but for the sake of temporal gain and advantage. Learn your mistake. He whose power you wish to share, and from whose greatness you look for benefit, is worse provided than the fowls of the air or the beasts of the field. His "kingdom is not of this world." The splendour which is found in kings' houses will never be his. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. If therefore thou art resolved to follow me whithersoever I go, it must be in the way of hardship and privation. "Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." 5

But the scribe might have spoken under a serious and laudable impulse. He saw signs of divine power; he heard words of divine wisdom; he listened to teaching very different from that which he had been accustomed to: and under the influence of just feeling, and with the eagerness of sudden conviction, he forms a resolution: Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

Such a resolution, however wise, must not be lightly entertained. It must not be made under any false expectation that all is to be smooth and easy. The Lord would not tempt this man to leave his relations and friends, and abandon his worldly interests, without knowing beforehand what difficulties he must encounter, and be prepared for. Therefore he gives him the same sort of warning, which he afterwards gave to "great multitudes who went with him: 6 and he turned and said unto them, If any man come unto me, and hate not his father and mother 5 Ch. xvi. 24. 6 Luke xiv. 25-27.

and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it! Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish."

In this spirit the scribe was admonished to count the cost, before he undertook to follow Jesus. Perhaps the Lord saw that he was of an ardent character; and there was danger, lest, though he "received the word with joy," he should "have no root in himself, and when tribulation or persecution arose because of the word, by-and-by he should be offended.”7 Let him consider first whether he were prepared for such trials prepared to forego all present reward, all hope of worldly ease or comfort for the sake of future glory.

Another follower received a very different reply. Each, we may be sure, was adapted to the peculiar case which drew them forth.

21. And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

22. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

This disciple, unlike the former, needed rather to be excited than to be restrained. He could not be trusted among those whom he would have found at home. Therefore our Lord says to him, Let the dead

7 See Mark iv. 17.

bury their dead. Leave these who are naturally dead, and whose state cannot now be changed, to the care of those who are spiritually dead, and will not be roused to seek a heavenly kingdom. Thou hast a peculiar and important call: so we learn from St. Luke, who relates the same history—“ Go thou and preach the kingdom of God."9

The lesson, then, which is to be derived from these words, is-that the soul, whether our own or of others, is a treasure so precious, that the securing its welfare is in all circumstances the "one thing needful." No man can imagine that our Lord was indifferent to filial duties. We know that from the cross itself, he provided for the comfort of his own parent's declining years; saying to "the disciple whom he loved, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home."1 But in the case of this person, his wisdom foresaw, that if he returned to his own family, he might be entangled in an inextricable snare. Therefore it was one of those instances where even father and mother were to be left for the sake of the kingdom of heaven: where he who had found "the pearl of great price," would act wisely in selling all that he had, that he might "buy that pearl."

8 The spiritually dead. By this awful term those are described who are "" 'dead in trespasses and sins." A sentence in St. John represents at once both their state and the means of their recovery. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.”—John v. 25.

9 Luke ix. 60.

2 Ch. xiii. 40.

1 John xxi. 26.

LECTURE XXXVII.

THE DISCIPLES ENDANGERED BY A STORM.

MATT. viii. 23-27.

23. And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.

24. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.

Though the sea which they were crossing was only a large lake, it is subject, like all such waters, to sudden storms, which are full of danger to those who are overtaken by them. And the tempest which now came on, and brought the disciples into so much peril, might prove to them a sample of their future life. Perhaps it was ordered to that end.

They had entered into the ship in obedience to their Lord's commands. Yet suddenly they were thrown into danger.

Not long afterwards, on their first entrance upon the ministry to which they were appointed, a like thing happened to them. In accordance with the instructions which they had received, they stood up in the temple at Jerusalem, and declared how God had "made that same Jesus," whom the chief priests and rulers of the Jews "had crucified and slain,

2

both Lord and Christ." 1 "And as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day; for it was now eventide." The whole history related in "the Acts" abounds with instances of the like kind. "Herod the king stretched forth his hands" against the church: he "killed James, the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also: and when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison." So likewise at Lystra, at Antioch, at Philippi, a great tempest arose against Paul, the waves of which had well nigh overwhelmed him. 3 At Cæsarea, through the malice of the Jews he was delivered over to the Roman governor, and lingered two whole years in prison.* He might have been disposed to think himself forgotten and to complain, as the evangelist Mark tells us the disciples complained on this occasionwhilst Jesus was asleep: "Master, carest thou not that we perish?" 5

Before, however, these trials arrived, they had been prepared for them. Their master had warned them. His prayer was, not "that they might be taken out of the world, but that they might be kept from the evil" one. Experience, too, of occasions like the present, and of the deliverance that followed,

1 Acts ii. 36. iv. 1—3.

3 Acts xiv. 19. xvi. 22.

5 Mark iv. 38.

2 Acts xii. 1—3.

4 Acts xxiii. 35. xxiv. 27.

6 John xvii. 15.