Wonderful is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the various parables of His love. Often and often have we been delighted with them individually. It is profitable, however, to view them together and read their connected story. Students of Scripture constantly associate verses in its different parts to establish and clarify doctrines, as justification, redemption and other precious truths, that, like brilliant constellations in the evening sky, are bright witnesses of God's glory. Who then can legitimately question our right to mass our Lord's parables together to tell a connected story? The following is an arrangement in which they fit beautifully, the characters by which He is represented in each pairing off one with another, and walking hand in hand before us.

We take first the "Good"' Samaritan and the "Good" Shepherd. The common office of each is the rescue of the perishing. There follow the Merchant who bankrupted Himself for a pearl and the Creditor who forgave two bankrupted debtors, and beautifully delineated therein are the Redeemer's love for the worthless sinner and the responsive love of the redeemed. Now appear the bountiful Sower, sowing the seed of the Word, and the Lord who gave talents to His servants-talents used by the faithful to bring forth fruit in abundance as did also the seed sown in the good ground. Lastly, we see the returning Bridegroom, gladly hailed by the waiting virgins, their lamps trimmed and their lights burning, and with Him the Rich Man who gave a great feast where the poor and needy sit down to meat in His banqueting house, where "His banner over them is love." The ensemble is a beautiful one.

You would have a guilty feeling were you to inadvertently omit "good" from before either the word "Samaritan" or "Shepherd." How charmingly "benevolent" and kindly-hearted was the former to the poor prey of the bandits. As we think of him, "our heart is inditing a good matter," and the thought thrills us that the Son of God has played even such a part towards us. One who is all-wise, moreover, chose a special Greek word for the "good" Shepherd. It does not in this case mean "benevolent," as is the thought in the case of the "good" Samaritan, but rather "fine," lovely," or "serving a good purpose;" in fact, as some one has put it, "The Shepherd who is just all shepherd." The Samaritan, among the Jews, had not the repute of goodness, and in that respect answers to the "Despised and Rejected One," while on the other hand the "Shepherd" is just naturally that. He is expected to be good, and as a matter of fact "lays down His life for the sheep." In this character He is indeed the "Chosen of God" in whom God and men still find their delight.

Notice that neither the Good Samaritan nor the Good Shepherd have a single word of censure or reproach for the objects of their care. The one finds a ready resting-place on the beast of burden of the Samaritan, the other is laid on the shoulder of the Good Shepherd to the music of a jubilant heart. "The Lord knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust," and oftentimes to Him we are as was the woman of Samaria or the woman taken in adultery-poor straying sheep, almost too foolish to do better. He is thus indeed all Shepherd. To the holy Judge alone belong the scathing denunciations of the third of Romans and other passages of like import.

The next pair of parables take us out into the marketplaces of the world. A creditor frankly forgives his bankrupt debtors, a merchantman bankrupts himself for a pearl. Notice that the pearl has no intrinsic value. It has only the value that is placed upon it. Yet for it the merchantman sells all that he has. In his sight it is of great price. Here is a beautiful picture of the love of Him "who loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it, and present it unto Himself a glorious Church, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."

And how the actions of the merchantman and the creditor parallel one another. "When he had found one pearl of great price went and sold all that he had," "When they had nothing to pay he frankly forgave them both." Strikingly beautiful moreover is the love of the Church shown forth in that "five hundred pence debtor" who knelt at his feet, bathing them with her tears, wiping them with the "glory of her hair." She had been forgiven much, and verily she loved much. May we ever so love our blessed Redeemer!

But our picture changes, and here are the Sower and the Talent Giver. Each is confiding something to others; the Sower, the seed to the soil; the Talent Giver, talents to his servants; and upon the character of each recipient depends the reaping.

Do you feel the power in the figure of the Sower? Those who go into New York in the morning and cross the North River, are occasionally filled with a kind of admiring wonder by the mighty buildings that tower skyward above them. What tremendous financial power they represent! What vast resources are covered by the capital invested therein! What mighty workshops they control within their walls! In the evening returning to the country, possibly a sower may be seen scattering grain in a field. How insignificant he seems! How trivial his work! But stop and consider. Were it not for that man and others pursuing the same avocation, all the buildings in the great city would be quickly emptied. The wheels of the factories they control would soon cease to turn. Dire disaster would smite the financial capital of the world and throttle the life of the manufacturing centers of civilization.

And that is but a parallel of what would have happened in the spiritual world had not the blessed Sower, the Son of Man, gone forth everywhere sowing the seed of life. Instead of lifting eyes full of hope to a life of eternal blessedness, the grave would darken our whole horizon. Instead of this life being filled with a vision of a God of love, the God who gave His Son to die for us, we would be appalled by the atheist's challenge:

"Oh, ye poor orphans of nothing, alone on a lonely shore, Born of a brainless Nature, that knew not that which she bore."

It would be at least a "heartless" Nature, for the groaning creation would then have no promise of a day in which its groan would be hushed. Let us then thank God for the blessed Sower, let us pray the more earnestly that He send forth also other laborers into His harvest-fields, and let us go forth, each in his measure, to the same work, with the music of,

"Sing them over again to me
Wonderful words of life,
Let me more of their beauty see,
Wonderful words of life,"

keeping time to the scattering of the seed.
The companion parable speaks of the Lord who imparted gifts to prosper that very work. "When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to the children of men." And the measure of their use is something of the measure of the estimation of our Master. The wicked servant was very particularly wicked, because the reason for his not using his talent was his false estimation of his Master:"I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed." Actually that Lord had been an indefatigable Sower, as we know from the companion parable. Actually, instead of being a hard man, He rewards liberally, and joys with His servants in the fruit of their work for Him. Blessed Lord!

The following sentence once sprang up out of a story that I was reading years ago:"The Mistress loved her husband so deeply in her heart, that it overflowed in goodness to all around." Ah, I thought, "That is how we should love the Christ of God. That is the source of all right service, love to the Master." The sentence has often come to me since. May it remain with us all as a source of abundant labor in the Lord. It is the "labor of love" that counts.

The last pair of parables shows us a returning Bridegroom and a Feast-maker. Virgins go forth to meet the Bridegroom and those with oil in their lamps go in with Him to the wedding. Their lamps were burning brightly, irradiating the darkness of the night, because of the oil within. And if we are to shine in this world of darkness, "holding forth the Word of life," it must be through the power of the Spirit, which the oil typifies. Talents are good indeed, they are the Lord's gift, but they are not enough. The Spirit must lead us "into all truth." Nor can we otherwise look properly for our returning Lord. Easy it is to fall asleep; easy it is to say, "My Lord delayeth his coming." "Yet He that shall come, will come and will not tarry!"

Blessed be God, the close of all Christian experience is therefore the Great Feast within the many mansions, when the poor outcasts of the highways and byways of life are gathered from far and wide when "He shall cause them to sit down to meat and shall come forth and serve them."

"How sweet and blessed is the place
With Christ within those doors
Where everlasting love displays
The fulness of its stores."

F. C. Grant