(Continued from page 96.)

There are about twenty-five parables in the Gospels, as well as numerous parabolic sayings beside, although different numbers may be obtained according to the place where we put the dividing line. They are largely drawn from the various occupations of the people of that day, and cover most of them.

It has been said that the parable of the sower was given to draw the farming class, that of the merchant seeking goodly pearls, the traders, and that of the net let down, the fisher folk; and although perhaps there is room to differ as to the specific application, yet the principle is a beautiful one and serves as another of those side lights which illumine the Lord's life with their radiance. The apostle speaks somewhere of becoming all things to all men, and this our Lord was for the very blessed reason that in a certain sense, we may say, men were all things to Him. He had a wonderful and touching sympathy with toiling humanity around, entering into their daily duties in a manner that is very precious, and ready always to address the heart thereby. So there is scarcely an occupation in life from which His parables are not drawn. There are about eleven of these and though to the Christian they are, of course, familiar, it may be profitable to take a sort of bird's eye-view.

They dealt with high life and low life. We hear of the rich man's son running away and spending his all, and of the poor woman with her ten pieces of silver, of the shepherd tending his flock. We see
the merchant entering on a large venture, or the fisher gaining a precarious living in the great Deep. Then again we sit in the palace of the king in high festival, or wander with the sower at noon tide. We go with the traveler to Jericho and see the thieves strip him of all that he has, or we visit the courts of the city, where high handed injustice for long resists the cry of importunity.

But not merely is the world of man a field of illustration, but a number of the facts of animate and inanimate creation are summoned to bear their testimony. "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow," and remember that not one of the sparrows falls to the ground without your Father. Ye read the signs of the sky, and why not the signs of the times? The reader can think of other fields which are covered.

But now let us remember that no one can imitate save in a very imperfect way, our blessed Lord, and yet if our heart grow more into that Divine compassion that filled Him, we too shall be able to find in sea and sky, in life and death, avenues to the consciences of our fellow-men, and all things shall subserve the work of our ministry. Some like anecdotal preaching, (which in a certain way answers to the parabolic), and some a more purely didactic discourse, but in the parables and in the sermon on the mount we have parallels of each, and we know that His ways are divine. And more or less we can grow to be like Him in this. One man is anecdotal because he has a healthy sympathy with the pulsating human life around, and another is perceptual and doctrinal as entering warmly into God's ways and laws in Holy Writ. Both are needed and each may gain of the other as each learns more of the heart for everything that moved Him.

When we come to consider the didactic and perceptual part, we will be surprised to find how much it is illumined by metaphor and simile. There are about two dozen metaphors and similes in the so-called sermon on the mount, and much of the same is scattered through the Gospels. To examine into the examples of these and consider their beauty would be rather beyond the purport of this paper, and yet some are so beautiful we fain would pause and consider them.

"Ye are the salt of the earth," says the Lord. Salt is known for its preservative qualities. It prevents rot and decay. And so Christians are those who "having escaped the corruption that is in the world " are God's witnesses in it. But evidently the primary application is to the usefulness, the preciousness of salt-its savor, which is such that, where absent, men have risked their lives to procure it. It is as if He had said, Ye are the choice ones of this earth; but then if you lose that which makes you this, you are like savorless salt, good only to be cast away. Salt too is that which turns the fertile place into a desert. O brethren, have we so much salt in us that this world has indeed become a wilderness to us? "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid." By day its gilded domes glitter in the rays of the sun, and by night its lights shine out, a beacon to the wanderer and the weary. Christian, do you too shine in the full day of prosperity and in the dark time of tribulation?

But this use of metaphor and simile by Jesus points clearly to the amount of lesson there is in the
world around, which we might use to draw our fellow-men, and by which we might admonish our own heart. In preaching as in teaching let us remember how our great Teacher pointed his remarks by metaphor and simile.

Throughout our Lord's teaching there is also a large use of what is called antithesis or contrast. Thus in the very portion with which we are dealing, the sayings of those of old time are brought into vivid juxtaposition with His own blessed precepts.

What the disciples should do is contrasted with what the hypocrite actually does. We have the contrast of the two roads, one broad and leading to destruction, and the other narrow and traversed by few, but ending in life. Finally, a vision of two houses is presented to view, one standing on the unstable sand and swept away by the rush of the flood, and the other grounded on the rock, presenting an immovable front to all the torrent of the tempest.

What a mass of contrast there is even in this short sermon, and when you come to examine the rest of the Gospel, you will be surprised to see how often these vivid contrasts confront one another. There is at least one powerful use of what we may call suggested contrast; when He asks the bystanders, "What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind? A man in soft raiment? In king's palaces?" One can imagine the people crying out:"No, no indeed, that certainly John was not." But, O reader, how much those contrasts weighed upon His loving heart. Do they weigh upon yours? The light and joy of Heaven? The blackness and doom of hell? The purity of Divine holiness? The loathsomeness of sin? How many lights and shadows are falling on the shores of time, and how miserable our thought of the things around if we fail to see them?

But do not let us close this portion of our meditation with the mere remembrance of the facts just brought to our notice; let us ponder very often the reason for their use on the part of our Lord, and let us seek to be drawn closer to Him by it. Was it to attract or move His hearers that He used metaphor, simile, and antithesis? It was; but consider that He also saw that in them which was worthy of use, and let us seek to see these parallels, these strange antitheses in Nature and in life. One philosopher has been so impressed by these likenesses that he has built up a theory of the universe, in which each atom or "monad," in addition to that which gives it its own individuality, has contained within it all the qualities of the monads beneath it.

Another thing to be observed is the frequency of the use of the specific for the general, the concrete for the abstract. Thus although we have the so-called Golden Rule given as a general principle of action, yet before it is enunciated there is much specific example of the same. For instance, we are told not to turn away from him that would borrow of us, and when smitten on the one cheek to turn the other, etc. So hell is never spoken of in a general way as a place of torment, but as a place of darkness, symbolic of its hopelessness, or as a place of fire, typical of the burning of the wrath of God, or as a place where the worm dieth not, portraying the pangs of conscience. Instead of saying, If there be something about you that causes you to do wrong, get rid of it, He declares:" If thy right hand cause thee to offend,"etc. General principles alone are too broad to probe, the keen edge of the particular must be used.

This brings us face to face with a question that is certainly worth a close examination. Does our Lord, and do the apostles in preaching, speak usually of men being sinners, or of their being committers of specific sins? Certainly they are punished for the fact that they have committed specific sins. They must give an account of the deeds done in the body. Then again, men are perfectly ready to acknowledge that they are sinners, but scarcely, that they are liars, or selfish, or of violent and cruel temper. In conformity with this, I think that examination will reveal that the Lord and the apostles too, more often charge men with the specific sin than with being sinners in a general way.

Compare His terrific arraignment of the Pharisees and His interview with the woman at the well. Take in fact, almost any of His charges and I think this truth will be made manifest. Then if we pass to the discourses of the apostles, Peter charges the people with the crucifixion of Jesus; Paul, in preaching to the Athenians, asserts that superstition is one of their prominent crimes; and even when we go to the epistles, although they do not so much deal with the individual as with doctrine, yet how largely are such charges as, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," followed by long catalogues of detail. Even when he comes to speak of a nation, and through Timothy to them, he says, "The Cretans are liars." Is there not too much generality in the preaching of many, and should not this proposition be examined in the light of God's Word?

As to the use of the concrete for the abstract, we merely adduce the following instances, which may be supplemented at will. "I came not to send peace on the earth but a sword." "If he ask for a fish will he give him a serpent?"' This usage however is not so extensive as that of the general for the specific.

The next subject which we have to consider is our Lord's use of "object lessons." Perhaps the most familiar example of it, and one that will occur to every mind, is the taking of the young child and placing it in the midst, and saying:"Except ye be converted and become as this little child, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of heaven." What a beautiful scene it was :the group of grown up men that had once barred the way of the children into His presence, and the little creature before them. How they must have been ashamed of their proud thoughts and felt the power of the rebuke. But how much more vividly it must have been brought to their minds, to see the little one there. To take another instance. We all remember how He asked for the coin upon which was the image and superscription of Caesar, and pointing them out, demanded whose they were and said:"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

If metaphor and simile and object lesson be used by our Lord, if He thus summon analogy to bear Him witness, He also avails Himself of citation of authorities. This seems so obvious and plain to any reader of the Scripture that it will perhaps not be considered necessary to notice it, but there are some lessons that may be drawn which if duly considered ought to be of profit. Is it not wonderful that He should have so often cited those who held a station so much beneath Him? We say that He came to glorify His Father and His Father's word, and all that is very true. We say that it was Scripture that He quoted. Now there is truth in that remark and yet it is one of those half truths that often blind us to what is beyond them. For instance, when David went into the house of God and ate the show bread, it was scarcely scriptural to do so, although the fact itself is found in Scripture. The Lord, of course, knew that what David then did was right or he would not have cited him, but still it is the citation of David's action and in support of His own, and Scripture itself does not lend authority to the action of David. This is a wonderfully gracious thing on the part of the Lord to do. Are we always ready to cite one whom we know to be beneath us in knowledge, just because he is trusted by those to whom we speak? It is a part of true humility at any rate. But we have something further to learn. Is it not a justification of what learned men call "the argumentum ad hominem"? Is it not as much as to say, "You make your boast in David, and although a greater than David is here, yet I will take you on the ground on which you place yourselves, and so doing find justification for what I Myself have done?"

Just to touch for a moment on a subject which might better have had an earlier place in this paper, and then to pass to the Lord in conflict with those who oppose themselves. It is another of those trite remarks which when stated in all their nakedness seem so obvious as to be taken for granted, and which, for that very reason so often are passed over. The Lord said the right thing at the right time. Now a man may give a perfectly correct answer, and yet that answer may be far from the correct thing to say. This is paradoxical and yet true. When He spoke the parable of the sower going out to sow, He was seated in a boat overlooking the green fields that swept away in their verdure from the shore of Galilee. It is even quite possible that one of those sowers may have been in sight as He spoke, and the mustard-tree have waved in the fresh breeze from the lake, as He passed on to speak of the smallness of its seed. Again, the hiding of the leaven in the meal, although spoken from the same place may easily have been suggested by some domestic scene within view. No doubt too the house into which He entered, and where He talked, with His disciples about the net let down and the merchant seeking goodly pearls, was in the near neighborhood of the scene in which they had just been, as well as in consonance with the trade of those to whom He was speaking. Some of the other parables are a little hard to judge of because the place in which they were spoken is not clear, but I think that you will notice that very largely what I have been trying to bring out, has exemplification in those incidents in which locality is more prominent. There is in all these facts, much that goes to show the perfection of that Manhood which, while never in harmony with that which was evil, seemed always, in so far as was fit, to adapt itself to the environment in which it moved.

Passing now to our last topic, how often does He meet objection by a question, either in reality, to which he expects an answer, or else in interrogatory form. "Whose is the image and superscription?" "Can the children of the bride chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?" "Whether is easier to say:Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk?" "If Satan cast out Satan, how then shall his kingdom stand?" In this latter instance He had first of all made the direct assertion that a house divided against itself could not stand, and the interrogation is a formal one. There are so many of these questions asked by our Lord and they are so familiar to the reader of the Bible, that there will be no need of further citation, but I want to pause a moment and consider the wisdom of this style.

When people are compelled to confute their own reasoning, the confutation is much more thorough, greater attention to the answer being necessarily given, and furthermore, where an answer is vouchsafed, the position of the objector is more clearly seen and there is no possibility of his falling back on some unacknowledged point after the whole argument is over, and of thus breaking its force. He stands self-convicted before all. Then too he is necessarily more open to the argument because he has already granted points, which if he had seen their bearing, he might have absolutely refused to grant. He answers truly, with unbiased mind and must necessarily, even if he afterward withdraw his concession, see that there is at least a very large amount of probability on the side of his opponent. Here then is wisdom; but how often this wisdom is adorned by a touching grace. The interrogatory method in itself is a less dogmatic, self-assertive method. Of course, the person that uses it may be the most dogmatic of all persons and may use it purely because of its advantages, but with Him, who was meek and lowly in heart, how well it consorted. I think that at times when He saw that some poor man was bolstering himself with the pride of his knowledge, and answered in this questioning way, a sort of shame must have fallen on that falsely proud heart, and inward reverence and worship must have arisen as he beheld the meekness of that mighty Miracle Worker. Surely we can pray to Him as we close:

" O teach us more of Thy blest ways
Thou holy Lamb of God!
And fix and root us in Thy grace,
As those redeemed by blood."

F. C. G.