are so in the end by their own will.' This is a marvellous effort at accommodation; and, as there is simply no analogy between the parable and these views, ecclesiastical exegesis further confirms the obvious fact that Jesus had mistaken the tendency of his own genius, when he undertook to instruct mankind by parables in the mysteries of the Kingdom. Was he more successful in teaching wisdom and morality, by the Rabbinical method?

Theologians have exhausted the resources of casuistry in apologetic exegesis of the parable of the Unjust Steward; but the fact remains unchanged, that it either sanctions sharp practice in business, or is absolutely destitute of any intelligible meaning. It is vain to weary us with the shifting suggestions of modern hypotheses; we require to know in what sense the parable was understood by the auditors of Jesus, and fail to obtain any satisfactory reply.

The favours lavished on the prodigal son teach us that idle profligacy may attain equal rewards with steady industry; but the omission of all reference to the subsequent history of the prodigal deprives the parable of instructive efficacy. The young scamp, when nearly famished, was eloquent in professions of repentance; but when he found that a vicious career led to nothing worse than a new suit of clothes and a fatted calf, he may have relapsed again and again, and dined so often on penitential veal, that even his affectionate old father lost all patience, and sent him back to husks and swine-a catastrophe which would, of course, materially alter the moral of the tale.

What interpretation shall we give to the parable of

the Talents? A capitalist, travelling into a far country, called his servants and delivered, to the first five talents, to the second two, and to the third one. The first two adopted mercantile pursuits; and, although nothing is said of their having traded in partnership, each, by a remarkable coincidence, cleared exactly one hundred per cent. profit. These men may have been bold and successful speculators, but to double capital in either ancient or modern times involves risks quite as likely to end in ruinous failure as in a brilliant coup. To understand the application of the parable it would, therefore, be necessary to know how these speculators would have been received by their master, had they announced the loss of his seven talents.

The holder of one talent was, obviously, one of those dull plodding men who, in our own time, would prefer keeping a hundred sovereigns in a stocking to investing in Turkish bonds. As he had not the courage to trade, he was condemned for not lending the money at interest; but what if the bank failed? Would he then have been rewarded for good intentions?

Our English Bible, through the interpolation of verse 14, depicts this parable as representing the kingdom of heaven, but we can find no trace of the analogy.

Has no evangelical parable, therefore, given full expression to the teaching of Jesus on the Mount? Yes, that of the Good Samaritan, which, in absolute freedom from Rabbinical mysticism, is inspired by that spirit of humanity which constitutes the moral greatness of the Son of Man.

1 Matt. xxv. 14-30,

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CHAPTER VI.

OUR HEAVENLY FATHER-FAITH-IMMORTALITY.

THE theology of Jesus affirms the paternal and filial relationship of God and man-a theory of Divine and human affinity anticipated for centuries by Aryan piety, and so familiar to the audience of Jesus that it is accepted without comment as quite a matter of course.

In the opinion of Jesus, faith was the cardinal virtue of candidates for the kingdom of heaven, but a faith which meant nothing more than belief in the Son of Man. Could he have foreseen that the Christianity of futurity would claim the unreasoning assent of mankind to the superstition which transformed the unassuming Son of Man into the second Person of a mysterious Trinity, his homely mother into the Queen of heaven, and his rustic companions into the demi-gods of Christian worship, he would have recognised that a reasonable scepticism is more akin to true religion, than the unquestioning faith which drifts into blind credulity, and solemnly warned his followers to believe nothing of him after his death which they had not heard from his own lips; and thus posterity might have escaped the doctrines, dogmas, and mysteries inflicted by ecclesiastical authority on mankind.

Jesus added nothing original to contemporary thought on the immortality of the soul, or the resurrec

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tion of the body, as borrowed by the Hebrews from heathen philosophy and religion. The Sadducees, however, adopted an ingenious device for testing his views on these important subjects.

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According to a most objectionable law of Moses, when a married man died without issue, it became obligatory on his brother to marry the widow. The Sadducees logically inferring that a woman might thus become the wife of seven brothers in succession, inquired of Jesus what would be the relationship of one wife to seven husbands at the resurrection. Jesus answered, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.' What scriptures? The Book of Enoch, in which we read, ‘And all the righteous shall become angels in heaven.' From this book, therefore, as inspired scripture, Jesus drew his ideas of the life hereafter. He, however, added, 'But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' Jehovah, therefore, in excluding any direct reference to immortality from the Pentateuch, left men to guess at this important doctrine by an ingenious adaptation of words spoken without any apparent allusion to the subject. Could Jehovah have said, 'I was the God of Abraham '? Or if a man should now say, 'I am the descendant of William the Conqueror,' would we accept these words as proof of his belief in the immortality of the soul?

1 Matt. xxii.

Can we imagine a more destructive blow to the doctrine of immortality, than that he who, according to orthodox faith, existed from eternity, could suggest no more convincing proof of the life hereafter than the forced construction of an isolated passage in an ancient book, which he accepted as the inspired work of Moses, with the same unquestioning faith which canonised the Hebrew fiction of Enoch?

According to orthodox chronology, this discussion of the doctrine of the resurrection as a theoretical question dependent on the interpretation of Scripture, occurred about two years after Jesus had publicly raised the young man of Nain from the dead. What clearer proof can we hold of the purely legendary character of the miracle?

Jesus borrowed his conceptions of the final judgment, the joy of the righteous, and the everlasting torments of the wicked from the Book of Enoch. When we consider his own tender and compassionate nature, and his beneficent ideal of Divinity, his condemnation of sinners to eternal fire becomes incomprehensible until we discover that he is merely reproducing the ideas of an author whom he accepts as an inspired prophet. The independent judgment of Jesus would have detected the fiction of eternal fire in the beneficence of his Father in heaven; but how could he who, in humble reverence for the authority of Scripture, had accepted unmerited persecution and death at the hands of Isaiah, question the inspired oracles of Enoch, whose language left no room for doubt that an appalling futurity of agonising torment was the inevitable doom of all but the elect?

Jesus, therefore, taught that the tares should be cast