assured himself and me in the same breath that what he was

66

about to say was well intended. Then said he, I was with you on the occasion of your five hundredth noonday service. I am the preacher in such and such London synagogue, and," said he, "if you will excuse me, there was one line in the carol which gave me pain." Bringing the carol under my eyes, he said, "See -'the wicked Jews'—why did you sing that in your church about the wicked Jews?" Within the lines of a narrow history the carol was right, but within the true boundary the carol was wrong. They were not the Jews that killed him, mocked him, spurned him, threw his earthly ancestry in his face; it was-man, every We crucified the Son of God, we Gentiles had our share in that foul tragedy. Do not teach your children in the school and at the fireside that some wicked people called Jews did this to Jesus Christ, and express yourselves in horror about the Jews as if you had nothing to do with it. The truth is this-we were all there, we all cut the accursed tree out of the forest and planted it and nailed to it the Son of God, and as he hangs there tell all the world that this was not a geographical incident or a mere point in passing history-that this crucifixion was the work of the whole race, and that every eye must look upon it and every heart mourn it as its own cruel deed.

man.

This is the worst they can say about the Son of God. Let us read it again. "Whence hath this man'-covert sneer— -"this wisdom and these mighty works? We cannot deny either the one or the other, but is not this the carpenter's son?" What an awful accusation. "Is not his mother called Mary?" What a distressing indictment against any man! "And his brethren, James and Joses and Simon and Judas? and his sisters, are they not all with us?" Well, suppose we say, "Yes, they are"; -now what then? I am glad they say this; there was nothing more to be said, they would have said it if they could, yea, they would have dreamed a lie and imagined it true if they could.

Christian man, Christian inquirer, hear me. This is the indictment brought against him in whose name you were baptized― does it alarm, does it frighten you, does it bring with it any sense of oppressive humiliation? He was the carpenter's son, he was

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THE CARPENTER'S SON.

the carpenter, his mother's name was Mary, such and such were his social surroundings-now, when the little tale has been told, what remains? Hear the great thunder-burst of music and eloquence rolling down the mountain, and then listen to this little piping scorn, and tell me on which side do you stand? I would stand with Christ, the carpenter's Son, the Son of Mary.

LVIII.

REVIEW OF THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER.

THE

HE subject of this chapter is the kingdom of heaven. Connect this circumstance with the fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and ask yourselves what is the connection between a kingdom and salvation. The kingdom of heaven has a great part to play in the work of evangelising the nations. A purpose that goes out to take hold of kingdoms must itself be a kingdom. You cannot lay hold of worlds with a weak hand. You may affect the immediately surrounding by trifling circumstances, but if you are going to lay your grasp upon all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them you must have a force equal to the occasion. Jesus Christ proposes to take hold of all kingdoms and to transform them into his own excellence, and fill them with the glory of his own excellent name. The kingdom of heaven, therefore, is a royal truth; it is a royal power; it is not one among many competitors, it stands alone and must absorb and sanctify all rivalries. Do not lower the occasion; realise its grandeur and rise to its appeal.

In this chapter Jesus Christ gives the word "kingdom" a new meaning and application. Up to this time it was an imperial term only or a geographical expression. Kingdom was a quantity bounded and named by the consent of other powers or held against them by superior force. It was a mere term in geography, in government, in statesmanship; in Jesus Christ's hands it becomes a heavenly claim, a divine power, a sacred sovereignty of impulses, thoughts, and purposes, so that all that is merely geographical drops off, and all that is heavenly clothes the royal word.

So far I could go well. I am stopped just there by an unusual punctuation, the discrepancy between the speaker and the subject.

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TEACHING BY CONTRASTS.

A peasant talking about a kingdom-the rhyme is broken! A homeless wanderer using the highest terms in human speech-who can account for the discrepancy? I am not troubled by the discrepancy which the critics find in dates and places and small incidents, but a discrepancy like this may well take the rest out of my heart, and fill that heart with a grievous discontent. The world was too big for the speaker: he did not, from a human point of view, look a king until he was looked at the second time, and watched the clock round, and the year round, and not until the spirit was instructed in the mysteries of his truth did this personality take upon it its wondrous visage and colour. Why, really, it is no discrepancy at all the discrepancy was in me and not in Christ. I find that this is an eternal truth; that evermore the speaker is to be nothing, and the subject is to fill the heavens. Why, herein is the very glory of Christianity-that it absorbs all other little piping eloquence in the infinite redundance of its own thunder, and that our personality as revealers of the kingdom is nothing as compared with the majesty and glory of the thing that is revealed. Unhappily, even Jesus Christ himself, as you see at the end of the chapter, was not able so to control the thinking of the people who heard him as to fix it upon the subject. They, little creatures, could rise no higher than the speaker, and they mocked him because of the discrepancy that was in reality an argument and a vindication.

In reading this chapter as a whole I am struck with four things. First of all, from the nature of the kingdom of heaven you may learn, without a single word being said upon the subject, the nature of the kingdom of darkness. It is not necessary to describe the kingdom of darkness: what you and I, as Christian teachers, have to do, is to describe the kingdom of light. This was Christ's most wise and subtle method of teaching-not to paint hell-to refer to it in great graphic sentences as if in haste to be done with it, but with great elaboration and pomp of simplicity to reveal the infinite kingdom of God's truth and light and purity. Every parable that is spoken here admits of being turned in the directly opposite quarter, so as to reveal that about which it says nothing. Thus the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man who sowed good seed. Then the kingdom of darkness is like unto a man who sowed bad seed, seeds of death, seeds of unhealthiness, seeds of disease,

Learn thus from the kingdom of heaven what the

seeds of error. opposing kingdom is.

Again-the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure. Then the kingdom of darkness is like unto a bubble in the air: it is just the opposite of the kingdom of heaven: if the kingdom of heaven is treasure, the kingdom of darkness is an empty though gilded bubble, floating on the quiet breeze. Snatched, it is destroyed; there is nothing in it. It is wanting in substance, in positive and applicable value, it does not enrich life, it is weight without gravity, a burden without value, a kingdom truly, but a kingdom of disappointment.

Again-the kingdom of heaven is as leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. Then the kingdom of darkness is as poison which a man took and secretly injected into the veins of a sleeper until the whole was poisoned. The kingdom of heaven is a great force that secretly and silently works out the soul's regeneration: the kingdom of darkness is as the sting of the tsetse fly; the tsetse fly seizes the ox, stings the noble brute, and in course of time the flesh swells and discolours, the skin falls off, and the strong one is thrown down in weakness and in death. The kingdom of darkness, therefore, is not a weak power, it is not an ineffective ministry: it also works, often silently and secretly, but it is working out the soul's destruction.

Or thus the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net cast into the sea and gathers of every kind. The kingdom of darkness is as a net thrown into the sea and gathers its own kind only—a narrow kingdom, debasing whatever it touches, catching for the purpose of holding in vile captivity, netting and ensnaring that it may slay. Thus the parable is more than it seems to be. It teaches by contrast; it has a far-spreading edge of meaning. In describing truth you need not describe falsehood in so far as your description of truth is correct, you are really, in the most suggestive and graphic manner, describing that which is false.

:

This subtle influence of colour was often felt in Christ's ministry. He used sometimes to speak as if he were addressing an absent congregation. Subtle speaker, wise assailant, he was addressing