sections of the prayer He taught His disciples and us. The present parable, though arising from a question asked by Peter, and that question induced by a previous observation of Jesus, is evidently illustrative of the petition in the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." In fact, the moral deduced from it at the close is almost a verbal transcription of the petition. It would be a bold assertion to say that this was the most interesting of all our Lord's parables; yet there is something in it which so touches our feelings, that so appeals to that instinctive sense of justice and that disapprobation of gross wrong which is implanted in our natures, that our best and holiest sympathies are enlisted in the narrative at first, on behalf of the unhappy debtor of the king-his immense debt-his inability to pay the sentence against himself and his whole. family-his earnest supplication-and the free forgiveness and cancelling of the whole through the unbounded mercy of his creditor. We sympathise in his distress; we rejoice with him in the mercy which he found. And in the same proportion as we have sympathised with him in his own appeals for pity, so is our indignation aroused to its very utmost by his ungenerous and ungrateful return for the mercy shown to himself in the conduct he exhibits towards his fellow-servant; and we feel as if we longed to join that band of his fellow-servants, and to add

our testimony to theirs against the unfeeling harshness of this thankless man. Every incident in the two portions of the narrative is so strikingly contrasted, and so heightened even by its very simplicity, that one feels how truly was our Lord described when it was said of Him, "Never man spake like this man." And yet, in our feelings of indignation against this unmerciful servant, we may fall into the error of David, who, in his condemnation of another's supposed wrong, forgot his own sin; and we may need another Nathan to arouse us with the startling denunciation, "Thou art the man." For who is the debtor that owes this overwhelming debt to his Lord, and has nothing wherewith to pay ? I am that debtor; you are that debtor; and every child of Adam is that debtor. The insolvency of this unhappy man is the insolvency of It would be endless to enumerate all the ways which the Lord may take to reckon with His servants, and all the items of which our debt is composed. There is, however, an unerring debt-book kept; and our Lord here warns us, that, whatever our ideas of our own respective debt to God may be, it is in His sight, and in His reckoning, as vast, and heavy, and hopeless a one as that of the debtor in the parable; and that, in our helplessness and extremity, He has offered to us the same mercy which He did to him. He has borne with our provocations; He has endured our contradictions against Himself;

our race.

He has forgiven our trespasses: "I am He that blotteth out as a cloud thy transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins." The parable then proceeds to the duty which it was intended to illustrate the wrongs and provocations of others against ourselves, and the extent of forgiveness required of us, and that arising from a sense and recollection of what God has forgiven us. There may be some who would think that Peter's measure of forgiveness was an overflowing one, and that a wrong seven times repeated, and seven times forgiven, might well be supposed to exhaust even a Christian's patience and forbearance. Alas! it too often does; and, like Jonah with his gourd, when we have reached a certain point of injury or wrong, we would fain persuade ourselves that we do well to be angry. There are far many more who never even reach this mark, who visit every offence with the rod, and every sin with scourges; whose temper brooks no palliation, and admits of no excuse; and who break forth into resentment and wrath at even the little provocations of the day. It was well said by John Wesley to General Oglethorpe, whose servant had offended him by some neglect or omission, and whose intemperate anger towards him Wesley was deprecating. "I never forgive," was the general's answer. Then, sir, I hope you never sin," was the reply made by the man of God to the unreflecting man of the world. And it is to these daily causes of strife

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and contention that I would more especially have you attend. A real, grievous injury may not very often be done to us-a glaring, serious, positive wrong may not often fall to our lot; but the pettier slights, and provocations, and trials of life meet us at every turn, and during almost every hour, and we soon exhaust, not only Peter's scantier measure, but even our Lord's more extended numbers. And what then? Patience must have its perfect work. "God is provoked every day." We repeat to God every day the petition in the Lord's Prayer for His forgiveness to us, because we every day need His repeated and continued forgiveness of ourselves. They may not be in the eyes of the world great and grievous sins; they may be more shortcomings than misdoings, but they still need the blood of Jesus; and we ask for the cleansing and washing of that blood, and we affix to our petition for God's forgiveness to ourselves, the condition on which we ask it, the terms on which we presume to solicit it, that we extend to the brother, or the neighbour, or the fellow-creature who wrongs, or provokes, or irritates, or grieves us, as full, and free, and unreserved a forgiveness as we ask for ourselves; and our Lord's inference is one to which even our own reason sets the seal, that if we do not forgive every one his brother their trespasses, so neither will our Father in heaven forgive us our trespasses.

SECTION LIV.

(Chapter xix. verses 1—13.)

THE first verse of this chapter mentions our Lord's departure from Galilee for Judea. Jesus had before intimated the certainty of the trials and sufferings which awaited Him in Judea: He had declared that it was impossible for a prophet to perish out of Jerusalem. The time of His being offered up was now nigh at hand; and, in calm anticipation of all that was to befall Him, He now leaves Galilee, to return to it no more, till after His resurrection from the dead.

We may well imagine the saddened feelings with which He would gaze upon the hills, and valleys, and towns of Galilee, and its lake, so often the scene and witness of His miracles, and by the side of which He had so often sat and taught. They were now gradually fading from His eyes; His voice would be no more heard among them; and sorrow no doubt filled His heart, and tears perhaps His eyes, as He gazed on the receding features of the landscape. He had, indeed, already given utterance to the sorrow of His heart, as He thought on the impending doom of her most favoured cities, of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. The light which had so long shone upon them was to shine no more. Nazareth, the home of His childhood and youth, was to be visited no more.

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