuke





92


THE PARABLES.


our own! Our love is confined within narrow channels, because it is a tiny stream. Let it swell into a
bigger volume, and these could not contain it; and
therefore may God, pouring out his Spirit in showers
from heaven, so flood our hearts with love, that it shall
burst the boundaries within which education, ecclesiastical or national prejudices confine it, and, burying,
drowning them, flow forth to all mankind! By this
story Jesus teaches us to do good to all men as we
have opportunity, and to rejoice in the opportunities
of doing it. If any man's sorrows need our sympathy,
his bodily or spiritual wants our help, let us think no
fiore of asking whether he belongs to our country or
family, our party or church, than if we saw him
stretching out his hands from the window of a burning
house, or found him, like this object of the Samaritan's
kindness, expiring in a pool of blood. Thus Christ
loved us; and thus he teaches us to love one another.
This leads me to remark, in bringing these observations to a close, that
JESUS CHRIST HIIMSELF WAS THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
To jaundiced eyes blushing rose, blue sky, and
green earth, everything looks yellow; and so much
does the appearance of objects depend on the medium
through which we regard them, that viewed through
stained glass, for instance, they assume its peculiar
hue. Thus, if it is colored red, the gentle moon puts
on a fierce and angry aspect; and as if, at the sounding of the second angel, the burning mountain of the
Apocalypse were cast into the sea, its waters change





THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.


93


to blood. Fancy, under the influence of our affection,
plays us, if I may say so, such tricks-is equally illusive.  Distempered by grief, the weeping mother, in
sounds that startle only her, hears the pattering of her
dead infant's feet. Looking through superstitious fears,
the peasant sees a ghost in the tombstone which the
moon, bursting from a cloud, suddenly whitens; and as
the owl hoots from the gray steeple, or brushes past
him on noiseless wing, he rushes in frantic terror from
the quiet dwellings of the dead. The Romans, bringing to the invasion of our country, tender recollections
of their own, on reaching the top of the hill which
looks down on the Tay, exclaimed, Behold the Tiber!
And under the influence of feelings stronger than fear,
more sacred than grief, and loftier than patriotism,
fancy has created resemblances and seen things in the
Bible, that had no existence other than in a pious imagination. One example of that shines in a constellation of southern skies, and another blooms in the
flowers of our conservatories. It was the reverence
and love of Jesus Christ in the bosom of the ancient
mariner, which, working through fancy, when his ship
first plowed the waters of southern seas, saw   suspended in the heavens, and formed of brilliant starsand looking down on the world, the tree on which its
Saviour hung; and it was the same piety that discovered in the passion-flower an imitation by the hand
of nature of the instruments of our Redeemer's torture,
and of the halo which now crowns his head in glory.
And it is the same piety which, by a pardonable mistake, has in some instances discerned types, symbols,





94


THE PARABLES.


and shadows of Jesus in the Bible, that belong more
to the regions of fancy than of fact.
It may be that in seeing Christ in this Good Samaritan, we have passed into this cloud-land; it may be
that this is no more than a devout imagination. But
the fancy does not, at any rate, pervert God's word
from its grand purpose, nor in the pulpit prostitute to
mean and common purposes a place that should be sacred to the saving doctrines of "Jesus Christ and him
crucified."  Here we rise, not sink; and as if we ascended on a sunbeam to its source in the sun itself, here
we turn from contemplating Christian love in the Samaritan, to contemplate it in the Saviour-its celestial
source and perfect pattern.
Viewed in this light, the story of the Good Samaritan
grows in interest, and assumes the grandest character.
The whole scene changes: and with it the characters that
act their various parts upon the stage. Jerusalem, the
city of the living God, with the mountains standing
round about her, and crowned by the temple where Jehovah dwelt, now stands for man's originally happy and
holy state. Man leaves it. He goes down from it;
travelling downward to that place of misery, so aptly
typified by that Jericho, against which the ark and armies of the living God waged war, and whose walls lay
under this fatal shadow-" Cursed," said Joshua, as he
stood on its smoking, blood-stained ruins, "cursed be
the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth
this city Jericho; he shall lay the foundation thereof in
his first-born, and in his youngest son shall he set up
the gates of it."  In the fierce and savage robbers, who





THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.


95


issue from their haunts in this gloomy gorge to spring
on the traveller, assault him, rob him, strip him, wound
him, leaving him to die in his blood, we see the enemy
of souls-the spoiler of Eden-the robber of man's innocence and happiness and honor-Satan, who was a murderer, says our Lord, from the beginning. In the
priest and Levite, its fit, official representatives, the
law comes with its works. But it does nothing for
man-it can do nothing. These, its representatives
who pass on the other side, and refuse even to own this
wounded wretch, teach us, that "by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh living be justified." The law has
not the heart of mercy that takes compassion on the
lost: nor in atoning merits oil and wine to stop the
bleeding of sin's mortal wounds. These are brought to
the scene, to the rescue, to save at the uttermost, by
Him who painted his own portrait in the Good Samaritan. "What the law could not do, in that it was
weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be
fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit."  There is balm in Gilead, and a physician
there.
If that Good Samaritan was a figure of the Godman, Jesus Christ, would God the" man he saved at
death's door was a figure of us! May we be as willing
as he to be saved! May we look to Jesus with the
love that burned in his heart and beamed in his eyes!
May we give ourselves as much over to Christ's care





96                  THE PARABLES.
and cure, as he to his kind benefactor, when he lay in
his arms, and hung helpless on his neck; and with still
warmer gratitude than his, may we ever cherish in our
very heart of hearts, the memory of this world's Good
'Samaritan!





V.


Luke xviii. 1.
IN descending by one of the passes of the Alps into
the lovely valley of the Saarnen, the traveller may notice on the right hand of the path a pine-tree, growing
in extraordinary circumstances. Enormous masses of
hoary rock lie scattered in the bottomn of the ravine;
they have fallen from the crags which form its stupendous walls; and it is on the top of one of these, a
bare, naked block, that the pine-tree stands. No dwarf,
misshapen thing, like the birch or mountain ash on an
old castle wall, where the wind or passing bird had
dropped the seed: it is a forest giant-with rugged trunk,
and top that shoots, a green pyramid, to the skies.
At first sight one wonders how a tree, seated on the
summit of a huge stone, raised above the soil, with no
apparent means of living, could live at all; still more,
grow with such vigor as to defy the storms that sweep
the pass, and the severe, long winters that reign over
these lofty solitudes.
A nearer approach explains the mystery. Finding
soil enough on the summit, whero lichens had grown
9





98


THE PARABLES.


and decayed, to sustain its early age, it had thrown out
roots which, while the top stretched itself up to the
light, lowered themselves down the naked stone-feeling for the earth and food. Touching the ground at
length, they buried themselves in it, to draw nourishment from its unseen, but inexhaustible, supplies to
feed the feeble sapling into a giant tree. So we
thought, as we stood looking on this natural wonder,
the believer grows. Tempest-tossed by many storms,
but, like the pine-tree with its gnarled roots grown into
mighty cables, firmly moored to the Rock of Ages, he
also raises his head to the skies, and through his
prayers, drawe. spiritual nourishment and. growth in
grace from the inexhaustible supplies which lie hidden
in Jesus Christ, and are provided for all such as love
him.   Often placed in circumstances not less unfavorable to his growth than that naked stone to the
growth of the pine perched on its summit, his prayers,
like the roots that descended to the soil, and penetrating it, brought up its riches to feed the tree, form a
living communication between him and God. Thus his
life is sustained: thus he grows in grace-green and
fruitful where others wither, and living where others
die. Such being the office of prayer, and the end it
serves, it can surprise none to find one or two of our
Lord's parables devoted to so great a duty: indeed,
anything else would have surprised us on the part of
HIim who spent, not hours, but wholb nights, in prayer.
The sun, as it sank in the western sea, often left him,
and as it rose behind the hills of Moab returned to find
him on his knees.





THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


99


In almost all our Lord's other parables, the truth
which they are intended to teach is stated at their close.
We travel through the story before we arrive at the
moral. Here that meets us at the entrance, standing
like an inscription over the door of a public building
to tell its use and purpose, in these words: " He spake
a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint."  As Matthew Henry
says, " This parable has its key hanging at the door."
Let us, however, take up the story first, and afterwards
the persons it introduces in the order in which they
appear.
THE UNJUST JUDGE.
Others besides judges may be unjust-the trustee
who takes advantage of his position to defraud the
widow or fatherless whom a dying friend has cast on
his care; the merchant who, adulterating his goods,
deceives his customers, or, removing them, defrauds his
creditors; the tradesman who, earning the wages of
iniquity, makes bad work pass for good. But these are
not to be compared with an unjust judge. Of all men,
he is the worst; unless, perhaps, the minister of religion, be he Bishop or Presbyter, who takes advantage
of his position to disseminate error, or corrupt the
morals of society. To such cases how appropriate the
question-If the light that is in you be darkness, how
great is that darkness! If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
To pollute the fountains of justice is, indeed, one of
the greatest evils which can be inflicted on society. It





100


THE PARABLES,


is like poisoning the public wells, or the air we breathe,
or the bread we eat.  Its inevitable result is anarchy.
Denied justice by those who should dispense it, despairing of protection to life, liberty, and property,
men will, as our forefathers did, take the law in their
own hands-become, as the Apostle says, a law unto
themselves; and, executing vengeance on the workers
of iniquity, commit deeds which it is easier for us to
condemn than it was for them to refrain from,-and
which no man will harshly condemn who remembers
these words of Scripture, " Surely oppression maketh
a wise man mad."
This unjust judge recalls days when in England
one of her greatest sons, the father of modern philosophy, and we trust, notwithstanding his error, a true
Christian, Lord Bacon, was ignominiously dismissed
from the bench for accepting a bribe; and when, in
Scotland, scaffolds reeked with the best blood of the
land, shed by iniquity on the seat of judgment. We
ought not, and we cannot, recall those times without
blessing God that, though not without the frailties that
belong to humanity, our judges are just and our exactors righteous.  It is certain that hundreds and
thousands now living who have done no wrong would
have been hanged in olden times; and, when expressing our loyalty to the heir of a throne that, amid the
convulsions which shake other nations, stands secure in
the affections of our own, let us cherish the memory of
the mighty dead; and the gratitude we owe to the patriots who shed their blood to purify the fountains of
public justice, and purchase the liberties of the people





THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


101


-making our country the envy of the world. By
them the Lord hath done great things for us whereof
we are glad, and wherefore we should be grateful.
This parable turns on a state of public affairs of
which we happily are ignorant; but it came home to
the understanding of those whom our Lord addressed.
The most common characteristic of Eastern nations
was, and is still, the difficulty of clients obtaining
justice. How astonished we should be if any judge, on
retiring from the bench into private life, were to
protest that he had never sold justice; never by accepting a bribe, stained the ermine of his robe! Yet
a better man than they, or we, did so. In taking his
leave of a people, some of whom, judging that noble
old man by themselves, were mean enough to suspect
him of mercenary ends, Samuel, indignant at the foul
suspicion, said-" I am old and grayheaded; behold,
here I am; witness against me before the Lord and
before his anointed.  Whose ox have I taken? or
whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded?
whom have I oppressed, or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith, and I will
restore it?" It is a sorrowful thing to think that such
a man should have had to stoop to this defence; but if
calumny had breathed even on Samuel, dimming for a
brief moment the lustre of his character, it shows how
many unjust judges there were in old times, and how
our Lord, in the picture of this one, was painting a
very common portrait-as was his wont, drawing his
illustrations of divine truth from familiar objects.
9*





102


THE PARABLES.


Now, in studying this picture of the Judge, let us
look at
HIS CHARACTER.
A bold, bad man; he says-"-I fear not God, nor
regard man."   What unblushing effrontery! yet in
their autobiographies men are seldom so honest. His
conduct corresponds to his character. Had he feared
God, this widow had not waited so long on justice.
"'Ye shall not," said the Lord, 'respect persons, in
judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the
great. Ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for
the judgment is God's."
A bold, bad man; he had no regard for the good
opinion even of his fellow-men. Not that that morally
qualifies a man for an office which he only is fit to fill
who believes in the judgment of the oath which he administers, and that he who tries others, stripped of his
state and placed at God's bar, shall himself one day
be tried. An immoral life debauches the mind as well
as the body-blunting the fine edge of conscience.
Nor, unless they are men of principle and of character, has a country any security that her judges will
be just or her exactors righteous? Animated by the
fear of God, a man will do right though all the world
think him wrong; Pilate would have faced round on
the Jewish crowd, and placing himself between Jesus
and his enemies, seized a lull in the storm, to say, in
answer to their cries of " Crucify, crucify him,"-lHe
shall not be crucified; otherwise than over my dead
body you shall not reach this innocent victim. The -





TIE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


103


world, no doubt, has substitutes for the fear of God;
and though in their nature inferior motives, a sense of
honor, regard to the good opinion of mankind, the love
of praise, and the fear of censure, are not without
value. But even to these this judge was insensible,
caring neither for God nor for man, so he gained his
own selfish ends-got his appetites gratified, and enjoyed a life of ease and pleasure.
Let me remark that, in this hateful picture of selfishness incarnate, we see human nature, if I may say
so, full blown; and in him, what all of us should be,
were God to withhold the influences of his Spirit, or
withdraw the restraints of his Providence. In yonder
starved and beaten, caged and cowed animal of velvet
step and painted skin, that but now and then shows
its teeth to utter an angry growl, you do not see the
tiger. Unchain him, uncage him; and there now is
the bloody tyrant of the jungle, as with roar of thunder and eyes of fire, he leaps from his den, and with
a blow of his paw felling one of the flying crowd,
fastens on his throat to suck the flowing blood. And
never is the sin inherent in our nature fully seen but
in cases such as this, where, somehow or other, it grows
up to its full development-fearless of God and regardless of man. Hence the necessity of being born
again; and that we all should offer, and God to all of
us should answer, the prayer of David, " Create in
me a clean heart."
THE WIDOW.
Not long years ago you might have seen a pile of
wood on the banks of the Ganges, surrounded by a





104


THE PARABLES.


mighty throng. The crowd opens, and up through the
vista a lifeless body is carried to be laid on the summit
of that funeral pile. Again the crowd opens, and,
like a wave in the wake of a ship, it closes behind a
woman, the dead man's widow, who comes to share his
fiery bed. Attired for the sacrifice, on taking farewell
of children and friends, she lies down by the corpse.
As she embraces it in her arms the signal is given, and
the pile is lighted; and, though in some instances, mad
with agony and all on fire, the victim would leap for
life through the flames and smoke, commonly, while
her piercing shrieks were drowned in shouts, the poor
widow submitted with patience to her fate. She submitted to it very much to escape a worse one. These
funeral piles throw a lurid glare on the wretched state
of widows in that heathen land; and, though not
doomed in all other lands to so hard a fate, oppression
and cruelty was the common lot of a class than which
there is none that owes more to the humanizing influences of Christianity. I suppose there are few of us
but, among competing claimants on our pity, time,
money, help, would, whether she were a queen or beggar, give the preference to one in a widow's garb.
Here we see the benign influence of the Gospel, and
God fulfilling his words-" Let thy widows trust in
me."   How cruelly their circumstances were taken
advantage of is plain from the manner in which God,
constituting himself the husband of the widow, and
espousing her cause, threatens to avenge her wrongs.
Nor is this less evident, from the strong tetms which
our Lord employs to denounce those who, worst of hy




THE PARABLE OF THE 'UNJUST JUDGE.


105


pocrites, made a stalking-horse of religion to get access
to the widow's house, for the purpose of devouring her
substance.
It is one of this class who demands justice from the
unjust judge. None had less chance of getting it.
Plundered probably of her little all, she has no money
to buy it. Without powerful friends to back her, she
has no means of compelling it. And to expect that
this selfish, voluptuous, cold, iron-hearted man will
espouse her cause, and put himself to trouble to see her
righted, like a magnanimous judge-draw the sword of
justice in her defence against the rich and the great,
perhaps his own friends, alas! that were to run her
horses on a rock, and plow there with oxen. Well
may she renew her grief over a husband's grave; and
as like a mother bird when the hawk is abroad, she
gathers her little ones to her side, well may she clasp
her hands to cry, God help me! there is none else to
help. And yet from one who had no regard either to
right or wrong, to whose eyes her distress brought no
tears, and in whose heart her sorrows touched no chord
of pity, she obtains justice-bringing fire out of a
cold flint, gushing water from a hard, dry rock.Consider
TIHE MEANS OF HER SUCCESS.
She owed it to importunity. Nature herself prompts
to this-the babe cries till it gets a mother's breast.
The power of importunity is one of the first lessons a
child learns, and proceeds to practise. The boy keeps
hanging on his father, harping on the same string,





106


THE PARABLES.


giving him no rest or peace, now pleading with winning smiles and now with tears, returning after every
defeat to renew the attack, till, worn out, he yields
assent; and thus by importunity, in a sense, the weak
things of the world confound the mighty, and foolish
things the wise. It is not long since it won daily
triumphs in these streets, where the ragged boy, on
naked feet, with piteous whine, and outstretched, emaciated hands, ran down the game. His story seemed
to fall on a deaf ear; he knew better. Getting no
answer but a rough refusal, he seemed to be wasting
breath and time; he knew better. Following the objectof his attentions like a shadow, sticking to him
like a leech, robbing the day of its brightness, and the
saunter of its pleasures, the urchin not only overcame
the philanthropist's sense of the evils of indiscriminate
charity, but opened even the niggard's hand. To get
rid of a pest so intolerable, how often was he bought
off with money?
This art is carried to its highest perfection in the
East. A traveller in Persia tells how he was besieged
by one who solicited a gift more costly than he was
prepared to give.   The hoary, and as the people
esteemed him, holy mendicant set himself down before
his gate, throwing up a rude tent to shelter himself
from the noonday sun.    There he remained like a
sentinel; nor left his post but to follow the traveller
out of doors, and return with him. Taking snatches
of sleep during the day when the other rested in the
house, he kept up a hideous howling and clamorous demands all the hours of night,-an annoyance which,





S \\ 1.4










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107


persisted in for successive days and nights, and even
weeks, seldom failed, as you can suppose, to gain its
object.
Such were the means by which the widow gained
hers. So soon as ever this unjust judge took his seat
at the gate of the city, where in the East courts are
held and all causes heard, his eye as it roamed over the
crowd fell on her. There she was, and always wassorrow in her dress, but determination in the flash of
her eye; her form bent down with grief, but her spirit
unbroken; resolved to give that judge no rest till he
had avenged her on her adversary. Now breaking in
on the business of the court, she is on her feet passionately demanding justice; and now stretched on the
ground at his, she piteously implores it. Nor can he
shake her off. Denied her suit, she follows him to his
house to interrupt his leisure and embitter his pleasures. Her voice ringing loud on the threshold demanding entry, she bursts into his presence; and is dragged
away by the servants, thrust out, but only to return,
as the ball struck rebounds-the billow shattered on
the rock falls back into the deep to gather volume and
strength for a new attack. And as by constant dashing the waves in time cut into the cliff, which, yielding
to the incessant action of a weaker element, some day
bows its proud head, and, precipitating itself forwards,
falls into the sea, which swallowing it up, sweeps over
it with jubilant, triumphant waves, so the persistence
of the widow overcomes the resistance of the judge.
Diamond cuts diamond. She conquers by importunity:
yielding to her request, he says, "Because this widow





108


THE PARABLES.


troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her constant
coming she weary me."
THE CONCLUSION,
Which our Lord draws, as expressed in the question,
'.' Hear what the unjust judge saith; and shall not God
avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto
him, though he bear long with them?"
There are points of resemblance between God's
people and this widow. In Satan, have not we also an
adversary to be avenged on? Are not we also poor
and needy? She had known happy days; and so also
had man. By death she had lost her husband; and
by sin we have lost our God. Poor and friendless, she
had no means of avenging, of righting herself; no
more have we-we were without help when Christ died
for the ungodly. " The sons of Zoruiah," cried David,
" are too many for me;" and so are sin and its corruptions, the world and its temptations, the devil and
his wiles, for us.
There are likewise some points of resemblance between God and this unjust judge. Long had he stood
by and, without one effort on her behalf, seen this poor
woman spurned and oppressed; and long also God
seemed to stand by when his people were ground to the
dust in Egypt; in old Pagan and in more modern
Popish times, when their cruel enemies shed the blood
of his saints like water, and, immured in dungeons,
bleeding on scaffolds, hiding in the caves of our mountains, his elect cried to him day and night, and the
Church, helpless as a widow, implored him, saying,





THE PARABLE OF TIE UNJUST JUDGE.


109


Avenge me of mine adversary! And this is true also
of his dealings with individual believers. How long
in their corruptions are the messengers of Satan left to
buffet them? Weary of the struggle with some besetting sin, and hating it as a slave his cruel tyrant, they
cry, " How long, 0 Lord, how long?" How often, all
but despairing, are they ready to exclaim with Paul,
" Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
But there are important points of disparity between
this judge and our God: and in these I find assurance
of final victory, and the highest encouragements to instant, constant, urgent, prayer. A bad man, with a
heart cold as ice and hard as iron, was he moved by
importunity to redress the wrongs of one for whom he
felt no regard, whose happiness or misery was nothing
to him?-how much more will God be importuned to
grant our prayers! Just, and more than just, he is
merciful and gracious, long-suffering and slow to wrath,
abundant in goodness and in truth. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked-he is willing that all
should come to him and live-he waits to be gracious.
Let his people trust in him, and wait on him. He
may hide his face from them; it is but for a little.
The dead, the widow's husband, never loved like the
living God. Her wrongs did not disturb him in his
grave; but ours move Jehovah in the heavens. Above
the anthems of the celestial choir, he hears our feeblest
cry; *and amid the glories of the upper sanctuary,
Christ's eye turns less on the glittering crowns his redeemed ones cast at his feet than on his people herefighting in this field of battle, weeping in this vale of





110


THE PARABLES.


tears. Therefore let us pray on, nor cease praying till we
cease living. He may address us as he did his mother,
saying, Woman, my hour is not yet come; but come it
shall. Rest assured that no prayer is lost; and let
this help them that wait on the Lord to renew their
strength, and in the hour of devotion to mount up with
wings as eagles   If he spared not his own Son, shall
he not with him also freely give us all things-and fulfill, at his own time and in his own way, these his own
gracious words, "For the oppression of the poor and
for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the
Lord?"
When night fell on Jerusalem, and the tide and
hum of business had ceased, and one after another the
lights were extinguished, and all fires quenched in the
sleeping city, one was kept alive-the fire that.burned
on God's holy altar. "It shall not be put out," said the
Lord, "the fire shall ever be burning on the. altar, it
shall never go out."  Fed by such logs as blazed on
the hearths and roared in the chimneys of olden
times, yet this had not been kindled by man's hands or
blown into flame by his breath. Like God's love on a
lost world, or his wrath on the head of his dying Son,
it had descended from the skies. " There came," it is
said, when Aaron and his sons were offering their first
sacrifice, " fire out from before the Lord, and consumed
the burnt-offering and the fat, which when the people
saw, they shouted and fell on their face."  Whether
slumbering in its ashes or flaming with the fat of sacrifices, this fire burned by night and day on the altar;
nor was it till after the lapse of nearly a thousand





THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


111


years that it went out-quenched, hissing in the blood
of priests who fell in defence of the temple at the first
captivity. Now in that old altar on which the sacred
fire was always burning, but where sacrifices were not
always offering, we see the heart of a devout believer.
He is not always praying; but within his bosom there
is a heaven-kindled love, fires of desire, fervent longings, which, make him always ready to pray and often
engage him in prayer. And thus he who engages in
devout meditations and holds communion with God
through his word and also through his works, may, in
respect of his habitual, prevailing frame of mind, as
well as of his frequent prayers, be said to " pray without ceasing," "always to pray;" he is like an 2Eolian
harp, on whose strings, by night or day, the wind has
but to breathe to wake up sweet and plaintive music.
In considering more particularly the lessons regarding prayer which our Lord told this parable to teach,
I remark that
IT DOES NOT TEACI US TO PRAY.
There is no need it should; or that the Bible should
-any more than it should prove, what it always
assumes, the being of a God. Such a monster as an
atheist, who denies that, it does not suppose to exist;
nor any one, man or woman, who does not acknowledge,
whether they practise it or not, the duty and necessity
of prayer. Nor this without reason. Like the belief
in a God, the moral sense of right and wrong, the hope
of immortality, the expectation of a judgment, prayer
seems as much an instinct of the soul as breathing,





112


THE PARABLES.


eating, drinking are instinctive actions of the body
which we need neither to be told, nor to learn, to do.
No doubt, men who would be "wise above what is
written,"-prying into the secret things of God, and,
like one who attempts to close his fingers on this big
globe, attempting to grasp the infinite with finite minds,
-have started objections to prayer. They ask, does
God need to be told what we need? is man vain enough
to suppose that his prayers can change the divine purposes? that creatures so feeble and insignificant as we
can move the hand that moves the universe? or that
our will can be of the smallest consequence to him who
does everything according to the counsel and purpose
of his own?  It is not needful to answer such objections. I have read how a great poet, who was a sceptic,
when he and Byron in a storm at sea expected every
moment to be their last, dropt on his knees on the
watery deck, and, beating his breast, cried passionately
to God-the tempest blowing away, like cobwebs, his
flimsy objections to prayer.  In such hours Nature,
rising in her might and majesty, asserts her supremacy;
and the instinct of prayer bears a man over all these
difficulties as on the crest of a mountain wave. With
these, simple Christians give themselves no trouble;
they are like an infant who knows nothing of the philosophy of sucking, nor waits to know it, but, so soon
as put to a mother's breast, fastens on it. And it
seems as natural for man to pray as for babes to suck
-in his distress and danger to cry-to God, as on falling into the water to make instinctive efforts to reach
the rock for footing, or rise to the surface for breath.





THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


113


Prayer belongs to a man as much as speech: for, as
there was never a nation found, the rudest, most savage, in their habits and homes the nearest to the brutes,
which did not speak; there never was a nation found,
the rudest; most savage, in their homes and habits the
least raised above the brutes, which did not pray.
IT TEACHIES US HOW TO PRAY.
This subject, dividing itself like a tree into many
branches, embraces the spring of prayer, which lies in
our sense of need-the spirit of prayer, which consists
in devout sincerity,-the object of prayer, which is
our Father in heaven-the channel of prayer, which
is his Son Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new Covenant. Important as these subjects are, this, parable
directs our attention to a matter belonging to prayer,
not less important. The point here, is the fervor and
frequency, the constancy and perseverance, or what
has been called, in one word, the importunity of prayer.
"lHe spake a parable unto them," says the Evangelist,
" to this end, that men ought always to pray and not
to faint "-to pray on, nor give up praying till they
get the thing prayed for. This implies at least on our
part,
STATED DAILY PRAYER.
It is in the morning and evening that Nature, who
gives her nights to sleep and her days to work, pays,
if I may so say, her worship to God. At dewy morn
and eve, from their golden and silver censers, the flowers offer the incense of their fragrance, and skies and
10*





114


THE PAIABLES.


woods which were mute during the heat of the day and
darkness of the night, break out into a melodious burst
of song. The bird that, leaving God to care for it,
sleeps with its head beneath its wing in the darkness,
and spends the busy day gathering its food or catering
for its young, drops at even from the skies, singing,
into its grassy nest; and mounts thence at rosy dawn
to praise God by the gate of heaven ere it begins the
labors of the day. And so, in a way, does every man
and woman who has the least pretension to a Christian's
character-morning and evening find them on their
knees before God.   What day closes without many
mercies to be grateful for, and many sins to be confessed and pardoned? and what day is entered on that
has not burdens to be borne, and battles to be fought,
to which it behoves us to go forth guided by the counsel, guarded by the power, strengthened by the grace,
and defended, like a mail-clad warrior, from head to
heel, by the whole armor of God? To omit prayer, is
to go to battle having left our weapons behind us, in
the tent; is to go to our daily labor without the strength
imparted by a morning meal; is to attempt the bar
where breakers roar and rocks hide their rugged heads
without taking our pilot on board. If from a sense of
weakness Moses, on Sinai's thundering, flashing,
quaking, mount, exclaimed, " If   thy presence go
not with me, let us not go up," well may we say of the
world, with its daily trials and temptations, works and
warfare, Unless thy presence go with tis, let us not go
down. Therefore ought men, unless in very rare
circumstances, always, morning and evening, to pray.





THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


115


Thus, like soldiers on the morning of the conflict, we
grind our swords for battle with the world, the devil,
and the flesh; and thus, when the day's combat is over,
retiring to pray, we apply a healing ointment, the
balm of Gilead, to the wounds of conscience; and thus,
as a begrimed workman on coming home repairs at
even-tide to bathe in flowing river or swelling sea, we
resort to prayer to wash away sin's daily, guilty stains
in the fountain of Jesus' blood.
Judge Hale, one of the greatest ornaments of the
English church and the English bench, in expressing
the value he set on the Sabbath as a day, not of business or worldly recreation, but of holy rest, said that
he found the work of the week go well according as the
Sabbath had been kept well. For as I have seen one
stroke of an eagle's wings send her, without further
effort, sailing a long way on through the fields of air,
the impulse which a well-spent sabbath gave him was
sensibly felt throughout all the running week. As
much may be said for daily prayers-the morning,
elsewhere than in the skies, settling, for good or evil,
for conquest or defeat, for progress or backsliding, the
character of the coming day. Therefore ought men
always to pray, morning and evening, day by day.
Are our bodies so constituted that the food of one
day suffices for the wants of the next? Do even occasional banquets dispense with the necessity of daily
bread?  Are the arrangements of nature such that one
bright day each week is enough-sufficient to melt the
snows of winter, to turn the naked forests into a sea of
foliage, or cover our fields in autumn with sheaves of





116


THE PARABLES.


golden corn? No; the body needs daily bread; fields
for the ripening of their fruits, and gardens for the
beauty of their flowers, need daily sunlight, if not sunshine. And the soul cannot thrive, nor its graces grow
and ripen, without daily prayer to God and frequent
communion with the skies. I say, therefore, we ought
always to pray morning and evening at the least; so
much oftener, so much the better-and the result, if it
is devout, earnest, believing prayer, will be to maintain
our spiritual life under what appears the most unfavorable circumstances. On the rocks by the sea-shore I
have seen marine creatures living when the tide was
out; not in the briny pools it leaves, but on the dry
and naked rock-in the withering air-in the burning,
broiling sun. They lived because, when twice each
day the foaming tide came in, and rising, covered the
rocky shelves they clung to, they opened their shut and
shelly mouths to drink in water enough to last them
when the tide went out, and till the next tide came in.
Even so, twice a day also at the least, are we to replenish
our thirsty souls,-fill our emptiness from the ocean of
grace and mercy that flows, free and full in Christ,
to the least of saints and chief of sinners. In Him
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
IT TEACHES PERSEVERING PRAYER.
What would be thought of a man who was ashamed
to own his country, nor would take up even speech in
her defence among strangers, in a foreign land? It
is when broad seas part us from our native shores that
the love of country burns strongest. Her songs sound





THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


117


sweetest in the exile's ear. Those faults of hers we lay
bare at home, we conceal abroad; and, like dutiful sons,
try to cast a mantle on her shame-hiding it from the
eyes of aliens. We are not ashamed of our country;
yet, alas! how many seem ashamed of their religion
and their God? Some could hardly blush more to be
caught stealing than they would do to be caught
praying-starting from their knees like men engaged
in some guilty thing. And how many young men
and women, abandoning the praying habits of their
early life and a pious home, have been lost through
this false and coward shame? Insult their country,
they will resent the offence-the poorest Highlander
standing up for the honor of clan and chief, nor consenting, without a bleeding heart, to be torn from the
barren and stormy rocks to which his affections cling.
Would God our piety were as fervent and brave as our
patriotism! But, thrown into the company of strangers, perhaps of the ungodly, shrinking lest these
should wonder at them or make them butts for ridicule,
some steal to bed and leave it without bending the
knees in prayer. This is to repeat the crime of Peter,
and say, amid scenes where Christ is insulted by his enemies and should be boldly honored by his friends, I
know not the man.
If it is right for men, as an old heathen says, to learn
from an enemy, it is right for Christians to learn from
such as are ignorant of their faith, or hostile to it.
And how might it bring a blush to a coward's cheek to
see the poor Mahometan-in company as in solitude,
on the mart of commerce or on the muddy street, on





118


THE PAIABLES.


the slippery deck or on the sandy desert, wherever he
is and before whomsoever he is, beggar or king, pagan
or Christian-drop on his knees at sundown to offer
his devotions, ready rather to die than miss them; like
a wise man, counting them, not his shame, but glory.
If, boasting of their villanies, of their feats of dissipation and debauchery, of their triumphs over
simple innocence, unsuspecting virtue, the flowers they
have vilely plucked to cast on the streets when their
bloom was gone, bad. men glory in their shame, shall
Christians be ashamed of their glory?   God forbid!
Show the world your colors-fling out the blood-dyed,
time-honored banner, sayingSI'm not ashamed to own my Lord,
Or to defend his cause,
Maintain the glory of his cross,
And honor all his laws."
As to the point especially in hand-persevering
prayer-the very heathens seem, more than many professing Christians, to appreciate its power and value.
A traveller, for instance, who was lately exploring some
of the loftiest valleys of the Himalayas, found a tribe
close by the regions of eternal snow, whose religion
had a feature that struck him with great surprise. Indeed, he sneers at it; though no man's faith should be
turned to ridicule, or even lightly assailed, unless care
is taken to substitute something better in its place. It
may be a false hope; yet it is his all. It may be a
dream; yet it is a happy one-soothing the sorrows of
life, and scattering some bcautiful, though fading





THE PARABLE OF TIE UNJUST JUDGE.


-19


flowers along the margin of its rugged path.   Then
what is the crime of those who in these days recklessly cast doubts on the Christian faith, and start
difficulties in the minds of simple, unlearned ones,
which I can answer, but they cannot?  How cruel to
disturb their peace who were quietly, and usefully, and
hopefully, and happily, holding on their course to
heaven? It is no light thing to shake a man's confidence in what he believes to be the Word of God-in
a book which he clasps to his bosom as life's greatest
treasure, and will lay below his head as death's softest
pillow. It requires no great ability to do this wrong.
The puniest buzzing insect may annoy us by its tiny
sting; and many a man's peace may be disturbed by
objections by which, thank God, it cannot be destroyed.
What excited both the surprise and sneers of the
traveller in the religion of these Indian mountains,
was the practice the people followed of praying by
machinery. Certain prayers were placed on revolving
cylinders; and as the wheel went round, and the prayer
came up, each time its face turned to heaven, God was
supposed to read it. It was as good as spoken by living lips. While engaged in his work, or passing the
cylinder at intervals, the worshiper from time to time
gave it a turn so as to keep it almost constantly
spinning on its axis. Others more devout and still
more ingenious, improving on that, set the cylinder in
the run of a stream, that, as it turned like a mill-wheel,
prayer might be offered day and night continually.
Well, though it may be a bold thing to say, I would





120


THE PARABLES.


rather, in that rude way, "pray without ceasing," than
like some, never pray at all-in other words, I would
rather live and die a devout pagan than an undevout
Christian. No doubt the mind of the Indian who trusts
to such prayers may be dark as his tawny skin; and,
not proceeding.from the heart, they may leave it cold
as the snows, and hard as the rocks among which, remote from the Christian world, he holds his mountain
fastness. But, not to say that the prayers of our lips
may be as formal and lifeless as those of the Buddhist's wheel, rude as is the method of his worship, and
dark as may be the mind of the worshiper, there is
a glimmering here of these truths-"instant in
prayer," "pray without ceasing"-" men ought always to pray, and not to faint."
It is hard, fainting work, praying. It is harder
work to pray than preach; since for one who could
pray well, I will get you a hundred who could preach
well a whole hour. How much easier for the sailor to
watch the night through on the rolling deck, the sentinel on the beleaguered wall, than, with John Welsh
in Ayr's old church, alone, in the darkness, with the
town sleeping in their houses, and the dead around
sleeping in their graves, to pass a whole night on our
knees?
We ask, and receive not. Why? Because, says
the Apostle, we ask amiss. We do not believe what we
profess; nor feel what we say; nor wish what we ask
-or, if we do, we do not take the right way of getting
it. And how can we expect God to answer prayer
when he sees, what we ourselves might see, that we are





THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE.


121


not earnest?  If we were, we would be urgent-praying in the house, by the way, on our beds, at our business-prayer, sounding or silent, a constant flowing
stream. By constant dropping, the water wears a hole
in the hardest stone. By constant growing, the treeroot rends the hardest rocks asunder. And who, as he
sat on a jutting crag amid the spray of the roaring,
flashing cataract, has not marked how by her constant
flow the river has polished its rugged sides, and worn
out smooth runnels for its streams?   With such a
feeble power, through the force of continued action,
how great the results? That rock, indeed, is no more
a symbol of the kind heart of God than this unjust
judge is, in character, a type of Him who is, I repeat
it, not unjust, but just; nor merely just, but merciful
and gracious, long-suffering, and slow to wrath, abundant in goodness and in truth. Yet, as it is only perseverance in grace that can carry us up to heaven, it is
only perseverance in prayer that can bring its blessings
down. Such is the plan of redemption, the ordinance
of God-" The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the violent take it by force."


11










VI.


Vpt Vmart     of tlt Hljaw       i as tljp  RaVIUMC
Luke xviii. 9-14.
NATURE divides our globe into different belts of
vegetation. Each zone has plants peculiar to itself.
Under and beside the burning line lies the region of
palms and bananas; then appear the vine and olive;
then the oak and chestnut; the forests of evergreen of
pine, with fields of hardy oats; then the birch with its
silver dress and the mountain-ash with its coral berries,
dwarfing away as you approach the pole-till they
vanish; and, the utmost limits of vegetation reached,
you enter the domain of eternal winter, snow and ice,
silence and death. While there is only one bird that,
a citizen of the world, frequents every shore, there is
not one plant, so far as I know, that inhabits every
country. Plants grow only in certain soils, or at certain heights, or under certain lines of latitude. Unlike these, pride is a weed that, springing up in every
heart, grows at all elevations-as well in the humblest
as in the highest stations of life; and under every
system of religion, the true as well as the false.
Strange to say, it is often found where it seems to
(123)





124


THE PARABLES.


have nothing to feed on, where there is the least occasion and the least excuse for it-like the wallflower
rooted in the crevices of shattered rock or mouldering
tower, it seems to grow best on ruins. Never till man
fell, did he form the ambitious project of building a
tower whose top should reach to heaven.
Pride is a sin of the heart; and while in his prayer,
" Cleanse thou me from secret errors, keep back thy
servant also from presumptuous sins," David showed
himself alive to the dangers of such sins, others, in
guarding only against the temptation to gross offences,
leave themselves exposed to what is their greatest
danger. Lodged in the heart like a robber who has
concealed himself in some dark recess, and waits till
nightfall to seize the plunder, this sin is more likely
than many others to escape our notice. Not entailing
the loss of character, or health, or wealth, which are
the common penalties of crime, it can be indulged in
with apparent impunity. Not always early or easily
detected, this vice sometimes indeed    assumes the
features of a virtue-apes a noble independence of
spirit, self-resppct, a due regard to our rank and position; nay, even a sacred respect to God's truth, to
purity of doctrine or holiness of life.  In Herod it
wore the mask of conscience, and for his oath's sake.he beheaded John; in the Jews, of a tender regard for
God's honor, and they would have no dealings with the
Samaritans; in the Pharisee, of purity of life, and so,
sailing magnificently past the woman that was a sinner,
lest his robes should be defiled by the touch of hers,
he warns her off, saying, Stand aside, I am holier





THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.


125


than thou. Obtaining access to hearts which would
close the door in the face of grosser vices, pride, besides, is a very dreadful and deadly sin. Has it not
proved itself so?  It cost Nebuchadnezzar his reason;
in his successors it cost Hezekiah his kingdom; on Galilee it nearly cost Simon Peter his life; taking root
in the hearts of our first parents, it cost them and
mankind Eden; springing up in angels' bosoms, it cost
them heaven. And as the wary mariner, dreading it
more than lowering skies or stormy sea, takes alarm at
the first sign of the leak which, hid beneath the surface and gaping by the keel, admits the water into the
hold, our Lord, alarmed, if I may say so, at the first
signs of this insidious and fatal sin in his disciples,
promptly proceeds to stop the evil; and for this purpose, to instruct, warn, and alarm them, he relates the
parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.
Before studying these two characters in their order,
let us take a general survey of the religion of the
Pharisees, and attend to such practical lessons as it is
calculated to suggest and teach.
THEIR RELIGION HAD NOT ITS SEAT IN THE
HEART.
Baron Humboldt mentions a remarkable custom of
some of the native tribes of America-one that would
have carried our thoughts homeward as much as a daisy
springing from the sod of their prairies, or a lark singing in Indian skies. Som3, time after a child is born,
a font full of water is brought into the tent, and a fire
kindled on its floor. The babe is then taken from its
11*





126


THE PARABLES.


mother's arms, not to be burned or drowned, but plunged
over head into the water and swung rapidly through
the flames. In this custom, which is practised on all
their children, we see a rude baptismal rite: nor is it
possible to read of it and still less were it possible to
see this ceremony without recalling the words of John:
"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with
fire;" and those of Christ Himself: "Except a man
be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God." As I have seen an insect
that may have fluttered among the flowers of Eden, or
perished amidst the waters of the flood, embalmed in
amber, in this custom we seem to see, embalmed in
tradition, a fragment of patriarchal piety, and of the
divine truths which man knew when the ancestors of
these Indians-perhaps the world's earliest emigrantsleft the cradle of mankind. It is a symbolical confession of human depravity, and of the necessity that the
soul should be purified as by fire and water from inborn
corruption; and to witness this remarkable rite among
these distant heathen could hardly fail to transport us
on the wings of fancy to the old church at home, where
a father was holding up his babe for baptism, or the
voices of the great congregation were singing to some
familiar, plaintive tune,
Behold I in iniquity
Was formed the womb within,
My mother also me conceived
In guiltiness and sin.
How strange to turn to the Pharisees, and find them,
with the Word of God in their hands, apparently more





THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.


127


ignorant than those painted savages-illustrating the
paradox of Scripture: " They have eyes but they see
not, ears but they hear not, and minds but they do not
understand."  They were profoundly ignorant of the
plague of their own hearts.  They did not feel the
need of being renewed, or know that religion cannot
live anywhere but in the heart, and lies in nothing so
much as a heart right with God. Even Nicodemus
seemed ignorant of this. When informed by our Lord
that he must be born again, he was surprised, filled
with astonishment; and with a simplicity which we
might expect, and would excuse in a child, replied,
" How can a man be born when he is old? Can he
enter a second time into his mother's womb and be
born?"  If it was thus with him-a ruler in Israel, a
man who felt such an interest in religion that he
sought our Lord, though under the cloak of night,
what must it have been with others? How appropriate to the followers of such leaders, the question,
"If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is
that darkness! "
It was great, gross, darkness. The religion of these
Pharisees consisting of mere ceremonial observances,
lying in such matters as meats and drinks, washing
platters, paying tithes and keeping fasts, the worst
passions were left to rage and burn within their hearts
-as do volcanic fires beneath the purple vineyards
and green forests of Vesuvius' slopes.  Outwardly
saints, they were inwardly devils. And lest I should
be considered uncharitable, let us hear his account of
them, who in the fullness of his tenderness and faercy





128


THE PARABLES.


promised Paradise to a dying thief, and turned eyes of
pity on the woman that was a sinner. "Woe unto
you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," said our Lord,
" for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead
men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also
appear outwardly righteous unto men, but within ye
are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Fill ye up the
measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell."
THEIR RELIGION LAY IN OUTWARD ACTS OF WORSHIP AND
A SCRUPULOUS OBSERVANCE OF ITS FORMS.
In one of our late Indian battles, a native officer lay
mortally wounded on the field beside one of our own.
Exhausted with loss of blood and exposed to the fierce
rays of a burning sun, both were tortured with thirst.
One, whose motions they eagerly watched, at length
approached them with a supply of water. After our
countryman had taken a long, deep draught, it was
presented to the HIindoo. He had been crying for
water, and had it now. Yet, ere he drinks, he turns
a dying eye on the Good Samaritan to ask his caste.
It is low; and his religion forbids him to take meat or
drink from such impure hands. Our countryman, seeing him hesitate, remonstrates-telling how it will assuage his sufferings, and may save his life: but remonstrates in vain. The other turns one greedy look on
the blessed water, and pours it out on the ground-a
sacrifice to the claims of conscience. And esteeming
a devout Pagan a better man in God's sight than a





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129


careless, unconscientious Christian, I say, whatever
judgment others may pronounce on this act, would God
that Christ's followers were as ready to take up their
cross, deny themselves daily, and follow Jesus; dying
with Him rather than denying Him!
The scrupulous observance which the Pharisees paid
to mere forms, has no such claims on our respect.
They knew, or ought to have known, better. Yet,
neglecting the moral law  and even violating its
plainest precepts, they made religion lie wholly in
ritual observances and certain outward acts of worship.
They gave alms. They prayed often. They fasted
and paid tithes; fasting oftener and paying tithes on
more things than even the law required-as if they
would make God their debtor. They were scrupulously careful to avoid any ceremonial uncleanness;
and that was one reason perhaps why the priest and
Levite left the wounded man on the road, lest the
touch of what might be a dead body should render
them unclean. They were particularly careful also to
observe all ceremonial duties; and therefore the murderers of our Lord, with his blood still red on their
guilty hands, sought to have his body removed from
the cross, and respect rendered to the law which required that whosoever was hanged should be taken
down by sunset. They were close attenders also on
the temple, where, as in a Roman Catholic church,
with a crowd of worshipers, on their knees, telling
their beads, repeating their prayers with eyes cast on
the ground or raised to an image, there was great
-appearance of devotion. Apparently abstracted from





130


THE PARABLES.


all sublunary things, with hands and eyes raised to
heaven, with loud and sonorous voice sounding forth
his prayer, with texts of Scripture sown on his dress,
and ashes sprinkled on his head, there stood the
Pharisee-a living lie-a whited sepulchre, with a
head as dark and a heart as foul as the grave.
Lights are kindled on the seaboard, some to guide
the ship in, others to warn her off: this burns at the
harbor's mouth, and that, a beacon of danger, flashes
where the sea breaks foaming on a fatal reef. And
the Pharisees have left us, not an example to follow,
but to avoid. How does their case warn the churches
against attaching much importance to religious forms,
either in the way of unreasonably adhering to such as
are old, or unnecessarily introducing such as are new.
It is in the nature of a religion of many forms to degenerate into one of form. By occupying and indeed
engrossing the attention of the worshiper, they withdraw it from the state of his heart, and prove as pernicious to true piety as a superabundance of leaves to
the plant, whose sap is spent on feeding the leaf, to
the detriment of the fruit: and perhaps some churches
might be benefited by a free use of the knife with
which the gardener prunes away the flush of green
wood to increase the crop of fruit. I see much danger
in a multiplicity, but little, or none, in a variety of
forms. Unity with variety is God's law in the kingdom of nature; and why should not his law in the
kingdom of grace be unity of spirit with variety of
forms?   Uniformity is but the shadow of unity: and
how often have churches in vain attempts after the first,





THE PHARISEE AND TIE PUBLICAN.


131


lost the second-like the dog in the fable lost both? At
the Lord's table I have knelt with Episcopalians, I have
sat with Presbyterians, and I have stood with fellowworshipers in a foreign church under' the shadow of the
Alps; and I can only pity the person who, believing in
the communion of the saints, could find in the attitude
any reason for not engaging in the ordinance. This
were to be great in little things; and forget that Christian love and charity which are the weightier matters of
the law. It may be that the forms of worship in some
of our churches are, as is alleged, bald and bare. If
so, there is no reason why this should not be amended.
But there is much reason.why we should beware, on
the one hand, of putting uniformity of worship in room
of the unity of the spirit, and, on the other, of substituting dead forms for a living faith. Let us never
forget that forms are not religion, but only its drapery;
and that, as they dress children lightly who wish to
brace their frames, as the laborer throws off his coat
to work, and as in the ancient games the candidates
stepped into the race-course unencumbered with many,
or heavy, garments, the fewer forms which religion
wears, consistent with decency and order, the more
robust she will grow-she will work with greater
energy-and, like one of beautiful mould and symmetry, she will walk with more native, queenly, grace
-when


Unadorned, adorned the most.





132


THE PARABLES.


THEIR RELIGION WAS CHARACTERIZED BY
OSTENTATION.
The Pharisees distributed charity; but it was to the
sound of a trumpet, seeking the praise of men under
pretence of caring for the poor;-therefore our Lord
said, " When thou doest thine alms, do not sound a
trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues, and in the streets, that they may have glory
of men."  They fasted; but not from sin;-therefore
our Lord, detecting "the lust of the eyes and the
pride of life" looking out from the holes of their rueful
mask, warned his disciples, saying: " When ye fast be
not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance, for they
disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men
to fast."  They prayed; not that they might be pardoned of God, but praised of men, and gaining a character for piety, gain the widow's esteem for the villanous purpose of plundering her house. Their humility was but the stepping-stone of their ambitiontigers, they crouched to make the surer, deadlier,
spring; and therefore our Lord warned his disciples,
saying, " Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites, for they
love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the
corners of the street, that they may be seen of men."
That they may be seen of men! he rings the changes
on that-exposing the pride and vanity that lay at the
root of their religion. Loud, ostentatious, and unprofitable, it was like the brawling, noisy, foaming, frothy
torrent, which, with a rock for its bed and barrenness
on its banks, makes itself seen and heard.   How





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133


different genuine, gracious piety! Affluent in blessings
but retiring from observation, it has its symbol in the
stream that pursues a silent course, and, flashing out
in the light pf day but here and there, but now and
then, is not known but by the good it does-the
flowers that bloom  on its banks, and the evergreen
verdure which it gives to the pastures through which it
winds on its quiet path.
To appreciate the justice of these remarks, we have
only to look at the sect in the specimen of it this
parable presents. Judging the stock by the sample,
look at
THE PHARISEE.
Sweeping contemptuously by others who, feeling themselves unworthy to tread the holy courts, worshiped
reverently at a distance, he makes his way to ths
front, pride in his eye, and self-complacency in his
bearing; and now beyond the vulgar throng, he stands
to begin his devotions, not only to pray thus with himself, but that he might be the observed of all observers by himself-an interpretation of the words
which betrays no lack of charity, since our Lord has
told us that the Pharisees did pray to be seen of men.
There is often a great incongruity between the language of our prayers and the state of our heartsthe one, alas, is so much more devout than the other.
But there was no inconsistency here.    Out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth spake here; and
seldom has God listened to such an offensive outpouring of pride and arrogance. Observe first the fashion
12





134


THE PARABLES.


and form of his prayer. In a sense, it is no prayerit contains neither confession nor petition; there is
neither guilt acknowledged nor pardon asked; it expresses no want, and it asks no help. No doubt there
is an acknowledgment of divine goodness-God is
mentioned, is thanked; yet there is no redeeming point
in this. Under a flimsy pretense of glorifying God,
he glorifies himself, and as to his expression of thanks,
I regard that as on a par with those professions of
humility in which many vain men are in the habit of indulging; and which are but a cover, and a very transparent one, for their self-conceit-for telling what
feeds their vanity and is intended to exalt themselves.
To thank God is right. We have much to thank him
for; and had the Pharisee said, God, I thank thee that
I am not in hell, that thou hast not dealt with me according to my sins, that thou hast so restrained the
corruptions of this wicked heart as to keep me.back
from presumptuous, flagrant sins-if the thought of
others had excited such gratitude in his heart as
was expressed by one who, seeing a felon led to the
gallows, exclaimed, speaking of himself, But for the
grace of God, there goes John Bradford!-imperfect
as his prayer was, on that one leg it might have limped
to heaven. Done in the spirit that does not despise
but pity the wicked, to thank God that we are not as
they are is a pious thing. All are hewn out of the
same rock, and dug out of the hole of the same pit;
and the purest woman therefore has cause to thank
God that she is not as the basest of her sex; nor is
there a good man who has been preserved from be




THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAI..


135


coming, like some of his early associates, a wreck of
character, of body, of soul, but, as he sees in their
fate what his might have been, will thank God that he
is not as others-giving the glory where it is due;
saying, with the apostle, "By     grace I am    what
I am."
Secondly, observe the substance of his prayer. He
tells God how he fasted and paid tithes. And if religion lay in abstaining from food but not from sin, in
giving our property but not our hearts to God, he was
indeed a religious man-and more religious than may
at first appear. The Mosaic economy, which is misrepresented by many as a system of great austerity,
established numerous feasts during which the people,
set loose from toil and arrayed in holiday attire, were
to eat of the fat and drink of the sweet and pass their
time in innocent pleasures. It enjoined but one fast
-only one in the whole fifty-two weeks of the year.
But this Pharisee, not content with fasting once each
year as the law required, fasted twice each week; and,
teaching us to set little value on such ritual observances, the fasts that starved his body seem only to
have fed his pride; the austerities which mortified his
flesh became the means of gratifying his vanity. He
showed a corresponding excess of zeal in the matter
of tithes. God required his people to tithe the fruits
of the olive and vine, the sheaves of the field and the
produce of their flocks: but as in those countries
where, devoted to a life of celibacy, men immure
themselves in monasteries, and women wither in convents, the sacrifices of the Pharisee rose above the re




1386


THE PARABLES.


quirements of the law-anise and cummin and other
common pot-herbs were all scrupulously tithed. Hence
his boast, I fast twice a week, and pay tithes of all
that I possess. In other words: What a good man I
am; let others acknowledge their shortcomings; as for
me, I dread not a day of count and reckoning; for
me, the day of judgment that brings man face to
face with God hag no terrors; I have done more than
he requires; He is my debtor rather than I his-the
balance will stand in my favor. What great, swelling
words of vanity! How may we apply to this miserable self-deceiver, and to all that self-righteous class
of whom, though the pride of their hearts may not be
so fully developed, he is the type, our Lord's language to the Laodiceans, " Thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing:
and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." So we might
dismiss him to make way for a better man-praying
God by his Holy Spirit to keep us not only from the
lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye, but also from
the pride of life.
But we are not done with the Pharisee.   He has
certain negative as well as positive merits. Here is
what he is not, "I am not as other men are."   To
entertain a bad opinion of others without sufficient
evidence proves more than the lack of the charity
which hopeth all things, and believeth all things.
Who does not believe others virtuous would be found,
were the secrets of his heart and life known, to be
himself vicious. We may lay it down as an axiom,





THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.


137


that those who are ready to suspect others of being
actuated by a regard to self-interest, are themselves
selfish. Thieves do not believe in the existence of
honesty; nor rakes in virtue; nor mercenary politicians in patriotism; and the reason why worldlings
regard religious people as hypocrites is their own
want of religion-knowing that were they to profess
a warm regard for Christ, the glory of God, and the
salvation of souls, they would be hypocrites, they conclude others to be so. Hence also you find many novelists representing every man into whose mouth they
put the language of piety as either a rogue or a fool,
most commonly a rogue-a very unsound but not unnatural conclusion on their part; for prejudices resemble the fogs that turn the bright sun into a dull,
copper ball, and a bad heart is like the jaundice that
sees its own dingy yellow in the purest lily. I conclude, therefore, however fair the whited sepulchre
looked, that in his heart at least this Pharisee was,
what he took other men to be-an extortioner, unjust, and an adulterer. He had no right to put on
such airs, or, as his eye fell on him, to make a footstool of the publican to stand higher before Godsaying by way of climax, "nor as this publican."
In this proud, arrogant man we see the spirit of
self-righteousness fully developed.  Although they
may not come out so prominently, the elements of his
character are in all who trust in themselves for salvation. May God enlighten our eyes, show us ourselves! For who knows himself, knowing much more
ill of himself than he can of any one else, will in12*





138


THE PARABLES.


dulge in no such proud, and self-complacent and odious
comparisons-his prayer will be that of David, Enter
not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight
shall no man living be justified-his language that of
Job, I abhor myself-his confession, Ezra's, 0 my
God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to
thee, my God-and glad to enter heaven at the back
of Manasseh, or the woman that was a sinner, or the
thief of the cross, he will leave the Pharisee to place
himself beside the publican, and catch from his lips
the heartfelt prayer, God be merciful to me a sinner I
THE PUBLICAN.
The white trimmings on a coffin catch the eye; and
pure as it seems when, falling softly, it lies level on
the fields, or the sport of wintry winds, has been
tossed into fantastic wreaths, snow never looks so
white as in the church-yard-beside the black mould
and gaping mouth of a new-dug grave.     Studying
effect, the painter and orator make use of such strong
contrasts: and no doubt it was for this purpose that
the Pharisee dragged the publican into his prayer,
using him as a foil to set off himself-a dark and
sombre background to present his merits in a more
striking light. In this, " He made a pit and digged
it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made." The
Pharisee becomes a background to set off the publican;
and never did humility appear more beautiful in the
eyes of God and man than here, where it stands contrasted with the empty vanity and haughty arrogance
of this inflated Pharisee. In illustration of this, observe





M___    ___________ m m__










THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.


139


THE MANNER OF HIS PRAYER.
He stood afar off.-Both prayed standing, teaching
us that that attitude, which was the one commonly assumed by the Jews in the temple, is one which we may
use with propriety in public worship. It is equally
with kneeling an attitude of worship-though the latter
may be more suitable for prayer where the congregation stand up to sing. There is propriety, but there
can be no devotion in an attitude. Man looketh on the
outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart;
and the only rule applicable to such matters as are
not the weighty matters of the law, is to assume
the attitude which rather aids than hinders devotion,
and avoid that, which, acting through the senses, disturbs the mind. That posture is the best which least
distracts attention by a feeling of bodily weariness, or
otherwise drags our thoughts downward-hanging like
a dead weight on the wings of prayer.
But while both stood, the publican stood afar off, as
one who felt himself unworthy to enter the house of
God-as a beggar with the mud of the road on his
shoes and the rags of poverty on his back might hang
about the door of a lordly hall, and, oppressed with a
sense of his meanness, modestly decline the invitation
to enter. Men often, very often, speak more eloquently
by acts than words; and in the arrestment of his steps,
in the reverential distance at which he stands, the poor
publican seems to say, I am less than the least of all
thy mercies. Blessed are the poor in spirit! It is to
him and all such as come modestly in to seat them




140


THE PARABLES.


selves down, if I may say so, at the lower end of the
table, that the Lord, who has his eye on them, will
send the message, " Come ye up hither!"-for, while
every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted.
e-.would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.
-The Pharisee looked boldly up. Why not?   There
was nothing in heaven's cloudless azure purer than
himself. No doubt the angels veil their faces with
their wings; but there is no brightness in God's glory,
sunlike, to dazzle him-nor awfulness in God's holiness to daunt him. Standing to God in the relation
of a creditor rather than a debtor, why should he be
ashamed to look him in the face? Fasting twice a
week, and paying tithes of all that he possessed, he
has not overdrawn but overpaid his accounts-doing
more than the law required. Turn now to the publican,
and what a contrast! There, like one caught in some
act which overwhelms with a sense of shame, and
covers the cheek with burning blushes, he stands with
his head bent and his eyes cast on the ground. Selfaccused, self-abased, and self-condemned, he shrinks
within himself, and wonders perhaps that the very
earth does not open its mouth to swallow him up. He
does not dare to look up. But though his eyes are
not lifted to heaven, his heart is; and, while he seems
ready to sink to the ground, his soul is soaring aloft
on the wings of prayer, upward to the heaven of
heavens.
He smote upon his breast.-The hands of the Pharisee are stretched to heaven to receive the reward he





THE PHAIISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.


141


expects at God's. There he stands, proud as the victor
who, covered with the blood of a hundred battles and
the laurels of a hundred victories, only bends his head
to receive the crown from a king whose throne and
whose country his valor has defended.; and from whose
hands he accepts the proudest honor, not so much as a
matter of grace as of right. The hands of the publican are otherwise employed-he smote upon his
breast. By this action, or by smiting on the thigh,
the impassioned natives of the East expressed the
deepest sorrow. But these sounding blows expressed
more than sorrow. They said, as they fell thick and
heavy on his bosom, Here lies the root of all my sins
-0, this' hard, foul, wicked heart!-My life has been
bad, but it has been worse-here lies the inner spring
of all these polluted streams! These blows were inarticulate prayers.  They sounded forth to God's ear
such wishes as these: " Create in me a clean heart
and renew a right spirit within me."  It had surely
been done; for it was from the bosom which he smote
that there went up to heaven, like an arrow from the
bow-string, this brief, but blessed believing prayer:
GOD BE MERCIFUL TO ME A SINNER.
Earnestness does not express itself in long, inflated,
pompous sentences.  It is brief; it is simple. The
moment has arrived when victory, long doubtful as the
tide of success ebbed and flowed, may be won by one
splendid, dashing, daring attack-the order is given in
one brief word, Charge! On the distant waves a flag
is seen now sinking in the trough and again rising on





142


THE PARABLES.


the crest of the foaming billows; and beneath that
signal, clinging to the fragment of a vessel that lies
many fathoms down in the depths of ocean, are two
human forms-and all the cry that sounds from stem to
stern is, A wreck, a wreck! and all the order, Lower
the boat!-words hardly uttered when she drops on the
water, and, pulled by stout rowers, is leaping over the
waves to the rescue. One late in the deserted streets
sees the smoke creep, and the flames begin to flash and
flicker from a house whose tenants are buried in sleep;
he bounds to the door and thunders on it-all his cry,
Fire, Fire! Peter sinks amid the boisterous waves of
Galilee and all the prayer of lips the cold water kisses
is, as he stretches out his hand to Jesus, Save me, I
perish! And with the brief, urgent, earnestness of one
who seeing his danger, knows that there is no time,
and believing in God's great mercy, feels that there is
no need for long prayers, the publican, like a man who
in falling over a crag catches the arm of a friendly
tree, throws his whole soul into this cry, these few,
blessed, accepted words, " God be merciful to me, a
sinner!"
Both have prayed, and our Lord tells us the result.
Insulting to God and man, the prayer of the Pharisee,
like a stone cast at heaven, falls back and returns to
break his own head-while the Publican's ascends like
the cloud of incense that floated away fragrant and
heavenward from the morning or evening sacrifice.
Perfumed with a Saviour's merits, it is accepted as a
sweet-smelling savor, and sins confessed are sins forgiven. Not that his confession and sorrow were the





TIHE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAK.


143


price of pardon; but that, feeling undone and lost, he
cast himself on divine mercy, and so became a partaker of the righteousness which Jesus Christ has provided for the chief of sinners.
Thus he went down to his house "justified;" and so
may we all-with a pardon in our bosoms and the
peace of God in our hearts. Ah, that were the happiest home-going we ever made-sufficient to turn the
barest hovel into a palace, and impart to the humblest
fare more enjoyment than sumptuous banquets afford.
Light is the step of one before whom the prison gates
roll open, leaving him to walk forth to life and liberty.
The sun never shone so bright, the flowers by the wayside never looked so beautiful, the birds in sky and
merry woodland never sang so sweet, nor did love to
everything ever glow and burn so in his bosom, as now,
when taking an everlasting leave of strong jail and
gloomy cell, he hastens home to embrace his wife and
little ones-goes down to his house a free, pardoned,
happy, blessed, man. Yet lighter his steps, and happier his heart, who, accepting Christ in God's house,
goes down justified to his own.  And what should
hinder us? We have only to throw away all confidence
in ourselves; and with confidence throw ourselves at
Jesus's feet, or rather into his open arms, on his loving bosom-on which, when the work of our sanctification is completed, we shall be borne up to another
and a better house, there to be crowned with everlasting glory and dwell forever with the Lord.  Thus,
while casting the proud down into hell God abases
them, he will exalt the humble-them, and them only.





144


THE PARABLES.


He dwelleth with such as are of an humble and contrite
spirit; and they only with whom he dwells on earth,
shall dwell with him in heaven.
I cannot close these observations without remarking
that the Pharisees, of whom the man before us is a
specimen, have furnished the world with a term wherewith to reproach those whose religion is less loose than
its own. Such as are for living a strict and pure and
holy life, who, believing that no man on his death-bed
ever found that he had given too much time to God
and Christ, the interest of his soul, and that eternal
world on whose verge he stands, wish the Sabbath day
to be spent in the public or private exercises of God's
worship, such as seek to remove all temptations to
spend it otherwise-whether in the form of theatres,
or museums, public-gardens or public-houses, such men
are opprobriously called Pharisees. Now, not to say
that it is a bad cause which needs toebe supported by
calling bad names, this application of the term betrays,
as I undertake and proceed to show, the grossest ignorance.
The Pharisees cared nothing for the poor. Does
this character apply most to those who are called
Pharisees, or to those who call them so? Which of
these two classes are most frequently found imparting
both material and spiritual comforts to the desolate
abodes of poverty, I would leave the poor to say. It
is no breach of charity to fancy them turning from
those called Pharisees to such as call them so, to say,
' Jesus we know, and Paul we know-these others we
know-but who are ye?"





TIHE PHARISEE A.ND THE PUBLICAN.


145


Again, the Pharisees, devouring widows' houses,
made religion a mere pretense to promote their own
secular and selfish ends. Now let impartial history
say, whether in the dark days of trial, in times that
demanded a noble self-denial, those called Pharisees,
or those calling them so, have been the most ready to
sacrifice their interests to their religion, their place to
their principles, and leave father and mother, wife and
children, houses and lands, to take up their cross and
follow Christ.
Again, the Pharisees were sensual and self-indulgent.
"They bound," said our Lord, "heavy burdens, and
laid them on men's shoulders, but they themselves
would not move them with one of their fingers." And
do those whom the world calls Pharisees ask others to
make efforts on behalf of humanity or of religion,
while they themselves make none?      Are theirs the
names you miss in the lists of public charities? Do
they bear the least part of such burdens? I venture to
affirm  the contrary: and that, were their support
withdrawn, many of our philanthropic and religious
schemes would tumble into ruins, like an arch deprived of its piers.
Again, the Pharisees were men of low morale; and
therefore our Lord said, "Except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees,
ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."
Now are those whom the world reproaches as such,
less laoral than those who reproach them? As a class,
do their greater sins distinguish them from others as
much as their greater professions? In the upper ranks
13





146


THE PARAB3LES.


of society, are impurity and loose morals more characteristic of those who keep the Lord's day sacred,
than of those who make it one of business or of pleasure? and among the lower classes, is it those who
resort to the church or to the public house on the Sabbath, who supply most work to the police and the
greatest number of tenants to the prison?
Again, the Pharisees persecuted piety, and hating
Jesus because he was holier than they, called him bad
names, imputed to him bad motives, and held him up
to public scorn-charging him with crimes which his
soul abhorred, and of which he was innocent as the
babe unborn. Now are those whom the world calls
Pharisees, haters of serious and pure religion?  Is it
their pens and tongues which are dipped in poison, and
employed to wound Christ in his members? Are they
the successors of the men who, hating religion in their
hearts and feeling that Christ's holy and unselfish life
condemned theirs, crowned his forehead with thorns,
and cried, Away with him to the cross?
Again, the Pharisees were a self-righteous class.
They trusted to their own works for salvation, and
were, however little occasion they had to be so, remarkably well pleased with themselves.   Puffed up
with vanity, they thanked God that they were not as
others who might need a Saviour-they did not. But
whoever found these to be the features of such as the
world calls Pharisees?  On the contrary, is not Jesus
Christ and him crucified the very centre of their religion-the sun of their sky-the foundation of their
most precious hopes?  Disclaiming all self-confidence





14f


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.


and merit in their own works, may not their creed be
summed up in the words of him who raised himself on
his dying bed to exclaim with life's latest breath, None
but Christ, none but Christ! Let the world call white
black, or light darkness, or sweet bitter, but not such
men Pharisees. The north and south poles are not
farther asunder.
Inapplicable as is such an epithet to devout Christians, let them beware how they furnish any, the least
occasion for others using it by any inconsistency between their profession and their practice-by magnifying little things and overlooking the weightier matters of the law-by straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel. Never overlook the difference between
what is vital in divine truth and what is indifferent in
human forms. Never mistake the dead robes for the
living body of religion. Never forget that "to do
justly and love mercy and walk humbly before God,"
is what the Lord requires of thee; that faith without
works is dead; that form without spirit is dead; and
that, the highest piety being ever associated with the
deepest humility, true religion is like that sweetest of
all singing-birds, the skylark, which with the lowest
nest but highest wing dwells on the ground, and yet
soars to the skies.










VII.


^Zf oTM,~ ff f|' p11y rfwTR,
Matthew xiii. 44.
ONE of the most beautiful legends of old times is
that of the Golden Age. As sung by the heathen
poets, this once was a happy world; its earliest periods
being like the bright dawn of a dark and cloudy day;
cheerful and happy, as the infancy of a life which
afterwards grows beset with troubles and stained by
crime. In these days, envy and strife and war were
unknown; the habits of men were simple, their wants
were few, their lives were virtuous: no slaves toiled in
chains, nor captives pined in dungeons, nor bloody tyrants reigned on thrones; plenty filled every cup to
the brim, and peace, unbroken by the strife of tongues
or clash of arms, brooded on every shore. In contrast
with those which followed them and went by the name
of the Iron, these happy times were called the Golden
Age. No poet's dream, this, like many other legends
preserved in ancient song, is a fragment of true history, and one in which it is not difficult to recognize a
tradition of Eden, and of man's early innocencechanged, no doubt, from its original form, as like a
13*                              (149)





150


THE PAEABLES.


stone in the bed of a river, it has come rolling down
the long and turbulent stream of time.
Literally, as well as figuratively, the earliest periods of the world were the Golden Age: for the discoveries of archmologists show that man's acquaintance
with the metals began with gold and silver. Long ere
he had forged iron into sword or plowshare, sheathed
his ships with copper, covered his bull's-hide shield
with brass, or cast lead either into pipes to convey
water or into bullets to carry death, with no palace
other than a hut, and no throne other than a stone,
kings wore crowns of gold; while women, attired in
wolf's skin, danced on the green with golden ornaments tinkling on their naked ankles. It was so in
this island among the brave and hardy savages from
whom we trace our descent. It was much more so in
sunnier and richer lands. At the invasion of Peru, for
instance, Pizarro and his Spaniards found the interior
of the king's palaces adorned with the finest and most
costly materials; the sides of the apartments were
studded with gold and silver ornaments; their niches
were filled with images of plants and animals made of
the same precious metals; and even much of the domestic furniture displayed the like wanton magnificence.
The Temple of the Sun shone with something of his
own dazzling splendor. Every part of its interior was
richly ornamented: on the eastern wall, and so situated
that at his rising the rays of the sun struck directly on
it, was a figure of their god, engraved on a golden plate
of massive dimensions, and studded all over with emeralds and precious stones; nor was there in that vast





THE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


151


and splendid edifice any utensil whatever that was not
made of gold or silver. Besides this, there were a hundred inferior temples in the Holy City, and many in
the provinces, that almost rivaled in magnificence that
of the metropolis. Historians also mention, that even
the pipes which conveyed, and the fountains that contained, water in the garden of the summer palace of the
Incas were of silver; and that one ornament of this
fairy-like retreat consisted in full-sized imitations of
foreign plants, with stalks of silver, and leaves of gold.
Where are these treasures now-the gold and silver
of the world's departed empires, of such kings as Soloz
mon, the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Caesars of Rome, the
mighty satraps and sultans of the East? They have
vanished, not perished; for, while silver resists the
influences that tarnish the baser metals, gold is absolutely indestructible-resisting the action of fire itself.
Expose water to fire, and it dissolves in vapor; wood,
and it vanishes in smoke and flame, leaving but gray
ashes behind; iron, and it is converted into rust:-but
fire may play on gold for a thousand years without
depriving it of a degree of its lustre or an atom of its
weight. Beautiful emblem of the saints of God, gold
cannot perish-their trials, like the action of fire on
this precious metal, but purifying what they cannot
destroy.
The disappearance of the old world's treasures finds
its explanation in the custom to which the man of this
parable owed his fortune. In ancient times there was
little trade in which men could embark, and there were
no banks in which they could lodge their money.





152


THE PARABLES.


And as secrecy offered them the best, if not only,
security, it was common for people, while reserving a
portion for ordinary use, to hide their gold and silver
in the ground; and it often happened, through sudden
death or otherwise, that the treasure was left there,
their secret being buried with them. Besides this, old
times were unsettled. A country was suddenly invaded,--to preserve their valuables from the hand of the
spoiler, the inhabitants buried them in the. earth: falling in battle or dying in exile, they never returned to
claim them; and thus the earth became a bank in
Oyhich was accumulated during the course of ages, a
vast amount of unclaimed deposits. Even in our country, though scantily supplied with the precious metals,
the spade that digs the railway, the plow that breaks
up some waste moorland, is ever and anon bringing
)ld coins to light, or still older ornaments of gold and
silver. And, since the lands of the Bible were much
richer than ours, and had accumulated vast stores of
wealth at a period when our forefathers were naked
savages, nothing was more likely to happen in these
countries than the circumstance which forms the
groundwork of this parable.
A peasant goes out to plow. The ground has lain
undisturbed, perhaps for centuries; or, in order to
recruit an exhausted soil with virgin earth, he sends
his share deep into its bosom. Suddenly, as he whistles carelessly behind his oxen, he is startled by the ring
of metal; and on turning his head, how he stares to
see the black furrow yellow with scattered gold, and
sparkling in the sun with jewels! The plow is aban.





A










THE - rAIABLE OF THE IIID TREASURE.


153


doned; he drops on his knees;-happy man! he has
lighted on an old hid treasure, and has a fortune within
his grasp. Restoring the treasure to its place, he conceals with care all traces of the discovery, and, masking his joy under an air of indifference, hastens homeward. To the amazement of his neighbors, who pity
him as moonstruck or mad, he sells his house, his furniture, his bed, and pulling the beds out from beneath
his sleeping children, sells them-parting with all he
has in the world. He is not mad, though men think
so-not he. He knows what he is about. Making
what others reckon a bad bargain, he purchases the
field in question: and ere the villagers have recovered
from their surprise, their astonishment at his folly
changes to envy of his fortune. Possessor of an enormous treasure, he has exchanged a hard, humble, toiling life for the respect and ease, the comforts and luxuries, which are the eager desire of all and the happy
lot of few.
Such is the incident which forms the groundwork of
a parable where
THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL ARE COMPARED TO A
TREASURE.
In a world which looks down on poverty, where beggars are counted offscourings, and the respect is often
paid to wealth that is due only to worth, a considerable
fortune will secure its possessor from contempt, and a
splendid one secure his introduction to the proudest
circles of the land. Yet how much higher are the rewards which the treasures of the Gospel secure to him





154


THE PARABLES.


who, though poor in this world's goods, is rich in faith?
Lifting " the poor from the dust, and the needy from
the dunghill to set him with princes," they introduce
him to the presence of the Divine Majesty and the
palace of the Great King-to the society of angels and
the communion of saints-to the general assembly of
those high-born and first-born, compared with whom in
point of worth, or dignity, or lofty and enduring glory,
your kings are but worms of the dust.
Again, if wealthy, you may reside in a splendid man-;ion, but it is to leave it one day for the narrow house;
you may pamper the body with the costliest luxuries,
but you are fattening it for worms; nor can the flashing blaze of a thousand diamonds blind our eyes to the
melancholy fact that this gay, beautiful, charming form
shall, stripped of all that bravery, be wrapped in a
shroud, nailed up in a coffin, and thrust down into a
black hole to rot. But give me the treasures of redemption, my food is manna, and my wine is love; my
sweet pillow the bosom of the Son and my strong
defence the arm of Almighty God; my home that
palace, eternal in the heavens, where angels' harps
supply the music, and woven of Jesus' righteousness
the robes are fairer than angels wear. Again, the
bankrupt who succeeds to a fortune is placed in circumstances to pay his debts. Is there a stain on his
honor, he wipes it out; if none, he relieves himself of
a load which lies heavy on the heart of an honorable
man. Henceforth he neither fears to examine his
accounts nor look all men in the face: and on the day
when he summons his creditors to pay his debts in full,





THE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


155


he is esteemed a happy, applauded and feted as an honorable, man. But possessed of the treasures of the
gospel, I pay debts whose sum no figures can express,
nor long ages in Hell atone for; with Jesus' infinite
merits I pay God all his claims; and obtaining a full
discharge from the hands of Eternal Justice in the
High Court of Heaven, I lift up my head, not only
before men but before angels; not only in the presence of holy angels but of a holy God; and locking
round on conscience and the Law, on Death and the
Devil, challenge them all, saying, ' It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?"
A treasure! So men speak of the child who, like
a beautiful flower with a worm at its root, may droop
and die;-of fame won on a stage, where the spectators
who applaud to-night may hiss to-morrow; of riches
that, like scared wild fowl on the reedy margin of a
lake, take to themselves wings and fly away. But
how much worthier of the name the Friend who never
leaves us; health that sickens not, and life that dies
not; love that never cools, and glory that never fades;
a peace that troubles may disturb but do not destroybeing to it but the raging tempest that shakes the
arms of a tree which it cannot uproot; the swelling,
foaming, angry billows that toss the bark which, securely anchored, they cannot part from its moorings
nor dash on the surf-beaten shore
The unspeakable value of those blessings of divine
mercy, pardon, peace, and grace represented by this
treasure may be tested in a simple way. In London,
within whose heart there is gold in more senses of the





156


THE PAAABTLES.


expression than one, stands a building with armed sentinels by its door, and at its table directors with the
fate of empires, with war or peace, want or plenty, in
their hands. Entering by the guarded portal, and
passing through the bustle of a crowded hall where
Mammon sits enthroned, and gold coins are tossed
about like pebbles, and silver, as in the days of Solomon, seems nothing accounted of, you descend, by
strongly protected passages, to a room whose walls,
divided into compartments, are formed of massive iron.
Around you there are heaped, pile on pile, not thousands, but millions of money-the wealth of a great
nation-the price of crowns and kingdoms. You are
in the strong room of the Bank of England, one of the
wonders of the world. Now, from his loom where the
shuttle flies from early morn into the night, take a
poor, pale-faced, but pious weaver;-from  the dark
mine, where any moment he may be drowned by water,
blasted by fire, suffocated in the choke-damp, or buried
beneath falling rocks in the bowels of the earth, take
a poor begrimed, but pious pitman-and placing either
in that room, offer him all its treasures on condition
that he parts with that in his bosom! He would spurn
the glittering bribe, saying as he returned to bless God
for his brown bread and lowly home, " Get thee behind
me, Satan;" or, "Thy money perish with      thee!"
With this blood-bought treasure he will rather die than
part, saying, "It cannot be gotten for gold, neither
shall silver be weighed for the price thereof; the gold
and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it
shall not be for jewels of pure gold; no mention shall





THE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


157


be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of it is
above rubies."
THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL ARE COMIPARED TO A
HID TREASURE.
The discovery of gold some years ago in our most
distant colony agitated the whole kingdom; and as the
news spread, thousands, breaking the ties which bound
them to home, hurried away to the seaports, where
crowded ships bore off the adventurers-all eagerly
striving under press of sail which should first touch the
happy strand. The voyage ended, our countrymen
threw themselves on the gold fields; and soon the
lonely dells of Australia, with emigrants from all lands,
rang with the sounds of labor and a Babel of tongues.
Yet long years before its treasurees were brought to
light, shepherds had left our hills to herd the flock on
Australia's boundless pastures: the hut of the squatter
had encroached on the hunting-grounds, and his axe
had sounded in the forests of the wondering savage;
and there, earning only a bare subsistence, far removed
from the homes and friends of their love, without hope
of improving their condition or returning with a.fortune,
many had pined and drooped-like a flower removed
from its native to an uncongenial soil. Yet all the
while a fortune lay hid beneath the exile's feet; the
roots of the tree under whose shadow he reclined,
recalling scenes and friends far away, were matting
rocks of gold; and from the bed of the stream where
he quenched his thirst, thousands, with thirst for gold
burning as his, came afterwards to draw splendid for14





158


THE PARABLES.


tunes,-vaulting at once from abject poverty to the
heights of affluence. He lived poor in the midst of
riches; and daily walking above wealth that had made
him independent of labor, he sank, exhausted by toil
and care and sad regrets, into an early and lonely
grave. Such fate befell many a one, with gold enough
in the stones that formed his rude hearth, or in the
rock against which his log-hut stood, to surround him
with the splendors of a brilliant fortune.
Now that poor man, with his ragged tent pitched on
a gold field, but ignorant of the treasure which he
might have possessed and enjoyed, is the type and
image of thousands. The treasures of the Gospel, they,
as he had those of gold, have and yet have not. They
are hid from them. Their minds, as Paul says, are
blinded-" The God of this World lhath blinded the
minds of them which believe not."-" The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned."  Were God to
make these treasures as plain to men as the plowshare
did this to the peasant's wondering, rejoicing, sparkling eyes, they would leave the house of God for their
homes happier far than he. What is gold to these?
Within the two boards of the poor man's Bible is a
greater wealth of happiness, of honor, of pleasure, of
true peace, than Australia hides in the gold of all her
mines. That, for example, could not buy the pardon
of any of the thousand criminals whom a country,
weary of their crimes, once cast on her distant shores;
but here is what satisfies a justice stricter than man's,





THE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


159


and procures the forgiveness of sins which the stoutest
heart may tremble to think of. Again, the wealth of
the most successful adventurer cannot conceal the
meanness of his birth, give polish to his manners, or
raise him to a level with an ancient and jealous nobility:
it alters the condition, but not the character of the
man; and associated with ignorance, meanness, vulgarity, is, to use the figure of the wise man, only as
" a jewel in a swine's snout."  But, accompanied with
the blessing from on high and received into the heart
by faith, the Gospel alters both our character and condition-making the rude gentle, the coarse refined, the
impure holy, the selfish generous-working a greater
transformation than if a felon of the prison were to
change into a courtier of the palace, or the once ragged
boy who had been educated to crime on the streets
were to wear a star on his manly breast and stand in
the brilliant circle that surrounds a throne. In the
blood of Christ to wash out sin's darkest stains, in the
grace of God to purify the foulest heart, in peace to
calm life's roughest storms, in hopes to cheer guilt's
darkest hour, in a courage that defies death and descends calmly into the tomb, in that which makes the
poorest rich and without which the richest are poor
indeed, the Gospel
-  has treasures greater far
Than cast or west unfold,
And its rewards more precious are
Than all their stores of gold.





160


THE PARABLES.


THE TREASURE WA S FOUND WITHOUT BEING SOUGHT.
Each spring which by the voices of birds breaking
the long winter silence, reminds us that other voices,
now mute, shall wake again, and by the flowers on the
green sod above our dead, reminds us that they also
shall rise again-beautiful from dust, immortal from
the bed of mortality, is emblematical of conversion as
well as of resurrection. It is Christ's own voice speaking through the Spirit to souls for love of whom he
left the skies, which I recognize in this beautiful and
tender address, " Rise up, my love, my fair one, and
come away. For, lo, the winter is past; the rain is
over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the
time of the singing of birds is come; the voice of the
turtle is heard in the land; the fig-tree putteth forth
her green figs: and the vines with the tender grape
give a smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come
away." In new life, life as from the dead, in songs of
love, smiling skies and balmy air, budding woods and
fields which hold the seeds of future, golden, bountiful
harvests, the spring is an emblem worthy of conversion-the fitting dress of so great an event.
Besides, both in trees and flowers the spring presents
remarkable illustrations of that variety with which
God is pleased to work in saving souls, and turning
sinners from the error of their ways. All his people
are converted; must be so-for our Lord says, "1Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom
of God."  But all are not converted in the selfsame
manner; and there are in grace, as in nature, to use





THE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


161


Paul's words, " diversities of operations, but it is the
same God which worketh all in all." For example,
the leaves of roses, of tulips, and of our orchard fruittrees appear first-preparing the way for flowers still
in the bud. In other cases this order is reversed. In
the catkins of the hoary willow hung on naked stems,
in the gold and silver cups of the crocus, whether they
spring from the grass of Alpine meadows or edge our
parterres with a beautiful border, the flowers precede
the leaves-these plants, like a day unheralded by a
dawn, burst into blossom without any apparent preparation. Even so, while some after a long search for
true happiness and their souls' good, in fulfillment of
the promise, "seek and ye shall find," get in Jesus
Christ the treasure of this parable and the pearl of the
next, others find a Saviour without seeking him. They
burst at once into a state of grace; and without seeking, or so much as thinking of it, they stumble on salvation, if I may say so, as this man on the treasure
hid in the field. They are converted, and it is a great
surprise to them-what neither they nor any one else
expected.
Ambitious of riches and yet averse to work, men
have resorted to necromancy to discover hidden treasures, digging for them in fields and amid hoary ruins.
The man whose good-fortune is recorded here was
otherwise employed. Bred up in poverty, and satisfied
with his lot-the robust health of out-door occupation,
an appetite that gave zest to the plainest fare, the
lively prattle of his children when he came home at
even, he thought no more of riches than some of con14*





162


THE PARABLES:


version, who, suddenly changed, rise in the morning in
a state of nature and close the day in a state of grace.
His good-fortune, if I may say so, was an accidentthe merest accident; and thereby distinguished from
the case of him who found the pearl of great price.
He, a merchant seeking goodly pearls, found what he
sought; but this man what he was not seeking, nor
even so much as thinking of.
Equally different are the cases of those whom a God,
sovereign in working as he is great in mercy, converts
to a saving knowledge of the truth. For example,
Nicodemus, who repaired to Christ under the cloud of
night, was one seeking goodly pearls; so also was the
centurion, who 1" was a just man and one that feared
God," and to whom Peter was sent with the tidings of
a Saviour; and so in some sense also was that unhappy youth who with more courage than Nicodemus
came in open day, and pushing his way through the
crowd, thus accosted our Lord, " Good master, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life?"-only when Jesus
told him to sell all, give the price to the poor, and
follow him, he judged the terms too hard, the cost too
great. Like many others he sought the pearl but disliked the price. On the other hand, showing that
God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and
that salvation is of grace and not of merit, he sometimes
bestows it where it has never been sought; and a
change comes as unlooked for as in the case of Saul,
the son of Kish-leaving home to seek his father's
asses he found a crown on the road, and he who went
out a commoner came back a king. Look, for instance,





TIHE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


163


at the case of Zaccheus! Curiosity to see Jesus
draws him from the receipt of custom; and leaving his
books and money bags-for he was rich, he throws
himself into the crowd. In vain the little publican
stands on tip-toe. He can see nothing. Leaving the
throng behind, he hies away; and climbing a friendly
sycamore that threw its branches over the road, he
perches himself on a bough, proud of his ingenuity and
congratulating himself on the excellent view he will
command as Jesus passes-borne along on the crest of
popular favor. His curiosity once gratified, he has no
purpose other than of returning to his old habits and
resuming the pursuit of gain. What he sought he
found; but more, in that, besides a sight of the Saviour, he obtained a hold of salvation. Jesus, as he
passed by, looked up, and calling him down, invited
himself to his house; and ere nightfall there was a
greater transformation wrought on that poor worldling
than appears in the insect which lies coffined in the
morning within its narrow cell, and ere sunset is roaming on wide-spread wings from flower to flower--its bed
their cups, its food their honied nectar. Another
instance of people obtaining salvation who were not
seeking it, is found in that Samaritan who after long
years of sin, is sitting crowned like a queen in heaven.
With pitcher poised on her head, she leaves her village
to draw water,-having no other purpose than to prepare a meal for her paramour on his return from the
labors of the day. Shading her eyes from the glare
of the sun, she descries a lone traveler resting on
Jacob's well. The man and she meet; they converse;





164


THE PARABLES.


and she who had approached the well with the slow
step and graceful carriage of Eastern women, leaving
both it and her pitcher, hurries back with eager eyes
and flying feet. What has happened?  She has found
her Saviour-found, as she said, "the Christ;" and at
the news the whole village,--mothers with infants at
the breast and old age bending on its staff,-leave
looms silent and streets deserted to see Jesus.
Even so, it may happen that some who repair to the
house of God without any expectation or even wish to
be converted, and with no better purpose than to see
or be seen, may there behold a sight they never expected, and meet one whom they looked not for.
Drawn to the church only by curiosity to hear some
preacher, they may, Zaccheus-like, receive a call from
the preacher's master; and so the scene of an idle
curiosity may be turned into that of a true conversion.
There are some cases in which God has made even the
wrath of man to praise him-those who went to mock
having stayed to pray. Let me give an example. A
stranger to the congregation was one day preaching in
a church in England. He wound up an impressive
sermon by telling them that, some twenty years before,
three bad young men had entered that very house with
the intention of stoning the minister. Something, a
look or word from the preacher, led one of the three
to hesitate. In consequence of this the plot was abandoned: and while his associates who were angry with
him for his pusillanimity left the scene, he lingered
behind from no other motive than curiosity. The
preacher went on to tell how one of the two who left





THE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


165


was, some few years afterwards, guilty of a horrid
murder, and hanged for it; and how the other also for
some other crime ended his life on the gallows. As to
the third who stayed behind, strange to say, he was
converted on that occasion, and afterwards became a
minister of the gospel; and, the preacher added, his
voice trembling the while with ill-suppressed emotion,
He now addresses you in me-a monument of the grace
of God, a brand plucked from the burning. And since,
as that case proves, God's grace is sovereign, and Jesus
is the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, of whom
may we not hope?  The pardon of all our sins through
the blood of the Lamb of God, the sanctifying influences of his Holy Spirit, glory for a crown and heaven
for a home, these, like the treasures which the plowshare brought to light, lie at our feet.  They are
within our reach. And why, if yet poor and miserable, with no better portion than a passing, perishing
world, should not we stoop down to make them our
own; and saved, through God's free grace and sovereign mercy, be of those of whom it is said, "He was
found of them who sought him not"?
THE CONDUCT OF THE FINDER.
He iid tite treasure.-" It is naught, it is naught,
saith the buyer;" and though this man may not have
depreciated the real, he took pains to conceal the accidental value of the field. We are not required to
settle such questions of moral casuistry as the method
he took to possess himself of this treasure may suggest. To the profits of such discoveries as are the





166


THE PARABLES.


fruits of a man's observation or inventive genius, our
law gives him the exclusive right-at least for a term
of years; nor would it regard the profits of this discovery as belonging of right to the proprietor of the
soil. In this country, treasure-trove, as it is called, is
claimed by the crown. But whether this man's conduct was justifiable is not a question we are called to
settle. In hiding the treasure till he had made himself
owner of the field, he took the surest way of making
it his own, and expressed, better than any words could
do, its value in his eyes. Teaching us how to act in those
matters that belong to salvation, he spared no pains,
and lost not an hour, and grudged no sacrifice to possess
himself of this treasure-and, as applied to the infinitely more valuable treasures of the gospel, these are
the points which Jesus proposes for our imitation. By
this parable the Saviour calls men to leave no stone
unturned, no pains untaken, no anxiety unfelt, no
prayer unsaid, no Sabbath nor day unimproved to
make these treasures theirs.    And, 0, how happy
the wretched, how calm the troubled, how cheerful the
sad, how pure the foulest, how rich the poorest, in view
of death how brave the timid, in death itself how tranquil, even triumphant, all might be, if we only felt as
much concern and took as much care to find Christ, as
this man to secure a fleeting treasure.
Unless in the sense of guarding their peace of mind
from being disturbed by temptation, and their purity
from being stained by sin, those who find treasures in
the Gospel, do not hide. them. On the contrary, they
seek to make the great discovery known, and to com-n





THE PARABLE OF THE HID TREASURE.


167


municate its benefits to all. There is no temptation to
do otherwise, to keep it to ourselves, since it has blessings in the pardon and peace of God enough for us
and for all others. It is as if one of a caravan that
had sunk on the burning desert, were, in making a
last effort for life, to discover no muddy pool, but a
vast fountain-cool as the snows that replenished its
spring, and pure as the heavens that were reflected on
its bosom. He revives at the blessed sight, and, pushing on to the margin, stoops to drink; yet ere his
thirst is fully quenched, see how he speeds away to
pluck his friends from the arms of death; and, hark!
how he shouts, making the lone desert ring to the cry,
" Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters."
None ever found Christ but they wished that others also
might find him, were ever saved without a desire to
save springing up in their hearts-theirs the spirit of
Andrew, when he went to his brother Peter, crying,
"We have found the Messias,"-of those who said
" Come thou with us, we will do thee good," "Arise,
for we have seen the land, and behold it is very
good."
HE PARTS WITH ALL FOR THIS TREASURE.
On boating once along a coast where the billows
roared in the deep caves, and broke in sheets of foam
on the face of cliffs that rose hundreds of feet sheer up
from the sea, we heard the sound of merry voices
mingling with the sea-mew's screams; and on looking
up saw to our surprise a group of urchins standing
with their backs against the rocky wall, and with





168


THE PARABLES.


scant room on its projecting ledges for their naked
feet. One false step, a dizzy moment, and the body,
bounding from ledge to ledge, had sunk like lead into
the deep. Yet these children, poised on the beetling
crag, were light-hearted as any culling the flowers of
the meadow, or sitting by their mother's side on the
hearth of the fisherman's hut. Their safety lay in
this, that they had been reared among such scenes,
and accustomed from early infancy to positions that
would have turned our heads. On the other hand a
sudden elevation is usually followed by a sudden fall;
and such is the danger he is exposed to, who, like th(
man of this parable, is raised by one rapid revolution
of the wheel of fortune from great poverty to great
affluence.  The man gets intoxicated with joy; the
head grows giddy; and falling into habits of boundless
extravagance, or, worse still, into habits of profligacy
and vice, he is ruined-his fortune proving in the end
a great misfortune. So imminent indeed is this danger,
that there is no wise and prudent pious father but
would tremble for his boy, should he, when preparing
himself to fight his way on in life, suddenly succeed to
the possession of a fortune.
In the treasures of gold and silver there lurks great
danger; in those of grace none: nor is there a good
man but would rejoice should his son come, with beaming face, to announce the tidings that he had found a
Saviour; pardon and grace and peace in Jesus Christ.
Unlike common riches, this treasure breeds neither
jealousies nor fears nor envy. No Christian woman
repines that her husband loves Jesus better than her:





T1111,E PAIZALELLF, OF THlE 1HD TREA5HP


169


no godly mother, however she may feel the pang of
parting, but approves the son who, burning with love
to souls, tears himself from her arms to plant the cross
on heathen shores. Your families of noble blood or
ancient pedigree eye him with jealousy who, emerging
from the obscurity of humble life, rises with his plebeian
blood to a position lofty as their own. But next to the
joy of possessing the treasures and honors of the Gospel is that of seeing poor sinners made heirs of the
grace of God, and heaven's highest titles bestowed on
those that were the vilest of mankind. The greater
the number who get this treasure, the greater the joy
of those who already have it. And how great and deep
that joy, is set forth in the conduct of this man-he
parted with all he had to possess the treasure. What
he paid indeed was not the value of it; and certainly
this parable was not told to teach us that when the
haughty part with their pride, and drunkards with
their cup, the licentious with their vices, the gay with
their vanities, the avaricious with the love of money,
others with their darling sins, they thereby purchase
salvation. Assuredly not. Salvation is all of grace.
Yet these things are required.-" Let him that nameth
the name of Christ depart from all iniquity."-" Whosoever would be my disciple, let him take up his cross,
deny himself daily and follow me."   "Ye cannot,"
says our Lord, "serve God and Mammon."      Shrink
not from the pain these sacrifices must cost. It is not
so great as many fancy. The joy of the Lord is his
people's strength.  Love has so swallowed up all
sense of pain, and sorrow been so lost in ravishment,
15





170


THE PARABLES.


that men of old took joyfully the spoiling of their
goods, and martyrs went to the burning stake with
beaming countenances, and sang high death-songs amid
the roaring flames. Let us by faith rise above the world,
and it will shrink into littleness and insignificance compared with Christ.  Some while ago two aeronauts,
hanging in mid-air, looked down on the earth from
their balloon, and wondered to see how small great
things had grown-ample fields were contracted into
little patches-the lake was no bigger than a lookingglass-the broad river with ships floating on its bosom,
seemed like a silver snake-the wide-spread city was
reduced to the dimensions of a village-the long,
rapid, flying train appeared but a black caterpillar
slowly creeping over the surface of the ground. And
such changes the world undergoes to the eyes of him
who, rising to hold communion with God and anticipating the joys of heaven, lives above it and looks beyond it. This makes it easy and even joyful to part
with all for Christ-this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith.





VIII.


Up^ VrlttA   ff ft(kV |vld di 6nat vn^.
Matthew xiii. 45, 46.
THE costliest jewel mentioned by ancient writers is
a pearl which belonged to Cleopatra, the beautiful but
infamous queen of Egypt; and the strongest proof
which Roman historians have to give of the wanton
and boundless extravagance of some of their emperors
is the fact that they dissolved pearls in vinegar, and
drank them with their wine. In harmony with these
passages of profane history, this and other parts of
sacred Scripture prove that among jewels the highest
place in former times was assigned to pearls. When
our Lord, for example, warned his disciples to beware
how they wasted truths of the highest value on such as
could not appreciate them, he selects these as their
emblem, saying, " Give not that which is holy unto
dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine." Such
place also pearls hold in the attire of the woman whom
John names " Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother
of harlots and abominations of the earth,: who was
drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus."  In a picture, so graphic as
(1n1)





172


THE PARABLES.


to remind us of the memorable words of Lord Baconwho said that, if the descriptions of Antichrist were
extracted from Scripture and put into the Hue and Cry,
there was not a constable in all England but would
apprehend the Pope,-John describes the dress as well
as the deeds of this bloody persecutor. She was arrayed, he says, "in purple and scarlet color, and
decked with gold and precious stones and pearls;" and
here, be it observed, while other gems, however beautiful and costly,-the flashing diamond, and burning
ruby, and purple amethyst, and sea-green emerald, and
sapphire with hues borrowed from the sky,-are only
mentioned under the general term of precious stones,
pearls, as more valuable than these, are distinctly
named. From all which we are warranted to conclude
that when our Lord compared " the kingdom of heaven," the blessings, in other words, of redeeming love,
to "one pearl of great price," he intended to set them
forth as of pre-eminent value; as in fact, amid a thousand things desirable, the one thing needful.
But, besides its money value, a pearl such as this
presented a remarkable as well as beautiful emblem of
salvation in other aspects-in, for instance, a color of
snowy whiteness, a purity unclouded by the slightest
haze, and a form so round and polished and perfect
that it was impossible to improve it. The lapidary, to
whose grinding skill the very diamond owes much of
its brilliancy and those many-colored fires with which
it shines and burns, may not touch a pearl. His art
cannot add to its beauty-the polish of its snowy surface, or the perfection of its rounded form. And what





THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


173


an emblem, therefore, is this gem of that salvation
which came perfect from the hand of God--of that
righteousness of Jesus Christ which, as no guilt of
ours can stain, no works of ours can improve-of that
Gospel which, as revealed in the Bible, is without defect of truth or admixture of error, and which the
last of the inspired writers therefore closes with this
solemn warning: "If any man shall add unto these
things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are
written in this book: and if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God
shall take away his part out of the book of life, and
out of the holy city."
Nor does this pearl present an emblem of salvation
in respect only of its incalculable price and intrinsic
characters. In the hazards and sacrifices at which
both were obtained, we discern, however faintly, another point of resemblance. Other gems, the diamond
and ruby and emerald and sapphire, lie bedded in
river-courses, or set in the solid rocks; and there men
seek them without loss of health or risk of life. But
pearls belong to the ocean; they are gems which she
casts not up among the pebbles that strew her beach,
but hides in   her dangerous and darkest depths.
Hence a dreadful trade is the pearl-fisher's. Weighted
with stone to sink him, and inhaling a long, deepdrawn breath, he leaps from the boat's side, and, the
parting waves closing above his head, descends into the
depths of the sea to grope for the shelly spoils amid
the dim light which faintly illuminates her slimy bed;
nor rises, breathless and black in face, to the surface
15*





174


THE PARABLES,


till on-lookers have begun to fear that he will rise no
more. And not unfrequently he never does. These
waters are the haunts of terrible monsters; and,
marked for its prey by the swift and fierce and voracious shark, in vain the wretched man stirs the muddy
bottom to raise a cloud to cover his escape. Some airbells bubbling up, and blood that spreads crimsoning
the surface of the sea, are all that is evermore seen of
one who dies a sacrifice to his hazardous pursuits; and
the story of the dangers which pearl-fishers have always to encounter, and the dreadful deaths they have
often to endure, will recall to a reflective mind the
memory of Him who, in salvation, purchased this
pearl at so great a price-giving his life for ours, and
dying, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us
to God.
Though it belongs to ages long gone by, I may mention another aspect of this emblem that devout men
once considered peculiarly appropriate. Ere the progress of science had robbed this and other things of
their wonders, they saw in the manner in which the
pearl was said to be generated a figure of the mystery
of our Lord's divine descent and miraculous conception. Unlike those which are found in the womb of
the dead earth, this gem is formed within the shell of
a living creature; and in old times it was believed that
when the heavens were in a peculiar state, manifesting
their activity in flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, the future parent of the pearl rose from the bottom to the surface of the sea, and, opening its shelly
mouth, received something of the nature of a dewdrop





THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


175


from the propitious skies. From this germ, with which
the shell-fish descended again into its native depths,
the pearl was believed to be formed; and in this natural mystery and strange birth of the precious gem,
old divines saw an emblem of our Lord's descent into
the dark humiliations of this lower world, the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, and the conception of
the Virgin's womb. The researches of naturalists have
taught us that the pearl has no claim to such a lofty
and heavenly descent. Yet, though science has robbed
that as well as many things else of the dignity which
belongs to the mysterious, and pearls now-a-days have
lost much of their pre-eminent value, neither the discoveries of science, nor the changes of time and
fashion, have abated the value or lessened the wonders
of redeeming love. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever: and salvation, with its blood-bought
and inestimable blessings, will ever remain that " one
pearl of great price" which may be found by all; and
which whosoever finds should sell all he has to buy,saying, with the apostle, " I count all things but loss
that I may win Christ."
In opening up this parable let us consider
THE PERSONS REPRESENTED BY THIS MERCHANT.
Mankind present all shades of color,-from     the
negro, God's image in ebony, as one said, to the fairskinned, blue-eyed, golden-haired types of our Scandinavian ancestors,-all varieties also of disposition,
from the penuriousness of Nabal to the affection embalmed by David in this immortal song: " I am dis




176


THE PARABLES.


tressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant
hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women,"-all degrees also of sense,
from the fool who, untaught by experience, though
pounded in a mortar comes out the same, to those
astute, far-seeing, and long-headed men, whose utterances, like the counsels of Ahitophel, are " as if a
man inquired at the oracle of God,"-and all differences also of outward condition, from Lazarus covered
with sores and clothed in rags nor ever enjoying one
good full meal, upward to him who, clothed in purple
and fine linen, fares sumptuously every day. Yet in
God's sight the whole human family is divisible into
two classes, and only two-the good and bad, the chaff
and wheat, the wheat and tares, the sheep and goats,
the converted and the unconverted-those that, still at
enmity with God, lie under condemnation, and such as,
renewed in the spirit of their minds and reconciled to
Him by the blood of his Son, are in a state of grace.
But, like those great orders of plants or animals
which we meet with in the sciences of botany and
zoology, these two classes are divisible into numerous
subdivisions, differing apparently, though not radically,
so much from each other that some sinners seem to
stand more nearly related to saints than to many of
their own class; just as, for instance, the sponge or
branching coral, fixed to the rocks and belonging to
the animal kingdom, looks more allied to the tangle
that sways than to the fishes that swim in the flowing
tide. Let no man therefore conclude that he must be
converted because there are broad outward marks of





THB PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


177


difference between him and many who certainly are
not. People have gone down to hell, as the Pharisee
did to his house, thanking God that they are not as
others. The difference between them has been more
apparent than real, being no greater than that between
two nights-one where the bark seems to sail in the
moonshine on a silver sea, and the other so pitchy
dark that her outlook can see neither coast nor reef,
though he hears the roar of breakers; or between two
bodies both dead-one still beautiful in death, and the
other a horrid spectacle of loathsome and ghastly decay. In such circumstances how necessary it is to remember our Saviour's warning: " Take heed that ye be
not deceived." What though we are seeking even goodly
pearls, unless we have found the one of great price?
And there are such people. Owing to the influence
of a pious education, or of something naturally elevated and refined in their disposition, or of the society
in which they move, or of some more mysterious
causes, there are people in the world, and of the world
too, who may be said to be seeking goodly pearls.
They cultivate refined enjoyments; they are pursuing
patriotic and philanthropic objects; they are seeking
to be good, and to do good; they feel that man's happiness cannot lie in gratifications which satisfy the
brutes, or in empty gaiety, or in the common prizes of
ambition, or in any amount of money, but in nobler
and godlike pursuits-in purity of heart, peace of conscience, and that happy relationship to God without
which there is no more rest for a human soul than
there was for the wandering dove till, skimming the





178


THE PARABLES.


waters on drooping wing, she returned to her home in
the ark. These are "not far from the kingdom of
heaven; " and were in it, would they take but another
step. Almost Christians, they are almost saved. But
what avails it to have almost made the port? So did
the ship whose naked timbers I once passed sticking
out of the water. Struck by a giant sea, she stove in
her sides on the point of the pier, and went to pieces
in.the harbor's mouth; and as on entering it I passed
these skeleton ribs bedded in the sand below and
rising on the tide above, they had a warning look, and
seemed to say, that as in that case so in the case of
souls, " almost saved " was but another expression for
" altogether lost."
Let it be observed that different characters, different
classes of sinners, are represented as being saved in
the two parables of the Hid Treasure and the Pearl of
Great Price. For examples of these, let me select two
remarkable men-Colonel Gardiner and John Bunyan.
Gardiner's was a sudden and remarkable conversion.
Previous to that, he, who afterwards proved himself as
brave as soldier of the Cross as of an earthly sovereign
on that fatal field where, refusing to fly, he fell beneath
the Highlander's scythe, was a mere man of the world
-not a lover only of pleasure, but of the basest pleasures. The eventful night which he so unexpectedly
passed in prayer, he had intended to spend in the
arms of sin. As he impatiently watched the finger of
the clock moving slowly on to the hour of a guilty assignation, nothing was further from his thoughts than
conversion; and had Death himself, throwing open the





THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


179


chamber door, stood before him in visible form, he had
not been more startled than by the blow, dealt by an
unseen hand, which laid him penitent at the feet of
Jesus. In salvation Gardiner found as much as the
man in the treasure which his plowshare brought to
light, what he neither sought nor expected. In Bunyan, on the other hand, we see one who had come to
know that the world and its pleasures could never satisfy the cravings of his heart. He felt the need of
being other than he was. As an imprisoned eagle,
chained to its perch and turning its eye up to the blue
heavens, feels the strivings of a native instinct and
springing upwards beats the bars of its cage with
bleeding wings, Bunyan tried to rise out of his estate
of sin and misery. He made vigorous efforts to keep
the law of God-to live without sin-to establish a
righteousness of his own-to work out a sum of merits,
and thereby obtain peace and pardon, and reconcile
himself to God. Seeking the pardon of sin, a purer
life, and a holier heart, he had been a merchant seeking "goodly pearls."  And as in his case the seeker
became the finder, so shall all who, like him, listen to
the voice of Jesus, saying, " Turn ye, turn ye-I am
the way, the truth, the life-all which your souls need
and your hearts desire is found in me, 'the one pearl'
-for whosoever believeth in me shall not perish, but
have everlasting life."
THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.
Wealth in our country is measured by the amount
of money which a man has lodged in bank or afloat in





180


THE PARABLES.


business, the value of his house and its furnishings, or
the number of acres in his estate. It is quite different
in many parts of the East. There you enter a house
with walls of clay and thatch of straw or reeds or palmleaves, and in its tenant-who sits, simply attired and
amid the scantiest funiture, cross-legged on a rug
which, spread out on the naked floor, forms his seat by
day and his bed by night-you find a man of enormous
wealth. He has it invested in jewels-nor without
reason. In countries liable, on the one hand, to sudden
invasion, and on the other to sudden and violent revolutions, where bloody tyrants oppress their subjects,
and wealth is the carcase that draws the eagles together, it is in the form of jewels that property is
most securely because most secretly kept, and in the
case of flight most easily removed. Here, for example,
is a family who, with villages in flames behind them,
are flying from a ruined home and wretched country.
They seek safety elsewhere; and, with nothing saved
but their scanty clothing, seem reduced to the greatest
want. Yet stop the mother who carries one child on
her breast and has another at her side, and, undoing her
raven locks, shake them out, and a shower of diamonds
falls at your feet. In this form, and hid in a woman's
hair, fortunes have often been carried from place to
place in the East; and it is only by takling this fact
into account, that while with us little clu;e than ornaments, precious stones are there a form of money, and
often of immense wealth, we rise to an adequate idea
of the value which Christ puts on his people in calling
them his jewels; or of the full meaning of a figure





THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


181


that represents the blessings of his salvation, as " one
pearl of great price" which all other pearls and property should be sold to buy.
As all which the merchant sought in acquiring many
goodly pearls was found in one-one precious, peerless
gem, Jesus teaches us that the soul finds in himself all
it feels the want of, and has been seeking in other
ways-peace with God and peace of conscience, a clean
heart and a renewed mind, comfort in sorrow and a
sweet satisfaction with all the discipline of providence,
hope in death and a heaven of glory after it. Great as
are these blessings in respect of their value, they are
equally so in respect of their price. They cost God's
only Son long years of the deepest humiliation-his
bloody agony and dreadful death; and yet, alas! in
being offered to sinners who despise and reject Him,
how often is this pearl cast before swine? To them
who believe, Christ is precious; but what can be more
sad than to see the value a woman sets on trinkets, the
pride with which she shows and wears her jewels, while
Jesus has no preciousness in her eyes? What fools
people are! They set more on some glittering bits of
glass or stone than on a crown of glory!-they care
more in this dying body for the perishable casket than
for the immortal jewel which it holds! Can a maid
forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?   Yet
my people, says God, have forgotten me days without number.   From such sin and folly, good Lord
preserve us!
16





182


THE PARABLES.


HOW THIS PEARL WAS OBTAINED.
It was not bestowed as a gift. On the contrary, this
merchantman, trading in goodly pearls, bought it at
the price of all he had. If so, where, it may be asked,
lies the analogy between this case and a salvation that,
all of mercy and not at all of merit, is the free gift of
God through Jesus Christ our Lord? In answer to
that question, let it be observed, that the Bible has
paradoxes-things that appear contradictory, destructive as fire and water are of each other; and yet are
true. We have a living one, if I may say so, in our
Lord himself. He is a creature, and yet the Creator
-he is the Son of man, and yet the Son of God-he
is the victim of death, and yet his victor-he is the
captive of the grave, and yet her spoiler-he is Lord
of all, and yet, with water and towel in hand, he stoops
as the lowest servant to wash his servant's feet-there
on Calvary's bloody cross he suffers as a man, and yet
saves as a God. And Christ's followers, like himself,
present to a wondering world what seems inconsistent
features, impossible combinations. Are they not, to
quote Paul's words, unknown, and yet well knowndying, and behold we live-chastened, and not killed
-sorrowful, yet always rejoicing--poor, yet making
many rich-having nothing, and yet possessing all
things? Now as-though people may ask, how can
these things be?-both are true, it is as true that salvation is a free gift, and yet a thing to be bought and
sold.  Nay, more and stranger still, it is bought
"without money and without price."  A trader with




A7I










THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


183


out either money or credit has no footing in the
markets where Mammon presides, and man is the
seller as well as the buyer; but in the market which
Divine Mercy opens, and over which Divine Love presides, and where "1gold tried in the fire," and robes
washed in the blood of the Lamb, and celestial crowns
all set with gems of glory are displayed, wealth and
character offer no advantage. Here the poor get as
good bargains as the rich-often better indeed; harlots and publicans enter the kingdom, while scribes
and pharisees are left standing at the door.
I do not mean to disparage good works. Christians
are to be careful to maintain them, and to " make their
light so to shine before men that they, seeing their
good works, may glorify their Father which is in
heaven."  But we are on the wrong road altogether if
we are attempting to earn or deserve salvation by
these. No gathered sum of human merits, of virtues,
prayers, or charities can, like the accumulation of
money that forms the price of an estate, purchase
heaven. We have to buy, no doubt,-but not after the
world's fashion. The price, on the contrary, which
we are required to pay is not virtues and merits, but
just that we abandon all trust in these; give up in
them what we may have reckoned goodly pearls; and
consent to be saved as poor, lost, undone sinnerswhose type is the beggar that, clad in filthy rags and
knocking timidly at our door, stands before us, making
no appeal but to,our compassion, and urging no plea
whatever but our mercy and his own great misery.
Still, though we cannot, in the ordinary sense of the





184


TIIHE PAIIABLES.


term, buy salvation, no man is saved but he who gives
up his sins for Christ-takes up his cross, and, denying
himself daily, follows Jesus. We are not saved in sin,
but from it; and, though we cannot buy salvation, we
are to seek it as those who, if they could, would buy
it at any price, at any pain-giving the whole world,
were it theirs, for Christ; and as earnestly seeking
and as highly esteeming Him as she who exclaimed:
(' Were I on one bank of a river and saw Jesus on the
other, and that river ran burning fire, I would dash
into the flames to reach Him."
SOME LESSONS TAUGHT BY THIS FIGURE OF A
MERCHANT.
When Napoleon Bonaparte, after subduing Europe,
found himself unable to subdue us, and saw his armies
broken on our firm front like waves which the storm
launches against a rocky headland, he called us, in his
impotent rage, "a nation of shopkeepers."   Owing
our power and wealth more to- commerce than to anything else, in a sense we are so-nor are we ashamed
of being so. Trade is an honorable occupation. Like
those ocean streams that temper the cold of northern
climes with the heat of the tropics, and float ice-field
and iceberg southward to cool the air of the torrid
zone, its currents also convey to different lands the peculiar blessings of each; and, besides thus binding
country to country in the bonds of mutual advantage,
it promises to be an instrument in the providence of
God of diffusing the blessings of Christianity over the
world.  A   nation of traders whose merchants are





THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


185


princes, and whose traffickers are the honorable of the
earth, there is no figure in the Bible-neither that of
a shepherd, nor of a soldier, nor of a watchman, nor
of a husbandman, nor of a householder-which comes
more home to us than that of a merchant. It suggests
many lessons; and to select a few of them I remark
thatIt teaches us to make religion our chief pursuit.Such is to the merchant his business. To it he does
not allot merely some hours stolen from the pursuits
of pleasure. He rises to business every morning; it
engages his entire attention during the day; nor, save
during a few hours in the evening, and a few days, or
weeks at most, in the year, does he ever yield himself
up to the enjoyments of ease. In its pursuit he is all
energy and activity. What a hold it takes of his
mind!-forming the topic of his conversation at feasts,
and often at funerals-intruding itself unbidden, and
to a good man unwelcome into the closet where he
prays and the church where he worships!
Would God that the business of eternity had as
strong a hold of our minds! But, alas! the least
thing puts it out of our head. And what greater contrast than the appearance of the same people in a
church and at a market-the dull worshipers of this
scene and the keen traders of that-the listless aspect
of the Sabbath congregation and the animated looks
of the market crowd! Enter an auction-mart,- what
life, what keen competitors, what watching to catch a
chance!-no sleepers there, but every face turned up
to him who, raised above the eager crowd, descants on
16*





186


THE PARABLES.


the bargains to be had. Enter a church, and how
different the aspect of many?-people asleep in the
pews-listlessness in the countenances and weariness
in the attitudes of others. Who would believe this to be
a crowd of men under sentence of death, whom one is
telling how to break their chains and escape the gallows
-a crowd gathered on the deck and hanging over the
bulwarks of a sinking ship, whom one who has brought
a life-boat to the scene, is offering to rescue from the
roaring waves and a dreadful doom?     The danger
there is that, unless you back your oars and go warily
to work, the eager throng, rushing en masse to the
side and throwing themselves headlong in, will swamp
your boat; but, alas! the chances in that church are,
that not one of a hundred, or one of a thousand, accepts
the offer. If I may use a common expression, multitudes make religion a bye-job, and not a business,giving it but the ends and odds of time; and many
not even that. May God help us to throw our whole
heart into this business; teaching us to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure-to work
out our salvation with fear and trembling-to work
while it is called to-day, seeing that the night cometh
when no man can work
It teaches us to guard against deception.-The
money which has a suspicious look the wary trader
rings on his counter; knowing what frauds are practised in business, the wise merchant often puts such
goods as he receives to the test; and the utmost care
is taken in such a trade especially as that of this
parable to guard against mistakes or imposition. Be




THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.


187


fore buying a gem, the jewel-merchant examines it
with a powerful magnifier-nor without reason. The
smallest speck on a diamond detracts greatly from its
value: worthless bits of glass are so cut and colored
as to pass for precious stones: and by means of the
brilliant scales of a small fish which inhabits a river in
France, they fabricate such perfect imitations of the
pearl, as to impose on ordinary, and almost to deceive
the quickest, eyes. The dupes of fraud, men have
paid immense sums for pearls which were. found to be
only paste.
But, through the deceitfulness of the heart and wiles
of the devil, men have been greater dupes and suffered
unspeakably greater losses. As it is not all gold that
glitters, it is not all grace that seems so. There is a
counterfeit peace as well as counterfeit coin-there are
hopes of heaven which rest on sand as well as hopes
founded on the Rock of Ages-there is a righteousness
which is ours, as well as one which is Christ's-there are
virtues that, like sweet wild-flowers, cling to the ruins
of humanity as well as graces that are the fruit of the
Holy Spirit-there are kind and generous, but merely
natural, as well as holy and heavenly affections. Such
being the case, no merchant needs to be more on his
guard against fraud and deception than those who
may flatter themselves that they     are regenerated
when they are only reformed. Many, it is to be
feared, fancy that they are on the way to heaven who
are on the way to hell; that they are at peace with
God when their only peace is that of the river which
is locked in ice-the quiet and silence of a tomb





188


THE PARIABLES.


where there is no disturbance just because there is
death!
It teaches us to examine our accounts with God.There is a biography called "The Successful Merchant," and, without having read it, I will venture to
affirm that Budgett-this merchant-was careful to
balance his books, and apply to his business the spirit
of the Apostle's precept, 1"Let a man examine himself."  Alas! that in the use of such a precaution
the children of this world should be so much wiser
than the children of light!  It is a part of every
merchant's education to learn that art; and it is his
only safety to practise it. Neglecting to balance his
books, he may launch out into expenses quite unsuitable to his circumstances; persevere in branches of
business which are not to his profit, but loss; fancy he
is making money when he is driving on ruin. No
other fate awaits the reckless adventurer than that of
the emigrant ship which some weeks ago, with hundreds on board of her, full of hopes of happiness and
fortune in the New World, ran headlong on Cape Race
to break in pieces, and, whelming its living freight
into the devouring waves, gave them a grave on the
shores where they expected a happy home! They
took no soundings, and so they found no safety. The
wise merchant takes stock, balances his books, and, in
some businesses at least, strikes a balance on every
day's transactions. In this, as in the energy and toil
and self-denial and resolution of worldly, how much is
there worthy of the imitation of Christian, men?
Why should not we, at the close of each day, recall





THE PEAIRL OF GREAT PRICE.


189


and review its transactions to see how our accounts
stand with conscience and with God-what duties had
been neglected, and what done-what temptations had
been resisted, and what yielded to; how far we had
indulged evil passions, how far mortified them-how
like or how unlike to Christ's our demeanor had been?
This were a scrutiny which, though often painful and
humbling, would be attended with the happiest results.
How many sins would it extinguish in the spark from
which Christians have afterwards to be saved by being
pulled out of the roaring fire? I-low often would it
check a deviation at the beginning which ends in our
going far astray, and losing a peace which in this
world we may never fully recover? In how many
cases would it, by early sending us to the balm of
Gilead, heal wounds that, neglected, fester into deep,
running, sores? And as I have seen the workman,
ere he retired to rest, throw himself into stream or sea
to wash away the sweat and dust of his daily toil,
from such a review the Christian would repair each
evening to the fountain of Jesus' blood to be cleansed
of the guilt of daily sins; and rise each morning to
seek the aids of the Holy Spirit to do his work, to
keep his watch, to bear his burden, to fight his battle,
better.  If balancing our accounts with God, if reviewing the day's transactions, showed no progress in
the divine life, what earnestness and liveliness would
it impart to our evening prayers? If, on the contrary, it showed some good done, some sin crucified,
some progress made, what a comfort, as we laid our
head on the pillow, to think that we were nearer





190              THE PARABLES.
heaven than when we -first. believed, and that, with
Jesus standing by the helm, our bark, whether gliding
smoothly over calm or tossed. in tempestuous seas, was
approaching the shores of the -happy land-the home
and haven of our eternal rest!





IX.


Elp la       a f t   bt i Pat t Da Lu nM k
Luke xv. 8-10.
IT is a grand sight, lion-hunters tell us, to see the
forest-king at bay. Driven from his bloody lair, and
pursued by men and dogs till further flight is useless,
he turns round to face his foes; and when he confronts
them,-lashing his sides with his tail, his shaggy mane
bristling all erect, fire flashing from his terrible eyes,
and thunder roaring from   his throat,-the coward
crowd fall back; there is death in the spring for which
he is bending, and only the bravest stand. Here the
Lion of the tribe of Judah is brought to bay. Jesus
stands face to face with his enemies; but how different
the spectacle, and the passions which it expresses!
For the purpose of blackening his reputation, the
Scribes and Pharisees, his malignant and implacable
foes, resort to the basest insinuations; and the Son of
God has to stand on his defence. He might have said,
and with more reason than Jonah,   I do well to be
angry," and, turning with indignation on His accusers,
covered these whited sepulchres with confusion and
with shame. But how meek and gentle his bearing,
(101)





192


THE PARABLES.


and how triumphant his defence! When one reads
in these beautiful stories of the poor wandering sheep,
of the lost money, and of the erring but repentant and
forgiven prodigal, how does this apology, this justification of himself for associating with sinners, recall to
our recollection the words," Not to condemn the sons of men,
The Son of God appeared;
No weapons in His hand are seen,
Nor voice of terror heard!"
When suffering from    calumny, it is usually the
wisest plan to follow John Wesley's practice, and,
without reply from either tongue or pen, to let our life
refute it, as he said, "to live it down." The lie, the
foul and false insinuation, which bad men use to destroy the reputation of the good, is like mud. While
it is wet, it sticks; but, since to attempt to wash it out
often only spreads the stain, it is best to leave it alone;
and drying, in a short while it falls off of itself. It is
not uncommon for those who cannot refute, to revile;
but a man who has confidence in the goodness of his
cause, and walking in his integrity, is conscious of the
purity of his motives, is a polished mirror, from whose
face, though awhile obscured, the breath of scandal
shall vanish, nor leave a stain behind.
When the interests of a great cause, however, are at
stake, and attempts are made to stab it through the
sides of its advocate, to destroy it by destroying his
reputation, he may find it necessary, much as he might
prefer quietly to bear wr ng, to act in self-defence.





THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.


193


Such, in his judgment, appear to have been the circumstances in which our Lord was placed.     His
enemies, for the purpose of bringing discredit on his
cause, had attempted to injure his character; and that
by the most insidious of all ways; by insinuation,
more than by a bold and open attack. " This man,"
said they, "receiveth sinners, and eateth with them."
Looking at that remark in the light of the adage,
" Tell me your company, and I will tell you your character," it is easy to see what they meant. It was
saying, in other words, He keeps low company; if
like draws to like, and birds of a feather flock together, this Jesus is no better than he should be; if he
were a man of pure mind and virtuous life, would he
accept invitations to the tables of people of infamous
character?-would he outrage public decency and obliterate the difference between good and bad men,
virtue and vice, by eating and drinking with publicans
and sinners?  I can fancy them using even Scripture
to feather the poisoned arrow; and, as they pointed to
Jesus breathing words of hope into the ear of some
poor fallen woman, or kindly tryirig to raise a publican
from his degradation, I can imagine them asking, with
the sneer of a fiend and the tongue of a serpent, Can
that be David's son?-the son of him     who said,
Blessed is the man that standeth not in the way of
sinners! I am a companion of all them that fear
Thee.   I have not sat with vain persons, neither
will I go in with dissemblers; I have hated the congregation of evil-doers, and will not sit with the
wicked?
17





194


THE PAhABLES.


It was the purest love which drew our Lord to
sinners. He was among them, but holy, harmless,
and undefiled-separate, as oil among the water it
swims in, or as the sunbeam which, lighting up the dun
and dusty air, passes through it without contracting
the slightest stain. Yet with such vile aspersions was
Jesus rewarded for leaving the bosom of his Father,
and the society of angels, to save the lost! A physician, suddenly summoned to the bed of poverty and
disease, leaves his home to face the pelting, midnight
storm, and spend the hours others give to rest endeavoring, with all tenderness and highest skill, to
alleviate the agony and save the life of some miserable
wretch who, as she quaffed the cup of vice, has reached
its lowest, bitterest dregs; and foul-tongued slanderers
take occasion, from this act of pure, self-denying, and
unrewarded benevolence, to cast reflections on his
habits or his heart. Though nothing is more painful
than to have kind and good and noble and generous
actions imputed to the basest motives, yet the followers
of Christ need not wonder, or be deterred from doing
good by having that wrong to suffer. As this case
shows, their Lord himself was not exempt from it. He
was tried in all points like as we are; and when his
people find, by a similar experience, that the servant
is no better off than his Master, nor the disciple than
his Lord, would God they were able to copy his pattern
-to copy it as faithfully as a warrior did on a late
battle-field! Riding over the ground when the fight
was done, he came, as he picked his steps among the
dead, to a body which, stirring, showed some signs of





THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.


195


life. The bleeding form wore the dress of a foe. Regardless of that, he said to his attendant, " Give him
a draught of wine;" and, as the officer stooped down
to do so, the wounded soldier, discovering, through the
mists that were gathering on his dying eye, in this
good Samaritan the general of the troops against
which he had been fighting, raised himself on his
elbow, drew a pistol, and with deadly hate, fired it at
his benefactor's head. Happily, the bullet missed its
mark; and the general, so soon as he recovered from
his surprise, with a forgiveness truly magnanimous
said, "Give it him all the same!"  But the attack
made on our Lord's character under cover of the remark, This man receiveth sinners, did more than present Him with an opportunity of patiently bearing
wrong, and generously forgiving the wrong-doer.
Though we have not to thank his enemies for the vile
aspersion, we have to thank God that he permitted it.
In the words of Joseph, God meant it unto good. To
this attack we owe our Lord's noble and unanswerable
defence,-those three beautiful and blessed parables
which, explaining why he did not shun but rather
sought the company of sinners, have kindled hope in
the bosom of despair, and encouraged thousands, like
the poor prodigal, to return to their Father's house
and cast themselves on his boundless mercy. To crush
some plants, is to bring out their poisonous juices and
their offensive odors; but Jesus-and, to some extent,
all true Christians resemble him-resembled the sweetbrier and rosemary, the lowly thyme and the evergreen myrtle, which smell the sweetest when they ars





196


THE PARABLES.


hardest crushed,-bathing with fragrance the hands
that bruise them.
Before directing our attention specially to the parable before us, and the woman who, with lighted candle
and broom in hand, is sweeping her dusty floor, I may
remarkFirst, that all these three parables are told for the
same purpose; and that, though to cursory readers
they may appear the same in their matter as in their
object, they are not so. They are not, like the reverberations of thunder, mere echoes of one peal;
nor, in following up the first parable with the second
and the second with the third, is our Lord, to borrow
a figure from his old trade, like a carpenter who seeks
by repeated blows of the same hammer to drive a nail
in to the head. These parables were all told to show
why Christ sought sinners, and to encourage sinners to
seek Him. But there are sinners of different shades
of character; and these, that none might despair, are
described under three different figures:-that stupid,
senseless wanderer, the lost sheep; that piece of money
which, devoid of sensibility and unconscious of its fall,
lies in the dust, and feels no desire whatever to be
otherwise; and that wretched prodigal-born in happy
circumstances, well and kindly and piously rearedwho acts from his own bad will, with wicked determination resists a father's authority, and, sinning against
light and conscience, leaves home to plunge overhead
into the foulest depths of vice.
Secondly, I remark, in regard to these parables,
that by itself none of the three gives a complete





TIHE LOST PlECE OF MONEY.


197


picture of the method of salvation.     To see God
aright as saving man, and man as saved by God, we
must, if I may say so, dovetail them into each other,
and make one picture of the three.     For example,
beautiful, touching, and instructive as is the story of
the prodigal, still it gives no adequate idea of the part
which God acts in our salvation. No doubt the father,
so soon as he catches sight of the penitent yet a great
way off, runs to meet him, and, ere the words of confession have left his lips, folds him to his bosom in the
embraces of a free, full, flowing, overflowing forgiveness. But he does not send for him. No kind letters
full of tender entreaties, no servant from the father's
house, ever reaches the miserable swineherd; far less
are the household amazed to see the father himself, or
by his other and elder son, go forth, leaving home and
its pleasures all behind, to seek the poor prodigal in
the far country to which his steps have carried him,
and amid the misery in which his sins have plunged
him. There is an elder brother here; but how unlike
ours! Careless of a brother's fate, he stays at home at
ease; nor thinks of seeking him whose infant steps he
had guided, and with whom, when the day's play was
over, he had slept on one couch, the arms of the two
boys entwined around each other's necks. He neither
regrets his absence, nor rejoices at his return. Selfish
and sulky, angry and jealous, that elder brother is a
foil to ours. Instructive picture as this is of a sinner's
misery and a penitent's heart, and of the joyous welcome given to the worst who repent and return, it is
the other parables more than this that present a
17*





198


THE PARABLES.


picture of God,-how he feels toward sinners, and
what he does to save them.    In these we see God
seeking our salvation; not waiting till we go to him,
but coming to us-to seek and to save the lost. The
heart of man beats in the story of the prodigal; but
in this the heart of God. There we see man saved;
here we see God saving. Such is the meaning of the
parable, where a woman, having ten pieces of silver
and losing one of them, lights a candle, sweeps the
house, and seeks diligently till she find it.
WHAT BEFELL THIS WOMAN?
She had ten pieces of silver, and of these she lost
one. But one out of the ten coins was lost; but one
out of the hundred sheep went astray; but one member
of the " certain man's" family became a prodigal; although the numbers of those not lost in these parables
differ, only one in each case was lost. 'Are we to infer
from that circumstance, that ours is the only world
which has been cursed by sin?   We are certain that
there are many worlds besides our own; and that-with
all the twinkling stars we see, and millions we do not
see, suns around which there probably roll worlds corresponding to the planets of our solar system-this
earth bears no more proportion to creation than one
quivering leaf to the foliage of a giant tree, it may
be to all the leaves of a boundless forest; than a
single grain of sand to all the sands that form the
shores or strew the bed of ocean. Why should not
we hope that Satan has never winged his way to those
bright realms, nor set foot on them; and that, like





THE LOST PIECE OF MONE0Y.


199


the one lost sheep of the flock, the one lost piece of
money, the one prodigal of the family, ours is the
only world that, leaving its orbit, has wandered into
darkness and away from God?    It adds much to the
glory of the starry firmament, to look up and believe
that those spheres are the abodes of innocence;-not
prisons of suffering, but palaces of pure delights, with
virtues brilliant as their light, and inhabitants, whatever be their form, as loyal to their God as are the
worlds they inhabit to the suns round which they roll;
and that, had we ears as we have eyes to reach them,
from  those beautiful stars we should hear as they
rolled nightly over us, when the lark has dropped into
her dewy nest and the busy city has sunk to slumber,
and the din of the world is hushed, voices in the sky,
such as John heard like the sound of many waters,
or the shepherds when they listened to the angels
singing.
But, whoever may be meant by the nine pieces of
silver which were not lost, it is man's soul which is
certainly meant by the one which was; nor, in some
respects, could any figure so well express our naturally depraved, degraded, and undone condition. We
were not always, not once, not at first, what we are
now. On its issue from the mint, this foul, defaced,
dusty, and dishonored coin was bright; stamped with
the image and superscription of a king. Even so man
was originally made in the likeness of God: on the
pure, untarnished metal of his soul God impressed his
own holy image. And still in reason, in conscience,
in a sense of right and wrong, in noble aspirations





200


THE PARABLES.


after immortality and in many things else which distinguish him from the brutes that perish, there remain such traces of his original state as we see of
its ancient glory in the hoary battlements of an old
ruin; or, according to the figure of this parable, as
we see in a foul, worn, rusted coin, with here a letter,
and there a mutilated feature of its original image
and superscription.   But sin, deforming man's soul
more than death his body, has defaced this likeness,
and, till God seeks and his Spirit renews us, has left us
buried amid the foulness and dust of corruption; so
that one might fancy that it was over not Abraham's,
but all Adam's race, the bearded prophet stood, and
raised, as he contemplated their miserable ruin, this
lamentable cry, " How is the gold become dim! how is
the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The
precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are
they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the
hands of the potter!"
Not only this parable but all Scripture represents us
as lost. Yet there is hope in the very circumstances
in which we are lost. The case is bad, but not so bad
as we can imagine it to have been. It is unfortunate
to lose a piece of money in the house, but much
more so in a field, or on a moor. Lost in the mountain fills a mother with alarm for her child; but lost
at sea strikes her down with despair. Be it money
or a living man, whatever, falling overboard and disappearing beneath the wave, is borne by its weight
down and down to the bottom of the deep, is certainly,





THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.


201


for ever, lost; and therefore God employs this figure
to set forth his full and everlasting forgiveness, of his
people's sins. Enraptured with the thought, " Who,"
exclaims Micah, " is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of
the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his
anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He
will turn again; he will have compassion upon us; lihe
will subdue our iniquities: and thou wilt cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea."  Sins forgiven are
lost in the sea; but souls under condemnation of the
law and in danger of hell, are lost in the house.
Though deformed by sin and defiled by corruption,
yet, being within the house, thank God, they are
within the region of hope and the reach of mercy.
And with infinite love in Jesus Christ, and infinite
mercy in the bosom of God, and infinite grace in the
Holy Spirit, I despair of none being redeemed, any
more than of the coin being recovered, though it had
rolled into the darkest nook of the house, now that the
woman has lighted her candle and swept the floor and
cleared out every corner with her broom, and, stooping
down, is turning the dust-heap over and over-seeking
till the lost be found. So Jesus came, and so he comes,
to seek and to save the lost.
WHAT THIS WOMAN DID TO FIND THE MONEY.
She did everything proper in the circumstances.
Indeed she could not do more than she did,-image,
though faint, of that work, the wonder of astonished
heavens and the highest subject of angels' praise, of





202


THE PARABLES.


which, pointing to his Son, the bleeding victim of the
accursed tree, God asks, "What could have been done
more for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?"
In regard to the steps which she took, we are, in judging of their propriety and necessity, to remember that
Eastern houses are not constructed on the style of ours
-pierced as they are with many windows to admit the
welcome sunlight.   In climates where comfort lies
rather in excluding than admitting the rays of a burning sun, the houses are built of dead walls; and the
rooms in consequence are dark even in the daytime.
Therefore this woman lights a candle to see with, and
search the house. In point of condition as well as
construction, houses in the East differ from ours. The
habits of the people are not cleanly; and the floors,
being formed of dried mud, are dusty as well as the
rooms dark; the fitter emblem such houses of our natural state-a darkened head and a polluted heart.
Besides lighting a candle, therefore, the woman seizes
a broom, and bending eager to her task, with candle
lowered to the ground, she sweeps it; nor, breathing
the choking air and moving in a cloud of dust, ceases
till the coin, swept up, rings on the floor, or the light
flashes on its silver edges; and gladly seizing it, she
holds it aloft, and rushing out in the fulness of her joy,
calls her neighbors to rejoice in her success.
We might like to know with certainty what char~acter the woman here represents on the stage. But,
though that point were as obscure as was her person
amid the cloud of dust her broom had raised in the
dark and dirty house, the candle shining in her hand





<I










TI lE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.


203


is undoubtedly the Bible, God's revealed Word. Assuming that she symbolizes the Spirit of God, it is
when He takes that heavenly light, and, carrying it
into the recesses of a man's soul, reveals its foulness
and danger and misery, that the sinner discovers his
loss; and, feeling his need of a Saviour, cries, What
shall I do to be saved?-Create in me a clean heart,
O God! As to the sweeping, which disturbs the house
and reveals a foulness that so long as it lay unstirred
was perhaps never suspected, that may indicate the
convictions, the alarms, the dread discoveries, the
searchings and agitations of heart, which not unfrequently accompany conversion. It is not till the glassy
pool is stirred that the mud at the bottom rises to
light; it is when storms sweep the sea that what it
hides in its depths is thrown up on the shore; it is
when brooms sweep walls and floor that the sunbeams,
struggling through a cloud of dust, reveal the foulness
of the house; and it is agitations and perturbations of
the heart which reveal its corruption, and are preludes
to the purity and peace that sooner or later follow on
conversion. That money was not recovered without a
great disturbance within the house; nor are souls,
especially such as have been long and deeply sunk in
sin, commonly converted without great trials, agitations, and searchings of heart. But, be their seat a
diseased body or a troubled mind, how welcome should
we make the sufferings which bring us to Christ, and
end in our salvation-humbling us in the dust-weaning our affections from earth and wedding them to
heaven!





204


THE PARABLES.


This scene, though expressing the general truth that
God has done everything to save lost souls which even
He could do, conveys no idea whatever of the price of
our salvation-at what an incalculable ransom we were
redeemed. The curtain rises, and the stage shows us
the interior of a house, and a woman, dimly seen
through a cloud of dust, who is quietly, though carefully, sweeping the floor. There is no dying, no dreadful deed of violence, no mortal struggle, here; no
blood bespatters the walls, or creeps in red stream
over the floor; no passer-by starts and listens, and
thinks he hears blows and groans issuing from within.
There is nothing indicative of Christ having sacrificed
his life for ours. The nature of the parable does not
admit of it; yet we are never to forget that it was
through suffering as well as seeking that we were
saved; and that, to redeem us, God spared not even
his own Son-commending his love to us in that, while
we were sinners, Christ died for us.
THE WOMAN'S JOY AT FINDING THE PIECE OF
SILVER.
There is a peculiar pleasure felt in recovering what
we have lost; or in having anything placed beyond the
reach of danger which we were afraid of losing. A
group of children with health blooming on their rosy
cheeks, joy ringing in their merry laughter, vigor
bounding in their frames as they chase the butterfly or
each other over the flowery lawn, is a sight to gladden
any, but especially a parent's eye; yet it is a deeper
joy to look on the pallid face and languid form of the





THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.


205


child who, propped up on pillows and an object still of
care and trouble never grudged, has been plucked from
the jaws of death-brought back from the very gates
of the grave. No boat making the harbor over a
glassy sea, its snowy canvas filled by the gentle breeze
and shining on the blue waters like a sea-bird's wing,
is watched with such interest, or, as with sail flapping
on the mast it grates on the shingle, is welcomed with
such joy, as one which, leaving the wreck on the
thundering reef, comes through the roaring tempest,
boldly breasts the billows, and bringing off the halfdrowned, half-dead survivors, shoots within the harbor
amid flowing tears and cheers that, bursting from the
happy crowd, rise above the rage and din of elements.
No gathering of an unbroken, happy, prosperous family in their old home on the return of a birthday, or
at Christmas time, ever filled a father's heart with
such gratitude and gladness, as was felt in the house
where, while the prodigal sat encircled by his father's
arm, each happier than the other, the music that filled
the air, the wine that flowed in bowls, the floor that
shook to the dancers' feet, but feebly expressed the
deep though silent joy which welled up in the old
man's heart. By such scenes a gracious God, accommodating his language to our ideas, expresses his joy
in saving sinners, and in seeing sinners saved. To entertain any other idea of him is to do injustice to his
gracious character and to endanger our own souls.
"As I live," saith the Lord, "I have no pleasure in
the death of the wicked."-" What," he asks, "could
have been done more for my vineyard, that I have not
18





206


THE PARABLES.


done in it?" To the edge of the grave, to the brink
of perdition, I see him following the most obstinate
and headstrong and perverse and wretched sinner, with
this earnest and most affectionate entreaty, Turn ye,
turn ye, why will ye die? Some wretched and heartbroken creature, the flower which has been trodden on
the street where the villain hand that plucked had
thrown it when its freshness and bloom were goneone polluted in body and in mind-one lost to virtue
and shunned by decency-one for whom none cared
but a mother, who clung to hope, and with love burning in its ashes, wept and prayed in secret for her she
never named, is converted; and think of God in heaven
feeling more joy than the mother who on a wild winter's
night has opened her door to the wanderer's moaning
cry; and while she hastens to tell the glad tidings to
humble and sympathizing neighbors, think of Him
telling them to his angels, and calling them to rejoice
with him that the dead is alive again and the lost is
found; think of the joyful alacrity with which those
happy, holy, spirits haste, if so employed, to do the
Saviour's bidding-prepare another mansion and weave
another crown.
What value belongs to these souls of ours, when the
repentance and salvation even of one sinner is thought
worthy of being published in heaven and sung to the
music of angels' harps? We may be assured that it is
from a dreadful doom the soul is saved; and that it
was over a fearful abyss it hung when Jesus plucked it
from the wreck. Angels had not otherwise turned an
eager gaze from heaven on earth, and looked down





THlE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.         207
from their lofty realms to watch the issue with breathless interest, and feel such joy at the result; and as I
have seen a man when the wave, bearing the boat on
its foaming crest, brought it up to the ship's side, seize
the happy moment and with one great bound leap in,
so should sinners, perilously hanging on the brink of
ruin, over perdition, the hell that yawns below, seize
the opportunity to be saved. Willing and eager to
save, Christ stretches out his arms to receive us. Let
us throw ourselves on his mercye  rinSvenw
Lord-Lord save me, IL perish!










X.


Matthew xiii. 3-23.
THE first snowdrop, the first green leaf on naked
hedges, the first few notes that sounding from bush or
tree break the long, dreary silence-still more the first
smile that lights up an infant's face, its first gleam of
intelligence, its first broken word, possess an interest
and yield a pleasure peculiar to themselves. With
more interest still-did the world hold such treasures
-would we look on the first stanzas of Homer's muse;
the first attempt of Archimedes' skill; the first oration
of Demosthenes; the first sermon of Chrysostom; the
first sketch of Rubens; though we could hope to see
nothing in these but the dawn of talents, which, at
maturity, produced their splendid works, and won them
immortal fame. What gives the interest to these things,
gives a peculiar interest to this parable. Others may
be as instructive and as beautiful, but of all those
parables that he strung like pearls on the thread of
his discourses, this is the first Jesus ever spake. As
peculiarly befitting him who came to sow saving truths
broadcast on the world, no subject could form  a more
18*                               (209)





210


THE PARABLES.


suitable introduction; and with the divine skill with
which he chooses, Jesus handles the topic. For though
his first, this parable bears no trace of the feebleness
and imperfections that mark other, the greatest, men's
earliest efforts-another illustration this of the words
" He spake as never man spake," as with his foot on
the waves, He walked as never man walked.
The circumstances in which our Lord was placed
while-in addition to his look and voice-imparting to
this discourse an impressiveness and liveliness which it
loses within the dull walls either of church or room,
very probably gave it its color and form. A    crowd
eager to catch every word that fell from his blessed
lips, surging and pressing forward, besieged the house,
where, now answering the cavils of the Pharisees, and
now expounding the mysteries of the Gospel, he talked
to the people. Kind and considerate, our Lord-since
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of
God-that all might hear left the house; and, followed
by a rushing, gathering throng, takes his way to the
shores of the neighboring lake. There is room enough
for all there. On reaching it he enters a boat, converting it into a pulpit; and when by a few strokes
of the oars in John's or Peter's hands, the boat is shot
a short way out, he turns to address the multitude who
throng the shore-sitting or standing, tier above tier,
on its shelving sides. Lighted by the sun, its roof
heaven's own lofty dome, its walls the hills that girdled
the lake, which, shining like a silver mirror, lay still
and quiet at its Maker's feet, what edifice of man's
ever offered preacher such a noble temple?       The





THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER.


211


preacher was in keeping with the temple; no Barnabas,
or Boanerges among the sons of the mighty to be
likened to him who then and there, from the rude
pulpit of a fishing-boat, consecrated shores, and fields,
and hillsides for worship-teaching his servants to sow
beside all waters, to be instant in season and out of
season; and with all respect to the ordinary places
and forms of divine service, to seize, without much regard either to time or place, every opportunity of
preaching the blessed Gospel, and of saving them that
are ready to perish. To fancy aright this scene, we
must remember that the hills of Galilee, unlike those
by some of our wild Highland lochs, do not descend
right into the lake; nor, coming down steep and rocky,
leave but a narrow footpath on the margin of the water.
On the contrary, and especially on the western shores,
between the feet of these hills and the lake, lies a
broad belt of land, sloping gently down to the beach;
and in our Lgrd's days, when the country teemed with
inhabitants, and the shores all around were studded
with towns and villages, this was cultivated by busy
husbandmen, and rewarded their labor with abundant
harvests. Now, it was on one of these fields which
rose behind the throng, that our Lord's eye caught the
object which suggested this parable. A man, very
probably, like Martha, cumbered about many things,
with a large family to support, with a heavy rent to
meet, who thought he had no time, and perhaps had no
inclination to drop work and join the crowd, comes
forth from his house to sow. Jesus seizes the incident
as the text for a sermon, a groundwork for instruction;





212


THE PARABLES.


and waving his hand so as to turn the eyes of the assembly on the husbandman, He begins the parable,
saying, "Behold, a sower went forth to sow."
This man, let it be observed, was not sowing a field
like those around this city, where with hedge or wall
the farmer fences his field from wandering feet; and
by breaking up the rough parts of the ground, carefully weeding the foul, and feeding the bare and barren,
gives a uniform  aspect to the whole.   Agriculture,
stimulated by trade or the pressure of population on
the means of subsistence, has made great progress
since our Lord's days-rising from a comparatively
rude art to the position of a science. And to. enter
fully into the scene of this parable and the meaning of
its different parts, we must therefore leave these fat
and fertile plains, to transport ourselves to those remote districts of the country where old customs linger,
and the natural features of the landscape resemble
those of the shores of Galilee. We find -what we want
in many of our Highland glens-the shores of their
lakes presenting a counterpart of the field whose different features are woven into this parable. There, leading to a well, or to the nook where the boat lies
moored, or to a neighbor's cottage, or to the parish
church, we may see an old pathway skirting the borders of the field, or running right across it-in those
places where the plough has rolled or rains have
washed it down, the soil lies deep-elsewhere, on
gravel or rocky knolls, it is poor and shallow-while
here and there springing from cairns of stones, or
parts imperfectly cleared and cultivated, whin and















THE PARABLE OF TIE SOWER.        2


213


broom, the wild rose, ferns, birches and dwarf-willows,
lend a beauty to the field which is more picturesque
than profitable. In the corresponding features of that
field which lay in sight of his floating pulpit, Jesus
saw striking emblems of the hearers of his own, and
also of every other, congregation. As such he uses
them; and bringing to his task the unrivaled skill
which turned birds into teachers, drew the noblest
truths out of the meanest subjects, and found in common things fresh texts for uncommon sermons, he
reaped a harvest from this field other and better far
than sickles had ever done. Its owner had never cultivated it to such purpose as the Great Husbandman.
The preacher makes more of it than the plough; no
part lies barren in Jesus' hands; no golden crops that
bowed their heads to the winds which swept the lake
of Galilee like the truths he drew from its different
soils!-in solemn and salutary warnings, in the revelation of his work, of his character, and of his gospel,
making it yield a perpetual harvest of the bread of
life, for the use of his own and all future ages.
TIHE SOWER.
Sheltered from the winds that played on the breezy
summits of the mountains, the lake of Galilee reflected
the face and form of Jesus-his image was mirrored in
its glassy depths. And such a mirror is this parable;
presenting in the sower a true emblem and image of
Christ himself. Of that there can    be no   doubt,
though he does not say so in as many words; saying,
in his explanation of the parable, I am the Sower, as,





214


THE PARIABLES.


pointing on one occasion to a vine clasping in its arms
a rock, which it clothed with broad leaves and hung
with purple clusters, he said, I am the Vine; or on another occasion, pointing to the sun, as rolling out of
the shadow of a cloud, or springing up from behind a
hill, it bathed the whole landscape in golden glory, he
said, I am the light of the world. With that kind and
tender love which should touch and win our hearts,
Jesus, leaving his Father's bosom, descended on our
world not only to procure, but to preach salvation;
with his own hand to sow, in the furrows that repentance had made, the seeds of eternal life. With this
end in view he sent the Baptist to proclaim his advent,
and prepare his way. In the order of things ploughing goes before sowing. The soil must be broken up,
and, stirring it to its depths, the iron must enter its
bosom, that verdure in summer may clothe, and tall
sheaves in autumn crowd the field. Now, what the
man with the plough is to his fellow who, with a sowing sheet around him, casts the grain into the open
furrows, John Baptist, denouncing vice, unmasking
hypocrites, sparing neither prince nor peasant, priests
nor people, but calling all to repentance, was to Jesus
Christ. He went sternly through the land, like an
iron ploughshare,-breaking up the fallow ground, and
preparing men to receive the tidings of salvation which
Christ came to preach. Sovereigns do sometimes grant
pardons; but, so far as I know, they never bring them.
Little affected by the miseries of the wretch whose
sighs and groans confined within stone walls never penetrate the palace to disturb the sleep or dash the





THE PARABLE OF TIE SO WER.


21.5


pleasure of the court, kings content themselves with
sending pardons through servants and cold officials;
and such a thing as one leaving his palace, bending
his steps to the prison, flying on wings of love, with
his own lips to announce the tidings, and hear with his
own ears, sound sweeter than finest music, the cry of
joy from one plucked from the jaws of death, is untold
in history. But Christ so loved us that he came himself with the good news. He who at a great price
procured liberty to the captive also proclaimed it; and
he who made this earth stood on it a preacher of salvation. No wonder Paul magnified his office, considering
who had filled it; and no doubt it was the pleasure
Jesus felt in the good news he preached which so
glowed in his countenance, and lent such tenderness,
and power, and pathos to his oratory, that a woman
who heard him cried, Blessed is the womb that bare
thee,-and his very enemies confessed, Never man
spake like that man. Thus he sowed. Would that all
his servants caught his spirit, and came to the pulpit
wearing his mantle!
They are sowers also.    Every   preacher of the
Gospel is a sower of the seed: and though the whole
scene of this parable is now changed, and Galilee's
lake lies among her silent hills, still a beautiful, but
now a lonely sheet of water-though her shores are
furrowed by no plough, and her sea by no fisherman's
keel-though her cities live only in the pages of history, and have no place but on the geographer's map
-though the traveler finds little there to remind him
of Jesus but the waves that sustained his form, and





216


THE PARABLES.


the stoi ms that as they sweep and vex the lake recall
the memorable night when, waked from deep and
dreamless slumbers, he rose to bid winds and waves be
still-though eighteen hundred long years are gone,
still I may make use of the words with which Jesus
began his first public discourse, when, having read a
passage from Isaiah, he closed the book and lifted up
his head to say, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in
your ears. When bells have rung out and the congregation, whether coming from hamlets and farms
along sweet country roads, or from their houses through
dry and dusty streets, are assembled, and as they wait
in silence, a man enters the pulpit in robe of office or in
ordinary attire, it may be said, as truly as on the day
when Christ was the preacher and a boat the pulpit,
Behold, a sower went forth to sow. It is the same seed
we sow; and, in their hearts, congregations still present
the same varieties of soil; but what a difference between this sower and his successors; his skill and ouri'
rudeness; his power and our weakness; his love and
our cold affections; his burning zeal and our feeble
fires; the light of the world and the flame of a taper
-ay, the brightest star that ever shone in the firmament of the Church! Well may we say with Paul,
"Brethren, pray for us!"
" Except the Lord do build the house
The builders lose their pain,
Except the Lord the city keep
The watchmen watch in vain."
The Spirit in Christ's day, not yet given in showers,
or otherwise than in scattered drops, even he himself





THE PARABLE OF TIIE SOWER.


217


sowed to little purpose; a few hundred converts the
whole result of his labors, and of such labors, how
little the joy, how scant the harvest?  What, then,
can sustain the preacher in his study or his pulpit, but
faith in the promises, in God's own word that, by his
own Spirit, he will with the foolish things of the world
so confound the wise, and with the weak things of the
world so confound the things that are mighty, that
" he who goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious
seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."
THE SEED.
This, as Christ explains, is " the word of the Kingdom,"-those saving, Bible truths of which Paul
speaks, saying, Woe be unto me if I preach not the
Gospel. His kingdom, it is   the kingdom" by way
of excellence, there being no other of which, having
seen the rise, it shall not see also the fall-the kingdom, in   contradistinction  to  those which, rivers,
shores, or mountains bound-many of which founded
in injustice, and maintained by oppression, have tyrants for their rulers, and for their subjects slaves; and
all of which, if I may judge the future by the past,
have this course to run-born, they grow, arrive at
maturity, flourish for a longer or shorter period, then
begin to decay; and, sinking under the infirmities of
age, or falling by the hands of violence, at length expire-their palaces a heap of ruins, their kings a handful of dust.
As different from these in its character as in its
19





218


THE PARABLES.


duration, the kingdom here is that over which Jesus
reigns-justice his law, love his rule, mercy his sceptre,
peace his government, and the only weapon he employs to conquer his enemies and govern his subjects,
the Bible. By that he rules; on that his kingdom
rests-God's inspired Word, true without any mixture
of error, and suffering as little from the assaults of
sceptics, secret or avowed, as yon castle rock from the.storms which, raving and howling around its solid
crags, have blown, but not blown it away.
In regard to the figure here. None-not leaven
with its assimilating power, nor light with its illuminating rays, nor bread with its nutritious elements,
nor water as it springs sparkling from a mossy fountain to parched and thirsty lips-none sets forth
the word of God better than this of seed. For example:There is life in Seed.-Dry and dead as it seems, let
a seed be planted with a stone-flashing diamond, or
burning ruby; and while that in the richest soil remains a stone, this awakes and, bursting its husky
shell, rises from the ground to adorn the earth with
beauty, perfume the air with fragrance, or enrich men
with its fruit. Such life there is in all, but especially
in Gospel, truth. It lives when we die-as the old
martyr exclaimed, when he stood bound to the fiery
stake, Me you may kill; the truth you cannot! This
is the incorruptible and immortal seed; and though
ornaments, polish, illustrations, eloquence in sermons
may help the end in view, as feathers do the arrow's
flight, or their wings the thistle-downs, as they float,





THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER.


219


sailing through the air, to distant fields, it is to the
truth of God's Word, blessed by God's Spirit, that
sinners owe their conversion, and saints their quickening and comfort in the house of God. The patient is
healed by the medicine, not by what gilds it: the
hungry are fed by the meat, not by what garnishes it;
these fields crowded with joyous reapers and covered
with golden sheaves show the life that was in the seed,
not in the sower, or in the soil; and conversions being
due not to the human talent but to the divine truths in
the sermon, the greatest as well as the feeblest
preachers have to say, Not unto us, not unto us; but
unto thee, 0 Lord, be all the glory!
There is force in Seed.-Buried in the ground a seed
does not remain inert,-lie there in a living tomb. It
forces its way upward, and with a power quite remarkable in a soft, green, feeble blade, pushes aside the
dull clods that cover it. Wafted by winds or dropped
by passing bird into the fissure of a crag, from weak
beginnings the acorn grows into an oak-growing till
by the forth-putting of a silent but continuous force,
it heaves, the stony table from its bed, rending the rock
in pieces. But what so worthy to be called the power
as well as the wisdom of God as that Word which,
lodged in the mind, and accompanied by the divine
blessing, fed by showers from heaven, rends hearts,
harder than the rocks, in pieces?  " He that hath my
word," says God, "let him speak my word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?  Is
not my word like as a fire, and like a hammer that
breaketh the rock in pieces?"





220


THIE PARAB]LES.


There is a powzer of propagation in Seed.-Thus a
single grain of corn would, were the produce of each
season sown again, so spread from field to field, from
country to country, from continent to continent, as in
the course of a few years to cover the whole surface of
the earth with one wide harvest,-employing all the
sickles, filling all the barns, and feeding all the mouths
in the world. Such an event, indeed, could not happen,in nature, because each latitude has its own productions, and there is no plant formed to grow alike
under the sun of Africa, and amid the snows of Greenland. It is the glory of the Gospel, and one of the
evidences of its divine origin-that it can: and, unless
prophecy fail, that it shall. There is not a shore which
shall not be sown with this seed; not a land but shall
yield harvests of glory to God and of souls for heaven.
By revolutions that are overturning all things, by
war's rude and bloody share, and otherwise, God is
breaking up the fallow ground, and ploughing the
earth for a glorious seed-time. The seed that sprang
up in Bethlehem shall wave over arctic snows and
desert sands: and as every shore is washed by one sea,
and every land that lies between the poles is girdled.
by one atmosphere, and every drop of blood that flows
in human veins belongs to one great family of brothers,
so in God's set time men of every color and tongue
shall cherish a common faith, and trust in a common
Saviour. It was of that, and of this seed-time, the
Psalmist spoke, when standing on the heights of prophecy, and looking along the vista of distant ages, he
said, " There shall be a handful of corn in the earth





THE PARABLE OF TLHE SOWER.


221


on the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall
shake like Lebanon."    "His name,"-referring to
Christ-" His name shall endure forever; men shall
be blessed in him, and all nations shall call him
blessed." Thus the seer spake; and while we echo his
devout " Amen and Amen," let us pray, Even so come,
Lord Jesus, come quickly!
THE SOIL.
Hearers represented by the Wayside.-" When he
sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls
came and devoured them up." Nothing more likely
to happen! No care, with broad cast sowing, could
prevent some seed falling on the pathway where, as
that was beaten hard by the feet of passengers, it lay
exposed to birds which, as all know, in spring, ere
buds have burst, or sunny skies tempted insects forth,
or genial showers called worms from their holes, often
suffer from want of food. Made bold by hunger, our
birds, some from the woods sailing on raven's wing,
others with snowy plumage from neighboring shores,
attend the ploughman as he turns up the furrows and
their food; so yonder in the fields of Galilee they
watch the motions of the husbandman, and sweep
down from rock or tree to pick up the grains that lie
on the beaten road.
The explanation of this scene Jesus gives in these
words: "When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked
one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his
heart: this is he which receiv;ed seed by the wayside"
19*





222


THE PAIUA3BLES.


-Mark says, " Satan cometh immediately, and taketh
away the word"-Luke says, " Then cometh the devil,
and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest
they should believe and be saved."  Again I say,
nothing more likely to happen. Some who carefully
cultivate their fields, or their gardens, or their business, or their minds, take no pains whatever to cultivate their hearts. The Bible neglected, prayer, unless as a mere form, a plough passed over the surface,
unused, no serious thought given from week's end to
week's end to another world and their precious souls,
their hearts are like ground ploughshare has never
entered. Worse still, in a worse state than an uncultivated waste, the world with its many, hurrying,
heavy feet has been trampling over their poor hearts
the whole week through-day by day, year by year,
from early childhood, perhaps, to gray old age; till
under the ceaseless tread and tramp and traffic of
worldly thoughts, unholy desires, selfish and evil passions, they have grown harder with time, and become
as unimpressible and impenetrable almost as a stone.
They are without God in the world. He is in the sky
above and in the earth beneath them, in the air they
inhale and in the bread they eat, by their side when
they walk and by their bed when they sleep, everywhere but where most of all he should be: he is not in
all their thoughts; and bringing to his house hearts as
hard as the flags they walk on, no wonder that their
hearing and our preaching is vain!
The case as painted in this parable, and in truth,
-for this is no fiction,-is worse still. So bad, in




THEI PARABLE OF THE SOWER.


223


deed, that but for the mercy that pities the poorest
sinners, and the might that can turn a heart of stone
into one of flesh, we could cherish no hope of doing
them any good. Wherever there is a preacher in the
pulpit, there is a devil among the pews, busy, watching
the words that fall from the speaker's lips to catch
them away, and, by the idle, worldly, evil thoughtsthe birds that pick up the seed-which he intrudes on
them, to prevent the word making an impression or remove any it happens to make. What an illustration
of this the speech which a dying, despairing man addressed to one under whose ministry he had sat for
twenty years! I have never, he cried, heard a single
sermon! The minister, to whom his face was quite
familiar, who had known him for years as a regular
attender at church, looked astonished-fancied that he
was raving under the delirium of his approaching end.
No, not at all! The man was in his sad and sober
senses. I attended church, he explained, but my habit
was, so soon as you began the sermon, to begin a review of last week's trade, and to anticipate and arrange the business of the next. Now, in like manner,
to a greater or less extent, Satan deals with thousands
who occupy pews in the church. Doing so, distracting
their attention, playing with their fancy, carrying
away their minds to outside scenes of business or
pleasure, " lest they should believe and be saved."
Thus he destroys souls, not in his own devilish haunts,
but in the very house of God; wrecking them at the
very mouth of the harbor; slaying them on the very
steps of the altar; turning their attendance on or




224:


THE PAIABLES.


dinances into a means of hardening their hearts and
aggravating their final, dreadful doom, he, if I may say
so, seethes the kid in its mother's milk. Since Christ's
own presence did not scare the fiend from the room
where the disciples had met for the Church's greatest
and most solemn rite; since, stealing into the chamber,
he entered into Judas when his hand was dipped into
the same dish with Christ's, how should we watch, keep
our hearts and keep our feet when we enter the house
of God,-in the words of Peter, Be sober, be vigilant,
because our adversary, the Devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
Hearers represented by the Stony   Ground.-In
Spring, before th6 growth hides the ground, I have
seen fields sown out with corn so thick of stones that
they seemed the substitutes for soil. I have heard
people wonder what could induce any man in his senses
to cultivate such land; yet they would wonder more to
see the crops such soil, where the roots wind round the
stones and bore away down in search of food, yields to
the reaper's sickle. It is not such ground, though misunderstanding the term stony ground some may suppose so, which is described here; but that which, while
the other parts of the field are green and healthy is
marked in summer by a yellow, sickly hue. There
the soil lies shallow-spread like a skin on bones of
rock: and so, though a braird soon appears with fair
and early promise of an abundant crop, the plants,
having no depth of earth, are scorched by the sun;
and, drawing no nourishment from the rock which
their roots embrace, soon wither away.





THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER.


225


In explanation of this part of the parable, our Lord
says, "  e that received the seed into stony places,
the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with
joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but
dureth for a while; for when tribulation or persecution
ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended,"
or, as it is given by Luke, " They on the rock are
they, which, when they hear, receive the word with
joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe,
and in time of temptation fall away."    These are
alarming words. The matter is more serious than it
was, since other than wayside hearers miss heaven.
What have we here? the word listened to with attention; with more, much more than attention; with such
feelings as a man under sentence of death hears the
news of his pardon, or men on a wreck, lashed to the
mast, hanging on the shrouds, hear the cry, the joyful
cry, A boat! a life boat! People count on heaven to
whom the Sabbath is a weariness, and a sermon dulness; yet here are those who, though they receive the
word, according to one Evangelist, with "joy," and
according to another with "gladness," come short of
eternal life.  Nor is the impression the truth produces a mere feeling, a passing emotion; vanishing
with the tears it brings to their eyes; going down like
the sea-swell when winds are hushed; dying away like
some sweet strain of music when the hand is removed
that struck the trembling strings. On the contrary
the impression passes out into expression; they move
out of the passive into the active state-making a
good profession, and entering on the practice of re




226


THE PARABLES.


ligion. More, and more marked still, as the braird on
shallow ground rises sooner than that which springs
from deeper soil, the conversion (as it is supposed to be)
of stony ground hearers is often marked by precocious
piety, and a forward, flaming zeal.  I have known
most melancholy instances of that; and in all such
cases, as some have fearfully illustrated, the last state
of such persons is worse than the first. Let all of us
take warning; let each prove his own work-whether he
has in true, saving faith what is the root of the matter.
Paul had such hearers, whom he addresses, saying,
"Ye did run well, what did hinder you?"      John
Baptist had many such, and in Herod a distinguished
one-the only king, so far as I know, who felt such
interest in religion as to break through established
routine and leave his court chaplain to listen to a street
preacher. His conduct in this matter, the pleasure he
felt in the ministry of the fearless and faithful Baptist,
the many things he did at John's bidding and advice,
were full of promise-never soil was covered with a
greener braird-never sky was lighted with a brighter
dawn. He dured for a while; then fell away-and
what a fall!-quenching the hopes, which God's people
had begun to cherish of a pious king, in the blood of
the martyred, murdered preacher. Not Paul, or the
Baptist only, but our Lord himself had many such
hearers.  Crowds followed him; tracked his steps
from city to city, from shore to shore-hanging on his
lips, thronging the streets through which he passed,
and besieging the houses where he lodged. The day
was once when ten thousand tongues would have





THE PAILAP)LIE, OF TUE SOWVER.


227


spoken and ten thousand swords would have flashed in
his defence; and the day arrived when, -during for a
while, they fell away, and of the crowds that swelled
his jubilant train, all, all deserted him-the only voice
lifted up in his behalf coming from the cross of a
dying thief.
The explanation of these, and of all cases where
religion disappears and dies out under the influence
either of temptation or of persecution,lies here-they
had no root, no true faith. Convictions were mistaken
for conversion; admiration of the servant for attachment to his master; an appreciation of the moral
beauties of the gospel for an appreciation of its holiness; the pleasures of emotion, or such gratification
as taste enjoys in a beautiful discourse, for the pleasures of piety. Beneath such promising appearances
there lies a stony heart; and so when the tests of
suffering or of temptation are applied, they fall away,
like the multitude who, offended at Jesus' saying,
walked no more with him.
Where however there is true faith, his people, thank
God, need not much dread such trials. Resting firmly
on the Rock of Ages, they are as Mount Zion which
cannot be moved.    To borrow the figure here, the
hotter the sun, if the heavens send it showers, and the
earth give it soil, the plant grows the taller and the
stronger-grace growing in converted hearts like corn
in strong, deep, rich, well watered soils. The warmer
the summer, the richer the harvest.
Those represented by the Ground with Thorns.-Of
the seed our Lord says " Some fell among thorns, and





228


THE PAIIAB3LES.


the thorns sprang up and choked them;" explaining it
thus, " He also that receiveth seed among the thorns
is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world,
and the deceitfulness of riches, and," as Mark adds,
" the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word,
and it becometh unfruitful."
The regions which lie mid-way between the equator
and the poles are proved by experience to be most favorable to life and its enjoyments; and so those conditions which lie mid-way between the opposite extremes of poverty and riches, are found most conducive to man's spiritual welfare.  The proof of that
which this parable, as well as many other passages of
Scripture, presents, should warn both rich and poor of
their peculiar dangers; and teach contentment to such
of us as are fortunate enough to be neither harassed
with the cares of poverty, nor tempted by the deceitfulness of riches. The danger and deceitful influence
of riches, their tendency to turn our thoughts away
from another world, and drown such concern for the
soul as providences or preachers may have awakened,
in the cup of pleasure, is awfully expressed in the saying of our Lord, "It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God."   Dr. Johnson put
the point well when, on Garrick showing him his beautiful mansion and grounds, the great moralist and good
man laid his hand kindly on the player's shoulder, and
said, "Ah! David, David, these are the things which
make a death-bed terrible!"
The equally dangerous and deadly influence of





I'rlE iPAABLE OF THE SOWEE.


229


great poverty I may illustrate by a scene which I
have not forgotten, nor can forget.  Alone, in the
garret of a dilapidated house, within a wretched
room, stretched on a pallet of straw, covered only by
some scanty, filthy rags, with no fire in the empty
chimney, and the winter wind blowing in cold and fitful gusts through the broken, battered window, an old
woman lay, feeble, wasted, gray. She had passed the
eleventh hour; the hand was creeping on to the
twelfth..Had she been called? It was important to
turn to the best account the few remaining sands of
life; so I spoke to her of her soul, told her of a
Saviour-urging her to prepare for that other world
on whose awful border her spirit was hovering. She
looked; she stared; and raising herself on her elbow,
with chattering teeth, and ravenous look, muttered "I
am cold and hungry."  Promising help, I at the same
time warned her that there was something worse than
cold and hunger. Whereupon, stretching out a naked
and skinny arm, with an answer which if it did not
satisfy the reason touched the feelings, she said, " If
you were as cold and as hungry as I am you could.think of nothing else."  The cares of the world were
choking the word.
And so may, what Mark calls, " the lusts of other
things" do-in such as are placed in the happy medium
between wealth and want, strangling good thoughts in
their very birth: destroying the fairest promises of
conversion. Let me illustrate this also by an example.
Robert Burns, who had times of serious reflection, in
one of which, as recorded by his own pen, he beauti20





230


THE PARABLES.


fully compares himself, in the review of his past life,
to a lonely man walking amid the ruins of a noble
temple, where pillars stand dismantled of their capitals, and elaborate works of purest marble lie on the
ground, overgrown by tall, foul, rank weeds-was once
brought, as I have heard, under deep convictions. He
was in great alarm. The seed of the word had begun
to grow. He sought counsel from one called a minister
of the Gospel. Alas, that in that crisis of his history
he should have trusted the helm to the hands of such
a pilot! This so-called minister laughed at the poet's
fears-bade him dance them away at balls, drown them
in bowls of wine, fly from these phantoms to the arms
of pleasure. Fatal, too pleasant advice! He followed
it: and " the lusts of other things" entering in, choked
the word.
Now, be it woman's household cares or the anxieties
and annoyances of man's business, the harassments of
poverty or the enticements of wealth, the pursuit of
fame or power, or pleasure, whatever in short it be
that engrosses our attention, and, stealing our thoughts
from God, and our hearts from heaven, counteracts the
holy influences of Bibles, churches, sermons, Sabbaths,
it is choking the word. We need to be on our guard.
It is not the green and tender corn only which is
smothered. I have seen the stately tree, with roots
struck deep in the soil, and giant arms that had battled
with the tempest, fall a prey to a low and ignoble
creeper; fastening on it, rising on it, twining its pliant
branches around the massive trunk, binding it more
and more closely in its fatal embraces, the weak





rilE PARaABLE OF T1ii- SONVER.       21


231


strangled the strong-to death. What but God's great
grace and mercy, the timely interposition of Heaven,
in his peril and extremity saved King David from becoming a ruin, a wreck as great as Demas the apostate, or Judas the traitor?  The devil's hand was fastened on his throat, when Nathan appeared to loose it.
Watch, therefore, and pray, that ye enter not into
temptation-Let him that thinketh he standeth take
heed lest he fall.
Those represented by the Good G-round.-" He,"
says our Lord, "that received seed into the good
ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth
[Mark says " receiveth]" it: which also beareth fruit,
and bringeth forth, in some an hundred fold, some
sixty, some thirty;" or as it is given by Luke, " The
good ground are they which in an honest and good
heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth
fruit with patience." In these words we are presented
with certain salient, distinctive points of character,touchstones, by which each man may, and should, try
himself. In doing little else than indicating these, I
remark of true Christians,
First, They receive the Word. In their case it does
not, so to speak, go in at the one ear, and come out at
the other. It does not fall on their minds to rurt off
like water from a stone; it falls, but it is as seed into
a furrow, to lodge itself in their hearts. They do not
reject, but receive it.
Secondly, They understand it,-appreciate its value;
feel its power; and " comprehend with all saints what
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of





232


TIE PAIABILE5.


the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge."    But
" the darkness," as the apostle John says, " comprehendeth it not."  Did others comprehend, understand
the truth in the highest sense of the term, would they
act as they do?  No! no more than a man, even a
child, who understood the nature of fire, would walk
into the burning flames. Did yonder savage know, or
even dream of, its value, would he give a handful of
gold to purchase a few worthless beads, a looking-glass,
some fragile, infant's toy? Still less would yonder
sinner, did he rightly understand the meaning of God's
wrath, of God's love, of the cross of Calvary, of eternity, pawn his soul and peril its salvation for pleasures
which perish in the using.
Thirdly, They keep the Word: as-in contradistinction to soils that puffed up by winter frosts throw out,
or others that starve, their plants-good ground keeps
the corn. Esteemed a treasure more precious than gold,
yea than much fine gold, they lay the word in their
hearts, locking it up there.-Its effect on others is
temporary, as truths written on sands within the tidemark where waves roll in, nor leave a letter there. On
them its effects are permanent, not passing; deep, not
shallow; the work of God's Spirit, not of man's powers
of persuasion; such as Job wished: " 0 that my words
were written! 0 that they were printed in a book! that
they were graven with an iron pen in the rock for ever!"
With hearts where the tenderness of flesh is associated
with the tenaciousness of stone, as granite keeps the
letters of its inscription, so they "keep the Word."
Fourthly, They bring forth Fruit.-In the form of





THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER.


233


good works, of unselfish, gentle, and heavenly dispositions, of useful, noble, holy, and Christian lives,
they bring forth fruit-some much; some little; but
all some. " Neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," they prove their faith
by their works. So living, within a wide or narrow
circle, when they die they are missed: and their memory, while "the name of the wicked shall rot," embalmed intheir virtues and long preserved from decay,
remains fragrant-as withered rose-leaves in a vase of
spices.
Such are some of the points which distinguish real
Christians from those who, however fair, are mere professors. The key to all lies here-they have, what is
meant by the "good ground," a good heart,-what
Luke calls " an honest and good heart,"-in other
words a true and a new heart. Implanted at conversion, entailed on no heir, the natural inheritance of no
man, this heart is found in those only who, born again
of the Holy Ghost, have received the truth in the
love of it. Its presence or absence explains what is
otherwise inexplicable-in the same family, some reprobate and others religious; among disciples of the
same Master, a Judas and a John; hanging one on
each side of the same cross, an impenitent and a penitent thief; leaving the same church after listening
to the same sermon, one sinner converted and another
hardened. How important,-the term is too feeble,
-how indispensable, absolutely indispensable, would
men be saved, nor go to hell with a Bible hung like a
millstone round their neck, this new heart! God can
20*





234


THE PARABLES.


give it. He has given it wherever it has been got.
There is nothing in the grains of corn to change bad
ground into good; but this seed has the wondrous
power of changing the nature of the soil. Blessed of
God, the truth sanctifies. What therefore though the
heart by nature is like a stone? The finest soils of
earth were once stone; and He who by the action of
stormy waves and stupendous icebergs ground down
the rocks which reared their naked, rugged heads
above the waste of waters into soil where now the
ploughman draws his furrows and flashing sickles reap
their richest harvest, can work such changes on hearts
of stone. And he will, if we ask him. "If a son,"
says our Lord, " shall ask bread of any of you that is
a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish,
will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall
ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall your heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"





XI.


%(      rd "IItOM  fff tlyt BZiffm1r111itaffl '5krbat.
Matthew xviii. 21-25.
THE boy who, catching a poor fluttering insect, impales it, and then with curious and eager eyes watches
it spin round and round, may not be of a cruel disposition. It is right by instruction, or by the rod even,
to teach children kindness to the meanest thing that
lives, still this barbarous and apparently cruel act
may be entirely due to ignorance. The child does not
know the pain it inflicts; and may just illustrate in the
nursery what is so often illustrated by older people in
the world, how, in miseries unrelieved, feelings wounded,
and the poor neglected, more ill is done for want of
thought than for want of heart. The nursery however
presents a scene where, as through a rent in that veil
of innocence which throws its sweetest charms over
infancy, we see the bad passions of our nature. Proud
and pleased as it takes its first steps across the floor
to the mother, kneeling with radiant smiles and open
arms to receive it, the infant totters, and falls with a
lurch against chair or table. In such a ease it is easier
to stanch its wound than calm its anger. And yet,
(235)





236


THE PARABLES.


though the remedy is worse than the disease, that may
be done. Revenge, says one, is sweet. There is nothing
smells so sweet, said Louis XII., as the dead body of
an enemy; and blowing up a spark she should have
quenched, the foolish nurse or mother pretends, by beating chair or table, to avenge the wrong. The device
succeeds-though it be, after a fashion, casting out
devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils, and by another voice than his who spake peace to the storm of
Galilee, calming the passions of that little bosom.
Alas, her success in soothing anger by gratifying the
passion for revenge, proves not so much the nurse's
skill, as that forgiveness is not a virtue that belongs to
our fallen nature.
To say that we forgive, is easy. But when engaged
as a peacemaker, how have I seen the manner give the
lie to the speech, and in the clouded brow, and sullen
look, and reluctant advance, and cold hand of this
scene, the strongest contrast to that where his father,
seeing the prodigal afar off, runs to meet him, and
rushes into his arms to kiss him? It is the forgiveness
of the heart which God links to the forgiveness of the
heavens-that which recalls Calvary, with Jesus bending eyes of pity on his murderers,-not the death-bed
of an old highland chief in the days when clans met
clans in deadly feud.   It is told that the minister
urged him to make his peace with men as well as with
God, declaring that he could not expect to be forgiven
unless he forgave. The word at length passed his reluctant lips; but, as if that dying chamber had been
a stage, and the dying man an actor, who, having





THE UNMIERCIFUL SERVANT.


237


played his part, doffs his theatrical attire to resume his
real character, so soon as it was spoken, he turned on
his son to say, that he left him a father's curse if he
forgave them!
Foreign to nature, forgiveness is difficult even to
grace,-so difficult, that he who suffers a wrong and
feels no impulse to retaliate, recalls one without aught
of malice, endures cruel wounds which heal without
festering into corrupt, acrid humors, has, if such grace
there be on earth, reached its highest pinnacle; and
presents the finest image of Him, who, when reviled,
reviled not again, and when his mangled form lay
stretched on the cross, raised his meek eyes to pray,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do!"  This grace, be it observed, is not incompatible
with a deep sense of our wrongs. The apathy which
feels a blow no more than a stone does, an insult no
more than the cold corpse which, spit upon, lifts no
hand to wipe off the stain, a wound no more than the
air which the arrow cleaves, or the water which kisses
the prow and closes its arms around the keel that tears
its bosom, does not constitute a forgiving temper. They
forgive most who feel the deepest indignation at ingratitude, and on whom    injuries inflict the keenest
pain. On them as, in forgiving wrong, and returning
good for evil, achieving the greatest victory over self,
the wise man pronounces his high eulogium, " He that
ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city."
So foreign is this grace to humanity, that we are
unable not only to practise but even fully to understand it-as is shown by the question which formed





238


THE PARABLES.


the occasion of this parable. Although the law of
vengeance, as expressed by the proverb, " an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth," was the rule in
Ileathendom, God's ancient people had some notion of
the duty of forgiveness. The dyer's hands are stained
by the colors of his trade, and the very clothes of one
who works among spices steal some of their fragrant perfume: so their familiarity with those Scriptures where
G6d's forgiveness is so eagerly sought and highly extolled, inspired the Jews, to some extent, with a forgiving spirit. They held forgiveness to be a duty,
binding up to the third offence; but beyond that limit,
let the wrongdoer beware; outside that charmed circle,
man had a right to say, with God, Vengeance is mine,
Iwill repay. Now, Simon Peter had not lived these
months or years with Jesus without catching something
of his Master's gentle, placable, forgiving spirit. The
leaven had begun to work; and his heart, swelling
with something of Jesus's love, found the narrow limits
of Jewish forgiveness too contracted for it. Though
imperfect as the vision of him who, with sight but partially restored, saw men as trees walking, he had
caught a glimpse of the truth: and came to Jesus,
saying, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against
me, and I forgive him? Seven times?"  Hail to the
dawn! The night is past, and the sky shows the first
bright streaks of morning. " Seven times?"  Simon
has stept out in advance of the men of his age and
nation; and our Lord seizes the opportunity to lead
him onward and upward to higher ground-to make
him better acquainted with Christian mercy, fairest of





THE UNMELrCIFUl. SERVANT.         239
all the graces. "Not," is his reply, " seven times,
but seventy  times seven"-seventy    multiplied by
seven. A big number: and yet we would fall far
short of the lofty mark if we suppose, that forgiveness
is to be confined to the limit of four hundred and
ninety insults, wrongs, or robberies. Here, as elsewhere, a definite is employed to express an indefinite
number: so that by this expression Jesus taught Peter,
and teaches us, that mercy, like the regions of space,
has no limit; and that as these stretch away before
the traveler who looks out from the farthest star, so
the loftiest intellect and largest heart can descry no
bounds to mercy. Like our Father in heaven, we are
to forgive without stint-forgiving as we expect to be
forgiven. And for the purpose of illustrating and of
enforcing this truth, our Lord tells the parable of the
Unmerciful Servant.
THE MASTER'S TREATMENT OF HIS SERVANT.
He was reckoned uwith.-As the story runs, the
King enters on an inquiry into the way his servants
have discharged their trust-an incident, since the
King here represents God, which reminds us that He
with whom we have to do, will ere long reckon with
every man-saying, " Give an account of thy stewardship: thou shalt be no longer steward." God will
reckon with us: first, when Death, grim officer of
justice, comes to seize man by the throat, and, as he
drags him away into the presence of the Judge, seems
to say, Pay that thou owest;-and, secondly, when the
Archangel, sounding his loud trumpet at the gates of





240


TIHE PARABLES.


Death, shall call us from our graves to see the throne
set, the books opened, the world wrapped in flames,
and God descending in majesty to judgment. But it
is neither the hour of death nor the day of judgment
which is meant here. Alas! for us, if we are not
reckoned with till then. It is too late then-too late
to ask for patience; too late to hope for pardon; too
late for repentance and return.  The door is shut.
SIn the cold grave to which we haste
There are no acts of pardon past,
But fixed the doom of all remains,
And everlasting silence reigns."
It is to the reckoning which God holds with men in
time, through His Word, and by the agencies of His
Spirit and their consciences, that this parable refers.
The King reckons with us, "his servants," when he
brings us to a sense of our guilt; sets our sins in dread
array before us; impresses us with feelings of contrition, and alarms us with fears of judgment; and by
rebukes, corrections, and convictions, pleads with us
to flee to Jesus.  The bar here is one at which, some
time or other, we all have stood; and where, without
regard to rank or office, kings and priests, and purest
women, as well as the lowest criminals, have been
tried.  This court holds its sittings within our bosoms
-the presiding judge, God's vicegerent, is conscience
-the law is the statutes of Heaven-and each man,
turning king's evidence, bears witness against himself.
And though in a sense man himself here constitutes
the whole court,--being at once prosecutor, witness.





TIIE TUNALIECIFUL SERVANT.


241


judge, and jury, and the trial is conducted under circumstances not favorable to an impartial decision,yet in every case the verdict is, and must be, guilty.
We cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that we have all
sinned times and ways without number. Whose conscience does not condemn him as a debtor to the law
of God?   Who boasts, my hands are clean, my heart
is pure?  The one redeeming feature in that Sanhedrim of sanctimonious hypocrites where Jesus stands
facing the guilty woman, is that, when he says " Let
him who is without sin cast the first stone at her," a
sense of guilt paralyses every arm-they retreat, and
she goes scatheless. To say that we have not sinned,
is, in fact, to sin in saying it; for we make God a liar,
and our mouth proves us perverse. We have all sinned,
and come short of the glory of God.
He owed an immense debt.-This is expressed by the
very number here-ten thousand, or a myriad, being
the highest in the Greek notation. Nor does the debt
look less when narrowly examined-being such indeed
as could have only been contracted by one who, representing his sovereign in some wealthy province of
an Eastern empire, had squandered in boundless extravagance revenues that should have swelled the public
treasury. In Roman talents this debt amounts to five
millions of our money; and if we reckon by the
Jewish talent, and calculate the amount in gold, and
not in silver, it rises to a sum equal almost to the
whole revenue of the British empire-the servant
stands indebted to his master more than seventy millions sterling.
21





242


THE PARABLES.


A most enormous sum! but on that account the
better fitted to set before a money seeking, making,
loving world, in a way suited to its understanding, our
enormous guilt in the sight of God. Such is the sum
of our transgressions; and representing our debt to
the divine law, these figures leave us no hope of being
able to pay it-laying on each man a load of guilt
enough to sink not one, but ten thousand souls into
jerdition. That we are guilty, and as debtors to a
broken law, are sinners to the extent represented here,
is a conclusion so humbling to our pride and alarming
to our fears, that we may be unwilling to admit it.
Yet better people than we, God's noblest saints, have
spoken of the number and guilt of their sins in terms
as strong. The man of whom, not partial friends,
but God himself said, "there is none like him on the
earth, a perfect and an upright man," on seeing his
own image in the mirror which God held before his
face, started back with horror; and seeming viler in
his own eyes than he appeared to his friends when they
found him covered with ashes, and his body one loathsome sore, Job exclaimed, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."  To the same effect is Ezra's
confession when, rending his mantle, that man of the
highest piety and patriotism threw himself on the
ground to cry, " 0 my God, I am ashamed, and blush
to lift up my face to thee, my God, for our iniquities
are increased over our head, and our trespass is gone
up unto the heavens;" and David's harp sounds forth
the same mournful notes, when touching its strings
with trembling hand, " the man after God's own





TTHE ITNMAEICIFLTTL fSERVANT.24


243


heart, lifts his weeping eyes to Heaven, saying, " 0
Lord, for thine own name's sake, pardon mine iniquity,
for it is great!".He oas. bound to pay.-Therefore, seeing "he had
not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold and his
wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to
be made."   This first, as selling a man for debt, and
secondly, as involving an innocent family in ruin, looks
a hard sentence. It is not necessarily approved of
here, and I am not called to justify it; yet, I may remark by way of explanation, that in some countries.creditors were allowed to recover their claims by the
sale of their debtors. Nor need we hold up our hands
in horror at this, seeing, not only that it appears right
to compel a man who has obtained another's property
by fraud or wasted it by extravagance, to work till he
has liquidated the debt, but that once on a time, and
not so long ago, in this our own country, debtors were
occasionally doomed to a fate more severe. The law
allowed their creditors to throw them into jail-not
fraudulent debtors only, but those also who under the
loss of their fortunes had preserved their integrityand there, amid the scum and offscourings of society,
through malice of enemies or lack of friends, whilst
wife and children were left to starve, the unhappy
debtor was left to rot. No jail-delivery for him, till
a messenger from a higher court-Death-came to set
the captive free.
Before considering the bearing of this part of the
parable, it may be well to advert to the fact, that this
law appears, though under certain important modifica




241


THE PAIABLES.


tions, in the Mosaic code; and that, with such perver.
sion of Holy Scripture as the Devil employed in the
Temptation of the Wilderness, men-and, sad to say,
even ministers of the Gospel-have used it to defend
slavery, and gloss over its abominable crimes. Nature
occasionally produces strange monsters-creatures that
onlyexciteemotions of terror or disgust, and which, by
a merciful law of Providence, rarely prolong their life,
and never propagate their species. But in the spectacle of free men, and especially of Christian ministers,
standing forth before an astonished world to justify
slavery as a divine institution-in a people called
Christian, holding that God made one race of human
beings to be, like dogs and horses, the servants of another, and, while proposing to erect an empire on the
foundations of slavery, with unblushing effrontery and
unparalleled blasphemy applying to a system which
the Christian world rejects, the sacred words spoken
of our dying Lord, " the stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner"-in this
what age has produced anything so monstrous as our
own? Nothing so cruel to man or insulting to his
Maker is found in all history; and, done by men with
Bibles in their hands, but without a blush on their
cheeks, this offers a most remarkable and terrible illustration of the Saviour's words, If the lrght that is in
you be darkness, how great is that darkness?  The
whole tone of God's blessed word, its spirit of grace and
love, its golden rule, "As ye would that others should
do unto you, do ye also to them likewise," are as irreconcilable with slavery as with robbery, or adultery,





THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.


245


or murder, or any one of all the crimes of which this
system has ever proved the cruel patron and the
prolific parent. None-not Satan himself-has more
wickedly perverted the word of God than those who
attempt to make Jewish servitude an excuse and a
defence for modern slavery. So far, for example, as
the case in hand is concerned, the debtor who was sold
to meet the demands of his creditor had a right, by the
laws of Moses, to kind and brotherly treatment during
the whole period of servitude; and whether the debt
was paid out or not, freedom came with the seventh
year. In the larger number of cases the bondage was
thus no longer than an apprenticeship; and in those
few cases where it lasted till the return of the year of
jubilee, at the first blast of the trumpet the bondsman
went free-" Then," said God, "shall he depart from
thee, he and his children with him, and shall return
unto the family and possession of his fathers." To
pretend that such laws lend any countenance to American slavery, is to insult man's understanding and
profane God's word.
Proceeding now to apply the parable, let it be observed that the servant takes no objection to the sentence. He does not challenge its justice: he only proposes to suspend its execution. Drowning men catch
at straws. So did he, when, distracted with sudden
terror, he cast himself at his master's feet to say-as
if ten thousand talents, the revenue of a kingdom,
had been but ten thousand pence-Lord, have patience
with me, and I will pay thee all! Did he know what
he was saying?  One can hardly believe it. And yet
21"





246


THE PARABLES.


in undertaking such an impossible task, he was the
veritable type of many a sinner. Promising to God
never more to commit the sin of which their conscience
accuses them, henceforth to keep their hands clean
and their hearts pure, they, as it were, undertake,
without having one penny, to pay ten thousand talents.
So they also do who propose to reconcile themselves
to God, and wipe out the guilt of their past sins, by
living henceforth lives of blameless obedience. Have
patience with me, they say, and then I will pay thee
all. Nolw, suppose that they who have always fallen
will fall no more, and that henceforth they will succeed
in conquering the temptations which have always conquered them, what then? Keeping out of debt does
not liquidate obligations already contracted.  What
merchant to whom I stand indebted would grant me a
discharge on my undertaking hereafter to buy with
ready money? To vary the illustration, fancy a man
found guilty of murder, on being asked to say why
sentence of death should not be passed on him, standing up, and, as a good reason why he should not be
hanged, gravely promising to commit no more murders,
never more to shed human blood. Some might laugh;
none would listen to so absurd a plea. Such, however,
is the way in which some sinners propose to pay
old debts; it never satisfied man, and cannot satisfy
God.
Still, incalculably great though the debt be, there is
a way of paying all. It is not by works of righteousness that we have done. He who consents to be a
debtor to the grace, will cease to be a debtor to the





TIHE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.


247


law of God.    Going to prison for us, to bondage for
us, to death for us, Jesus, by rendering in his life a
perfect obedience to the law, and in his sufferings a
perfect satisfaction to the justice of his Father, has
paid all. The benefits of his suretyship are ours if we
believe. Trembling at the bar, overwhelmed by proofs
of guilt, condemned, crushed,-guilty one, lift your
head, look up, behold
"Where high the heavenly temple stands,
The house of God not made with hands.
A great High Priest our nature wears;
The Guardian of mankind appears;
He who for men their surety stood,
And poured on earth his precious blood,
Pursues in heaven his mighty plan,
The Saviour and the Friend of man."
He was forgiven.--In those old historic straits which
join the Mediterranean to the broad Atlantic, there is
an upper current from the ocean flowing into the sea,
and an under and salter current from    the sea which
flows out to the ocean; and in like manner the human
bosom may, at one and the same time, be moved by
the counter-currents of opposing passions-mercy and
vengeance; anger and pity; what prompts to punish,
and what to pardon. And as in yonder straits all
merely floating things, from ships of war to seaweeds,
are borne onward of the upper stream, so the fate of
one whose crimes excite our anger, but whose misery
moves our pity, depends on       which of these two
passions gets the upper hand-obtains the mastery
over us.





248


THE PARABLES.


Such a case was his whose story forms the groundwork of this parable. His unfaithfulness, and the
enormous loss it entailed on a kind and confiding
master, called for punishment, and left him no claim
to forgiveness. On the other hand, there he was, a
miserable wretch-by one sudden turn of Fortune's
wheel thrown from its top into the dust, where, as
with every bone broken, he lies writhing, crushed by
the tremendous fall; none so poor now to do him reverence; by one step he has descended from a proud
position to stand, with a wife and children whom his
crimes have hurried into ruin, in the auction martnothing before him and them but the miseries of lifelong slavery. His heart is wrung with grief; he stands
appalled at the prospect; from his fate, pale with
terror, and a picture of despair, he shrinks back to
throw himself at his master's feet, and implore his
pity. " Have patience with me," he cries, " and I
will pay thee all."  Looking down on this form of abject misery, his master is moved with compassion"Mercy rejoiceth against judgment."  He who asked
but patience receives pardon.  He who sought but
time to toil and save to pay his debts, has them all
forgiven. Seeking more than he deserved,- he obtains
more than he desired.    His least fears are disappointed, and his greatest hopes surpassed. Without
doing a turn to pay a penny of the sum, the debt
of ten thousand talents is at once and entirely cancelled.
Behold a picture of the munificent mercy which God
is ready to extend to us-even to the chief of sinners!





THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.


249


Intoxicated with "the cup of devils," many are insensible to their misery; having even "no bonds in
their death," they are like that degraded wretch, who
stupefied with drink, lies prostrate in the gutter, and,
while his family blush with shame and strangers look
on with pity, feels neither cold, nor hunger, nor disgrace. But what costs many a gay and thoughtless
one no care, moved God to compassion, and brought
his Son to the rescue. To save us from sin, and from
that hell where they seek for death but cannot find it,
and only find after unnumbered ages that their torments are beginning, Jesus interposed, saying, I will
save them-suspend the sentence-I come to do thy
will, 0 my God,-deliver from going down to the pit,
I have found a ransom-have patience with them, and I
will pay thee all!
He paid it. Making atonement for sin, "he was
wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for
our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon
him; and with his stripes we are healed." The debt
was paid on Calvary to the uttermost farthing; and
now God only awakens our convictions and alarms our
consciences, reckoning with us, that he may bring
sinners to acknowledge their guilt, and so prepare
them to receive his mercy. Sins are not pardoned till
they are acknowledged.   If Justice wears a stern
aspect; if we think it hard that she will not pass by
the smallest sin, that she holds him who offends in one
point to be guilty of all, that, like a rough and stern
officer, she takes us by the throat, saying, Pay what
thou owest, there is Divine love here-" a bright light





250


THIE PAIABJLES.


in the clouds." In dealing with tis thus God seeks to
bring us to a sense of our sins, that we may flee to
the Saviour; breaks down that he may bind up; wounds
that he may heal; kills that he may make alive. The
upbraidings of conscience, an awful sense of guilt,
David's horror when he cried, " The terrors of death
compassed me about, and the pains of hell gat hold
upon me," are the harbingers of forgiveness. It is as
in'nature, where lightnings flashing through the horrid
gloom and thunders which rend the skies, are preludes
of the rain that descends in copious showers on the
parched and thirsty ground. Or it is as on that night
of old, when a frail and lonely bark, watched by the
Saviour's eye, was battling for life in a head wind on
the sea of Galilee-Jesus comes in the tempest that
agitates the soul. Wrapt in the dark mantle of the
night, he advances over the stormy billows; and, ere
long filling the troubled heart with a holy calm, his
voice is heard, saying, " It is I, be not afraid."
THE SERVANT'S TREATMENT OF HIS FELLOWSERVANT.
Of the four men lately hanged at Kirkdale, two had
seen a man executed for murder but a few weeks before they committed the very same crime. Without
-sufficiently considering that ardent spirits,-maddened
by which both imbrued their hands in blood,-while
they weaken the reason, strengthen the passions, and,
acting on these as on fire, make them burn with a
fiercer heat, people are shocked at such an instance of
human depravity. Such a case certainly and awfully





THEI UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.


251


illustrates God's question: " Why should ye be stricken
any more? ye will revolt more and more"-for, unless
checked by the restraints of grace or of providence,
correction but exasperates our corruptions, and, producing no other effect on them   than fire on clay,
hardens rather than softens the heart. The crime of
these felons who, swung from the gallows, turn slowly
round and round in the wind-a ghastly spectacle,
was shocking; yet this servant presents a specimen of
humanity in some respects still more detestable. Kindness seems only to have made him more cruel, and
generous treatment more selfish; nor do the love and
mercy of his lord appear to have produced any other
effect on him than the heat of the tropics on poisonous
plants and venomous reptiles,-imparting to juices and
fangs a deadlier virus. In proof of this, look at his
treatment of his fellow-servant!
It is extremely harsh.-If we have civil rights we
should use them civilly-refuse even a beggar   with
courtesy-be kind to all-bear ourselves to the
meanest without forgetting that he is a brother, a
fellow-creature, one who though less favored by fortune, may carry on his shoulders a better head, and
within his bosom a kinder heart, than ours. But this
ingrate could not have treated the poor man worse had
he been, not his fellow-servant, but his slave; not a
debtor, but a robber; not, as probably he was, a man
whose infirm health, or numerous family, or unexpected
misfortune, had involved him in debt, but one more
extravagant in his habits and faithless to his trust than
himself. All of a sudden, like a police-officer who





252


TIHE PARABLES.


lights on some criminal for whom he has been hunting
the streets, and haunts and hiding-places of vice, he
catches his debtor by the throat, with the peremptory
demand, " Pay me that thou owest."
It is most unmercifal.-Though unable to pay tlh
debt, his fellow-servant is too honest to deny it; nor,
under feelings of irritation, natural to one treated with
such insolence and severity, does he tell this man to
keep off hands, and remember, that though he is his
creditor, he is not his master,-but a servant as well
as he, nor a man so good. Without even attempting
to excuse himself, and show how innocently perhaps
he fell into debt, the poor man casts himself entirely
on his compassion. Though the other, as a servant,
was his equal, he stoops to prostrate himself before
him as his superior; and, crouching at his feet, makes
the same pitiful appeal, that but a few minutes before
his creditor himself had made, crying, " Have patience
with me, and I will pay thee all!"
Regarding the generous and entire forgiveness of
the king which is set forth in the first act of this parable, as illustrating the manner in which God deals
with men, in the answer of this servant to his fellow
what an illustration have we of David's wisdom when,
required to choose between the pestilence in God's
hand and the sword in man's, he said: "Let us fall
now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are
great, and not into the hands of man."  There is heat
locked up in polar ice, and sparks of fire may be struck
from the coldest, hardest flint-but there's no pity in
this man's bosom. So bad is human nature capable of





Z7


)AY
6L


(N
\k~K \\~










THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.


253


becoming; no heart more merciless to man than man's!
There was no pity to be expected here-do men
gather grapes of thorns? This haughty and heartless
upstart could not have incurred such an enormous debt
without having passed many years in the indulgence of
vice; and all debauchees are selfish-a life of vice resembling those petrifying wells which turn into stone
whatever is immersed in them, fairest flowers or finest
fruit. The ravages of the worst diseases which vice
engenders in the body present a loathsome, but yet a
feeble image of the wreck it works on the noblest
features of the soul. No wonder, therefore, that this
man's heart was not touched by the pitiful appealthat the only reply to it was, a prison. " He would
not," says the story, "but went and cast him into
prison, till he should pay the debt."
The circumstances of the unmerciful servant greatly
aggravated his lguilt.-Good men remember kindnesses,
and forget injuries. Doing the reverse, bad men remember injuries, and forget kindnesses-in their
hearts, the first are graven on a rock, and the second
written in sand. But this merciless servant had not
even time to forget the mercy which he himself had
received; hardly recovered from his terror, his heart
was still beating, as, when the storm is past, the waves
continue for a while to roll, thundering on the beach.
He had just left the house; he found his fellow-servant
at the door; so that when he seized him by the throat,
demanding payment and refusing mercy, the whole
scene of his own forgiveness must have been fresh on
his mind-lying there, though not like the dews that
22





254


TIlE IPARA7ILES.


sparkle on every leaf, and bless the flowers they bathe.
Himself loved, he should have loved; pitied, he should
have pitied; having obtained mercy, he should have
shown it. Nor was that all. In ten thousand talents,
he had been forgiven much; yet in a hundred pence
he refused to forgive little. What was the debt this
servant owed him to the enormous debts which he had
owed his master? As nothing. And by this the parable teaches us that the debts man owes to us are as
nothing to those we owe to God,-that the greatest
sins man commits against man are as nothing to those
we have committed against God. Those are motes,
but these beams; those have their type in the gnat,
these in the camel; those are a mole-hill, these a
towering mountain, as Ezra says, " grown up unto the
heavens;" those are one hundred pence, but these,
represented by ten thousand talents, are what it
needed the blood of Jesus to pay, and the mercy of
God to pardon.
THE RESULT.
When some ruffian man beats a woman, or a grown
lad a weeping child, without waiting to inquire into
the merits of the quarrel we cry, shame! and even the
lowest mob wins our esteem, and lights up its rags
with some touch of glory by its promptitude in espousing the side of the weak against the strong; and thus
in feelings of indignation at ingratitude, oppression,
inhumanity, cruelty, our nature, when fallen into the
greatest ruin, still shows some vestiges of the image of
God. Under the influence of such a noble anger the





THE UNiIEIRCIFUL SERVAINT.2


255


other servants, when they saw this poor man seized by
the throat and dragged away to prison, went straight
to their master and told him of the outrage. They
could not right the wrong, he could; nor were they
mistaken in believing that he would. He summons
the culprit to his presence. His brow grows dark,the court is awed into silence-as in nature before a
burst of thunder, the gloom grows deeper and deeper;
and so soon as the culprit appears, his Lord's pent-up
indignation launches itself forth on his head, like a
thunderbolt, in these words, " 0 thou wicked servant,
I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me;
shouldst thou not also have had compassion on thy
fellow-servant even as I had pity on thee?"  The pardon is instantly cancelled. He is handed over to punishment; and, opening to receive one who parts with
hope at its door, the prison closes on him for ever-in
other words till, accomplishing an impossibility, he
pays the uttermost farthing. And there we leave him,
the captive of a prison-the symbol of that place
" where their worm shall not die, and neither shall
their fire be quenched."
It has been said that no figure walks on all its four
feet-in other words, applies in all respects to that
which it is employed to illustrate. Christ, for instance,
is a Rock; but a rock is dead, while he liveth for
evermore-is a lamb; but a lamb is without reason,
while he with a true body has a reasonable soul-is a
lion; but a lion is savage and blood-thirsty, while he,
the express image of God's person, is "very pitiful
and of tender mercy."   Now this remark applies es




256


'THE PAIIABLES.


pecially to our Lord's parables, from which, were we
to forget that many things in the story form but its
surroundings and drapery, we would draw notions the
most absurd and doctrines the most unsound. That
the king here might illustrate the lesson, With what
measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again,
it was necessary to cancel the pardon-crushing this
merciless wretch under the load of his original debt.
But to infer from that part of the story that such as
God has pardoned may notwithstanding be lost, were
contrary to his Word and utterly destructive of the
believer's peace.
There is enough here as elsewhere to warn us that
unless, living a life of faith in Jesus Christ, the branch
abide in the vine, it cannot bring forth fruit, and shall
be cast into the fire; that the perseverance of the
saints is inconsistent with their perseverance in sinbeing in fact perseverance, not in course of sin, but in
a state of grace. But, type of the sinner who leaves
God, this man, as the story runs, "went out." Temptation met him at the door, and he fell, and by his fall
teaches us that our safety lies in living near to God,
on his bosom-nestled like an infant in the embraces
of a mother's arms. Nor, though people may fancy
they are pardoned who are not, is the safety of Christ's
pardoned ones less secure. By convictions which are
mistaken for conversions, and a reformation of the conduct which seems a renewing of the heart, Satan may
beguile men, saying, Peace, when there is none to be
found; yet our Lord's words shall stand true, "Peace
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as





THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.       2


M7


the world giveth give I unto you: let not your hearts
be troubled, neither be ye afraid." Did he ascend to
heaven to prepare mansions for those who might never
occupy them? If pardons once past are acts which
may be repealed, how could he say of his people,
' They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck
them out of my hand: my Father which gave them
me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck
them out of my Father's hands?" How can angels rejoice when a sinner is converted, if his salvation still
hangs in dread suspense, and neither man nor angel
can tell but that the bark which, with head turned to
the harbor, comes bravely through the roaring sea,
may, notwithstanding, strike on the treacherous bar,
and be scattered in broken fragments on the beach?
Thank God, the covenant is well ordered in all things
and sure-" the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance."
THE LESSON.
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,"
is a clause in the Lord's prayer, which has in words its
best comment in this parable, as it had a very striking
one in fact in an event which I happened to witness,
-and where the sentence " so likewise shall my
heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your
hearts forgive not every one his brother, their trespasses," was, so far as the judgment of the unseen
world is ever anticipated in this, fearfully fulfilled.
Between a mother and her daughter there had sprung
up a serious quarrel. One house could not hold them.
22*





258


THE PARIABLES.


At length filial affection triumphed over pride; and
swelling like a dammed up stream till it burst its
barriers, nature resumed her course in the daughter's
heart. She sought reconciliation. She repaired to
her early home. No welcome met her at the door.
She humbled herself to her mother, on bended knees
imploring her forgiveness. She appealed to the bosom
that had nursed her; but might as well have knocked
on a coffin-there was no response. Nor, though imploring her by the mercies of God and entreating her
to forgive as she desired to be forgiven, could I, called
in as a peacemaker, bend that stubborn, iron will. Byand-by, to this lonely home came another visitor.
Death, who would not be denied admittance, arrivedsummoning her to a bar where they shall have judgment without mercy who have shown no mercy. Called
to her dying bed on a night dark, and starless, and
stormy, I found the scene within darker than that
without. On the floor of the dim and dreary chamber
stood a group of pale, trembling, terror-stricken attendants. Death had his victim by the throat; and, with
the coldest, cruellest hand of the two, despair had her
by the heart. The Bible was there, the offers of mercy
there, but no hope-there was no delirium, but the
deepest darkness-and, after setting her sins and the
Saviour before her, holding up the cross and Christ
crucified to her dying eye, I shall never forget, on
bending down to ask if she had any hope, the shadow
of a hope, the expression of that face. The candle,
set in a corner of the bed, shone full on her pallid,
sunken,-bloodless countenance, and her answer was to





THE UNMEEICIFUL SERVANT.


259


throw on me such a look as painters give to the faces
of the damned-gnashing her teeth the while. I would
not, in any case, claim the prerogative of the judge,
nor attempt to raise the curtain which conceals the
future, yet no wonder, as I left the scene with shaken
nerves, that voices amid the shrieks and howlings of
the tempest seemed to sound out these awful words,
"There shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing
of teeth."
Teaching us not to make quarrels, but make them
up, to be as ready to forgive others as God is to forgive us, and like him, though the offended, to make
overtures of peace to the offender, this parable admits
of a wider application. In attempting to heal the
wounds and redress the wrongs of humanity, let us
learn, from the servants who went and told their king,
to tell God of the evils we cannot cure; and let those
also who, given up to selfishness, are not touched by
the miseries of others, learn that in other things as
well as in matters of forgiveness, as they mete, it shall
be meted to them. It sounds out this warning, Be
pitiless and go unpitied-neglect man's wrongs, and
have your own neglected-close your heart to the appeals of misery, and find God's heart closed against
you-shut your door in the face of the wretched, and
have heaven's shut sternly in your own-live in your
selfishness, and die in your sins-be deaf to the wails
of earth, and wail in hell-be a curse to man, and be
accursed of God! Whether it be bane or blessing
which we diffuse around us, let us rest assured that
there is a mysterious tide circling in the government of





260                 THE PARABLES.
God that shall, here or hereafter, bring back to us the
bread which we have cast upcn the waters. It shall
return. As men sow, they shall reap. By an infallible decree, they shall have judgment without mercy
who have shown no mercy; while those who, Christlike, go about doing good, forgiving such as wrong
them, helping such as need, pitying such as suffer,
seeking to save others from sin as well as succor them
in sorrow, shall, Christ-like also, on leaving the world,
go to the Father. Blessed are the merciful, says our
Lord, for they shall obtain mercy. Renewed in his
image and born again of his Spirit, they are children
of God-and so the poet sings:
' But deep this truth impress'd my mind,
Of all his works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind,
That most resembles God."





XII.
Ep   aIratl  to    j  ib&mh    1m tlp rihutR4
Matthew xxi. 1-16.
IN this passage of Scripture commentators have
found a grand battle-field-all manner of opinions
having been entertained, and maintained, about its
proper meaning. It forms a part of Christ's answer
to Peter's question, "Behold, we have forsaken all,
and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?"
That is plain: but who the laborers are, what is meant
by the hours, what is the true value of the penny,
now the story affords either a satisfactory reply to the
question that originated it, or a sufficient foundation
to the moral that Christ builds on it, are points on
which divines have widely differed. The key is yet to
be found-if it ever will be found-which, fitting all
its wards, will fully unlock this parable. Hitherto it
has baffled the efforts of the ablest critics; and in the
obscurity under which, to a greater or less extent, it
remains, after all that they have done to elucidate its
meaning, it stands here recalling the words of David,
"I will incline mine ear to a parable, I will open my
dark saying upon the harp."   Rather than attempt to
(261)





262


THUE PARABLES.


settle controversies which seem  insoluble, we shall
take a practical view of this parable,-turning our
eyes on some great truths which are plainly discernible through what is dusky and ambiguous; and
which are calculated, with God's blessing, to reward
our attention and, if not to entertain our fancy, to
profit our souls. For notwithstanding the doubts, and
difficulties, and differences of commentators, this parable resembles a mountain which, though partially
concealed by the mists that are wrapped around its
bosom and fall in gray folds on its ample limbs,
presents in noble forests, and stupendous crags and
peaks which, crowned with snow and bathed in sunshine, pierce the skies, many grand views. In opening
these up let us first look at the parable as it relates the
proceedings of the householder.
His is a story of Eastern life.-He had a vineyard
-as indeed have all men of any position or substance
in those lands, where vines, planted in the fields, or
clothing the naked rocks, or drooping in beautiful
festoons from  tree to tree, are cultivated, and the
grape forms an important article of food, its juice taking the place which milk has in the diet of our farmlaborers, and the fruit of the vine dried in the sun and
prepared in various ways besides, forming a means of
subsistence the whole year through; facts these from
which to learn the true, full meaning of such expressions as " a land of corn and wine," " corn shall make
the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids."
The time of this parable is that season of the year





THE LABOtRERS IN TUE VINEYARD.


263


when, like farms at harvest or at hay-making, the
vineyard required more than the work of its regular
hands.  The householder must hire others; and for
that purpose he rises with the dawn, and repairs to
the marketplace of the town or village where he resided, and where sun-burned hardy men of bone and
muscle ori the outlook for employment, were in the
habit of assembling. Such stalwart groups may be
seen in our own towns; and in the East, where all
things are stereotyped, the custom  of this householder's time still remains-a recent traveler mentioning that on passing through a town in Palestine, he
saw such a gathering in its market-place; and on asking the people why they were standing idle there, got
for answer these very words, "because no man hath
hired us."  Hiring such as he found there at early
morn, the householder sent them off to his vineyard,
agreeing to pay them a penny for the day's work-a
sum which, though it appears small to us, amounting
in our money only to sevenpence or eightpence, was
the pay of a Roman soldier, and the average wage of
a working man. About nine o'clock of the day, here
called the third hour, the householder, finding himself
still slack of hands, returns to the market-place, and
hires others; he does the same at twelve, and the same
again at three o'clock,-promising the laborers, since
they could have no claim to a full day's wage, to pay
them whatsoever was right. By and by the sun sinks
low, the day shortens, and the shadows lengthen; another hour, and the chance of an engagement i5 gone
from any who are standing in the market-place  Yet





264


THE PARhABLES.


once more, late though it be, as with one turned to
God when his head is gray, the householder returns;
and undertaking to give them also what was right, he
hires others, who betake themselves to work, confiding
in his justice-perhaps also in his generosity. And
now the sun sets; the laborers drop their toil, wipe
their brows, and at the summons of the steward come
for their hire-the law of Moses, which jealously protected the poor man's rights and leaned rather to the
side of the weak than the strong, requiring that the
day which saw work done should see it paid. The
parable states that the householder directed those to
be first paid who were last hired: and so indeed the
story required to be constructed-in order to bring
forth the bad passions of those who had, to use their
own words, borne the heat and burden of the day.
Because, had the paying followed the order of the
hiring, it is evident that they would have been off to
their homes with their wages; nor have had their envy
roused by the generosity which made all alike, and,
unarrested in its flow by their demerits, bestowed the
same wages on such as had wrought one hour as on
those who, toiling from morn to night, had wrought all
the twelve. These on seeing the last hired receive in
a penny the price of a full day's work, fancied that
they would receive more. But here, as in other cases,
greed cheated herself. They found themselves mistaken: but, instead of swallowing their disappointment
to laud the householder, and congratulate their fellows
on his generosity to them, they began to murmur
against his injustice to themselves. One bolder than





/M
Ow










THIE LAEOZEUIS UIT THE VINEYARIID. 25


265


the rest, undertaking to be their mouthpiece, steps out,
and, showing the penny in his open palm, remonstrates with the householder, saying, " These last have
wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal
to us, which have borne the heat and burden of the
day."   They make no appeal to the bountifulness
which had lavished its gifts on the others, but, assuming the air of injured men, rest their complaint on
grounds of justice. The householder accepts battle on
the ground of their own choosing: and how signal
their defeat! If they had fulfilled the conditions of
the bargain, so had he. They had agreed to accept a
penny for the day's work, and he had paid it. Friend,
or fellow, he says, I do thee no wrong. If I choose to
be generous to others, what is that to thee? It should
excite thy admiration, why does it kindle thy envy?
Injustice! Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with
my own? Begone-away with you and your wages!
Such is the story which our Lord told; and now, to
regard it in some of its plain and practical aspects, I
remark that we find here
The rejection of the Jews, and admission of the
Gentiles.-Fancy, which sometimes roams as wide and
wild over the field of parables as over that of prophecy, may think she discovers in the different hours
at which the laborers were called, distinctly different
periods in the history of the Church-its leading
epochs. So in the band which, brushing the dew from
the grass, enters the vineyard in the morning, she may
see the world's gray fathers, the good men before the
flood-in such as were hired at the third hour, the
23





266


THE PARABLES.


patriarchs who, kindling their torch at Noah's altar,
preserved religion alive till the call of Abraham-in
their successors, who enter on work when the sun is at
his height, the nation that left Egypt to conquer and
cast out the inhabitants, and occupy the land, of Canaan-in those summoned at the ninth hour, or three
o'clock of our day, the same people, reanimated by a
revival under Elijah, or returning under Ezra from
captivity to the worship and land of their fathers.
Perhaps our Lord, sketching the past with rapid hand,
had these events before him: but it is to those of which
Time, long pregnant, was on the eve of giving birth,
that this parable mainly refers. For many centuries,
and all alone, the Jews have been laboring in the
Lord's vineyard; while the Gentiles, wholly given up
to every species of idolatry, have been standing unhired, and idle,-living without God or hope in the
world. The hour of their call being at hand, they
were about to be admitted to equal privileges with the
Jews: and within the pale of a Church which, made
for mankind, was to recognize no external distinctions,
knowing men neither as Jew nor Greek, barbarian,
Scythian, bond or free; they were to be placed on a
level with those who, accounting themselves the meritorious as well as special favorites of Heaven, had
looked down with contempt on all other humanitytheir boastful cry, "1The temple of the Lord, the
temple of the Lord, are we." This delightful, glorious
prospect was peculiarly obnoxious to the Jews-had no
beauty in their jaundiced eyes. Proud and haughty,
animated by passions unbecoming fallen man, and most





TIHE LABORIERS IN THE VINEYARID.


267


offensive to a gracious and holy God, they rejected both
the Scheme and the divine Schemer; and, crucifying
the Lord of Glory, were themselves rejected. Filled
with pride, scorn, envy, self-righteousness, their eyes
open to other's faults but blind to their own, they
placed themselves in the same relation to God as these
laborers to the householder whose justice they could
not justly challenge, but whose generosity to such as,
types of the Gentile nations, were called     at the
eleventh hour, they wickedly and insolently grudged.
So, as Christ here and elsewhere teaches, the Jews
forfeited the favor of God, and with a " Go thy way,"
were dismissed from the glorious honors and gracious
rewards of his service.    Thus, warning us against
building our hopes on any outward religious advantages, " the first were last"-as in the adoption of the
Gentiles, " the last were first."
A warning against selfishness and self-righteousness.
-In the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, the answers, as a series of distinct theological
propositions, stand independent of the questions to
which they are attached; but it is sometimes necessary, in order to fully understand an answer, first to
read the question-as in some plants, we find their true
substance lodged in the roots from which they spring;
and here Peter's question helps to decipher the parable
which forms a part of Jesus' answer. A short while
before our Lord spake these words, there had occurred
one of the saddest and most touching scenes in his history. A young man, liberally endowed with wealth,
and, better still, with admirable moral qualities, had,





268


THE PARABLES.


elbowing his way through the crowd, come to Jesus;
and, with gaze fixed on heaven and wings outspread
for flight, sought his counsel-saying, Good master,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life?  Go, was the
answer, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come,
follow me! He was not prepared for this-for such a
complete surrender of all which men hold dear. He
longed, and looked, and wistfully looked again; but
the price was too high. He was unfortunate enough,
as others have been, to be very wealthy; and so,
though Jesus loved him and followed his departing
steps with kindly interest, he returned to the embraces
of the world-strange yet true conjunction-" sorrowful, for he had great possessions." What an event for
a sermon!--the subject Mammon, and he the text.
Seizing the occasion, and taking his eyes from this
youth, as with drooping head and slow, reluctant steps,
he disappears in the distance, Jesus turns a solemn,
sad look on his disciples to say, "Verily I say unto
you, that a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom
of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a
rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
This is a wreck-made, I may say, at the very
mouth of the harbor; and not difficult to be accounted
for. It can be traced entirely to this, that he acted in
the matter from a regard to self, and not to God; and
also that he sought eternal life on the score of his own
merits, and not on grounds of mercy. Yet hardly has
Simon Peter seen the catastrophe, and heard the





THE LABORERS IN THE, VINEYAIRD.


269


warning, than, apparently blind to the one and deaf
to the other, he comes to his Master with a question,
in which we detect distinct traces of a selfish and selfrighteous spirit.  He and his companions had not left
great possessions to follow Jesus-their "'all" being
the gains of men who, as fishers, earned a precarious
livelihood'from the treacherous sea; yet he contrasts
himself and them with this youth; and putting in a
claim of merit, under cover of devotion to Christ, says,
"Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee;"
asking, as if it were not enough to have Him for their
reward, " What shall we have therefore?" It needs no
chemist's fine tests and delicate analysis to detect base
and bad elements in this speech. What shall we have?
-the question which seems most to interest him is not
Christ's honor, but his own profit-what shall we have
therefore in compensation for our sacrifices; in the
shape of wages which we deserve, and you owe to us?
"'Get thee behind me, Satan," were words with which,
like a blow in his face, our Lord once on a time astonished Peter; and it is not less a rebuke of his spirit,
and a warning both to him and the others, that Jesus
relates a story where those who stand on the value of
their works forfeit the master's favor and are dismissed
from his service; and where such as work but one hour
receive as great a reward as those who toil all day.
Thus he teaches that salvation is not of works, but of
grace-warning Peter not what he should, but what,
save for divine grace, he might become by indulging
the envious, unkind, uncharitable, selfish, and selfrighteous spirit of these laborers; how he would, like
23'"





TIE PARA ILES.


the youth of " great possessions," illustrate the saying,
"Many are called but few are chosen;" or, like the
laborers in the vineyard, the other saying, " The first
shall be last, and the last shall be first." Looking, not
at its accessories, but main object, this parable could
find no better motto than the words of an inspired
apostle-so dashing to human pride, but so cheering
to the humble and broken-hearted, "Not by works of
righteousness that we have done, but according to his
mercy he saved us."
Salvation is not of worlcs, but of grace.-Papists and
others have drawn the very opposite doctrine from this
parable.  Misunderstanding  or misrepresenting its
scope, they have appealed to it as proving that we are
saved by works; and that though Christ is, so to speak,
the key-stone, our good works form the body and main
structure of the arch. In evidence of this, they maintain that heaven is represented here under the form of
wages-a reward due to men for their works; and
that, of course, those laborers who incurred the householder's displeasure, as well as those who were the objects of his favor and the pensioners of his gracious
bounty, represent the saved. If this is so, we have
altogether mistaken the nature of heaven and the
spirit of its glorified inhabitants. We fancied that it
was the abode of happiness, disturbed by no jealousies,
embittered by no bad and unhallowed passions-where,
though saints, like the stars, might differ in glory,
none envied the brighter lustre of others' crowns, but
all with one accord, ascribing their salvation to the
mercy of the Father and merits of the Son, magnified





THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD.


271


the grace, none impugning the justice, of God. It is
enough to say that an explanation of this parable
which, besides contradicting the whole tenor of Scripture, involves such absurdities, introducing envy and
jealousy and discontent into heaven, must be wrong.
As to the payment of the penny to the murmurers, it
is a necessary part of the story. It was a matter of
equity on the part of the householder; and had he
failed to do that, these grumblers would have had occasion to impeach his justice-not that generosity
which is the true point of the parable, the feature of
salvation it is set forth to illustrate.
What this parable, where the Church is the vineyard
and men are the laborers, intends to illustrate, meets
us on the threshold-in the circumstance that the
householder, who represents God, seeks the laborers;
not they the householder. Early morn does not find
them crowding his door, and offering to work in his
service: nor even when it becomes known that he has
already hired a number, do those who stand idle in the
market leave it to repair to the vineyard, soliciting
employment. On the contrary, again and again and
again, he comes for laborers-in every case the approach and first movement being on his part; never on
theirs. Even so, the first steps toward reconciliation
between man and God are always taken by Him. He
designed redemption in the councils of eternity, so that,
in a sense, before man lived he was loved, was redeemed before he sinned, and raised up before he fell.
Without any application on our part, of his own free
spontaneous will, God sent his Son to redeem, and





272


THE PAEABLES.


sends his Spirit to renew. The spark of grace which
we have to nurse, He kindled in our bosoms; it was
his hand on the helm that turned us round; and
whether we were at first, as some are, driven to Christ
by terrors, or, as others are, sweetly drawn to Him by
the attractions of his love, anyway it was the Lord's
doing-Jesus, all praise be to his grace, being at once
the Alpha and Omega of salvation, the author as well
as finisher of our faith. A great truth this!-it finds
fit and glorious expression yonder, where the saints,
descending from their heavenly thrones, cast bloodbought crowns at Jesus' feet; and one well put by the
simple Christian, who, on being taunted with believing
the doctrine of election, replied, "I know that God
chose me, because, unless He had first chosen me, I am
sure I never would have chosen Him."
Till we enter God's service, all our industry is idleness.-As we have the Church in the vineyard, we
have the world in the market-place of this parable:
and how striking the picture! There, where some talking with their neighbors tell the news, and some having nothing else to do engage in games, and some are
laughing, and some are yawning, and some with their
backs to the wall, or stretched out at full length on the
ground are sleeping, but none are working, is the
world-this busy world, as it is called, where people,
believe them, in their daily toil for bread, or keen
pursuit of wealth, or pleasure, or fame, have not one
hour to spare for the things that belong to salvation
and their everlasting peace. Ay, how would many
deem us mad, and fancy that religion had turned our





THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD.


273


brain, were we to walk into the counting-room, the
crowded shop, the silent study, the public assembly, to
say nothing of the festive hall, the applauding theatre,
the gay, whirling ball-room, and address them thus
" Why stand ye here idle all the day?"  Mad?-" I
am not mad, most noble Festus." There is such a
thing as laborious idleness.  Busy?  So was the
shepherd on the Alps, mentioned by Dugald Stewart,
who spent fifteen years of life learning to balance a
pole on his chin: and the philosopher sagely remarks
how much good, had they been directed to a noble object, this diligence and perseverance would have accomplished.  Busy?  So have I seen the miller's
wheel, which went round and round: but idly, grinding no corn. Busy? So, in a way, was the Russian
who, facing the winter's cold nor regarding the cost of
massive slabs brought at great labor from frozen lake
and river, built him an icy palace, within whose glittering, translucent walls, wrapped in furs and shining
in jewels, rank and beauty held their revelry, and the
bowl and the laugh and the song went round. But
with soft breath, and other music, and opening buds,
Spring returned; and then before the eyes that had
gazed with wonder on the crystal walls of that fairy
palace as they gleamed by night with a thousand
lights, or flashed with the radiance of gems in the
bright sunshine, it dissolved, nor left " a rack behind"
-its pleasures, " vanity;" its expense, " vexation of
spirit."  Busy? So, in a way, are the children who,
when the tide is at the ebb, with merry laughter and
rosy cheeks and nimble hands build a castle of the





274


rTE PARABLES.


moist seasand-the thoughtless urchins, types of lovers
of pleasure and of the world, so intent on their work
as not to see how the treacherous, silent tide has crept
around them, not merely to sap and undermine, and
with one rude blow of her billow demolish the work of
their hands, but to cut off their retreat to the distant
shore, and drown their frantic screams and cries for
help in the roar of its remorseless waves. From    a
death-bed, where all he toiled and sinned and sorrowed
for is slipping from his grasp, fading from his view,
such will his life seem to the busiest worldling; he
spends his strength for nought, and his labor for that
which profiteth not. With an eye that pities because
it foresees our miserable doom, God calls us from such
busy trifling, from a life of laborious idleness, to a service which is as pleasant as it is profitable, as graceful
as it is dutiful, saying--Work out your salvationWork while it is called to-day, seeing that the night
cometh when no man can work.
And work now. Why, some may ask, now? Their
sun is not yet in his meridian; or, if the shadow has
turned, he has still a long bright path to travel ere he
sinks in night-eleven hours for play and one hour for
work, eleven for enjoyment and one for employment,
is their reading of the parable. It is not the right
reading. God forbid that I should limit the Holy One
of Israel! If one day is with him     as a thousand
years, so is one moment; and salvation being altogether of mercy and not at all of merit, one last, dim,
dying, believing look turned on the cross of Christ,
can save a soul on the very brink of-hell passing





THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD.


275


over into the yawning pit; even as in the camp of
Israel " it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any
man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."
True as that is, still the case of the laborers who did
not enter the vineyard till the eleventh hour, nor begin
to work till the others had begun to think of rest and
the coming night, affords no encouragement to procrastination.  Admit that thege hours, as some think,
stand for the different periods of human life-childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, yet let it be observed that the laborers who entered the vineyard at
the close of day were never called till then. They
had never refused a call-they had no offer till the
eleventh hour; and instead of having rejected offers,
they accepted the very first they got. None who have
read the Bible from childhood, who have heard it
preached Sabbath after Sabbath, who have been urged
a thousand times by the voices of the dead and of the
living to accept of mercy, can reply with these laborers, "No man hath hired us."   Their case therefore affords us no encouragement to put off what
concerns our salvation, I say not a year or a day, but
even a single hour. Those rose, responded instantly,
to the call. It is not procrastination, but promptitude,
therefore, which this parable teaches-promptitude
like his who, sinking, drowning in the swollen river, so
soon as a rope, spinning out from one who has hurried
to the bank, comes within his reach, with sudden and
convulsive gripe closes his hand on it; and, holding
on like death, is drawn safe to shore. Do thou like




276


THE PARABLES.


wise. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now
is the day of salvation.
Salvation, though not of works, is for works." Show me thy faith by thy works," is the demand of
St. James; "Be careful to maintain good works," is
the counsel of St. Paul; and the testimony of the
wlole Bible is, that faith without works is dead. We
are not called into the vineyard to sit idle, to fold our
hands and go to sleep. They that sleep, sleep in the
night; but believers are children of the light and of
the day, and have much to do. In amending our
habits, in cultivating our hearts, in resisting temptation, in conquering besetting sins, in fighting the good
fight, to keep the faith, our banner flying, and, step
by step, win the way to heaven, how much have we to
do?-so much, that an idle, were as great a contradiction in terms, as a dishonest, a lying, or licentious
Christian. In respect even of our own interest and
spiritual welfare, may we not use the words of Nehemiah, and say to the world when, with winning smiles
or brow of care, it solicits our hearts and time, "I
have a great work to do, therefore I cannot come
down?" But no man liveth for himself-no Christian,
at least: and in a world bleeding from so many
wounds, so brimful of sorrow, and suffering, and oppression, and ignorance, and wrong, and crimes, where
sinners perish around us as in a great shipwreck, some
dashed on the cruel rocks and others drowning in the
waves, and all by their dangers crying, Help, we
perish!-instead of having nothing to do, might we
not wish to have a thousand heads to plan, and, a thou




THE LABOIRERS IN THE VINEYARD.


277


sand hearts to feel, and a thousand hands to work,
the zeal of Paul, the wealth of Solomon, and the years
of Methuselah? Let us pity the world; and endeavor,
praying and working, so to shine that others, seeing
our good works, may be guided to heaven, and glorify
our Father there-each such a light, or rather lighthouse, as one of England's bold engineers raised on
the reef which owed its dreaded name to the waters
that eddied and boiled around it. To save our seamen
from  a watery grave, their wives from widowhood,
their little ones from the miseries and crimes of neglected orphanage, what dangers he faced!-as on that
night when, hurrying on deck, he saw white breakers
all around, and above their roar and the shrieks of the
tempest, heard the helmsman cry, For God's sake,
heave hard at that rope, if you mean to save your
lives!-and the vessel, with scrimp room   to turn,
obeyed her helm and rounded off. Example to all who
seek a yet higher object-to save men's souls from ignorance, and vice, and hell-what anxieties he felt to
bring his enterprise to a happy issue! On the Hoe
headland, where Drake first saw Spain's proud Armada, alone in the gray of morning, after a tempestuous night, he might be seen looking out, with telescope at his eye, over a raging sea, for his yet unfinished
structure; and heard saying, as a tall white pillar of
spray suddenly gleaming on the far horizon revealed
his work and removed his fears, Thank God, it stands!
Would that Christian men and women were as anxious
that God would " establish the work of their hands;"
and make each of them, through a loving, active,
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278


THE PA?1ABLES.


zealous, pious life, a light shining in a dark place, in a
dangerous and perishing world!-such as that lighthouse to the homeward-bound, whose course it guides,
and whose hearts leap with joy when, as it rises to the
eye of the outlook like a star across the waters, the
cry is sung out from the mast-head, and echoed in
every cabin, The Eddystone is in sight! Nor do we
fear but that they who thus work for God, and Christ,
and the good of men, will imitate Smeaton in giving
the glory where the glory is due-inscribing on their
lives the words which, as the last work of the mason's
chisel, he had cut on that monument of his genius and
humanity, LA US DEO-praise to God! A fitting
motto these for the heavenly crown; and also for a
life on earth which, founded on the Rock of Ages,
and built up through grace amid many trials, hardships, and storms of temptation, has been blessed of
God to guide the heavenward-bound to their desired
haven, and, by shining on their way to Jesus, to save
those that were ready to perish!