Bar means "son." According to the R. V. he is not begging, only "sitting."

THIRD. Matthew says that there were two sitting. Matthew was present, and having written it out soon afterward, ought to have known if there were two men sitting. There might not only have been two, but a half dozen, for blindness and mendicancy were very common in the East. Now as the blind often went in couples for company's sake, and “the blind often led the blind," Matthew could not have told, in the crowd, that both of these men, " sitting by the wayside," were blind. He does not even say that they were begging!

FOURTH. We find then, by both Matthew and Mark, that one really was a beggar, and that his name was Bar-Timeus. Mark has had time to look this up, since Matthew wrote his gospel, and names the one.

Who then was the other with Bar-Timeus?

He was the man whom Jesus restored to sight the day before! He had followed Jesus into Jericho, "rejoicing and glorifying God" (Luke 18: 43). He knew of this Bar-Timeus, begging at the other gate, and when Jesus was about to pass out the next morning, this happy man ran ahead, and sitting by his late companion, hastily told him of the wondrous thing which Jesus had done for him, and prompting him with the very word he himself had cried out the day previous, as Jesus was passing by.

Nothing could be more probable; nothing more natural. The words which had been the means of procuring his salvation, he promptly imparted to another in like blindness. What a beautiful example! Would we not have done the same? Shall we not, who have received light from Christ, impart the knowledge to others?

Evermore!

Observe that Luke's blind man had inquired the cause of the unusual commotion of the crowd entering Jericho, whereas this blind Bar-Timeus does not. His friend, now seeing Jesus, prompts Bar-Timeus when and what to cry:

"Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me."

A COMPLETE HARMONY.

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He is cured, but does not enter the city "glorifying God," as had the other. Perhaps he felt that he owed so much to his friend who showed him the way to his Saviour, that he gave the friend praise instead of Jesus. We hope not.

Thus each narrative is independent, and neither contradictory; while both are natural and so simplified that no one hereafter may again say that the gospels are inharmonious, at least in this instance.

CHAPTER L.

JERICHO TO BETHANY.

TIME-Friday, March 31st, A. D. 30.

IX

References.

John 12: 1.

Luke 10: 25-42

days before the Passover Luke 19: 28. Jesus came to Bethany where

Lazarus was, whom He raised from the dead. Thus John takes up the thread of the narrative just where the synoptists drop it.

Matthew and Mark leave Jesus, "His disciples, and a great multitude," between Jericho and Bethany.

What took place on the way after restoring

blind Bar-Timeus?

Perhaps they rested in the great ghor, under the trees, for the way was steep and rough, and the days very hot. If so, Jesus most assuredly improved the opportunity to impress upon the multitude some great lesson. These lessons were always deduced from surrounding circumstances, which fact leads us to briefly describe this wild and dangerous pass.

It is well said in the parable-which we are approachingthat "A certain man went from Jerusalem down to Jericho," for the latter city lies more than two thousand feet below the former, and if the Mediterranean Sea should be let into the valley of the Jordan and Dead Sea, Jericho would be six hundred feet under water.

When snow flies in Jerusalem (January) orange-trees are full of fruit down in tropical Jericho.

THE ROBBER'S PASS.

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THE ROAD.-After leaving the plain, going up, "the mountains wear a more doleful appearance, the ravines become more frightful, and the narrow passage less and less passable.”

The path is very zig-zag, now rift through the earth, with walls of trap and lime-rock on each side, towering far heavenward; now following the slippery, rocky stream-bed; now parched in the pouring sun of April; now climbing up the steep rocks, in which are worn deep foot-prints of horses, asses, and camels that have travelled over it for 4,000 years; holes six or eight inches in depth, into which your feet will slip, unless you are continually on the alert. Sometimes horses broke their legs in them.

Highway robbers were numerous in that vicinity. According to Jerome, the road was called the 'Red, or bloody way,' and in his time a Roman fort and garrison were needed for the protection of travellers" (Dr. Schaff). "Not a house nor a tree is to be seen, and the only remains are those of a large khan (perhaps the fort above), said to have been the inn to which the good Samaritan brought the wounded Jew. Not far from here, in a narrow defile, an English traveller was shot and robbed in the year 1820."-Thomson.

What an admirable place in which to relate the parable of the wounded Jew! How suggestive of this story:

"A certain man-a Jew, no doubt-came down through this dangerous pass, when the robbers fell upon him, wounded him, stripped him of everything, even his clothes, and left him half-dead.

"A certain priest, who chanced to be going down from the temple," where he had been officiating in his "course" of eight days, to his home in Jericho-a city of priests-discovered the wounded man, and turned aside, or, "passed by on the other side."

That is, he went around the other side of the ravine.

"And in like manner came a Levite, who looked on the wounded, naked man, and passed over the mountain, 'on the other side,' that he might not be polluted by even a touch of the body in the narrow ravine.

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THE WOUNDED MAN.

Next came a Samaritan, riding on an ass. This man was on a journey (33), therefore, far from home, not in Samaria, not near Samaria, down here in this ghor. He saw the wounded Jew, and had compassion, heathen as he was, and dismounting, he dressed the man's wounds with oil and bandages, gave him some wine to revive him (34), and laying him across his beast, carefully conveyed him to an inn." This was a different inn than that named in Luke 2: 7, implying the western type of hostelry, where the landlord provides for guests, whereas the other, in Bethlehem, was an Eastern caravanserai, where guests simply find shelter, arranging their meals for themselves.— Ellicott.

All night this Good Samaritan remained by the invalid, and in the morning, when he must go on his way, he said to the landlord:

"Here are two pence; take care of this poor man till he recovers, and whatever it costs more, I will pay on my return" (35). "Two pence," equal to 30 cents, several days' keeping, then.

This parable was told to a Jewish lawyer, who had been questioning Jesus on the way, finally asking Him—

'Who is my neighbor?"—29.

Jesus had answered him by another question-involved in the parable-" which was neighbor to the wounded Jew?-priest, Levite, or Samaritan?"

Forced to answer his own question, the lawyer replied:

He who showed mercy on the needy."

"Go and do thou likewise," said Jesus.

After relating this parable, Luke's next record is this—"Now as they went on their way, He (Jesus) entered a certain village. . . into the house of Martha . . . and Mary."—

Luke 10: 38, 39.

That was, into Bethany.

This connection with the parable shows that the latter was told in the place where we have assigned it, on the road from Jericho to Bethany. But we are aware that the whole of chapter 10, from verse 25, is out of place in the book. Long