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 THE PARABLES.
 
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 THOMAS GUTHTUE, D. D , 
 
 UTHOR or "THE GOSPEL IN SZEKIEL," "THE SAINT'S isi t KITAMCB, * 
 
 "WAT TO LITE," " SPEAKING TO THE HEART," KTC. 
 
 WITH A BRIE* 
 
 MEMOIR OF DR. GUTHRIE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ROBERT CARTER AND BKOTHERS, 
 
 No. 530 BROADWAY.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ..,..., 7 
 
 I. THE PAKABLK OF THE LEAVEN 15 
 
 II. " " " TEN VIRGINS 30 
 
 III. " ' " PRODIGAL SON 47 
 
 IV. " .-*_' GOOD SAMARITAN 73 
 
 V. " " " " UNJUST JUDGE. 97 
 
 VI. " " " PHARISEE AND PUBLICAM 123 
 
 VII. ' " " " HID TREASURE 149 
 
 VIII." " M " PEARL OP THE GREAT Psicfi 171 
 
 IX. " u " " LOST PIECE OP MONEY 191 
 
 X. " " " SOWEE 209 
 
 XI. " " " " UNMERCIFUL SEBVAMT.. 235 
 
 XII." * * " LABOREBS IN THE VIMUYABD., ......261
 
 MEMOIR, 
 
 DR. GUTHRIE was born at Brechin, in Forfarshire, July 
 12, 1803, and was a younger son of the late Mr. David 
 Guthrie, merchant and banker in that ancient city. The 
 family was one of great respectability and considerable 
 antiquity, having been connected with Brechin for more 
 than two hundred years. With one or two short intervals 
 the office of Provost has been held in succession by five 
 members of the family, the present occupant being John 
 Guthrie, M.D., Dr. Guthrie's nephew. It is probable, but 
 not certain, that Dr. Guthrie was a lineal descendant of 
 the well-known Rev. William Guthrie, author of the "Trial 
 of a Saving Interest in Christ," who was cousin of James 
 Guthrie, the martyr. At the very least he was a kinsman 
 of both, and Dr. Guthrie used to refer with pride to his 
 connection with the martyr, who was not only, like him- 
 self, a Forfarshire man, but connected with the town of 
 Brechin, having been owner of a small estate in its imme- 
 diate neighbourhood. Alexander, one of Dr. Guthrie's 
 elder brothers, was a medical man, who enjoyed a large 
 practice and no small local reputation. Another brother, 
 Charles, nearest to himself in age, and his favourite in the 
 family joined the Indian army, in which he held the rank 
 
 (i)
 
 U MEMOIR. 
 
 of captain, and fell in the first Burmese War, to the great 
 sorrow of his brother and all his family. 
 
 Dr. Outline's education was carried on in his native town 
 till he arrived at the age of eleven, at which period, in ac- 
 cordance with the practice of the time, but very foolishly, 
 as he always thought and said, he was sent to study at the 
 University of Edinburgh. It was hardly to be expected 
 that at such an age he would make any great figure in the 
 University classes. Having resolved to devote himself to 
 the ministry, he passed through the Divinity Hall, which 
 at that time was in a singularly inefficient state. We have 
 not heard through what influence he was led to make the 
 ministry his profession, but it is likely that the influence 
 of his mother, who was both a godly and a clever woman, 
 may have disposed him towards it. This excellent lady 
 had been brought up a Seceder, but the Guthrie family 
 were of the Established Church. Through his mother, 
 Dr. Guthrie may be said to have inherited a respect for 
 the Seceders ; he was in the habit of occasionally attend- 
 ing their chapel in Brechin ; and, perhaps through the 
 force of these early associations, was strongly disposed for 
 union between them and the Free Church, even before 
 the union movement became popular among his brethren. 
 The parish minister of Brechin, or rather one of them (for 
 it was a collegiate charge), whose daughter Dr. Guthrie 
 subsequently married, was an earnest preacher, and of an 
 excellent and very evangelical family the late Rev. James 
 Burns, father of the Rev. J. C. Burns, of Kirkliston, aid 
 uncle of the late William C. Burns, the Missionary to 
 China, and of the late Professor Islay Burns. From a 
 very early period evangelical doctrine took a firm hold of 
 Dr. Guthrie's heart, and all through his life it was at the 
 foundation of his ministry.
 
 MEMOIR. iii 
 
 At a very early age he was licensed as a preacher by 
 the Presbytery of Brechin, but for a number of years no 
 opening occurred for his entering on the ministry. He 
 was content to wait, however ; the more especially that, 
 through the influence of the late Hon. William Maule, of 
 Panmure (afterwards Lord Panmure), the father of the 
 present Earl of Dalhousie, he had the prospect of being 
 presented to a parish, the incumbent of which was far ad- 
 vanced in years. One benefit that came to him in this 
 delay was that, dipping into more than one secular pur- 
 suit, he came to know much more of human nature and 
 of the ordinary ways and feelings of the world than the 
 somewhat monastic training of many a clergyman enables 
 him to obtain. While exercising his gifts occasionally as 
 a probationer, he assisted his father in his banking office 
 on week-days. The knowledge of mankind in their money 
 relations which he there obtained was no common advan- 
 tage, and contributed in no small degree to that sagacity 
 which characterized him afterwards in the more ordinary 
 matters of life. Dr. Guthrie was also very deeply inter- 
 ested in the study of medicine. So eager was he in the 
 pursuit that he spent the winter of 1826-27 in Paris, at- 
 tending medical classes, and getting whatever insight into 
 medical matters the hospitals of that capital could enable 
 him to acquire. 
 
 At last, in the year 1830, the parish of Arbirlot, in the Pres- 
 bytery of Arbroath, became vacant, and, at the instance of 
 Mr. Maule, the Crown issued a presentation in favour of Mr. 
 Guthrie. In consequence of the death of George IV. and 
 the accession of William, there was considerable delay in 
 issuing the presentation ; and in the Gazette an odd trans- 
 position of names occurred, and it was announced that 
 the King had presented Rev. So-and-so (naming the late
 
 IV MEMOIK. 
 
 minister) to the church and parish of Arbirlot, in room 
 of the Rev. Thomas Guthrie, deceased. This act of official 
 murder having been somehow got the better of, Mr. Guth- 
 rie was settled as minister of the parish of Arbirlot. Il 
 was a purely rural parish, and it had this remarkable pe- 
 culiarity, that during his ministry there was but one single 
 individual in it, a kind of free-thinker, who did not attend 
 the parish church. Mr. Guthrie's talent as a preacher 
 soon began to appear. He set out with a fixed determin- 
 ation to make himself understood, and to try to gain the 
 attention of the people. Watching what parts or passages 
 of his sermons seemed to impress them most, he saw 
 that it was his illustrations, and he resolved to give special 
 attention to illustration in every sermon. He had another 
 way of finding out what was most adapted to his audience. 
 It was his habit to go over his sermons with a class of 
 young people, and from their answers he easily gathered 
 what parts of his sermons they understood and felt, and 
 what parts, on the other hand, they had little interest in. 
 By all these lessons he sagaciously profited in his after 
 preparations. 
 
 His ministry roused the people of Arbirlot out of the 
 profound sleep in which they had been permitted to in- 
 dulge, and was accompanied by a measure of spiritual 
 blessing. His fame, began to spread, and was consider- 
 ably increased by a public lecture which he delivered at 
 Arbroath, in opposition to the extreme Voluntaryism of 
 Dr. Ritchie, of Potterrow, Edinburgh, with which he never 
 sympathized. The attention of the late Mr. Alexander 
 Dunlop, afterwards Mr. Murray Dunlop, M.P., was drawn 
 to him, and we believe that Mr. Dunlop went to Arbirlot 
 to hear him preach, and carried back to Edinburgh the 
 report of his great powers in the pulpit. It is worthy of
 
 MEMOIR. V 
 
 mention that, during his ministry at Arbirlot, Dr. Guthrie 
 was prostrated by a very serious attack of fever. For 
 many days his life hung in the balance, and night after 
 night his friends watched him with hardly a shadow of 
 hope that he would see the morning. Had he not had a 
 frame of great vigour he could not have survived the at- 
 tack ; but through God's mercy his life was preserved for 
 the valuable and important services which he had been 
 pre-ordained to render. 
 
 In the year 1837, the death of Dr. Anderson having caused 
 a vacancy in the then collegiate Church of Old Greyfriars, 
 Edinburgh, the Town Council conferred on the minister 
 of Arbirlot the greatest compliment, as it was then con- 
 sidered, to a country minister, by electing him to the va- 
 cant Edinburgh charge. Arbirlot and its people had taken 
 a great hold on his heart, and to leave its fresh rural fields 
 to work in the dingy closes and " lands " of the Cowgate 
 of Edinburgh, which was embraced in his parish, was no 
 ordinary trial. Impelled, however, by that providential 
 force, which so often urges men of power to abandon an 
 easy for a more difficult post, Mr. Guthrie accepted the 
 call to Greyfriars. 
 
 From the first he took rank as a preacher of singular 
 vigour and vivacity. In Edinburgh, no less than in Arbir- 
 lot, he was resolved not to let his people sleep. If at first 
 his manner and illustrations had a certain homespun char- 
 acter, he came by and by to see the advantages of adapt- 
 ing himself even to the most cultivated taste, and took 
 much more pains with his style. His labours in the Grey- 
 friars' were divided between preaching on Sundays in the 
 parish church and " excavating " on week-days in the par- 
 ish purlieus. It was not long before the parish church 
 became crowded with hearers, many of them persons of
 
 VI MEMOIB. 
 
 the fiist position and influence in Edinburgh. Among his 
 regular hearers were Lords Jeffrey and Cockburn. The 
 story is told of Cockburn that, being asked by a friend 
 who met him one Sunday where he was going to church, 
 he answered, " Going to have a greet wi" Guthrie." Lord 
 Rutherfurd was also among his regular hearers, and so was 
 Lord Cunningham, whose views on church controversies 
 were diametrically opposite. Hugh Miller joined his con- 
 gregation when he came to Edinburgh, and continued 
 through life his warm and admiring friend. Many other 
 citizens of influence attended, and in the latter part of his 
 ministry, after he left the Establishment, his church was 
 the resort of innumerable strangers. At first, however, 
 the influx of ladies and gentlemen from the New Town 
 was rather embarrassing. When he came to Edinburgh 
 the Voluntary controversy was raging, and the reproach 
 was flung out on the one side, and repudiated on the 
 other, that the Established Church was the church only of 
 the gentry, and that the odious Annuity-tax was levied on 
 the poor to support the ministers of the rich. Mr. Guth- 
 rie at that time believed in the Established Church as the 
 church of all classes, and besides he was diligently work- 
 ing in his parish, and was annoyed at the Town Council 
 laying on seat rents, which really went to exclude the 
 poor, and furnished some reason for the reproach of the 
 Dissenters. Under the influence of these views he pro- 
 moted the uncollegiating of Old Greyfriars' Church, and 
 got a new church and parish erected in 1840, close to the 
 Cowgate, called St. John's, in which it was intended to try 
 the experiment of allocating one portion of the sittings to 
 the people of the parish, and allowing the rest to be let to 
 the public at comparatively high rates. The experiment 
 proved highly successful, but Mr. Guthrie had not occu-
 
 MEMOIB. Vll 
 
 pied his church long before events occurred that led to a 
 revolution in the ecclesiastical arrangements of St. John's 
 and of the whole of Scotland. 
 
 We have seen that Mr. Guthrie was an enemy of ex- 
 treme Voluntaryism, and a conscientious upholder of the 
 Established Church. He had accepted more than one 
 presentation from lay patrons, but the veto law was then 
 in operation, and patronage was checked by the efficient 
 control which that law had given to the people against un- 
 suitable appointments. But a high-handed patronage he 
 never would have brooked. Neither could he have borne 
 the interference of the State in the spiritual functions and 
 prerogatives of the Church. His theory of the connection 
 of Church and State was that, as co-ordinate powers, they 
 were in friendly alliance, and that neither of them had any 
 right, either inherently or by statute, to override the other 
 in its proper domain. The decisions and actings of the 
 civil courts in the Auchterarder and other cases were, in 
 his view, entirely unconstitutional. A great stand must 
 be made against them. For, whatever advantages the State 
 might confer on the Church, if these advantages interfered 
 with its freedom or impaired its spirituality if they inter- 
 fered with its right and obligation to regard the mind of 
 Christ, as expressed in His Word, as the supreme rule by 
 which it was to regulate its procedure, he would not scru- 
 ple to renounce all these advantages in order to retain the 
 Church's freedom. Dr. Guthrie, moreover, had a great re- 
 gard for the rights of the people. He had confidence in the 
 popular appreciation of the chief qualities to be sought in a 
 preacher of the gospel, and stood bravely by popular rights. 
 The outrageous disregard of these rights in the settlements 
 of Auchterarder and Marnoch roused his indignation. With 
 great decision and great energy he threw in his lot with
 
 Vlll MEMOIR. 
 
 what was called the non-intrusion party. When the Strath- 
 bogie ministers were suspended, and when, in their great 
 folly, they applied for and obtained interdicts from the 
 Court of Session prohibiting the ministers appointed by 
 the General Assembly from preaching in their parishes, 
 Mr. Guthrie was one of those who set the interdict at de- 
 fiance, and proclaimed himself prepared to go to prison 
 which was the threatened penalty rather than be guilty 
 of rendering to Caesar in this matter the things that were 
 God's. In the great public meetings in Edinburgh and 
 elesewhere, held to promote the cause of those who were 
 struggling against the oppression of the civil courts, Mr. 
 Guthrie's eloquence w,as always one of the most efficient 
 popular forces. Cunningham was more learned, and Cand- 
 lish more subtle and more skilled in giving expression and 
 form to the thoughts and aspirations of his party ; but in 
 humour, in illustration, in appeals to the broad feelings 
 and convictions of the people, Guthrie excelled them both. 
 The remarkable combination of humour and pathos by 
 which he was characterized had more scope on the plat- 
 form than in the pulpit. Occasionally he would rise to 
 the sublime, but the fertility of his fancy in the realm of 
 humour supplied a constant and almost irrepressible means 
 of enlivening and refreshing his audience. Side by side 
 with the illustrious men by whom, in some high qualities, 
 he knew that he was eclipsed, it cannot be said that Dr. 
 Guthrie showed any of the weakness of jealousy. Never 
 did he utter a finer sentiment than on one occasion before 
 the Disruption, when, in reference to the tremendous con- 
 flict of the day, he adverted to the invaluable help which 
 would have been rendered by the late Dr. Andrew Thom- 
 son, had he been alive, and said that he did not know 
 what inscription had been placed over his ashes, but, if it
 
 MEMOIR. IX 
 
 were yet to choose, he would suggest that which the Cartha- 
 ginians placed on the tomb of Hannibal " We greatly de- 
 sired him in the day of battle." From that he proceeded 
 to remark how wonderfully his mantle had fallen on his 
 successor in St. George's Church, and on the other cham- 
 pions who had been provided for the battle. Dr. Guthrie 
 had afterwards occasion to differ on important points from 
 Dr. Candlish and others with whom he was then associated 
 notably from Dr. Begg, who was often his comrade in 
 arms in those days but no one ever heard him say any- 
 thing but what was kind of them personally, even when he 
 most disapproved of their doings. 
 
 When the Disruption happened in 1843, Dr. Guthrie's 
 course was clear. At the Convocation he had taken up his 
 ground firmly, and had been useful in confirming the minds 
 of some that were wavering then. On the i8th of May he 
 was among the foremost and heartiest of the leaders of the 
 Free Church movement, and the cheery tones of his voice, 
 ringing through Tanfield Hall, were in singularly close ac- 
 cord with the feelings of the enthusiastic multitude that 
 cheered him to the echo. On leaving St. John's Church, 
 his congregation obtained temporary accommodation in 
 the Wesleyan Chapel in Nicolson Square. This served to 
 draw closer the bonds which already attached him to the 
 Wesleyan body. He always cherished for them a very 
 high esteem ; some of them were his most intimate friends, 
 such as Mr. Percival Bunting, of Manchester, and the late 
 Mr. Chubb, of London ; and he was ever ready to lift up 
 his voice on their behalf, and bear testimony to the emi- 
 nent service they had rendered to vital religion and Chris- 
 tian Missions. In the course of a few years a new church 
 was built for the congregation of Free St. John's, close to 
 the old one, on the Castle Hill, and Dr. Guthrie entered
 
 X MEMOIR. 
 
 on a new era of his ministry, and was more popular than 
 ever. 
 
 It is not necessary to attempt a critical estimate of the 
 style of his oratory. It is too well known to make this 
 necessary. There was nothing very intellectual in his ser- 
 mons, nor was he, in so far as substance was concerned, 
 original. His originality lay in his illustrations. The pro- 
 fusion of imagery at once delighted and dazzled his audi- 
 ence ; but along with this there was a wonderful power of 
 touching the feelings and arresting the sympathy. 
 
 The pulpit of Edinburgh was then singularly rich in 
 varied and brilliant ability, but in his own department he 
 wzs facile princeps. During the greater part of his minis- 
 try his sermons were prepared at no ordinary cost of time 
 and labour. Often the labour was performed in the vestry 
 of his church, for the interruptions to which he was sub- 
 ject at home made continuous application there impossi- 
 ble. After being carefully written and corrected, the ser- 
 mon was committed to memory the preacher being some- 
 what aided by a skeleton, bringing out prominently the 
 leading ideas and words. But no pains were spared in 
 this part of his work ; and the persevering labour which, 
 week after week, and year after year, Dr. Guthrie spent in 
 so mastering his sermons that the delivery might be as 
 efficient as possible was one of the most remarkable fea- 
 tures of his character, as it was one of the most important 
 elements of his success. 
 
 Nor was he merely the orator. His ministry was fruit 
 ful in conversion, more, perhaps, in that than in the build 
 ing-up of the converts. The gospel message was brought 
 to the ears of many not likely to hear it elsewhere; and 
 in several instances, with the blessing of God, men who 
 went as Augustine went to hear Ambrose for the sake
 
 MEMOIR. XI 
 
 of the eloquence were, like him, too, arrested by the 
 truths which the eloquence conveyed. Dr. Guthrie 
 exercised a marked influence in Edinburgh, along with 
 other eminent preachers, in giving to evangelical truth 
 the commanding place which it got in the pulpit. This 
 was one of the least noticed results of his influence at 
 the time, but to the historian it will be held to be one of 
 the greatest services which he and others rendered to the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 During the early years of the Free Church, no man 
 was more laborious and earnest than Dr. Guthrie in help- 
 ing forward its interests, and pleading, not indiscriminately 
 for all, but for most of its schemes. The interests of the 
 country ministers had a very large place in his heart. 
 The Building and Sustentation Funds had done much to 
 equalise the position of town and country ministers, but, 
 notwithstanding this, it was lamentably apparent that, in 
 one respect, at all events, the country ministers who 
 had left the Establishment were in much worse plight 
 than their city brethren. In many cases, the want of 
 suitable dwelling-houses entailed a suffering which could 
 not be thought of without distress. Thinking how he 
 could help them, he was led to devise one of those Her- 
 culean labours, which only men of the largest heart and 
 the most unflinching courage are able to entertain. He 
 proposed the scheme of a General Manse Fund that 
 would give efficient aid to all, and he offered to go through 
 the whole of Scotland, plead for the fund in every town, 
 village, and parish, where there was the likelihood of con- 
 tributions being got for it, and do his utmost to raise for 
 it a hundred thousand pounds. In many cases, Dr. 
 Guthrie visited personally all the members of congrega- 
 tions who were able to give a good start to the subscrip-
 
 Xll MEMO US. . 
 
 tion, explaining the arrangements and urging the c. laims 
 to each. At what an amount of personal and domestic 
 sacrifice this was done cannot be estimated ; but one little 
 circumstance may be mentioned. In the midst of his 
 engagements for this fund, scarlet fever assailed his large 
 household ; and for a time, at each of the hurried visits 
 which he was able to snatch from his work to visit his 
 family, he found an additional couple of his children 
 prostrated by the disease. The result of his effort was, 
 that not only the proposed one hundred thousand pounds 
 was subscribed, but a large sum beyond. His family all 
 recovered; but to the noble -hearted advocate of the 
 scheme himself the consequences were very serious. The 
 excessive labour was too much even for his powerful 
 frame, and, as happens so commonly in the case of men 
 whose energies are over- taxed, the heart became affected 
 (1848), and the foundation was laid of the ailment which, 
 after an interval of twenty-five years, has now sent him to the 
 grave, to the irreparable loss of his Church and his friends. 
 Cordially though Dr. Guthrie went in with the Free 
 Church movement, and with most of its schemes and 
 undertakings, he did not think that there was a call to 
 establish an Education Scheme on the wide footing con- 
 templated by other leading members of the Church. On 
 the subject of education his views were always liberal. 
 He did not think that it belonged to the Church to edu- 
 cate, and he was very desirous that those divisions and 
 separations, which had become inevitable in our churches, 
 should not be introduced into our schools. He did not, 
 therefore, deem it right to set up a school in connection 
 with Free St. John's. But a conviction had been matur- 
 ing in his mind that a demand of the most imperative 
 kind existed for another kind of school. His experience
 
 MEMOIR. XI 11 
 
 as a parish minister of Old Greyfriars, had shown him 
 that there was a mass of children in Edinburgh whose 
 parents were either dead or utterly profligate, and who, 
 instead of being trained up to industry and honesty, be- 
 came the pests and torments of the community. Instead 
 of throwing his energies into the work of providing an 
 ordinary day school, he resolved to aid in establishing a 
 Ragged School. The Ragged School movement had 
 already been begun in London, under the auspices of his 
 noble friend Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, and in 
 Aberdeen under those of Sheriff Watson but in Edin- 
 burgh nothing had been done. To this triumviiate 
 Ashley, Watson, and Guthrie this memorable movement 
 owes its birth and much of its early success. Dr. Guth- 
 rie's " Plea for Ragged Schools" was universally felt to be 
 one of the most successful brochures of the kind ever 
 issued. It constituted an era in the history of these 
 undertakings. It did more than probably any similar pro- 
 duction to rouse public attention to a class of children 
 that had previously been utterly neglected, but whose 
 claims on Christian philanthropists were of the most im- 
 perative kind. His name became imperishably associated 
 with the enterprise ; and, often though he spoke and 
 wrote on it in after years, nothing that he spoke or wrote- 
 ever eclipsed his first effort, or cast into the shade his 
 memorable " Plea." 
 
 But universally though the object was applauded, the 
 new-born institution was destined in its infancy to pass 
 through a severe ordeal. Dr. Guthrie's principle always 
 was that when the Directors of the Ragged Schools under- 
 ook the charge of neglected children they came to stand 
 to them in loco parentis. They came under the responsi- 
 bilities of parents, and, in reference to the religious train-
 
 XIV MEMOIR. 
 
 ing of the children, they were bound to act according to 
 their view of what was right. Consequently, he felt it a 
 duty that all of the children should receive Bible instruc- 
 tion. In the case of ordinary schools, much though he 
 valued Bible instruction, he would not have claimed the 
 right to insist on it, but would have felt it right to leave 
 it to the parents ; but in the case of ragged schools and 
 gutter children the case was different. There the children 
 had been neglected by the parents, and the directors 
 stepped forward to exercise the function which had been 
 neglected by their proper guardians. Dr. Guthrie would 
 not recognise the common distinctions of sect in regard 
 to the church they were to go to indeed, the Ragged 
 School children were sent not to the Free but to the 
 Established Church ; but he and his brother directors 
 stood firm to the Bible, and refused to propose anything 
 else, but that all who became pupils of that school should 
 have their education conducted in accordance with the 
 Word of God. In this purpose he was vehemently opposed 
 by a number of influential citizens, who insisted that, 
 while a common secular education ought to be given to 
 all the children, their religious instruction should be 
 separated, and Protestant pastor and Romish priest should 
 be called in to supply the religious element, according to 
 what might have been the religious profession of their 
 parents. Dr. Guthrie was supported by the Duke of 
 Argyll and many others, men of the highest character 
 and the soundest judgment, and the consequence was 
 that, while the United Industrial School was started to 
 carry out the more latitudinarian programme, Dr. Guthrie's 
 school or the Original Ragged School continued to 
 exhibit an open Bible as the symbol of its practice and 
 the source of its teaching.
 
 MEMOIR. XY 
 
 We may introduce here the testimony of a competent 
 authority as to the effects of this noble enterprise in check- 
 ing the alarming progress of crime in the city of Edin- 
 burgh. Mr. Smith, Governor of the Edinburgh Prison, 
 whose early interest and valuable co-operation in the 
 movement are well known, made the following statement 
 at a meeting of those interested in Ragged Schools, held 
 in Edinburgh on the loth June, 1868 : " The incidence 
 of the Ragged Schools on juvenile offenders was soon 
 apparent. In the year ended 3oth November, 1847, the 
 commitments of juveniles under fourteen years of age 
 constituted over five and a-half per cent, of the total com- 
 mitments to prison. In the year ended November, 1850, 
 the commitments of juveniles under fourteen had fallen 
 to one and a-third per cent. that is to say, the commit- 
 ments in the latter were not one-fourth what they were in 
 the former of these years, the actual numbers being 260 
 in 1847, and 61 in 1850. It was to be expected, as a 
 natural sequence, that if crime was checked in juveniles 
 under fourteen, and fewer of them were committed to 
 prison, there would also be fewer of a class arrived at a 
 still more critical age namely, youths from fourteen to 
 sixteen ; and such was found to be the case. In the year 
 ended November, 1848, there had been 552 commitments 
 of that class ; in the year ended November 1850, there were 
 227 ; and, not to occupy time by a detailed statement 
 showing from year to year the influence for good of ragged 
 industrial schools, I may in a word or two say that, when 
 the Original Ragged Schools were commenced in i847, 
 there were five times as many commitments of juveniles 
 as there were last year (1868) the actual numbers being 
 260 in 1847, and 52 in 1868, while the commitments of 
 youths from fourteen to sixteen had decreased in a still
 
 XVI MEMOIB. 
 
 greater ratio, being less than one-seventh in 1868 of what 
 they were in 1848. Of course this most pleasing change 
 is the result, not of the Original Ragged Industrial Schools 
 alone, but of the combined action of these and all similar 
 schools in the city." To this we may add that the bene- 
 ficial operation of these industrial schools has saved the 
 city and county of Edinburgh a large sum which it would 
 otherwise have been necessary to expend for additional 
 prison accommodation. The institution and maintenance 
 of Dr. Guthrie's Ragged Schools is the grandest philan- 
 thropic enterprise in Edinburgh during the present gene- 
 ration ; and, on the whole, it has been recognized as such 
 by all classes. There were no public meetings more 
 numerously and influentially attended, while Dr. Guthrie 
 was able to attend them, than the Annual Meetings of the 
 Original Ragged School, and no institution which elicited 
 a larger measure of sympathy and support from Christian 
 people. 
 
 A considerable part of his life had elapsed before Dr. 
 Guthrie came before the public as an author, apart from 
 pamphlets and " pleas." His first, and certainly not the 
 least characteristic or remarkable of his books, was " The 
 Gospel in Ezekiel." It consisted of a series of discourses, 
 which were very carefully revised and retouched again 
 and again before they were submitted to the public. The 
 verdict of the public was given most unmistakeably in 
 its favour. Upwards of forty thousand copies have been 
 sold a number almost if not altogether without precedent 
 in the case of a volume of sermons somewhat high in 
 price. " Ezekiel" was followed by " Christ and the In- 
 heritance of the Saints." The number of his works pub- 
 lished since that time has been very large, mostly of 
 similar character ; the great fundamental truths of the
 
 MEMOTR. XV11 
 
 Gospel constantly underlying his expositions, and receiv- 
 ing that brilliant and lively colouring which has contri- 
 buted so largely to the popularity of his writings.* 
 
 The affection of the- heart which Dr. Guthrie had con- 
 tracted while pleading the cause of the Manse Scheme 
 made it imperative that he should obtain permanent help 
 in his pastoral charge. By special arrangement of the 
 General Assembly, St. John's became for the time a col- 
 legiate charge, and the Rev. William Hanna, of Skirling, 
 son-in-law of Dr. Chalmers, and author of his life, be- 
 came Dr. Guthrie 's colleague. Wide though the difference 
 was in some respects in the nature of the gifts and tastes 
 of the two men, their colleagueship was most harmonious. 
 Both were full of warmth and affection ; both were de- 
 vout and earnest ; both were interested in the spiritual 
 welfare of the whole congregation ; and the connection 
 was unattended by the evils which colleagueship often 
 breeds. Dr. Hanna supplied to the congregation the ele- 
 ment of detailed pastoral oversight which the public 
 engagements of Dr. Guthrie had not allowed him to fur- 
 nish. In compactness and organic life the congregation 
 made great progress under Dr. Hanna's ministry, and, as 
 the two pastors were so much the complement of one 
 another, the provision of spiritual nourishment was the 
 more complete. The arrangement had gone on pleas- 
 antly for a number of years, but about 1863 Dr. Guthrie's 
 health became so much more impaired that even the duties 
 of half the charge were more than he could sustain. In 
 the beginning of 1864 a consultation was held among three 
 eminent medical men, all now deceased Sir J. Y. Simpson, 
 Dr. Begbie, and Professor Miller; as the result of which 
 
 * The works of Dr. Guthrie have been reprinted in America by ROBERT CARTKI 
 & BROTHERS, in nine volumes.
 
 XV111 MEMOIR. 
 
 it was found that he could no longer in safety prosec ute 
 his ministerial labours. Dr. Guthrie was most reluctantly 
 constrained to tender a resignation, which was equivalent 
 to his retirement, save, perhaps, on a few exceptional oc- 
 casions, from the pulpit and the platform, and the discon- 
 tinuance of those modes of service in which all his active 
 life he had been in use to do the work of his Master. 
 
 The wrench that separated him was severe. It seemed 
 hard for one who had gained such force and freedom as a 
 public speaker to take his place as a silent hearer, and 
 suppress what of remaining fire and energy he yet felt that 
 he possessed. Dr. Guthrie acquiesced very quietly in the 
 necessity. Freedom from the pressure of constant duty, 
 however, tended greatly to restore his health, and from 
 time to time during the following years he set the doctors 
 at defiance, and raised his voice with not a little of the 
 power and persuasion of former years. Once and again 
 he undertook important services for the Church, but was 
 unable to fulfil them. In 1867 he was appointed a deputy 
 to visit the Presbyterian Churches of America, along with 
 Principal Fairbairn and Mr. Wells ; but, after he had not 
 only taken his passage, but had sailed to Queenstown, he 
 found himself obliged to abandon the voyage and return 
 to Scotland. In 1872 he was on the eve of setting out to 
 fulfil an appointment of the Continental Committee of the 
 Free Church to officiate in their Church at Rome ; but 
 illness again prevented (October), an illness so sharp and 
 severe that the gravest fears were excited among his 
 friends that he would not recover. 
 
 Dr. Guthrie was not left without substantial proofs of 
 the esteem and sympathy of his friends in the circum- 
 stances in which he was now placed. A movement was 
 set on foot for presenting him with a testimonial that
 
 MEMOIR. XIX 
 
 should at once show the regard in which he was held, and 
 form an item in the sources of support for him and his 
 family in the future. His professional income had always 
 been small, not exceeding five or six hundred pounds 
 a-year, and it was only with such a struggle as many of 
 the clergy knew well that he could make it suffice for the 
 wants of his family. The sum of five thousand pounds 
 was very cheerfully contributed by friends and admirers 
 in all parts of the kingdom. The late Mr. Robert Balfour, 
 secretary of the City of Glasgow Insurance Company in 
 Edinburgh, conducted the business part of this move- 
 ment, and it was largely owing to his rare tact and perse- 
 verance that it proved so thoroughly successful. Some 
 pieces of plate accompanied the gift, and the spokesman 
 on the occasion of the presentation was the late Mr. George 
 Dalziel, W. S., an elder of Dr. Guthrie's congregation, and 
 one of his most attached personal friends. 
 
 Not long after his retirement it was proposed to him by 
 Mr. Strahan that he should undertake the editorship of 
 the Sunday Magazine, which that enterprising publisher 
 was at that time projecting. The proposal which Mr. 
 Strahan has told the public he made to the late Dr. 
 Macleod when he started Good Words was made more 
 emphatically to Dr. Guthrie, that, if Dr. Guthrie would 
 become captain of the ship, Mr. Strahan himself would 
 do the duty of the sailing master. Dr. Guthrie felt that 
 the duties of an editor were somewhat alien to his habits, 
 and hesitated about the proposal. But, as the post was 
 not of his seeking, as the offer of it coincided with his 
 retirement under providential circumstances from his own 
 more cherished sphere, as Mr. Strahan was to relieve him 
 of editorial details, as the opportunity of usefulness was 
 great, and as many cpllaborateurs of his own views were
 
 XX MEMOIR. 
 
 willing to give their aid, Dr. Guthrie agreed. As he left 
 the management to a large degree in Mr. Strahan's hands, 
 the magazine in some departments did not exhibit all his 
 image and superscription, but it has ever been marked by 
 at least two of his characteristics his catholicity of spirit, 
 eager to welcome and to turn to account the good of 
 Christian men of all denominations, and his noble Chris- 
 tian philanthropy his intense sympathy with sorrow and 
 suffering, and his unfaltering confidence in the Gospel as 
 the foundation of all that is truly fitted to elevate and 
 bless mankind. 
 
 Set free as Dr. Guthrie now was from the pressure of 
 constant work, he was enabled to avail himself more fully 
 of a source of pleasure which he had always greatly 
 relished travel in foreign countries. France, Switzer- 
 land, and Italy were all objects of great interest and 
 sources of much enjoyment. But of all the places and 
 people that he knew, none laid a greater hold of his heart 
 than the Piedmontese valleys and their people. For the 
 last few years of his life the Waldensian Churches were 
 cherished with the warmest regard, not simply on their 
 own account, but because he regarded them as destined 
 in the providence of God to perform a right memorable 
 service in the cause of the Gospel in Italy. He always 
 regarded the Waldenses as the proper evangelists of Italy, 
 and urged their mission with singular earnestness on pub- 
 lic attention. He preached, wrote or spoke on their be- 
 half ; attended London drawing-rooms, and sought to in- 
 terest high and low in their welfare. It was a great joy to 
 him to see Italy free for the entrance of the Gospel ; but, 
 the door having been set open, he urgently sought that 
 the right agents should enter in. Some of his friends, he 
 thought, might have given their active support to the
 
 MEMOIR. XXI 
 
 Waldensian Mission instead of setting up a denominational 
 enterprise of their own. 
 
 It would not be easy to enumerate all the. Christian and 
 charitable objects to which Dr. Guthrie contributed his 
 powerful advocacy. Wherever there was suffering to be 
 redressed, and an adaptation between the means proposed 
 and the end contemplated, he was eager to aid to the ut- 
 most of his power. In the earlier part of his life he was 
 a zealous teetotaler, but the illness under which he suffered, 
 rendering it necessary by medical orders that his system 
 should be stimulated, he had not the same freedom in 
 advocating teetotalism as he would otherwise have had. 
 Among the objects that specially interested him of late 
 years we may mention the Contagious Diseases Act. He 
 was thoroughly opposed to them root and branch ; yet he 
 could not but feel that our army system, making little or 
 no provision for the marriage of soldiers, was the root of 
 bitterness that tempted our legislators and doctors to fall 
 on the device of these Acts a device in whose eft racy, 
 even for medical purposes, he had no confidence. The 
 education question greatly interested him, and hh brief 
 letter on that subject to the people of Scotland produced 
 a great impression. The union of the Nonconformist 
 Presbyterian Churches of Scotland was also very dear to 
 his heart ; and, seeing clearly the blessings it was likely 
 to bring, and the scandal and other evils it would avert, 
 he mourned as a great public calamity the opposition, 
 founded on somewhat subtle theoretical principles, that 
 grew to such a height. 
 
 In conversation Dr. Guthrie shone greatly. His man- 
 ner was easy, natural, and very lively ; he always showed 
 a courteous respect for his company, and seemed to know 
 instinctively how to accommodate himself to them. Full
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 of humour, his wit often flowed in a sparkling stream, 
 making him the most agreeable of companions. But even 
 in miscellaneous company he knew how to serve his Mas- 
 ter, and those who were much with him can remember 
 occasions in which he showed no small measure of moral 
 courage and faithfulness in* this way. Some persons have 
 the impression that his respect for the aristocracy was be- 
 yond what might have been looked for in one of so manly 
 and Christian a type of character. We believe that this 
 was a mistake. Dr. Guthrie was neither an aristocrat nor 
 a toady of aristocrats. He was essentially a man of the 
 people and for the people. He neyer used his influence 
 with the upper classes for himself or for any of his chil- 
 dren. He encouraged his family to continue in that indus- 
 trious middle class in which they were born, as not only 
 what was natural, but also as what was the best and hap- 
 piest lot for them. The ranks of the upper ten thousand 
 had quite as many drawbacks as advantages in his eyes, 
 even for those born in them, and far more for those who 
 might climb into them. At the same time it is quite true 
 that his attractive manners and character, as well as his 
 eminent position, greatly impressed some members of the 
 aristocracy, and led them to cultivate his society. No 
 one can accuse of sycophancy to the Sutherland family 
 the man who went up and down the whole country, while 
 advocating the Manse Scheme, telling of the two ministers 
 of Tongue father and son whom he found dying in 
 separate closets of the miserable dwelling to which they 
 had been obliged to betake themselves. It was creditable 
 to the Duke of Sutherland, not only that he came to see 
 his error in opposing the Free Church, but that he be- 
 came the friend of the man who drew so much attention 
 and sympathy to this distressing case. Certain it is that
 
 .MEMOIR. XX111 
 
 the regard of the late Duke and Duchess for Dr. Guthrie 
 was of the highest kind. The Duke and Duchess of 
 Argyll, too, had the warmest affection for him, and in 
 their house he was in the habit of meeting the first society 
 of the country. Instances could be told of his refusing 
 to meet men even of the highest rank when he knew them 
 to be living as they ought not to have been. 
 
 To his friends those in his own sphere of life Dr. 
 Guthrie's attachment was very strong. Any ill-treatment 
 of them vexed him most deeply. When he was moved 
 to keen and vehement words it was because his heart was 
 smarting for the wound of his friend. He was greatly 
 displeased when the late Dr. Gunn, of the High School, 
 was objected to and cast overboard as Government In- 
 spector of Schools for the Free Church ; not less so when 
 Dr. Cunningham's views of college matters were over- 
 borne ; and most of all when disrespectful language was 
 applied in the course of the Union controversy to Dr. 
 Candlish and other fathers, to whom he felt that the Free 
 Church owed more than words .could tell. Sons and 
 daughters of old friends had' always a warm place in his 
 heart. His circle of friendship was very wide, and few 
 that knew him will fail to cherish the remembrance of 
 their intercourse with him among the most interesting" 
 events of their life. 
 
 Dr. Guthrie was well read and well informed on ordi- 
 nary subjects, but, as he readily acknowledged, he was no 
 scholar. His intellect was intuitive rather than logical. 
 His reasons were the reasons of common sense, founded 
 on human nature and his observations of its workings. In 
 fact, the great sagacity of Dr. Guthrie, in combination with 
 genius, formed one of his most remarkable characteris- 
 tics. The. dash of eccentricity which is usually allied to
 
 MEMOIB. 
 
 genius was not to be traced in him. He was as sound in 
 judgment as he was imaginative and discursive in elo- 
 quence. But he was not familiar with musty folios of 
 Greek and Latin. It was more in deference to his posi- 
 tion as a distinguished minister of the Gospel, orator, and 
 social reformer, than as an erudite divine, that in 1849 the 
 University of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of 
 D.D., the first instance of their giving that honour to a 
 minister of the Free Church. 
 
 Dr. Guthrie, as we have said, married a daughter of the 
 late Rev. James Burns, of Brechin, whose constant devo- 
 tion to her husband, and cordial sympathy with him in all 
 his many-sided labours, did much to render Dr. Guthrie's 
 one of the happiest, as well as most useful of lives. Their 
 family was large, consisting of ten children six sons and 
 four daughters. Nothing could have been smoother or 
 happier than the course of his family life, nor could a 
 father well have left a family behind him more disposed to 
 tread in his footsteps, or more full of honour for his ex- 
 ample and his memory. 
 
 LAST ILLNESS. 
 
 DR. GUTHRIE left Edinburgh on the 2pth of January. 
 He travelled in one day to London, and stood the journey 
 well. While in London, he saw Dr. Walshe, the eminent 
 consulting physician for diseases of the heart and lungs. 
 Dr. Walshe gave a report which considerably cheered the 
 members of the family, but at the same time indicated 
 clearly the very dangerous nature of Dr. Guthrie's malady. 
 On the following day Dr. Guthrie went to St, Leonards,
 
 MEMOIR. XXV 
 
 and was much fatigued by the journey there. During his 
 residence at St. Leonards the weather was very unfavour- 
 able, and it was impossible for him to be so much in the 
 open air as he had been advised was necessary for his re- 
 covery. He made no progress, but became slowly weaker. 
 It was not till Sunday, i6th February, however, that any 
 immediate alarm was felt. On that day he accompanied, 
 in a carriage, some members of his family to the United 
 Presbyterian Church at Silver Hill. He did not go in, 
 but returned in the carriage, and was very much exhausted 
 on the way home. On Sunday night he was restless, and 
 had several attacks of fainting. On Monday he became 
 so alarmingly ill that, on the advice of Dr. Underwood, of 
 Hastings, who attended him during his residence at St, 
 Leonards, the different members of his family were sum- 
 moned. There were, besides Mrs. Guthrie, (who accom- 
 panied her husband to St. Leonards,) five sons present- 
 Rev. David K. Guthrie, Free Church minister of Liber- 
 ton, near Edinburgh ; James Guthrie, agent of the Royal 
 Bank, Brechin ; Patrick Guthrie, of Dymock & Guthrie, 
 Edinburgh; Thomas Guthrie, of Quilmes, near Buenos 
 Ayres ; and Charles John Guthrie, student for the Scotch 
 bar. The only son absent was Alexander, of Balfour, Guth- 
 rie & Co., merchants, San Francisco, who is at present in 
 California. Three daughters were present Mrs. Welsh, 
 Mrs. Williamson, and Miss Guthrie ; the youngest daugh- 
 ter, Mrs. David Gray, Glasgow, being absent through ill- 
 ness ; two sons-in-law Rev. William Welsh, of Mossfen- 
 nan, Free Church minister of Broughton ; and Stephen 
 Williamson, Copley, Cheshire, of Balfour, Williamson & 
 Co., merchants, Liverpool ; Mrs. Patrick Guthrie, a daugh- 
 ter-in-law, was also present. On Tuesday morning he 
 was pronounced sinking, and it was not expected that he
 
 XXVI MEMOIR. 
 
 could survive more than a few hours. Gradually, however, 
 N he rallied, and completely emerged out of the state of par- 
 tial insensibility into which he had fallen. Notwithstand- 
 ing this rally, his strength steadily decreased until the 
 close; his voice, once so rich and powerful, became grad- 
 ually reduced to a whisper. The massive frame lay help- 
 less like a child in the arms of his attendants, and the eyes 
 so full of expression became dim and lustreless, but the 
 mind remained clear and powerful to the close. Often he 
 was much oppressed with drowsiness, and at such times it 
 was difficult to know whether he clearly understood all 
 that was said to him, but when he emerged from such 
 state all the old mental vigour returned. On Sunday 
 morning, the day before he died, one of his sons was read- 
 ing to him the passage " Hell and the grave combined 
 their force," and though at the time his eyes were shut, he 
 remarked quite distinctly that the word translated " Hell" 
 there only meant the state of the dead. Within an hour 
 before death, he made by signs an intelligible answer to 
 a question put to him. He then passed into a very sound 
 sleep, from which he never woke. About ten minutes be- 
 fore he breathed his last, his nurse, a Highland girl, to 
 whom he was much attached, and on whose arms he was 
 resting, remarked that the wrinkles on his forehead were 
 smoothing out. The members of the family not at the 
 time present were at once called, and in their presence, at 
 twenty minutes past two, on the morning of Monday the 
 24th February, 1873, without a struggle or sigh, and so 
 peacefully that it was impossible to tell the exact moment 
 of departure, Thomas Guthrie passed away. 
 
 His conversation during the last week of his life was full 
 of affection, wisdom, and joy. He was frequently under 
 great bodily distress from breathlessness, but he nevei
 
 MEMOIR. XXV11 
 
 murmured, although he often prayed that he might have 
 a speedy deliverance. Towards- the close he longed to 
 depart, and viewed with no feelings of dread, but rather of 
 thankfulness, the signs of approaching dissolution. One 
 day his sight was somewhat confused, and when one of 
 his family remarked that this was of " little significance," 
 he said, "Ah, no; it is just like the land birds coming 
 lighting on the mast, which presage to the weary mariner 
 the nearness of his desired haven." On Saturday, Admi- 
 ral Baillie Hamilton, who has visited him daily and whose 
 kindness he valued highly, told him he thought he was 
 looking better. " Ah," said he, " a good man comes with 
 evil tidings." He delighted to talk of Heaven, and of the 
 many friends gone before who would welcome him there. 
 In particular he pictured to himself his son John, who died 
 in infancy and whose memory he always fondly cherished, 
 running to the golden gate to meet him. He had no doubt 
 of the recognition of friends in Heaven, and, in reference 
 to this, quoted the saying of an old woman " Do you 
 think we shall be more foolish in Heaven than we are 
 here ?" On Thursday the Rev. Thomas Vores, incumbent 
 of St. Mary-in-the-Castle, whose attention he highly val- 
 ued, prayed with him. Dr. Guthrie was too weak to speak 
 directly to him, but whispered to one of his sons " Tell 
 him my journey is nearly ended ask him to pray that I 
 may have a speedy entrance into Heaven, and that we may 
 have a happy meeting there, where we shall no longer 
 have to proclaim Christ, but where we shall enjoy Him for 
 ever and ever." 
 
 Yet he never lost his interest earthwards. He spoke to 
 each member of his family with the most overflowing affec- 
 tion. He was greatly gratified by them all, with the excep- 
 tion of two, being able to be present, and he often thanked
 
 XXV111 MEMOIR. 
 
 God for the comfort they had all without exception been 
 to him. To those absent he sent loving messages, saying 
 to one of them, " Stand up for Christ in all circumstances." 
 These words, " Stand up for Christ," he repeated twice, 
 and very emphatically. To many of his many friends 
 he also desired to be remembered, and always asked an 
 interest in their prayers. One of the most touching inci- 
 dents of his illness was the affection he displayed towards 
 one of his grandchildren, Anita Williamson, a little child 
 of four years of age. When she was taken into the sick 
 room and shown to Dr. Guthrie, a smile full of the old 
 sweetness, but such as suffering had almost banished, at 
 once lit up his face. He flung his arms around the little 
 child's neck, kissed her, and called her endearing names. 
 It was very affecting to see her thereafter sitting on the 
 bed fanning him or rubbing his often chilly hands. On 
 the day before he died she came into the room as usual 
 in the morning. His eyes by this time were very much 
 changed, but the moment he saw her he said, " Put her 
 up;" and when, having been lifted on to the bed, she crept 
 up to him and kissed him, he nodded to her and whis- 
 pered, " My bonnie lamb." His hope and confidence 
 never waveied, and nothing was more striking than the 
 calm way in which he expressed them. The mingling of 
 reason with faith was as noticeable in his death as in his 
 life; yet his trust was as simple as that of a child. Dur- 
 ing his illness he was often soothed by hymn and psalm 
 singing, and of no hymns was he more fond than such as 
 are called "children's hymns" such as "Jesus, tender 
 Shepherd, her.r me ; bless Thy little lamb to-night," and 
 " There is a happy land." On Friday night he asked his 
 family to sing, and, on being asked what he would like, he 
 "aid, " Give me a bairn's hymn." He often thanked God
 
 MEMOIR. XXIX 
 
 he had not left his preparation to a dying hour, and re- 
 marked on the folly of those who leave " to the mercies of 
 a moment the vast concerns of an eternal scene." He 
 placed his whole confidence in Christ, and when asked on 
 Tuesday morning, at a time when he was thought to be 
 sinking, " You have that Saviour now ?" " Yes," he said, 
 " I have none else." Even when unable to speak many 
 words, and in bodily distress, his ejaculations showed how 
 peaceful was his mind. On the same morning he was 
 heard to say, " On the other side," and again, with a sweet 
 smile on his face, " Happy, happy!" 
 
 The disease of the heart under which he suffered was 
 one of long standing. Twenty-four years ago he was told 
 by the late Sir James Clark, the eminent consulting phy- 
 sician in London, that he could not preach again. At that 
 time, and in subsequent years, he consulted Sir James 
 Simpson, Professor Miller, Dr. James Begbie, and his 
 brother, Dr. Alexander Guthrie, of Breehin, all of whom 
 thought ill of his case, but yet all of whom he has sur- 
 vived. Latterly he had consulted Sir Robert Christison, 
 Dr. Gumming, and Dr. Warburton Begbie in Edinburgh, 
 and, as already mentioned, Dr. Walshe, in London. At 
 St. Leonards, as above stated, he was attended by Dr. 
 Underwood. His malady was complicated by a severe 
 attack of rheumatism, which he had last year, and which 
 seemed to have left permanent effects behind. During his 
 ast illness he suffered no pain, but very great uneasiness, 
 tfhich he bore with a wonderful patience. 
 
 That catholicity which was so prominent a feature of 
 Dr. Guthrie's character was well exemplified in his dying 
 hours. The clergymen who attended him, and prayed 
 with him almost daily, were the Rev. Thomas Vores, of 
 the Church of England, the Rev. James Griffin, of the In*
 
 XXX MEMOIR. 
 
 dependent Church, and the Rev. Geo. Carr, of The United 
 Presbyterian Church. Their visits he always welcomed 
 with pleasure, as he did also those of Admiral Baillie Ham- 
 ilton, who is a member of the Episcopalian Church. On 
 Sunday prayers were offered for him in many of the 
 churches and chapels in Hastings and St. Leonards. 
 
 Death, in the case of Dr. Guthrie, has been robbed of 
 much of its terror. Notwithstanding the distressing nature 
 of his complaint, he has had merciful intervals of relief 
 from pain, and has been enabled to testify by his death, 
 as he has done by his long and useful life, to the support 
 and consolation of the faith which was in him. Attended 
 by his devoted wife and most of the members of his fam- 
 ily, he had all the solace which domestic affection and 
 tenderness could afford ; and committing them and him- 
 self to his Saviour, he has thus died, like the old Hebrew 
 patriarch, at a distance from his native place indeed, but 
 in a good old age, and in the presence of all his brethren. 
 In his pilgrim progress he had reached the land of Beulah, 
 remaining peacefully and contentedly there till the King's 
 messenger came for him with a sure token ; or, to use his 
 own beautiful thought, he felt as if he was permitted to 
 mount to the mast-head now and then, to look out for the 
 desired haven. He has now reached the happy shore, and 
 those who are left behind may weep for themselves, but 
 cannot weep for him. And yet, after all the warnings we 
 have had, it is difficult to realize that the tall, stately form, 
 the genial countenance, the ready smile and sympathizing 
 word of Dr. Guthrie will never more be seen or heard in 
 Dur midst. 
 
 Dr. Candlish preached on Sunday morning (March 2d) 
 in Free St. John's Church, which was densely crowded, 
 from the text, Hebrews ix. 27, 28 : " And as it is appoint-
 
 MEMOIR. XXXI 
 
 ed unto men to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ 
 was once offered to bear the sins of many : and unto them 
 that look for him shall he appear the second time, without 
 sin, unto salvation." In concluding his discourse, he said : 
 I ask you, beloved brethren, to listen to these sentences 
 which I am about to read, and which are not mine, but 
 another's. " Thank God, my tongue has been unloosed !" 
 " All reserve is gone I can speak out now." " Oh ! most 
 mighty and most merciful, pity me, once a great sinner, 
 and now a great sufferer." " Blessed Jesus ! what would 
 I now do but for Thee !" " I am a father, and I know 
 what a father's heart is. My love to my children is no 
 more to God's infinite love as a Father than one drop of 
 water to that boundless ocean out there." " Death is 
 mining away here, slowly but surely, in the dark." " I 
 often thought, and even hoped, in past years, that God 
 would have granted me a translation like Chalmers or 
 Andrew Thomson. But it would appear now this is not 
 to be the way of it." " Oh ! the power yet in that arm " 
 the right arm stretched out with force while in bed. 
 " I doubt it presents the prospect of a long fight. And if 
 so, Lord help me to turn my dying hours to better pur- 
 pose than ever my preaching ones have been." " The 
 days have come in which I have no pleasure in them." 
 " Vanitas Vanitatum ! I would at this moment gladly give 
 all my money and all my fame for that poor body's " (a 
 smiling countrywoman tripping by) " vigour and cheer- 
 fulness." " A living dog is better than a dead lion." " I 
 have often seen death-beds. I have often described them ; 
 but I had no conception till now of what hard work dying 
 really is !" " Had I known this years ago, as I know it 
 now, I would have felt far more for others in similar cir- 
 cumstances than I ever did." " Ah ! my dear children,
 
 XXX11 MEMOIR. 
 
 you see I am now just as helpless in your arms as you 
 ever were in mine." Of telegraphic messages about him, 
 ae said : " I bless God for the telegraph ; because these 
 will serve as calls to God's people to mind me in their 
 prayers. Of the Queen's inquiry : " It is very kind." Of 
 a young attendant : " Affection is very sweet ; and it is all 
 one from whatever quarter it comes whether from this 
 Highland lassie or from a peeress just as to a thirsty man 
 cold water is equally grateful from a spring on the hillside 
 as from a richly ornamented fountain." Parting with a 
 humble servant : " God bless you, my friend." " I would 
 be most willing that any man who ever wrote or spoke 
 against me should come in at that door, and I would shake 
 hands with him." These are fresh and racy death-bed 
 utterances ; true to the nature of the man who, to the last, 
 retained his genial originality ; the man who, with genuine 
 courtesy and his wonted humour, apologized for the trou- 
 ble he was giving, referring to Charles the Second's beg- 
 ging his courtiers to excuse him for being such an uncon- 
 scionable time in dying ; the man who, child-like as he 
 always was, chose " bairns' hymns," as he called them, for 
 his solace in his weakness : " Oh ! that will be joyful," 
 " There is a happy land ;" relishing them as he relished 
 that one of Cowper's " There is a fountain filled with 
 blood ;" and preferring them to all other uninspired songs 
 of praise. Here I would fain stop, and leave the last 
 words of a singularly true and gifted man to tell with their 
 own proper weight, free from the intrusion of more com- 
 monplace remarks. I cannot, in fact, in the view of such 
 an affecting chamber of sickness, find it in my heart to 
 deal in the ordinary topics of consolation and edification 
 for which death furnishes occasion. I am in no mood for 
 moralizing or sermonizing over my beloved brother's grave.
 
 MEMOES. XXX111 
 
 Nor can I attempt to compose a funeral oration or doge 
 upon the life and character, the rare endowments and ac- 
 complishments, the manifold good works and services of 
 him who is gone. This is not the place, this is not the 
 time for eulogy. I am not the man competent to such a 
 theme. His praise is in all the churches, and through all 
 society in many lands. I am here simply to express my 
 own feelings and yours under the pressure of a heavy 
 grief. How I admired and loved Thomas Guthrie, and 
 how he reciprocated my affection during all the years, 
 some five-and-thirty, of our close familiarity and most in- 
 timate and cordial friendship ; how genuine and trust- 
 worthy a friend I ever found him ; what experience I have 
 often had of his noble generosity ; how very pleasant he 
 has been to me, I dare not trust myself to say. Friend 
 and brother, comrade in the fight, companion in tribula- 
 tion, farewell ! But not for ever. May my soul, when my 
 hour comes, be with thine ! A great man truly in Israel 
 has fallen. Men of talents, men of abilities, men of learn- 
 ing, are not uncommon. Men powerful in thought and 
 speech are often raised up. But genius, real poetic genius 
 like Guthrie's, comes but once in many generations. We 
 shall not look upon his like soon, if ever. Nor was it ge- 
 nius alone distinguished him. The warm heart was his 
 and the ready hand ; the heart to feel, the hand to work. 
 No sentimental dreamer or mooning idealist was he. His 
 pity was ever active. Tears he had, but also far more 
 than tears, for all who needed sympathy and help. His 
 graphic pictures of the scenes of misery he witnessed were 
 inspired by no idle dreamy philanthropy after the fashion 
 of Sterne or Rousseau, but by a human love for all human 
 beings, intensely real and vigorously energetic. His self- 
 denying labours among the families of the Cowgate, where
 
 XXXIV MEMOIR. 
 
 he shrank from no drudgery for himself, and shunned no 
 contact with poverty and vice in others ; his noble zeal in 
 every good and holy cause ; his rising, almost alone at 
 first, to the full height of one of his best enterprises the 
 rescuing of children from sin and sorrow, from ignorance 
 and crime ; these and many other like memorials of his 
 wide, comprehensive, practical benevolence, will not soon 
 pass from the grateful memories of his countrymen. The 
 fruits of his evangelical ministrations, and that powerful 
 preaching of the Word which captivated so many thousand 
 ears and hearts, the day will declare. The blank which 
 his removal makes in our own Church, the Church of our 
 fathers, the Free Church of Scotland, is one that can 
 scarcely soon, if ever, be supplied. It will be felt for years 
 to come. In fact, the Church does not seem to me wnat 
 it was now that Guthrie is away. He was a power unique 
 in himself, and rising in his uniqueness above other pow- 
 ers. He did not indeed venture much on the uncongenial 
 domain, to him, of ecclesiastical polemics, or the wear and 
 tear of ordinary church administration, leaving that to 
 others whose superiority in their department he was al- 
 ways the first to acknowledge. But in his own sphere, 
 and in his own way, he was to us, and to the principles on 
 which we acted, a tower of strength. His eloquence alone 
 so expressive of himself so thoroughly inspired by his 
 personal idiosyncracy so full always of genial humour 
 so apt to flash into darts of wit and yet withal so pro- 
 foundly emotional and ready for passionate or affectionate 
 appeals that gift or endowment alone made Guthrie an 
 invaluable boon to our Church in the times of her ten 
 years' conflict and afterwards. But the Guthrie monu- 
 ment, so far as our Free Church is concerned, is in our 
 thousand manses, a monument which he himself reared,
 
 MEMOIK. XXXV 
 
 and in the rearing of which he may be truly said to have 
 sacrificed his health and strength. But endangered health 
 and diminished strength did not quench the ardour of 
 his burning soul. Laid .aside from enforced professional 
 labour, in pulpit or in parish, Guthrie was still the man 
 for men holding himself always open to all calls and ap- 
 peals in the line of Christian and catholic benevolence. 
 To our own Church he was, to the last, loyal and loving. 
 No one more so. But he grew, as I would desire to grow, 
 more and more from year to year, in sympathy with all 
 who love Jesus and hold the truth as it is in Him. May 
 the Lord, in His own good time, answer his many prayers 
 for the repairing of all breaches in Zion, and send to the 
 divided and distracted Christian family all over the world 
 that peace and living unity on which his large heart was 
 set. 
 
 THE FUNERAL. 
 
 THE mortal remains of the Rev. Dr. Guthrie were laid 
 in the grave on the Friday following his decease, in pres- 
 ence of the greatest funeral gathering seen in Edinburgh 
 since the death of Sir James Simpson. The place of inter- 
 ment was the family burying-ground, next the south wall 
 of the Grange Cemetery, and directly opposite the broad 
 walk which passes through the middle of the cemetery, by 
 the tunnel below the terrace. A simple slab of stone let
 
 XXX VI MEMOIR. 
 
 into the wall bears the inscription, " Bury ing-Ground of 
 Rev. Thomas Guthrie, D.D.," and flowers mark the graves 
 of his youngest son, John, and of a grandchild. The wall 
 around the stone is thickly covered with ivy, and at each 
 side of the ground, which is of more than ordinary extent, 
 there is a weeping ash. It is the sunny side of the pleas- 
 ant grounds of the Grange, and it is natural to suppose 
 that, with his keen sense of the beautiful in nature, and of 
 what is becoming in Christian burial, the good man whose 
 loss we mourn selected a spot where grassy turf should 
 cover his dust, and 
 
 "Many an evening sun shine sweetly o'er his grave." 
 
 From an early hour in the forenoon visitors began to 
 enter the Grange Cemetery, and made their way to the 
 open grave, where several constables were stationed as a 
 guard. For more than an hour before the time fixed for 
 the funeral the various approaches to the cemetery were 
 thronged with citizens wending their way to the grounds. 
 
 It was a choice winter day. The sun was shining bright- 
 ly and even warmly through a clear, blue, frosty sky, flecked 
 with fleecy clouds. It was such a day as one could have 
 wished and almost expected for the funeral of a man of 
 sunny nature, and whose name will ever be associated with 
 sunny memories. As the hour approached, the thousands 
 who covered f .ne terrace walk eagerly directed their gaze to- 
 wards the entrance gate, this being the first point at which 
 the intervening houses permitted them to see the funeral 
 train. Shortly after two o'clock the departure of the cortege 
 was signalled by the striking of a bell at the Cemetery 
 offices, and another bell, twenty minutes later, announced 
 the arrival of the first of the procession. There were
 
 MEMOIR. XXX VU 
 
 many moist eyes and half- suppressed sighs as the boys of 
 Dr. Guthrie's Ragged School made their appearance, and 
 recalled so vividly to recollection who it was that had 
 transformed these helpless, neglected youths into honest, ' 
 industrious and hopeful members of society. Nothing 
 could have spoken more eloquently of the nature and 
 completeness of this noble enterprise than the clean and 
 tidy and comfortable appearance of the scholars, both 
 boys and girls. And their demeanour was not less pleas- 
 ing. There were no more decorous mourners than those 
 little lads and lasses, with their spotless clothing, black 
 cravats and mits, badge of black cloth on their arm, and 
 sobered expression of countenance as they marched in 
 step, four deep, in front of the procession. The discipline 
 and moral training must be admirable which can produce 
 such results that in so large a company of boys and girls 
 not a word was spoken, not a movement was out of place 
 or out of keeping with the solemnity of the occasion. 
 
 The coffin was removed from the house about twenty 
 minutes past two, and placed in a catafalque made spe- 
 cially for the occasion. The catafalque consisted of an 
 elegant stage mounted on wheels, and having ornamental 
 pillars at each corner supporting a canopy. The edges 
 were finely carved, and it was appropriately ornamented 
 with drapery. It was surmounted with two tiers of black 
 plumes. The coffin, which rested on the platform under- 
 neath the canopy, was covered with a black silk velvet pall, 
 on the top of which were four wreaths made of camelias, 
 snowdrops, lilies of the valley, hyacinths, and primulas.
 
 XXX VI 11 MUMOlH. 
 
 The Procession slowly moved out of the Salisbury Road 
 in the following order : 
 
 Detachment of Policemen. 
 
 Boys and Girls of Original Ragged School. 
 
 Edinburgh Industrial Brigade (Directors and Boys). 
 
 Kirk-Session and Deacons' Court of St. John's Free Church. 
 
 U. P. Presbytery of Edinburgh and Leith. 
 
 Free Presbytery of Edinburgh. 
 
 Professors and Students of the New College. 
 
 Magistrates and Town Council. 
 
 High Constables. 
 
 Mutes. 
 
 Relatives and Mourners. 
 Congregation of St. John's Free Church. 
 
 General Public. 
 Private Carriages. 
 
 The attendance of the ministers and elders of the Free 
 and United Presbyterian churches was large and lepre- 
 sentative. A body of the students of the New College, to 
 the number of ninety, also formed part of the procession, 
 and were headed by Professors Davidson, Smeaton, Mac- 
 gregor, Rainy, Blaikie, and Duns. Then came the City 
 Officers, with draped halberts and the sword and mace, 
 which were also enveloped in crape. The members of 
 the Town Council in their robes of office, the City Cham- 
 berlain and Depute City Clerk, the Treasurer, and the 
 Convener of the Trades followed ; and after them the 
 Magistrates and the Lord Provost in their ermine robes. 
 Certainly this was by far the most striking portion of the 
 procession, and as such came in for a large share of atten- 
 tion. The High Constables came next, and then the Fun- 
 eral Car, drawn by four black horses and preceded by 
 four baton-men and two mutes the latter in antique cos- 
 tume and carrying staves. The Pall-Bearers were : Rev
 
 MEMOIR. XXXIX 
 
 David Kelly Guthrie, Free Church minister of Liberton ; 
 Mr. James Guthrie, Agent of the Royal Bank, Brechin ; 
 Mr. Patrick Guthrie, of Messrs. Dymock & Guthrie, Edin- 
 burgh ; Mr. Thomas Guthrie, of Quilmes, near Buenos 
 Ayres ; Mr. Charles John Guthrie, student for the Scotch 
 bar, sons of the deceased ; Rev. William Welsh", of Moss- 
 fennan, Free Church minister of Broughton ; Mr. Stephen 
 Williamson, Copley, Cheshire, of Messrs. Balfour, William- 
 son & Co., Liverpool ; and Mr. David Gray, merchant, 
 Glasgow sons-in-law; Rev. J. C. Burns, Free Church 
 minister, Kirkliston, brother-in-law ; and Mr. David Guth- 
 rie, Jun., grand-nephew of deceased, representing his fa- 
 ther, Colonel Guthrie. Along with the pall-bearers walked 
 the following grand-children of Dr. Guthrie : Thomas 
 Clement and Wm. Kirk Guthrie, and Archibald Thomas 
 Guthrie ; Alexander and Stephen Anstruther Williamson. 
 The carriage of the deceased followed, and then seven 
 mourning carriages, in the two first of which were : Mrs. 
 Welsh, Miss Guthrie, and Mrs. Williamson, daughters; and 
 Mrs. D. K. Guthrie, Mrs. James Guthrie, Mrs. Patrick 
 Guthrie, and Mrs. Thomas Guthrie daughters-in-law of 
 the deceased ; and in the remainder relatives or intimate 
 friends who could not easily walk. Then came a great 
 number of the congregation of Free St. John's and the 
 general public. 
 
 The procession was about three-quarters of a mile long ; 
 and it was computed that there were over thirty thousand 
 people on the route. As the funeral-car proceeded slowly 
 up the Grange Road the people uncovered to mark their 
 respect for his remains. When it arrived at the grave, the 
 people approached as near as they could get, and watched 
 with great interest the entombment. The coffin was re- 
 moved from the car and laid by the side of the grave.
 
 x MEMOIR. 
 
 The ladies of the family stood behind the chief mourner. 
 Rev. Professor Blaikie, of the New College, co-editor with 
 the deceased of the " Sunday Magazine," offered up a 
 prayer most suitable to the occasion, and the boys and 
 girls of the Original Ragged School sang the hymn, 
 " There is a happy land." The coffin, the wreaths hav- 
 ing been placed on it by the deceased's daughters and 
 grandchildren, and a bouquet by Mrs. Dr. Cumming, 
 Ainslie Place, was then lowered into the grave. The in- 
 ner coffin was of zinc, and the outer of polished oak. A 
 brass plate on the lid bore the following inscription : 
 
 THOMAS CUTHRIE, 
 
 D. D., 
 BORN JULY I2TH, 1803. 
 
 DIED FEBRUARY 24TH, 1873. 
 
 After the grave had been closed, Mr. Thain, Superin- 
 tendent of the Original Ragged School, made way for two 
 of the children a little girl and a boy who placed a 
 wreath on the grave. It was a most affecting incident, 
 which provoked the tears of many. The great concourse 
 of people then gradually dispersed. 
 
 The manuscripts of the deceased, along with an Auto- 
 biography, finished down to the time of the Disruption, 
 are left to his sons Rev. David Kelly Guthrie and Charles 
 John Guthrie to be used by them for publication, with 
 the advice of his son-in-law, Rev. William Welsh.
 
 THE PARABLES 
 
 READ IN THE LIGHT OF THE PRESENT DAT. 
 
 I ONCE saw Moffat, the South African missionary, 
 address a thousand children the most formidable con- 
 gregation, 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 V In a very simple way. Suit- 
 ing the action to the word, and drawing on his own 
 observation and experience, he told them stories, illus- 
 trative of the labors and purposes, of the difficulties 
 and dangers of a missionary's life. In giving this form 
 
 (7)
 
 8 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 brihes 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 jour- 
 ney 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 na-ked skeletons, they are clothed with 
 flesh and instinct with life. Man has a threefold 
 character : he is a being possessed of reason, of affec- 
 tion, 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 ex- 
 pressed by an humble woman. Comprehending best, 
 and most interested and edified by those passages 
 of Scripture which present abstract truth under con- 
 crete 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 from sinking- like a 
 nail, fastens it in the inind ; like the feathers of an
 
 1 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, in- 
 stead 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 Hinnoin, 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 pass- 
 eth 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 pot- 
 ter's vessels-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, all- 
 important 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 cf scales, a knife, and 
 a barber's razor. These were the heads, and doom 
 was the burden of his sermon. Sweeping off, what t.n 
 Eastern considers it a shame to lose, his beard, and 
 the hair also from his head, this bald and beardh ss 
 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 ho 
 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 bal- 
 ances, 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 re- 
 maining 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 i 
 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 road that as a solemn warning. It calls
 
 LNTKODUCTOKY. 13 
 
 us to be np 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 ap- 
 plications for admission, and earnest, long, loud knock- 
 ing 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 ven- 
 ture 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 par- 
 able, 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 ths Word of God, and 
 is contrai-y 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 elf 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, pierc- 
 ing as it is, shall be drowned and lost in the louder 
 burst of praise. It were a sad account of any govern- 
 ment 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. 
 
 0f % Jtortren. 
 
 " The kingdom of heaven is like \into leaven, which a woman tooh 
 and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." 
 MATTHEW xiii. 33. 
 
 THE Kingdom of Heaven is sometimes used in Scrip- 
 ture as equivalent to the kingdom of God, but it haa 
 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 ia 
 said and boasted of, the sun never sets on them be- 
 fore 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 begin- 
 ning is in eternity, and its bounds are lost in illimita- 
 ble 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 atten- 
 tion 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 in- 
 directly, 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 king- 
 dom 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 LEAVEN, 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 reck- 
 oned 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 with- 
 out 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 incum- 
 brance 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 pass- 
 port 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 ! while the poor, despised, detested 
 publican, who stood afar off, beating his breast in con- 
 scious guilt, is invited in, and, going down to his house 
 justified rather than the other, sings with Hannah, 
 " The Lord bringeth low and lifteth up ; he raiseth up 
 2*
 
 18 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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 no- 
 blest 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 shame 
 to enjoy rest we must plunge into a sea of troubles 
 peace 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 mani- 
 fold 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 era* 
 ployed here. I am aware that leaven is often, and
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 19 
 
 in Jeed 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 incon- 
 sistent 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 ; he 
 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 con- 
 cealed 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 por- 
 tion 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 
 rsady 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 mani- 
 festation ; 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 ; grow- 
 ing 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 be- 
 long 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 than 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, \\ith more religion in his heart than 
 you would infer from outward appearances, or than ho
 
 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
 
 TUB PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 23 
 
 the graoe 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 con- 
 summation 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 PAKABLES. 
 
 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 im- 
 pressing 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 Neherniah 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 conse- 
 crated 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 char- 
 acter of God. It does not change the metal, but 
 stamps it with the divine image ; and so assimilates all 
 I 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. 
 
 ill. 
 
 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 PAKABLKS. 
 
 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 manhood 
 ere 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 wretch- 
 ed, 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 con- 
 verted, and bow many Sabbaths have we enjoyed, how 
 many sermons have we heard, how many prayers have 
 we offered, how many communions have 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 noth- 
 ing 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 sus- 
 tained 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 ma- 
 chine 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 PAllABLliS. 
 
 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 with- 
 out 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 THE LEAVEN. 
 
 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 leav- 
 eneth the whole lump."
 
 II. 
 
 pprsU* 0f % ten iirgins. 
 
 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 ap- 
 proving 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, inti- 
 mate, eternal union which is formed between God's be- 
 loved Son and his chosen people. Those who feel a 
 Christian interest in the purity and happiness of so- 
 ciety, will not regard that as a circumstance of no value. 
 Such discredit as the Popish Church throws on mar- 
 riage, by representing it as less holy and honorable 
 than celibacy, and such impediments as pride and am- 
 bition throw in its way, should be denounced by those 
 who, as Christian ministers, ought to be Christian mor- 
 alists, 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, consistech 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 look- 
 ing 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 
 >f making woman than that of another clay figure, 
 modelled by God's hands in the female form, and in- 
 spired 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 ; noth- 
 ing but death afterwards to divide them. 
 
 Though thus a sacred, marriage was originally a
 
 2 THE PARABLES. 
 
 simple, institution. God married the first couple that 
 were husband and wife ; but though it had the sanc- 
 tion, 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 connection with the Church of Rome. Ani- 
 mated 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 in- 
 stitution 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 sanc- 
 tion, 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 in- 
 vested 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 ac- 
 cepted an invitation to a marriage scene, and honored 
 it by the performance of his first miracle ; and, though 
 we are to set our heaits on that world where they 
 neither marry nor give in marriage, we should learn
 
 THE PAHAHLK OF THE 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 
 inirth ; 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 pre- 
 sents. The marriage has been celebrated. Accom- 
 panied 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 bride- 
 groom'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 advanc- 
 ing 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, 
 nd 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 
 i 
 
 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 mar- 
 riage to the bride, it is on her part as well as on his, one 
 of endearment We love him because he first loved us 
 Thy 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 AA'idow. 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 
 I 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 fol- 
 low : Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage 
 supper of the Lamb ! 
 
 The story* of redeeming love, of this marriage, SUT-
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. 35 
 
 passes anything related in the pages of the wildest ro- 
 mances. 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 as- 
 sumed 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 to- 
 gether." 
 
 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:
 
 36 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 of 
 of change ; of diminution or decay. "W horn he loveth, 
 ho 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 beauti- 
 ful, 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.
 
 TIIK PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. 87 
 
 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 re- 
 currence 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 move- 
 ment ; 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 pro- 
 fessing Christians a picture this which should fill 
 many of us with alarm, and set all to the task of exam- 
 ining 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 lost j 
 and 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
 
 THli PAUAnLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. 39 
 
 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 pre- 
 pared 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 compan- 
 ions, 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 professors 
 such 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 PAltABLES. 
 
 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 \vho 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 
 \vork by such questions as these. Have I been con- 
 verted ? 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 feelings 
 being 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 pro- 
 fession, 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 " 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 
 3,11 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 pre- 
 pared 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, whoso 
 3*
 
 42 THE P ARABLES. 
 
 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 ex- 
 hausted by the trial, a down-stricken and haggard ' 
 wretch, enters a cell which he leaves not but for the scaf- 
 fold, 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 Bride- 
 groom'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. 43 
 
 duties, and close each day's work, as if we had pos- 
 sibly seen our last sunrise, or last sunset. That were 
 not a frame of mind inconsistent with earthly en- 
 joyments. 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 pre- 
 cious hours otherwise than in slumber ! It might have 
 proved another night to them had the wise been wake- 
 ful. Had they shaken up the sleepers, pointed them 
 to their empty vessels, pleaded with them, and en- 
 treated 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 Chris- 
 tian may not have his hands full of such Christ-like 
 work ? Among our acquaintances, the members, per- 
 haps, 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 tender- 
 ness, 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 num- 
 ber, 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 Bride- 
 groom 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 ad- 
 mits the sea, sinking into a sudden grave there is a 
 fearful cry, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh : they wake 
 to hear ib, and, sinking, hear no more. How loud and
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE TE3f VIRGINS. 45 
 
 sudden that cry rose at midnight in the mighty tene- 
 ment 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 ac- 
 cidents. 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. Every- 
 thing serious forbidden ; every hint of death forbidden ; 
 everything that could excite alarm forbidden, a dying- 
 chamber is turned into a stage for players, who wipe 
 away their tears before they enter, and wear a lying 
 mask of ease 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 jour- 
 neys who know that these poor feet are journeying on- 
 wards 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 of 
 heathen 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 Bride- 
 groom 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 men 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.
 
 m. 
 
 Luke XT. 1132. 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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
 
 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 strain- 
 ing 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 breath 
 prayers are on their lips, and lives are in that helms- 
 man'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 t 
 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 cur- 
 tained room ? Where men's lives, their souls, or great 
 interests are in danger, nothing is so exciting as to 
 watch tlie uncertain issue ; or more gratifying than to
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE 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 ono 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 law- 
 giver 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 offen- 
 sive to the Jews, a heathen government. The parties 
 employed in raising this public revenue, and who were 
 therefore called publicans, 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. 
 6
 
 60 THE PAKABLE8. 
 
 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 I 
 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 sun- 
 beam through the foulest atmosphere without pollution, 
 touching pitch and not denied, 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, byway of reproach, they 
 sailed 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 
 friend of sinners ?" These Pharisees did not under-
 
 THE PARABLE OP T11E PRODIGAL SON. 51 
 
 Btand 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 into which we
 
 52 THE PAKABLES. 
 
 have seen others leave a father's grave to plunge, care- 
 lessly 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 em- 
 ployment. 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. 
 Wlnn 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 ?
 
 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, sit- 
 ting 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 ! He 
 was convinced of that ; and of this also, that to re- 
 main 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, " He 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 thrcne ; 
 this bare cell, a palace ; these rough keepers, obse- 
 quious courtiers ; and he himself, a monarch, the
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SOK. 55 
 
 w 
 
 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 pleas- 
 ures ; 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 rniml ! 
 
 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 suck- 
 ing 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 PARABLES. 
 
 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, and 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 dis- 
 ease, 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 per- 
 ishing ; cries with Peter, sinking among the waves of 
 Galilee, I perish ; with the prodigal, sitting by the 
 ewine-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 jet 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, be- 
 lieving 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 parpet, the azure sky for a
 
 58 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 as- 
 tonished. 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 frag- 
 ments. 
 
 In their divine fullness, the desert manna, the moun- 
 tain fare, were substantial symbols of the mercy, 
 pardon, peace, holiness, and happiness stored up in 
 Christ. Yes. We also can say, 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 Immanuers 
 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 
 sing 
 
 " Come to Jesus, come to Jesus ; 
 He will save you, he will save you 
 Just now. 
 
 "O believe him, believe him, 
 
 O believe him, believe him, 
 
 Jvwt now."
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. f>9 
 
 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 lov- 
 ing 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 occa- 
 sion 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 thunder- I 
 ing 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
 
 THU PA It ABLE 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 offen- 
 sive 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. 
 He 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 PARABLB8. 
 
 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 occa- 
 sion from this parable to go on in sin, with the inten- 
 tion, 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 plung- 
 ing 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, I 
 they have gone in to sit down in the kingdom of 
 heaven the angels who rejoiced over them, now re- 
 joicing with them. In contemplating this picture, see 
 
 HOW THE FATHER RECEIVED HIS SON. 
 
 When he was yet a great way off, it is said, his 
 lather saw him. How did that happen ? I knew a 
 sailor's widow who had parted with her husband after 
 Borne brief, bright days of marriage. He went to sea
 
 TIIK PAKABLE OF TIIK PRODIGAL, SON. 63 
 
 and never carne 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 re- 
 cognized his step but only, as the sound passed her 
 door, to weep over herjlisappointrnent ; 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 pur- 
 pose 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 foot- 
 sore and weary ; slowly, for he bent under a load of 
 guilt ; sadly, for the scene around reminded him of de* 
 parted joys and blighted innocence, his mother moulder- 
 ing in her grave, and his father with gray hairs, he
 
 64 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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 
 conies 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 ap- 
 proach ? No. He does not stand on his dignity ; nor 
 say, Let him make the first advances, and ask forgive- 
 ness. 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 recog- 
 nized, 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 THE PRODIGAL SON". 65 
 
 the voice of thy cry : when he shall hear it, he will 
 answer thee." 
 
 HOW HIS FATHER TREATED THE PRODIGAL. 
 
 " The king kissed Absalom" an act that here as 
 there expressed more than mere affection. As in 
 Da.vid'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 recon- 
 ciliation a pledge that the past is all forgiven. For- 
 given, 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-lesion 
 is to be reinstated in all the privileges which his crimji- 
 had forfeited. 
 
 Bring forth the fairest robe and put it on him, say a 
 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 bleed- 
 ing 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 than ever angel wore."
 
 66 THE PARABLES. 
 
 Put a ring, says the father next, on his finger. And 
 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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 posses- 
 sions 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 PEODIGAL 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 ex- 
 perienced 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 cor- 
 dials, 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, Lord ! How may 
 we, as we contemplate this picture, alter the words, 
 saying, Who will not love thee, 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 re- 
 demption 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 to 
 die for us. King and robe, feast and fatted calf, the 
 Bound 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 PARABLES. 
 
 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 its existence but an occasional 
 groan, a low, deep moaning. At the flow, which al- 
 ternates 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 
 nvid, 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 con- 
 version, 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 hap- 
 piness and God's love to do that, as for a thrush, 
 perched in a summer evening on the top of a cherry- 
 tree, 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 tell- 
 ing 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 full- 
 ness 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 i$ 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, doat- 
 ing 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 unarniable 
 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 them- 
 selves 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 heart 
 turned 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 Grod 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 hia 
 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 hut not his 
 love. His love is a stream that never freezes, a foun- 
 tain 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 as- 
 sured 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 ever- 
 lasting 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 sum- 
 mer-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 over- 
 flowing 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."
 
 rv. 
 
 f |t JJatafcU 0f % to& SamariteK. 
 
 Luke x. 3037. 
 
 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 ad- 
 mire 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 occa- 
 sion, 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 
 
 7 (73)
 
 74 THE PAUABLES. 
 
 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 light- 
 ning 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, un- 
 affected by space or place, knowing neither distance 
 nor nearness, he embraces this world with all its crea- 
 tures, 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 pro- 
 portion as the objects we love are removed from us 
 as 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 mov- 
 ing 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 PAIIABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 75 
 
 grand and most necessary lesson which the parable of 
 the Good Samaritan was designed to teach. In con- 
 sidering it, let us attend to 
 
 I 
 
 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 ex- 
 plained, 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 con- 
 gregation. 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 AVC might call them and probably the com- 
 mon 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 construc- 
 tion both of his motives and object. He had heard of 
 him whose fame filled the whole land ; and to ascer- 
 tain 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 mo- 
 mentous 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 suffi- 
 cient 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
 
 THTC 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 command- 
 ments, 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 miser y f 
 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 aha It 
 
 T*
 
 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 di- 
 lemma 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 iny 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 high- 
 roads 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 THE GOOD SAMAKITAN. 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 rov- 
 ing 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 har- 
 mony 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 ; arid 
 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 ap- 
 pears travelling from Jerusalem ; from which it is 
 said he went down to Jericho, just as we speak of 
 going up to London, or coining down from it, be- 
 cause it is in point of fact our capital. Issuing from 
 one of the defiles, or springing up from behind some 
 rock, a band of ruffinns fall on him. Very probably 
 he stands on his defence. Swords are drawn; blows 
 are struck ; overpowered at length by superior num- 
 bers, he is felled to the ground. With all haste they
 
 80 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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, an'* 
 the curtain falls. 
 
 SECOND ACT. 
 
 The curtain rises on the same scene the man ii 
 where he fell, the pool of blood growing larger as lift 
 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 assistant 
 a Levite. He also is a minister of religion, and an 
 official of the temple. Here again mark the correspon- 
 dence 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 ex- 
 pected 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 ex- 
 ample of all that was humane, magnanimous, and 
 godlike, in them surely help was at hand ! It seemed
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 81 
 
 a happy fortune for this unfortunate man that country- 
 men, 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 o"f the rock on 
 which another lies wrecked. Its inhabitants fly from 
 a house on 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 THE PAKABLES. 
 
 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 
 scone. 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 with- 
 out 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 oifer, 
 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 circum- 
 stances, 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 ; ita
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 8-3 
 
 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 era- 
 dicated till God pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and 
 Christian love, in millennial days, reigns over a re- 
 generated 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 hang- 
 ing over a horrible death, at this blessed change ? But 
 still less can AVC 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. Nor was that all. Recalling that 
 scene in the infernal torments of the heathen poe*., 
 where Tantalus fills the cup, and no sooner raises it to 
 his thirsty lips, than the water vanishes, the saraa 
 hopes had been raised before by another ship manned 
 also by their countrymen, to suffer the same cruel 
 disappointment. Sometimes cold and thin, blood, a? 
 their rescue proved, is not always thicker than water. 
 When death had seized some, and despair all, a Nor- 
 wegian 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 con- 
 duct 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, "They shall be mine, saith the 
 Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels ; and I
 
 THE 1'AKABIE 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 Ba- 
 bylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Ha- 
 moth, 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 de- 
 livered 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 remark- 
 ably 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 Sama- 
 ria, in opposition to that which had its seat in Jeru- 
 salem, they became worshipers of the true God. 
 8
 
 86 THE PARABLES. 
 
 They had ceased to be heathens ; still they were her 
 etics. 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 por- 
 tions 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 
 Jflv, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Sa- 
 maria ? 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 ml abhorrent. When his enemies, for ex- 
 ample, Wore i>o transported with rage against our Lord 
 that forgetting frhe sacredness of the place, they rose 
 up in the temple to stone Jiim, their passions found 
 vent in this speooh as the very concentration of the 
 fiercest hatred: "Say we not well." they cried, as 
 they gnashed their ceeth on him, " Say we not well, 
 that thou art a Samaritan, 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 him-^ 
 self! 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
 
 TIIK PAKAISLK 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 beauti- 
 ful 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 car- 
 riage, 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 THK PAUABLES. 
 
 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 re- 
 proach, repudiated something more sacred than their 
 State debts the claims of a common parentage and a 
 common redemption take warning ! The haughty, in- 
 tolerant, contemptuous Jews would not hear the warn- 
 ing, " Woe to the crown of pride !" and now they are 
 a by-word, a proverb, and a hissing, a nation scat- 
 tered 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 re- 
 pent 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 like- 
 wise." 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 providen- 
 tially 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*
 
 THE PARABLES. 
 
 pouring them into the wounds, which he hastily tore his 
 own robes to bind. And as he watched with eager in- 
 terest the signs of returning life, I can fancy the joy 
 that thrilled through all his frame, when the pulse be- ' 
 gan 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 chil- 
 dren 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. Ten- 
 derly 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 ser- 
 vant 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 civiliza- 
 tion, 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 
 
 nappy 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 country- 
 men, 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. Bus- 
 iness 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. More- 
 over, wise as he was humane, provident as he was gen- 
 erous 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 admi- 
 ration 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 im- 
 perishable 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 fin- 
 ger 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 like- 
 wise. 
 
 " 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 PABABLES. 
 
 our own ! Our love is confined within narrow chan- 
 nels, 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, ecclesias- 
 tical 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 
 more 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 observa- 
 tions to a close, that 
 
 JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF 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 sound- 
 ing 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 illu- 
 sive. 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, bring- 
 ing 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 ima- 
 gination. One example of that shines in a constella- 
 tion 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 sus- 
 pended in the heavens, and formed of brilliant stars 
 and looking down on the world, the tree on which its 
 Saviour hung ; and it was the same piety that dis- 
 covered 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 mis 
 take, has in some instances discerned types, symbols,
 
 94 THE PARABLES. 
 
 and shadows of Jesus in the Bible, that belong more 
 
 7 O 
 
 to the regions of fancy than of fact. 
 
 It may be that in seeing Christ in this Good Sama- 
 ritan, 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 sa- 
 cred to the saving doctrines of " Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified." Here we rise, not sink; and as if we as- 
 cended on a sunbeam to its source in the sun itself, here 
 we turn from contemplating Christian love in the Sa- 
 maritan, 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 Je- 
 hovah dwelt, now stands for man's originally happy and 
 holy state. Man leaves it. He goes doivn from it ; 
 travelling downward to that place of misery, so aptly 
 typified by that Jericho, against which the ark and ar- 
 mies 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 aen shall he set up 
 the gates of it." In the fierce and saVage robbers, who
 
 TOE 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 inno- 
 cence and happiness and honor Satan, who was a mur- 
 derer, 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 Sama- 
 ritan. " 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 God- 
 man, 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 PAKABLKS. 
 
 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 1
 
 V. 
 
 0f % Itpst 
 
 Luke xviii. 1. 
 
 IN descending by one of the passes of the /'j'j/a into 
 the lovely valley of the Saarnen, the travelU c may no- 
 tice on the right hand of the path a pine-trer, growing 
 in extraordinary circumstances. Enormous masses of 
 hoary rock lie scattered in the bottom of the ravine ; 
 they have fallen from the crags which form its stu- 
 pendous 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, where lichens had grown 
 9 (97)
 
 i)8 THE PAUABLES. 
 
 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 feel- 
 ing for the earth and food. Touching the ground at * 
 length, they buried themselves in it, to draw nou- 
 rishment 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, dray 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 unfa- 
 vorable 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 penetrat- 
 ing 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 
 Him who spent, not hours, but whols 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 UXJUST 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 
 tc tell its use and purpose, in these words : " He spake 
 a parable unto them to this end, that men ought al- 
 ways 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 re- 
 ligion, 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 de- 
 stroyed, 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 PAKABLES. 
 
 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, de- 
 spairing 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 philo- 
 sophy, 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 ex- 
 actors righteous. It is certain that hundreds and 
 thousands now living who have done no wrong would 
 have been hanged in olden times; and, when express- 
 ing 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 pa- 
 triots 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 ac- 
 cepting 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 re- 
 ceived 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 p( rtrait as was his wont, drawing his 
 illustrations of divine truth from familiar objects. 
 9*
 
 102 THK 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 
 groat. 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 ad- 
 ministers, and that he Avho 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 char- 
 acter, 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," He 
 shall not be crucified ; otherwise than over my dead 
 body you shall not reach this innocent victim. The
 
 THE 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 en- 
 joyed a life of ease and pleasure. 
 
 Let me remark that, in this hateful picture of self- 
 ishness 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 thun- 
 der 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 re- 
 gardless 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 sub- 
 mitted 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 in- 
 fluences 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 beg- 
 gar, 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 terms which 
 our Lord employs to denounce those who, worst of hy-
 
 THE PAUAHLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE. 10D 
 
 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 chore} 
 of pity, she obtains justice bringing fire out of a 
 cold flint, gushing water from a hard, dry rack. - 
 Consider 
 
 THE MEANS OF IJER SUCCESS. 
 
 She owed it to importunity. Nature herself prompts 
 to this the bube 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 win- 
 ning 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, ema- 
 ciated 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 ob- 
 ject of 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 de- 
 mands all the hours of night, an annoyance which,
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE. 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 was 
 sorrow 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 passion- 
 ately 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 pleas- 
 ures. Her voice ringing loud on the threshold demand- 
 ing 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 dash- 
 ing 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 P ARABLES. 
 
 troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her constant 
 coming she weary me." 
 
 THE CONCLUSION, I 
 
 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 cor- 
 ruptions, the world and its temptations, the devil and 
 his wiles, for us. 
 
 There are likewise some points of resemblance be- 
 tween 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 moun- 
 tains, his elect cried to him day and night, and the 
 Church, helpless as a widow, implored him, saying,
 
 THE PAKAHLK OF TUB 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 beset- 
 ting sin, and hating it as a slave his cruel tyrant, they 
 cry, " How long, 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 in- 
 stant, 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 pleas- 
 ure 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 re- 
 deemed ones cast at his feet than on his people here 
 fighting in this field of battle, weeping in this vale of 
 10
 
 110 THE PABABLES. 
 
 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. Rsst 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 ful- 
 fill, 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 arid 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 sac- 
 rifices, this fire burned by night and day on the altar ; 
 nor was it till after the lapse of nearly a thousand
 
 THE PAJIABLE OF THE UNJUST JUDGE. Ill 
 
 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 long- 
 ings, 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 with- 
 out ceasing," " always to pray ;" he is like an ^Bolian 
 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 regard- 
 ing prayer which our Lord told this parable to teach, 
 I remark that 
 
 IT DOES NOT TEACH 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, arid, 
 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 pur- 
 poses ? 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 objec- 
 tions. 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 phil- 
 osophy 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 fall- 
 ing 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 sav- 
 age, 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 TEACHES 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 Cove- 
 nant. 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. 
 " He 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 flow- 
 ers offer the intense of their fragrance, and skies and 
 10*
 
 114 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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 con- 
 fessed 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 coun- 
 sel, 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 us, 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 rmrning 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 busi- 
 ness 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 occa- 
 sional 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 ; fielda 
 for the ripening of their fruits, and gardens for the 
 beauty of their flowers, need daily sunlight, if not sun- 
 shine. 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 unfavor- 
 able 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 bro^id 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 con- 
 senting, 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 stran- 
 gers, 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 ene- 
 mies 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 PARABLES. 
 
 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 dis- 
 sipation 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, saying 
 
 " I'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 pro- 
 fessing 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. In- 
 deed, 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 beautiful, though fading
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE CtfJUST JUDGE. 119 
 
 flowers along the margin of its rugged path. Then 
 what is the crime of those who in these days reck- 
 lessly 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 confi- 
 dence 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 de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 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 liv- 
 ing 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, re- 
 mote 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 Budd- 
 hist'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 al- 
 ways 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 sen- 
 tinel 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 pray- 
 ing in the house, by the way, on our beds, at our busi- 
 ness prayer, sounding or silent, a constant flowing 
 stream. By constant dropping, the water wears a hole 
 in the hardest stone. By constant growing, the tree- 
 root 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, abun- 
 dant in goodness and in truth. Yet, as it is only perse- 
 verance 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 sufiereth violence, 
 and the violent take it by force."
 
 VI. 
 
 at % fliarisw aito % 
 
 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 cer- 
 tain heights, or under certain lines of latitude. Un- 
 like 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 H seems to 
 
 (123)
 
 124 THE PAKAULES. 
 
 have nothing to feed on, where there is the least occa- 
 sion 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^ieaven. 
 
 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-respect, a due regard to our rank and posi- 
 tion ; 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 v saying, Stand aside, I am holier
 
 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 125 
 
 than tbou. Obtaining access to hearts which would 
 close the door in the face of grosser vices, pride, be- 
 sides, 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 Ga- 
 lilee 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 sur- 
 face 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 pur- 
 pose, 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 Humboldc 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 sing- 
 ing 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 than taken from its 
 11*
 
 126 THE PARABLES. 
 
 mother's arms, not to be burned or drowned, but plunged 
 over head into the wa.ter 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 caiinot enter 
 into thfe 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 emigrants 
 left the cradle of mankind. It is a symbolical confes- 
 sion 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 ininds 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 appro- 
 priate 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 f alines* of his tenderness and mercy
 
 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 L^Y 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 Hindoo. 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, see- 
 ing him hesitate, remonstrates telling how it will as- 
 suage his sufferings, and may save his life : but reaion^ 
 strates 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
 
 THE PHARISEE AND TUE PUBLICAN. 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 scrupu- 
 lously 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 mur- 
 derers 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 re- 
 quired 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 forme, 
 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 de- 
 generate into one of form. By occupying and indeed 
 engrossing the attention of the worshiper, they with- 
 draw it from the state of his heart, and prove as per- 
 nicious 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 king- 
 dom 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 THE 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 fellow- 
 worshipers 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 Chris- 
 tian 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, cf sub- 
 stituting 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 sym- 
 metry, 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 
 lound 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 syna- 
 gogues, 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 par- 
 d r ,ucd of God, but praised of men, and gaining a char- 
 acter for piety, gain the widow's esteem for the vil- 
 lancus purpose of plundering her house. Their hu- 
 mility was but the stepping-stone of their ambition 
 tigers, 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 
 Jove to pray standing in the synagogues and in the 
 corners of the street, that they may be seen of men." 
 That they may be sot-n of men ! he rings the changes 
 on that exposing the vride and vanity that lay at the 
 root of their religion. Loud, ostentatious, and unpro- 
 fitable, it was like the brawling, noisy, foaming, frothy 
 torrent, which, with a rock *or its bed and barrenness 
 on its banks, makes itself aeen and heard. How
 
 THE J'ilAKl&J&E AND THE PUBLICAJf. 133 
 
 different genuine, gracious piety ! Affluent in blessings 
 b. retiring from observation, it has its symbol in the 
 stream that pursues a silent course, and, flashing out 
 in the light of 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 thia 
 parable presents. Judging the stock by the sample, 
 look at 
 
 THE PHARISEE. 
 
 Sweeping contemptuously by others who, feeling them' 
 selves unworthy to tread the holy courts, worshiped 
 reverently at a distance, he makes his way to the 
 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 him- 
 self, but that he might be the observed of all ob- 
 servers 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 lan- 
 guage of our prayers and the state of our hearts 
 the 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 outpour- 
 ing of pride and arrogance. Observe first the fashion 
 12 

 
 134 THE PAEABLES. 
 
 and form of his prayer. In a sense, it is no prayer 
 it contains neither confession nor petition ; there is 
 neither guilt acknowledged nor pardon asked ; it ex- 
 presses 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 in- 
 dulging ; and which are but a cover, and a very trans- 
 parent 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 ac- 
 cording 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 PIIAEISEB AND TUB PUBLICAN. 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 reli- 
 gion 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 mis- 
 represented 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 obser- 
 vances, 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 con- 
 vents, the sacrifices of the Pharisee rose above the re
 
 136 THE PAKABLES. 
 
 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 has 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 miser- 
 able 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 lan- 
 guage 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 miser- 
 able, 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, "lam not as other men are." To 
 entertain a bad opinion of others without sufficient 
 evidence proves more thap 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 b6 
 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 
 seltuh. Thieves do not believe in the existence of 
 honesty ; nor rakes in virtue ; nor mercenary poli- 
 ticians 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 con- 
 clude others to be so. Hence also you find many nov- 
 elists 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 un- 
 natural conclusion on their part ; for prejudices re- 
 semble 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 con- 
 clude, 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, un- 
 just, and an adulterer. He had no right to put on 
 such airs, or, as his eye fell on him, to make a foot- 
 stool of the publican to stand higher before God- 
 saying 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 sal- 
 vation. May God enlighten our eyes, show us our- 
 selves ! For who knows himself, knowing much more 
 ill of himself than he can of any one else, will in 
 12*
 
 138 THE PARABLES. 
 
 dulge in no such proud, and self-complacent and odioua 
 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, 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 ! 
 
 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 con- 
 trasted with the empty vanity and haughty arrogance 
 01 ihis inflated Pharisee. Tn illustration of this, observe
 
 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 as- 
 sumed 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 congre- 
 gation 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, dis- 
 turbs 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. 
 
 sehes 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. 
 
 He 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 giory, 
 sunlike, to dazzle him nor awfulness in God's ho- 
 liness 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. Self- 
 accused, self-abased, arid 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 Pha- 
 risee are stretched to heaven to receive the roward he
 
 THE PHAKISEE 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 pub- 
 lican 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 inar- 
 ticulate 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 SINNEK. 
 
 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 liea 
 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 for- 
 given. Not that his confession and sorrow were the
 
 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 143 
 
 price of pardon ; but that, feeling undone and lost, he 
 cast himself on divine mercy, and so became a par- 
 taker of the righteousness which Jesus Christ has pro- 
 vided 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 hap- 
 piest home-going we ever made sufficient toHurn 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 way- 
 side 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 hap- 
 pier 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 lov- 
 ing bosom on which, when the work of our oanc- 
 tification is completed, we shall be borne up to another 
 and a better house, there to be crowned with everlast- 
 ing 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 PAKABLE8. 
 
 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 where- 
 with 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 to be supported by 
 calling bad names, this application of the term betrays, 
 as I undertake and proceed to show, the grossrst ig- 
 norance. 
 
 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 sar It 
 is no breach of charity to fancy them turning from 
 those called Pharisees to such as call them so, to fnv, 
 "Jesus we know, and Paul we know these others v 
 know but who are ye ?"
 
 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLK 'J.. 145 
 
 Again, the Pharisees, devouring widow/ 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 de- 
 prived 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 moral 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 PARABLES. 
 
 of society, are impurity and loose morals more char- 
 acteristic of those who keep the Lord's day sacred, 
 than of those who make it one of business or of pleas- 
 ure? and among the lower classes, is it those who 
 resort to the church or to the public house on the Sab- 
 bath, 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, re- 
 markably 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 reli- 
 gion the sun of their sky the foundation of their 
 most precious hopes ? Disclaiming all self-confidence
 
 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 147 
 
 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 Chris- 
 tians, let them beware how they furnish any, the least 
 occasion for others using it by any inconsistency be- 
 tween their profession and their practice by magni- 
 fying little things and overlooking the weightier mat- 
 ters of the law by straining at a gnat, and swallow- 
 ing 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.
 
 vn. 
 
 f \t farabl* 0f % p 
 
 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 ty- 
 rants 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 his- 
 tory, and one in which it is not difficult to recognize a 
 tradition of Eden, and of man's early innocence 
 changed, no doubt, from its original form, as like a 
 13* (149)
 
 150 THE PARABLES. 
 
 stone in the bed of a river, it has come rolling down 
 
 y O 
 
 the long and turbulent stream of time. 
 
 Literally, as well as figuratively, the earliest peri- 
 . is of the world were the Golden Age : for the discov- 
 f ries of archaeologists 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 orna- 
 ments 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 Jiis 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 sane precious metals ; and even much of the do- 
 mestic 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 eme- 
 ralds 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 hun- 
 dred 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 con- 
 tained, 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 Solo- 
 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 abso- 
 lutely 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 waa 
 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 inva- 
 ded, to preserve their valuables from the hand of the 
 spoiler, the inhabitants buried them in the earth : fall- 
 ing in battle or dying in exile, they never returned to 
 claim them ; and thus the earth became a bank in 
 which was accumulated during the course of ages, a 
 vast amount of unclaimed deposits. Even in our coun- 
 try, 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 
 jid 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 whis- 
 tles carelessly behind his oxen, he is startled b^ the ring 
 of metal ; and on turning his head, how he stares to 
 Bee the black furrow yellow with scattered gold, and 
 sparkling in the sun with jewels ! The plow is uban-
 
 THK PARABLE OF THE HID 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 con- 
 ceals with care all traces of the discovery, and, mask- 
 ing his joy under an air of indifference, hastens home- 
 ward. To the amazement of his neighbors, who pity 
 him as moonstruck or mad, he sells his house, his fur- 
 niture, 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 enor- 
 mous treasure, he has exchanged a hard, humble, toil- 
 ing life for the respect and ease, the comforts and lux- 
 uries, 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 beg" 
 gars 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 re- 
 gards 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 flash- 
 ing 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 re- 
 demption, 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 cir- 
 cumstances 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 hon- 
 orable, 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 pres- 
 ence 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 justi- 
 fieth, 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 destroy 
 being 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, se- 
 curely 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 PARABLES 
 
 expression than one, stands a building with armed sen* 
 tinels 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 Solo- 
 mon, 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 thou- 
 sands, 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 
 mg, 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 J'AIUULK Ol THE 11ID TREASURE. 157 
 
 be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of it ia 
 above rubies." 
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL ARE COMPARED 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 treasures 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 for- 
 14
 
 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 hath 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, spark- 
 ling 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, vul- 
 garity, 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 con- 
 dition 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 lo 
 calm life's roughest storms, in hopes to cheer guilt's 
 darkest hour, in a courage that defies death and de- 
 scends 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 east or west unfold, 
 
 And its rewards more precious are 
 Than all their stores of gold.
 
 160 THE PARABLES. 
 
 THE TREASURE WAS FOUND WITHOU1 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 speak- 
 ing through the Spirit to souls for love of whom he 
 left the skies, Avhich 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 conver- 
 sion 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, " Ex- 
 cept 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 fruit- 
 trees 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 prepa- 
 ration. 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 seek- 
 ing, or so much as thinking of it, they stumble on sal- 
 vation, 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 treas- 
 ures, 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 con- 
 14*
 
 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 accident 
 the 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 " 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 un- 
 happy 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 dis- 
 liked 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 sometimp-s 
 bestows it where it has never been sought ; and a 
 change comes as unlocked 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,
 
 THE PAKABLE OP 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 Sa- 
 viour, 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 roam- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 pare 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 eyea 
 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 ex- 
 pected, 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 aban- 
 doned : 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 HI!) 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 influ- 
 ences of his Holy Spirit, glory for a crown and heaven 
 for a home, these, like the treasures which the plow- 
 share brought to light, lie at our feet. They are 
 within our reach. And why, if yet poor and misera- 
 ble, 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 sove- 
 reign mercy, be of those of whom it is said, " He was 
 found of them who sought him not " ? 
 
 THE CONDUCT OF THE FINDER. 
 
 He hid the 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 ac- 
 cidental 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 sug- 
 gest. 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 dis- 
 covery 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 con- 
 duct 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 infi- 
 nitely 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 tran- 
 quil, 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-
 
 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 bless- 
 ings 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, push- 
 ing 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 tht 
 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 beam- 
 ing 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 :
 
 THK PAKAJJLE OF THE HID TUEASURE. 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 cro.ss 
 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 Gos- 
 pel 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 ^meth 
 the name of Christ depart from all iniquity." " Who- 
 soever 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 
 BO 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 PAIiABLES. 
 
 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 com- 
 pared 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 looking- 
 glass 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 antici- 
 pating the joys of heaven, lives above it and looks be- 
 yond 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.
 
 vm. 
 
 f \t fat* 0f % f earl 0f tost f rite. 
 
 Matthew xiii. 45, 46. 
 
 THE costliest jewel mentioned by ancient writers ia 
 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 
 
 (171)
 
 172 THE PARABLES. 
 
 to remind as of the memorable words of Lord Bacon 
 who 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 ar- 
 rayed, 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 beauti- 
 ful 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 heav- 
 en," 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 thou- 
 sand 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 sur- 
 face, 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 de- 
 fect 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, an- 
 other 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, deep- 
 drawn 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 PAUABLES. 
 
 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 vora- 
 cious shark, in vain the wretched man stirs the muddy 
 bottom to raise a cloud to cover his escape. Some air- 
 bells 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 al- 
 ways 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 men- 
 tion another aspect of this emblem that devout men 
 once considered peculiarly appropriate. Ere the pro- 
 gress 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 concep- 
 tion. 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 thun- 
 der, the future parent of the pearl rose from the bot- 
 tom 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 na- 
 tural 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 over- 
 shadowing 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 dis- 
 coveries 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, "to- 
 day, 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." 
 
 Jn 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 fair- 
 skinned, blue-eyed, golden-haired types of our Scan- 
 dinavian ancestors, all varieties also of disposition, 
 from the penunousuess of Nabal to the affection em- 
 balmed 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 utter- 
 ances, like the counsels of Ahitophel, are " as if a 
 man inquired at the oracle of God," and all differ- 
 ences 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 i>f
 
 THE 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 de- 
 cay. In such circumstances how necessary it is to re- 
 member 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 ele- 
 vated 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 hap- 
 piness 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 con,r 
 science, and that happy relationship to God without 
 which there is no more rest for a human soul than, 
 there was for the wanclerine; 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 
 f,he 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 pleas- 
 ures. 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 as- 
 signation, 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 Bun- 
 yan, on the other hand, we see one who had come to 
 know that the world and its pleasures could never sa- 
 tisfy 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 seek- 
 ing "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 housa 
 with walls of clay and thatch of straw or reeds or palm- 
 leaves, 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 revo- 
 lutions, where bloody tyrants .oppress their subjects, 
 and wealth is the carcase that draws the eagles to- 
 gether, 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 taking thib fact 
 into account, that while with us little else than orna- 
 ments, precious stones arc 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 PUAKL OF GKEAT PKICE. 181 
 
 that represents the blessings of his salvation, as " one 
 pearl of great price" which all other pearls and pro 
 perty 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 with- 
 out 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, destruc- 
 tive 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 known 
 dying, 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 sal- 
 vation is a free gift, and yet a thing to be bought and 
 Bold. Nay, more and stranger still, it is bought 
 " without money and without price." A trader with-
 
 Tilt PKA11L OF GKEAT PK1CB. 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 pre- 
 sides, and where "gold 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 ; har- 
 lots and publicans enter the ki-ngdom, 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 sinners 
 whose 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 THE PAUAULKS. 
 
 terra, 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 OP 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 any- 
 thing 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 pe- 
 culiar 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 OP GREAT PRICE. 185 
 
 prince*, 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 
 that 
 
 It 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 con- 
 trast 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 
 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, mul- 
 titudes 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 dili- 
 gence 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 prac- 
 tised 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 PARABLES. 
 
 where there is no disturbance just because there ia 
 death ! 
 
 It teaches us to examine our accounts with G-od. 
 There is a biography called " The Successful Mer- 
 chant," 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, " Let a man examine him- 
 self." 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 unsuit- 
 able 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 hun- 
 dreds 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 PEA.RL 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 ? How 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 re- 
 viewing 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 con- 
 trary, 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, vft ,4 
 Jesus standing by the helm, our bark, whether glidii ^ 
 smoothly over calm or tossed in tempestuous seas, was 
 approaching the shores of the happy land the hoice 
 and haven of our eternal rest !
 
 EL 
 
 I0si |im jof 
 
 Luke xv. 810. 
 
 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 
 hs 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, 
 
 (191)
 
 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 justifica- 
 tion 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 de- 
 stroy 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 itfi advocate, to destroy it by destroying his 
 reputation, he may find it necessary, much as he might 
 prefer quietly to bear wrcng, to act in self-defence.
 
 THE LOST PIECE OB' MONET. 193 
 
 Such, in his judgment, appear to have been the cir- 
 cumstances 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 char- 
 acter," 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 to- 
 gether, 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 ob- 
 literate 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 tc 
 Jesus breathing words of hope into the ear of some 
 poor fallen woman, or kindly trying 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 con- 
 gregation of evil-doers, and will not sit with the 
 wicked ? 
 
 17
 
 194 THJS PAKABLES. 
 
 It was the purest love which drew our Lord to 
 sinners. He was among them, but holy, harmless, 
 and undefined 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 physi- 
 cian, 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 en- 
 deavoring, 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
 
 LOST PIECE OF MONEY. 195 
 
 life. The bleeding form wore the dress of a foe. Re- 
 gardless 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 re- 
 mark, This man receiveth sinners, did more than pre- 
 sent 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 sweet- 
 brier and rosemary, the lowly thyme and the ever- 
 green myrtle, which smell the sweetest when they ara
 
 THK PAKABLES. 
 
 hardest crushed, bathing with fragrance the hands 
 that bruise them. 
 
 Before directing our attention specially to the par- 
 able before us, and the woman who, with lighted candle 
 and broom in hand, is sweeping her dusty floor, I may 
 remark 
 
 First, 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 re- 
 verberations 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 reared 
 who acts from his own bad will, with wicked determi- 
 nation 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 throe gives a complete
 
 THE LOST PIECE OF MONET. 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 con- 
 fession have left his lips, folds him to his bosom in the 
 embraces of a free, full, flowing, overflowing forgive- 
 ness. 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 unlikt 
 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 wel- 
 come given to the worst who repent and return, it ia 
 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 ve 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 \ot-t 
 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; al- 
 though 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 cor- 
 responding 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 JFOXEY. 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, what- 
 ever 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 natu- 
 rally 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 PAKABLE6. 
 
 after immortality and in many things else which dis- 
 tinguish him from the brutes that perish, there re- 
 main 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 sanc- 
 tuary 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. Tha 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 moun- 
 tain 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 werboard and dis- 
 appearing 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 everhsting forgiveness of his 
 people's sins. Enraptured with the thought, "Who," 
 exclaims Micah, " is a God like unto thee, that par- 
 doneth 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 ; he 
 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 \ie 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 inore than she did, image, 
 though faint, of that work, the wonder of astonished 
 heayens 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 iny vineyard, that I have not done in it?" 
 In regard to the steps which she took, we are, in judg- 
 ing 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 burn- 
 ing 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 
 eearch 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 na- 
 tural 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
 
 THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY. 203 
 
 is undoubtedly the Bible, God's revealed Word. As- 
 suming 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, 
 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 unfre- 
 quently 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, agita- 
 tions, 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 wean- 
 ing our affections from earth and wedding them to 
 heaven !
 
 204 THE PAHABLES. 
 
 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 care- 
 fully, sweeping the floor. There is no dying, no dread 
 fa] 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 OP 
 
 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 thair 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
 
 THH 1.0ST PIECE OF MONEY. 205 
 
 child *>ho, 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 half- 
 drowned, 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 fam- 
 ily 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 -,n the old 
 man's heart. By such scenes a gracious Gjd, accom- 
 modating his language to our ideas, expresses his joy 
 in saving sinners, and in seeing sinners saved. To en- 
 tertain 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 iny vineyard, that I have not 
 18
 
 206 THE PAKABLES. 
 
 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 heart- 
 broken 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 gone 
 one 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 burn- 
 ing 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
 
 XI IK LOST PIECK OF MON1CY. 207 
 
 from their lofty realms to watch the issue with breath- 
 less 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 mercy, crying, Save now, 
 Lord Lor i save me, I perish !
 
 X. 
 
 Matthew xiii. 323. 
 
 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 
 arid 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 PAKABLES. 
 
 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, con- 
 verting 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 SOWEB. 2H 
 
 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 re- 
 gard 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 Lord'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 as- 
 sembly on the husbandman, He begins the parable, 
 Baying, "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, care- 
 fully 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 re- 
 mote 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 differ- 
 ent features are woven into this parable. There, lead- 
 ing 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 bor- 
 ders 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 stone?, or 
 parts imperfectly cleared and cultivated, whin and
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 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 com- 
 mon 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 cul- 
 tivated 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 reve- 
 lation 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. 
 
 THE 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 PARABLES. 
 
 pointing on one occasion to a vine clasping in its arma 
 a rock, which it clothed with broad leaves and hung 
 with purple clusters, he said, I am the Vine ; or on an- 
 other 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 repen- 
 tance 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 plough- 
 ing 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 sow- 
 ing 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 db 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 pe- 
 netrate the palace to disturb the sleep or dash the
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 215 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 salva- 
 tion. 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 his- 
 tory, 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
 
 THE PABABLES. 
 
 the storms 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 con- 
 gregation, 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 be- 
 tween this sower and his successors ; his skill and our 
 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 fir- 
 mament 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 himseli
 
 THE PAHABLE OF TI1K 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, bring- 
 ing his sheaves with him." 
 
 THE SEED. 
 
 This, as Christ explains, is " the word of the King- 
 dom," 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 king- 
 dom, in contradistinction to those which, rivers, 
 shores, or mountains bound many of which founded 
 in injustice, and maintained by oppression, have ty- 
 rants for their rulers, and for their subjects staves ; 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 ot 
 age, or falling by the hands of violence, at length ex- 
 pire their palaces a heap of ruins, their kings a hand- 
 ful of dust. 
 
 As different from these in its character aa in ita 
 19
 
 218 THE PAltABLES. 
 
 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 em- 
 ploys 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 illumi- 
 nating rays, nor bread with its nutritious elements, 
 nor water as it springs sparkling from a mossy foun- 
 tain to parched and thirsty lips none sets forth 
 the word of God better than this of seed. For ex- 
 ample : 
 
 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 re- 
 mains 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 PAUABLE OF T1IE SOWEK. 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 quicken- 
 ing 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, 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 remark- 
 able 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 
 
 THE I'AKABLKS. 
 
 There is a power 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 produc- 
 tions, and there is no plant formed to grow alike 
 under the sun of Africa, and amid the snows of Green- 
 land. 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 pro- 
 phecy, and looking along the vista of distant ages, he 
 said, " There shall be a handful of corn in the earth
 
 THE PARABLE OF THR SO\VEB. 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 king- 
 dom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked 
 one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his 
 heart: this is he which received seed by the wayside" 
 19*
 
 222 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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 1 say. 
 nothing more likely to happen. Some who carefully 
 cultivate their fields, or their gardens, or their bus- 
 iness, or their minds, take no pains whatever to cul- 
 tivate their hearts. The Bible neglected, prayer, un- 
 less 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 uncul- 
 tivated 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 pas- 
 sions, 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, every- 
 where 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-
 
 THE PARABLE OF TUS 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 thoughts 
 the birds that pick up the seed which he intru'des on 
 them, to prevent the word making an impression or re- 
 move any it happens to make. What an illustration 
 of this the speech which a dying, despairing man ad- 
 dressed 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 re- 
 view of last week's trade, and to anticipate and ar- 
 range 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 en or-
 
 224 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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 the 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 mis- 
 understanding the term stony ground some may sup- 
 pose 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 OP THE SOWER. 225 
 
 In explanation of this part of the parable, our Lord 
 Bays, " He that received the seed into stony places, 
 the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with 
 joy receivcth 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 atten- 
 tion ; 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 dul- 
 ness ; 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 pro- 
 duces 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 fyand 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 PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 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 
 ifted 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 attach- 
 ment to his master; an appreciation of the moral 
 beauties of the gospel for an appreciation of its holi- 
 ness; the pleasures of emotion, or such gratification 
 as taste enjoys in a beautiful discourse, for the pleas- 
 ures 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 Gf-rcund with Thorns. Of 
 the seed our Lord says " Some fell among thorns, and
 
 228 TUB PAUABLES. 
 
 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 fa- 
 vorable to life and its enjoyments ; and so those con- 
 ditions which lie mid-way between the opposite ex- 
 tremes of poverty and riches, are found most condu- 
 cive 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 deceit- 
 fulness 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 say- 
 ing 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 beauti- 
 ful 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
 
 T11H i'AUABLE OF THE SOWER. 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 fit- 
 ful 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 beauti- 
 20
 
 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 capi- 
 tals, 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
 
 TIIH I'AUAULE OF THU SOWEll. 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 be- 
 coming a ruin, a wreck as great as Demas the apos- 
 tate, or Judas the traitor ? The devil's hand was fas- 
 tened 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 (rood Ground. " 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 
 hearf, 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 run 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 T.IE I'AKAJil.KS. 
 
 the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." But 
 " the darkness," as the apostle John says, " compre- 
 hendeth 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 purchafc, i 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 .ove, of the cross of Calvary, of eter- 
 nity, pawn his soal and peril its salvation for pleasures 
 which perish in the using. 
 
 Thirdly, They 'ceep the Word: as in contradistinc- 
 tion to soils thai 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 tide- 
 mark 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 : " that my words 
 were written ! 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 dis- 
 positions, of useful, noble, holy, and Christian lives, 
 they bring forth fruit some much ; some little ; but 
 all some. " Neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowl- 
 edge 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 me- 
 mory, while "the name of the wicked shall rot," em- 
 balmed in their 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 pro- 
 fessors. 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 conver- 
 sion, 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 re- 
 probate 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 pe- 
 nitent 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 PAKABLES. 
 
 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. 
 
 f Jt $)ar&l* 0f % InnimiM Swtoant. 
 
 Matthew xviii. 21 25. 
 
 THE boy who, catching a poor fluttering insect, im- 
 pales it, and then with curious and eager eyes watches 
 it spin round and round, may not be of a cruel dispo- 
 sition. 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 case 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 
 he 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 beat- 
 ing 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 an- 
 other 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 bend- 
 ing 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 re- 
 luctant lips ; but, as if that dying chamber had been 
 a stage, and the dying man an actor, who, having
 
 THE UNMERCIFUL SERVAJfT. 237 
 
 played his part, doffs his theatrical attire to resume his 
 real character, so soon as it was spo-ken, 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 in- 
 gratitude, 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 under- 
 stand 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 
 Heathendom, 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 per- 
 fume : so their familiarity with those Scriptures where 
 God's forgiveness is so eagerly sought and highly ex- 
 tolled, inspired the Jews, to some extent, with a for- 
 giving 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, 
 I will 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 par- 
 tially 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 UNMERCIFUL 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 else- 
 where, 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 with. 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 steward- 
 ship : 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 THE FAUABLKS. 
 
 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. 
 
 " In 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 hy 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 contri- 
 tion, 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.
 
 THE UXME11CIFUL SEUVANT. 241 
 
 judge, and jury, and the trial is conducted under cir- 
 cumstances 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 con- 
 science 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 Sanhe- 
 drim 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, re- 
 presenting his sovereign in some wealthy province of 
 an Eastern empire, had squandered in boundless extra- 
 vagance 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 th 
 Jewish talent, and calculate the amount in gold, and 
 not in silver, it rises to a sum equal almost to tha 
 whole revenue of the British empire the servant 
 stands indebted to his master more than seventy mil- 
 lions 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 
 perdition. 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 loath- 
 some sore, Job exclaimed, " I abhor myself, and re- 
 pent 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, " 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
 
 THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 243 
 
 heart, lifts his weeping eyes to Heaven, saying, " 
 Lord, for thine own name's sake, pardon mine iniquity, 
 for it is great !" 
 
 He was 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 riot called to justify it ; yet, I may re- 
 mark 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 integrity 
 and 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-
 
 244 THE rAKABLES. 
 
 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 
 only excite emotions of terror or disgust, and which, by 
 a merciful law of Providence, rarely prolong their life, 
 and never propagate their species. But in the spec- 
 tacle of free men, and especially of Christian ministers, 
 standing forth before an astonished world to justify 
 slavsry 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 an- 
 other, 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 re- 
 fused 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 illus- 
 tration of the Saviour's words, If the Irght 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 irre- 
 concilable 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 Ame- 
 rican slavery, is to insult man's understanding and 
 profane God's word. 
 
 Proceeding now to apply the parable, let it be ob- 
 served that the servant takes no objection to the sen- 
 tence. He does not challenge its justice : he only pro- 
 poses 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. Now, suppose that they who have always fallen 
 will fall no more, and that henceforth they will succeed 
 in conquering the temptations which have always con- 
 quered 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 m'oney ? 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, stand- 
 ing 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 righteous- 
 ness that we have done. He who consents to be a 
 debtor to the grace, will cease to be a debtor to the
 
 THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 247 
 
 iaw 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 
 bead, 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 rain thtir 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 PAItAHLES. 
 
 Such a case was his whose story forms the ground- 
 work 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 re- 
 verence ; 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 mart 
 nothing before him and them but the miseries of life- 
 long 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 ab- 
 ject 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 disap- 
 pointed, 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 can- 
 celled. 
 
 Behold a picture of the munificent mercy which God 
 is ready to extend to us even to the chief of sinners !
 
 THE OtfMEKCIFUL SERVANT. 249 
 
 Intoxicated with " the cup of devils," many are in- 
 sensible 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 dis- 
 grace. 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 tor- 
 ments are beginning, Jesus interposed, saying, I will 
 save them suspend the sentence I come to do thy 
 will, 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 Pivine love here " a bright light
 
 250 1'Iifi 
 
 in the clouds." In dealing with us thus God seeks to 
 bring us to a sense of our gins, 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 FELLOW- 
 SERVANT. 
 
 Of the four men lately hanged at Kirkdale, two had 
 seen a man executed for murder but a few weeks be- 
 fore 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
 
 THE 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, pro- 
 ducing 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. Kind- 
 ness seems only to have made him more cruel, and 
 generous treatment more selfish ; nor do the love and 
 mercy of his ford appear to have produced any other 
 effect on him than the heat of the tropics on poisonoue 
 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 for- 
 tune, 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 
 hitnself. All of a sudden, like a police-officer who
 
 252 THE 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 unmerciful. Though unable to pay the 
 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 par- 
 able, 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 ihe coldest, hardest flint but there's no pity in 
 this man's bosom. So bad is human nature capable of
 
 THE UMMEKCIFUL SERVANT. 253 
 
 becoming ; no heart more merciless to man than man's ! 
 There was no pity to be expected here do men 
 grther grapes of thorns ? This haughty and heartless 
 upstart could not have incurred such an enormous dsbt 
 without having passed many years in the .indulgence of 
 vice ; and all debauchees are selfish a life of vice re- 
 sembling 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 appeal 
 that 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 guilt. Good men remember kindnesses, 
 and forget injuries. Doing the reverse, bad men re- 
 member 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 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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 par- 
 able 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 rag? 
 with some touch of glory by its promptitude in espous- 
 ing 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 
 GrOil. Under the influence of such a noble anger the
 
 THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 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, " 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 par- 
 don is instantly cancelled. He is handed over to punish- 
 ment; 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 TIIK PAKABLES. 
 
 pecially to our Lord's parables, from which, were we 
 to forget that many things in the story form but ita 
 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 sin 
 being 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." Temp- 
 tation 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 con- 
 uuct 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
 
 TIIE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 267 
 
 the world giveth give I unto you : let not your hearta 
 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 re- 
 joice 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 tres- 
 passes," 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 PARABLES. 
 
 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 im- 
 ploring '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. By- 
 and-by, to this lonely home came another visitor. 
 Death, who would not be denied admittance, arrived 
 summoning her to a bar where they shall have judg- 
 ment 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 atten- 
 dants. 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
 
 TFIE UNMERCIFUL 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 for- 
 give 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 ap- 
 peals 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 
 aceursed 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 hack to us the 
 bread which we have cast upon the waters. It shall 
 return. As men sow, they shall reap. By an in- 
 fallible decree, they shall have judgment without mercy 
 who have shown no mercy ; while those who, Christ- 
 like, 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- - nd so the poet sings : 
 
 But deep this truth impress'd my mini, 
 
 Of all his works abroad, 
 Tliue heart benevolent and kind, 
 That most resemble* God."
 
 xn. 
 
 erf % f atoms in % fltwprfr. 
 
 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 , THE PARABLES. 
 
 settle controversies which seem insoluble, we shall 
 take a practical view of th' : s parable, turning our 
 eyes on some great truths which are plainly discer- 
 nible 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 par- 
 able 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 sun- 
 shine, 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 tak- 
 ing the place which milk has in the diet of our farm- 
 laborers, 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 expres- 
 sions 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 LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 268 
 
 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 re- 
 sided, and where sun-burned hardy men of bone and 
 muscle on 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 house- 
 holder's time still remains a recent traveler mention- 
 ing that on passing through a town in Palestine, he 
 saw such a gathering in its market-place ; and on ask- 
 ing 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 ; an- 
 other hour, and the chance of an engagement n gone 
 from any who are standing in the market-place Yet
 
 264 THE PARABLES. 
 
 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 pro- 
 tected 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 mis- 
 taken : but, instead of swallowing their disappointment 
 to laud the householder, and congratulate their fellow? 
 oh his generosity to them, they began to murtnui 
 against his injustice to themselves. One bolder than
 
 TniC LABORERS IN THK VINEYAHD. 2t>5 
 
 the rest, undertaking to be their mouthpiece, steps out, 
 and, showing the penny in his open ralui, remon- 
 strates with the householder, saying, " Thf-se last have 
 wrought but one hour, and thou hast nwle 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, assum- 
 ing 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, arid 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 pro- 
 phecy, 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
 
 200 THE PARABLES 
 
 patriarchs who, kindling their torch at Noali's altar, 
 preserved religi6n 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 Ca- 
 naan 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 un- 
 hired, 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 jree ; they were to be placed on a 
 level with those who, accounting themselves the meri- 
 torious as well as special favorites of Heaven, had 
 looked down with contempt on all other humanity 
 their boastful cry, " The 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
 
 THE LABOHKKtt IX TUK VINEYARD. 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, 
 t} r pes 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 advan- 
 tages, " 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 As- 
 sembly, the answers, as a series of distinct theological 
 propositions, stand independent of the questions to 
 which they are attached ; but it is sometimes neces- 
 sary, 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 his- 
 tory. 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 " sorrow- 
 ful, 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, ard heard the
 
 THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYAJRD. 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 self- 
 righteous 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 patting 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 
 arid 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 as- 
 tonished 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 Avorks, 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 self- 
 righteous spirit of these laborers ; how he would, like 
 23*
 
 270 THE PAKAELES. 
 
 the youth of " great possessions," illustrate the saving, 
 "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 works, 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 main- 
 tain 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 house- 
 holder's displeasure, as well as those who were .the ob- 
 jects 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
 
 CHE LABORERS IN 1C1E VINEiAJtu^. 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 Scrip- 
 ture, 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 oc- 
 casion 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 ap- 
 proach 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 re- 
 deemed 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 'PARABLES. 
 
 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 blood- 
 bought 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 idle- 
 ness. 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 talk- 
 ing with their neighbors tell the news, and some hav- 
 ing 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 ob- 
 ject, this diligence and perseverance would have ac- 
 complished. Busy? So have I seen the miller's 
 wheel, which went round and round : but idly, grind- 
 ing 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 glit- 
 tering, 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 THE PARABLES. 
 
 moist seasand the thoughtless urchins, types of lovers 
 of pteasure 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 ser- 
 vice which is as pleasant as it is profitable, as graceful 
 as it is dutiful, saying Work out your salvation 
 Work 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 alto- 
 gether 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 LABOREES IN THE VINEYARD. 275 
 
 over into the yawning pit ; even as in the camp of 
 Tsrael " 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 procras- 
 tination. Admit that these hours, as some think, 
 stand for the different periods of human life child- 
 hood, youth, manhood, and old age, yet let it be ob- 
 served 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 la- 
 borers, "No man hath hired us." Their case there- 
 fore 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, conies 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 
 
 wise. Behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now 
 is the day of salvation. 
 
 Salvation, though not of works, is for ivories. 
 " 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 
 whole 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 tempta- 
 tion, 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 contradic- 
 tion 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 JSTehe- 
 ruiah, 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 op- 
 pression, 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-
 
 THB LABOKEES IN THE VINEYABD. 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 he guided to heaven, and glorify 
 our Father there each such a light, or rather light- 
 house, as one of England's hold 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 neg- 
 lected 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 ig- 
 norance, 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 Ar- 
 mada, alone in the gray of morning, after a tempes- 
 tuous night, he might be seen looking out, with teles- 
 cope 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, 
 24
 
 278 THK PARABLES. 
 
 zealous, pious life, a light shining in a dark place, in a 
 dangerous and perishing world ! such as that light- 
 house 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, hard- 
 ships, 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 !
 
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