heroic career. Nothing they accomplish can become permanently influential.

II: 21. If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon."

Men are judged not only according to what they have done but according to what they would have done under other circumstances and conditions of life. In other words, they are judged according to their opportunities.

The whole teaching of St. Paul in his second chapter to the Romans, all the wider hopes of later times as to the future of mankind, are but the development of the truth partly declared and partly suggested here.

See also note on S. Luke 10:15.

II: 21-24. Here we find a perfect strophe and antistrophe dwelling on the woes to the cities of Galilee.

11:25. "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent."

It is right that the Truth be in some sort hidden from the first view of those who are wise and prudent, because they have the ability and leisure to seek it. It is good that it be a hidden fruit for them, in order that they may get the discipline gained in making an effort to uncover it. But it is on the other hand just and good that it of itself offers itself to babes and the poor, who have neither ability nor leisure. Such is the teaching of this verse if it is to be taken literally. But the context appears rather to lead one to refer it to those wise in their own conceit, to those who are seeking the praise. of men rather than the truth of God.

The "babes," on the other hand, are the disciples, those who have received the kingdom in the spirit of a little child,-childlike, and sometimes childish, indeed, and yet, in their thoughts of it earnest and simple hearted. Such

are the ones brought under the training through which they have become true Scribes of the Kingdom of Heaven.

See also note on S. Luke 10: 21.

12: 12. "It is right to do good on the Sabbath."

Not to do good when it lies in our power, is practically to do evil. No formality, tradition, or custom, can we plead as an excuse for not doing good as our hands find it to do.

12:20. "He shall not strive nor cry," etc.

We have here the description of a character of the extremest gentleness.

The "bruised reed " is the type of one broken by the weight of sorrow, care, or sin. Men in general disregard, or trample upon such a one. But not so with the Christ.

He seeks rather to bind up and strengthen.

The "smoking flax " is the wick of the lamp which has ceased to burn clearly. Its clouded flame appears to call for prompt extinction.

Here is a parable of such souls of men as those in which the light that should shine before men has grown dim. Base desires have clogged it. Such men are no longer fed with the pure oil of sincerity and truth.

For such, the self-righteous Pharisee has no pity. He is content to give thanks that his own lamp is burning. The Christ of God, on the other hand, is all tenderness towards such. He rather seeks to trim their lamps with the oil of gladness and to set a crown of pure gold upon their heads.

12 25-37. Jesus is here again aroused by the Pharisees to put his thoughts into Hebrew Parallelisms and to express them with a rhythm appropriate to impassioned Jewish feeling.

12:32.

"Whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit,

it will not be forgiven him."

"Jesus condemns their wickedness, their hypocrisy, their thirst for money, their love of honors, their imbecile and puerile formalism, the detestable abuse they make of their authority, so they see in him an enemy. They hate him. And so, rather than recognize the remarkable good accomplished by him whom they detest, they attempt to draw from this very good which ought to be just the thing to declare his goodness, a means of dishonoring and destroying him.

Vainly with every evidence has the Spirit of God, the Breathing from on High, wrought that holy inspiration in the heart of man which is the root of everything good in the world. Vainly with every proof has God lent his aid to it. Vainly with every proof does the Miracle before their eyes contribute to make them adore and love the all powerful God whose ministers they are. On the contrary, all that but excites them and drives their jealous fury into paroxysms against this radiance which is no reflection of them, this glory which is not theirs. Exasperated by envy, treading all good faith under foot, all respect for God present in another soul, and calumniating the very essence of things, they gratuitously ascribe to an act incontestably salutary and beneficent in itself, a wicked and infamous cause.

Whoever acts in this way, whoever, in the face of a good deed, a noble action, a thing clearly excellent in itself, tries thus to debase the motives which have inspired it, commits this terrible sin.

Let a pious woman obeying the better sentiments of her heart visit and tend the sick, let her devote herself with all her heart to some great act of mercy ****. Bah!

insinuates her neighbor, burning with envy, one is a complete simpleton to make such a saint of one's self. She is nothing but a hypocrite seeking public esteem.

Let a brave Christian devote all his power to the service of God and his neighbor; let him build a hospital for the sick, a school for the poor, let him diffuse about him timely aid, good advice, a good example. Alas! it happens sometimes, even in his own camp, the voice of envy is heard murmuring: How ambitious! He is only thinking of making himself popular and of capturing votes to come finally to position and honor.'

6

Let another devote all his talent of oratory or of writing to diffuse truth, let God visibly bless his efforts and make his voice, like that of the Apostles', resound suddenly in every corner of the earth; their sound went out into all the world; and behold how the Pharisees growing pale stop each one at the gates of the Temple to speak hypocritically into every ear willing to listen to them: 'He is a proud man in search of vain glory, a speculator in search of money,' etc., etc.

Such is the abominable sin among us against which the Lord Jesus rises up. The attack in the face of the evident good; the disgrace of him who does the good, from the very cause of the good, and in pure aversion to its Author and his glory;—the calumnious attributing of an infamous motive to that which is the fruit, natural, or supernatural, of a right will, of a deep faith, of a glowing love, of an elevated aspiration, of a holy labor-that is the sin without excuse, that is the real satanic act in a human personality that is to say, the hate of known good and the direct flaw in its inmost essence, the attack upon the Spirit, upon the very Spirit of God, upon the Holy Spirit. They know what they do. Hence the terrible anathema.

:

But have these words the farthest extreme of meaning which many attribute to them?

In the first place let it be noted that such a sin as that commonly called the unpardonable sin has not been committed by one who has the least fear that he has committed it. The very fact of such fear is sufficient proof to the contrary.

Nor is any man who is afraid he will commit it very likely to do so.

We have no dispute with any one concerning the enormity of this most heinous sin, nor concerning the necessity for its adequate treatment by a holy and a righteous God. What we wish to do here is to show as clearly as possible by comparing Scripture with Scripture, our reason for believing there is no such thing as endless torments such as the ordinary interpretation of this passage would lead us to think.

Isaiah 25:8 tells us "He will swallow up death in victory. Hosea 14 : 4, and 1 Cor. 15:26 tell us the same.

In 1 S. John 3:8 we read: "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." See also Hebrews 2: 14.

"There will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying," S. John tells us in The Revelation, "neither will there be any more pain. For the former things have passed away."

The time must come when all things will be subject to Christ. He will destroy death the last enemy by destroying sin which is the sting of death. So this dreadful sin, as well as others will be no more. Otherwise it never could be true that where “sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Otherwise neither death nor hell would be silent when God should ask those triumphant