THE PARABLES OF JESUS<\/p>\n
THE MARRIAGE FEAST<\/p>\n
This \u201ckingdom of heaven,\u201d which is here \u201clikened unto a marriage feast,\u201d what is it? the after-life, or this life? Most assuredly and most evidently not the after-life, but the kingdom of righteousness in this life. There is nothing more remarkable than the way in which the religious world delights to put God and heaven as far off as possible; and this, in spite of the words of Christ, which say, \u201cthe kingdom of God is within you.\u201d
\nThe loving father, being a loving father, does not keep back his good things from his children as long as possible, but he hastens to give and to give yet more abundantly. What is there of heaven which is not now within the reach of every one of us, if we will but put forth the hand and grasp it? In heaven we look to see God; do we not see him here? In heaven we hope to be near God; but, now, he is very nigh unto every one of us: \u201cin him we live and move and have our being;\u201d \u201cGod dwelleth in us;\u201d he cannot be much nearer than that. In heaven we seek the rest, joy, and spiritual strength which come of God; but do we not seek and find all here? Is it not just because of this foretaste, that we have the desire, the hope of its fruition? Every single act of virtue brings heaven all about us; and yet men say, heaven is put off to the other world. So, of old, the disciples said, \u201cShow us the father and it sufficeth us;\u201d but Jesus answered, \u201cI am in the father, and ye in me, and I in you.\u201d
\nBut if heaven is here, hell is here too. We want no flames coming out of the earth to convince us of that. Sin, the devil, and hell are too often both seen and felt and kept company with, to leave any doubt about the fact, in respect of this life. As to the after-life, we have no wish to raise the veil, or to dogmatise about a future, with those who would seem to be sceptics even as to the present.
\nTo continue our story. The king who \u201cmade a marriage for his son, sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, and they would not come. Again he sent forth other servants,\u201d with a yet more urgent entreaty; \u201cbut they made light of it and went their ways.\u201d
\nSo it was with the religious world then, and so it is now. The bidden will not come; they make light of it and go their ways. That is to say, they stand by their ritualisms, their shibboleths, their theologies, and will not go one step further. Pushing and shoving at the door in a very ill-bred manner, swearing at one another with, of course, the most pious oaths, they neither enter in themselves to the marriage feast of righteousness, nor suffer those that would to enter in.
\nSo it is with the religious world. And, as to others, they go \u201cone to his farm and another to his merchandise.\u201d The bodily and material interests absorb the mental and spiritual. Men cannot make haste at two things at once. If they make haste to get rich at their bankers, they have no time to make haste to get rich in the gains of righteousness. Unhappily not only England but the whole \u201ccivilized\u201d world is, as yet, little better than a Nation of Shop-keepers.
\n\u201cAnd the remnant took his servants and entreated them spitefully and slew them.\u201d
\nThe teacher here is the prophet of his own future\u2014a shameful death on the cross\u2014and of the future of all his followers. Still, men show spite by the old cry, Beelzebub! against our preachers of righteousness\u2014our men of science, political economists, sanatory and educational reformers; against all who think for themselves as free men and not slaves. Still, men slay, and with that most cruel of weapons, the tongue.
\n\u201cBut when the king heard thereof he was wroth, and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.\u201d
\nNow, who is meant by this king? Plainly God. Then God is wroth and revengeful. And yet he is a loving father. How do we explain this? Very readily. The mind of man cannot reach God, but only reach after him; seek if haply it may find him. But no man by searching can find out God. The thoughts of men and the words of men are far too feeble to reach the Eternal. Hence men speak\u2014when they speak their best\u2014but blunderingly. They say, God is wroth, God repents, God loves, hates, is capable of changing his purposes if we only do penance enough and cry loud and often enough. In fact, they say God is a person; and by this word, person, they connote a human person; for we know not neither can we conceive any other.
\nBut after all, there is a great truth wrapped up here. For those who violate the law of righteousness suffer, as those who violate the law of gravity suffer\u2014only they suffer more. Those who come into collision with the spiritual world get a blow, like those who come into collision with the material world\u2014only a sharper blow. And just as the child, through its ignorance of the material world, in striking its head against a table, cries out, \u201cnaughty table,\u201d seeing in it a person, so the spiritually unenlightened, when they sin against purity, truth, justice, exclaim, God is a God of wrath\u2014revengeful, cruel. And, again, as the law of gravity on the whole works well, although multitudes suffer from its violation, so the law of righteousness on the whole works well. To say this, is, indeed, after all, no more than to say that life is the outcome of this twofold law, and that life is\u2014i.e. exists.
\nAs a last reflection on this head. Science\u2014that is knowledge\u2014strips off from matter, layer after layer, its materialistic envelopes; and in like manner, it strips off from spirit, bit by bit, its anthropomorphic encumbrances. Each thus becomes laid bare. And both are found in the end to be, what? Neither \u201cmatter\u201d nor \u201cspirit,\u201d so-called, but the Eternal One\u2014creator, sustainer, alpha, omega.
\n\u201cThen saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good, and the wedding was furnished with guests.\u201d
\nBoth bad and good are gathered into the kingdom of heaven. So says Jesus; as against the pharisees, pietists, bigots, spiritually selfish, of his own day and of all days.
\nThe story of this marriage feast ends tragically enough. One guest is discovered by the king \u201cnot having on a wedding garment\u201d\u2014not clothed in righteousness. For him there is the inevitable fate: bondage\u2014\u201cbound hand and foot;\u201d exclusion\u2014\u201ctake him away,\u201d darkness\u2014\u201couter darkness;\u201d sorrow\u2014\u201cweeping and gnashing of teeth.\u201d
\nAnd all this is acting itself out now, to-day, everywhere around us. Are we so blind that we cannot see? are we so deaf that we cannot hear? do we not indeed feel that it is so?\u2014The life of righteousness, joyous as a marriage feast; the life of unrighteousness, a hell\u2019s curse.<\/p>\n
THE FATHER AND HIS TWO SONS\u2014THE YOUNGER AND THE ELDER<\/p>\n
The popular, indeed, universally received title of this story, is sufficient evidence in itself of the one-sided manner in which the religious world studies its bible. This parable is called that of the \u201cProdigal Son;\u201d whereas it is a history of \u201ctwo sons,\u201d and the teaching lies in the contrast which is drawn between the life and character of the younger and the elder.
\nHere, as in so much of the teaching of Jesus, it is the unpopular side which is espoused. The, at first, seemingly, utterly worthless son becomes the hero; and he who would at one time appear to be the model of all virtues finds himself condemned.<\/p>\n
THE STORY OF THE YOUNGER SON<\/p>\n
The younger son would seem to have been of an active, restless temperament, and possessed with a passion for adventure. The farming life in which he and his brother were engaged, though congenial to the plodding habits of the one, was insupportable to the other. So the younger \u201csaid to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.\u201d From the promptness with which the request is granted, it would appear that the father had, at this time, full confidence in his son.
\nAnd now we read, \u201cNot many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.\u201d
\nWhat then was the nature of this \u201criotous living?\u201d That there was sin in it there can be no doubt, and also folly and indiscretion. We have here the case of an impulsive, inexperienced young man, abundantly supplied with money, alone amidst the temptations of large cities. It would have been a miracle if he had not fallen. Yet there is nothing to show but that folly, indiscretion, and a false generosity, might have been the occasions of his wasted substance, rather than deliberate, unblushing vice.
\nBe this how it may, he did not stop in his downward course till he got to the bottom; for we read, \u201cAnd when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him.\u201d
\nAnd now his misfortunes having reached their lowest depths, we meet with a strange expression: \u201cAnd when he came to himself, he said.\u201d Then all this while he was not himself; and \u201chimself\u201d was a better, more worthy, or, at least, less worthless self. We were then right in our conjecture that this young man was not in heart, in his heart of hearts, utterly bad. He had been carried away from \u201chimself\u201d by circumstance; and now, trouble and loneliness and time for reflection, had brought him back to \u201chimself,\u201d as, by the grace of God, they have very many another.
\nIt is very difficult to say how far a man carries about with him, at all times, two selves; a better and a worse, or a good and a bad self. And to determine which of these two is his true self is yet more difficult. This problem seems to have exercised Paul a good deal. He says, \u201cThat I would, I do not; and that I would not, I do.\u201d \u201cNow then it is no more I.\u201d Again he says, \u201cI find a law in my members; and I find another law.\u201d Which then was the true I; which the governing law?
\nNow let us look at our own experience. Have we not, when standing erect, in the conscious exercise of virtue, looked back at the fallen self of yesterday, wallowing in the mire of some swinish passion, with a conviction of the whole reasoning mind, irresistible in its force and clearness, that that one of yesterday, so sin-bound, be he who he may, was not, never could have been, I myself? Have we not even gone yet one step further, and striven to relieve ourselves from the burden of past guilt by the reflection that after all it was not I, but, in very truth, some other one that did it?
\nBut, to proceed with our story. What did he say \u201cwhen he came to himself?\u201d\u2014\u201cHow many hired servants of my father\u2019s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.\u201d
\nThis was, doubtless, an admirable resolution; but was there nothing to damp it, to hinder its being carried out, to make it, indeed, altogether impracticable? There would, on consideration, appear to be much. The journey was a long one\u2014\u201che went into a far country\u201d\u2014without food, clothing, or friend to help. And should all these difficulties be mastered, so that he once more arrived at his father\u2019s house\u2014no longer his own home\u2014might he not be driven from the very door, and even spurned by the servants? All this, doubtless, passed through the mind of the young man; and, had he been weak and wavering, his resolve, which was little short of heroic, would have ended as it began\u2014a mere passing thought of the mind.
\nBut our hero is not unworthy of the part he has to play. We read, \u201cHe arose, and came to his father.\u201d And this is told in the very next line, as though all had been accomplished without difficulty, on the instant.
\nAnd here the story becomes exquisitely tender: \u201cBut when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.\u201d
\nBut this touching embrace of the father does not weaken the stern resolve of the son. The refrain of the first confession is repeated word for word: \u201cAnd the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.\u201d Such repetition is the wont in Eastern story-telling; and this simple severity of construction does much to heighten the poetic character of the parable.
\nAnd now we have arrived at the climax of the First Part of this sacred drama\u2014the crowning of the reconciliation with a merry feast: \u201cBut the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry.\u201d
\nBut before we pass on to the Second Part, one reflection presses upon us, So the doctrines of the Schools are false. The heavenly father does not demand penance, atonement, bitter humiliation. He asks nothing of the sort; only a return of the heart and steps homeward, a coming back to one\u2019s self, not a negation of self; he checks the self-humiliation; and when the son is \u201cyet a great way off,\u201d his father \u201chas compassion, falls upon his neck, and kisses him;\u201d that is, God does this. Such is the gospel of Jesus. But the priests of the churches, Protestant as well as Catholic, close the door against this loving doctrine. \u201cThere must be a bloody sacrifice,\u201d they say, \u201ca victim, and years of penance.\u201d Then, they will open the door\u2014for God!\u2014just a little way.<\/p>\n
THE STORY OF THE ELDER SON<\/p>\n
\u201cNow his elder son was in the field.\u201d He had, seemingly, been leading a blameless life, engaged in the dull routine of his calling, ever since that first day that we heard of him. He was, plainly, one of those young men who are not led away by strong passions or violent enthusiasms, but such as are wont to be set before their fellows as very models of sober-mindedness and of all virtue.
\n\u201cAnd as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.\u201d
\nNow, how is the elder son affected by this news? Is he filled with irrepressible joy like the father?\u2014for this was his only brother. By no means. We read, \u201cHe was angry, and would not go in.\u201d
\nHere, certain words from other parts of holy scripture come to us, unbidden, as is their wont when Jesus is the teacher; such as these: \u201cwithout natural affection;\u201d or, \u201che that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?\u201d
\n\u201cTherefore,\u201d to continue the story, \u201ccame his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.\u201d
\nHere we discover that this model young man is by no means without his faults, when occasion calls them forth; for instance, jealousy and uncharitableness. Jealousy, as shown in this: \u201cthou never gavest me, &c., but this thy son!\u201d And uncharitableness; for what just right had he to interpret his brother\u2019s life at the worst?\u2014\u201cwhich hath devoured thy living with harlots.\u201d And yet, curiously, men have ever been ready to accept this statement, although coming from so biassed a source, as \u201cgospel truth\u201d itself.
\n\u201cAnd his father said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found.\u201d
\nHere, again, the former words, so full of power, simplicity, and beauty, repeat themselves as a refrain, thus intensifying, if possible, their original dramatic force, and ending this exquisite Eastern fable in a manner not unworthy of it.
\nWhat then do we see to be the teaching of this parable? That Jesus, in his tender, human heart, feels the keenest sympathy with, and pity for, the erring younger son; but that he is, on the other hand, repelled by the hardness and coldness and selfishness of the elder son, in spite of his severely correct life and entire freedom from all taint of what Catholics call \u201cmortal sin.\u201d
\nIt is to be especially noted, that the story ends without any hint at a reconciliation between the father and elder son. This young man is, by his own act and deed, left out in the cold.
\nTo conclude. Heaven, if anything, is a place of love; no cold heart, no unbrotherliness can, by possibility, enter in there. It is, also, a place of joy\u2014\u201cjoy over the sinner that repenteth;\u201d the joyless can never set foot on its threshold.<\/p>\n
THE GIFT OF TALENTS<\/p>\n
The story of the talents, in its simplest interpretation, is so self-evident that further exposition would seem needless. But there is another reading, not less true, and very needful at the present time, which will demand setting forth in detail. It is this that we shall now attempt.
\nThe story is plainly constructed on a broad scale, and hence it suggests a broad interpretation. The lord of his servants \u201ctravels into a far country;\u201d he does not return until \u201cafter a long time;\u201d the \u201ctalent\u201d is a large sum.
\nThere is strict justice in the dealing. \u201cTo every man is given according to his several ability\u201d\u2014\u201cfive talents,\u201d \u201ctwo talents,\u201d \u201cone talent.\u201d
\nThe lord, in due time, \u201creckoneth with his servants.\u201d Two out of the three had acted boldly and wisely with their trust\u2014\u201cthey went and traded with the same.\u201d To each of these his lord said, \u201cWell done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy lord.\u201d
\nThe third \u201cwas afraid; so he went and hid his talent in the earth.\u201d For him the judgment is, \u201cCast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.\u201d
\nThese are the main features of the story, and it is with these that we propose now to concern ourselves.
\nThe record of the world is that of men, each in his own day endowed with talents\u2014with \u201cgifts differing,\u201d according to the era and according to the man. Of these talents the man and the age have to render an account. If this account be good, then there is blessing and joy. If this account be bad, then there is a curse and the \u201couter darkness.\u201d
\nTo illustrate this. Looking to the ancients, we see mankind with gifts widely differing. There is the pastoral age, the heroic age, the \u00e6sthetical age, the moral age. There is a Greek life of beauty and philosophy; and a Hebrew life of moral struggle\u2014a reaching after, a hungering and thirsting after, \u201cthe Eternal who judgeth righteously.\u201d To these peoples and nations this Eternal gave gifts, and \u201cthey went and traded with the same;\u201d as is witnessed by the Greek and Roman classics, and by the Hebrew and Eastern sacred books. The names of the great and wise and holy of those days are household words.
\nLooking to the middle ages, we find men and nations \u201cafraid,\u201d \u201cburying their talents in the earth;\u201d afraid to use the new talent given them; afraid of science, of history, of free thought; afraid of the \u201chard man,\u201d as they called God. \u201cI knew that thou art an hard man,\u201d says the third servant, in the parable. Hence these ages were \u201cunprofitable,\u201d and the men of these ages were \u201cunprofitable servants.\u201d And so the ages are called the Dark Ages, and their children are \u201cchildren of darkness.\u201d
\nAnd now, how is it in our own day? Do men boldly use the gifts of their lord, and \u201ctrade with them;\u201d or are they \u201cafraid,\u201d and do they \u201cbury them in the earth?\u201d
\nIt has been said that if Jesus were now again to visit us, the religious world of to-day, being so like the religious world of his own time, would treat him as they then treated him; would call him \u201cantichrist,\u201d \u201cBeelzebub,\u201d \u201cblasphemer,\u201d would \u201caway with him.\u201d Can there be a doubt that they would?\u2014if Jesus be indeed the Word of Truth, the Voice of the Eternal.
\nJesus was put to death\u2014why? Because, as he said, \u201cmen loved darkness rather than light.\u201d
\nThe library of Alexandria was destroyed, and Hypatia was murdered\u2014why? Because the \u201corthodox\u201d of that time, with Cyril as their leader, were \u201cmen who loved darkness rather than light.\u201d
\nSo it has been all along; so with Galileo when he taught scientific truth; so with Savonarola when he taught social and moral truth; so with the Protestant reformers; and so it is now.
\nYet God\u2019s law ever stands sure; darkness must recede as light approaches.
\nMen found it hard to give up a flat earth the centre of the universe, and a rising and setting sun. It seems so, therefore it is so, they not unnaturally argued. Ideas of space and time, and of man\u2019s place in creation have developed a little since then. And religious belief has enlarged its borders, not been overthrown, in the result.
\nThis all came about in spite of the cry of the timid, Hide the talent; bury it in the earth.
\nBut there was much more to go yet. This outer world, which looks so real in colour, in form, in substance, just because it seems, therefore it is not. So truth taught. Man replied, \u201cThis is a hard saying; who can receive it?\u201d Now, no educated man disputes the statement; yet he holds, along with it, his religious belief.
\nTo-day men of science and theologians are in battle array as to the problems, matter, spirit, free-will, moral law, God, heaven, immortal life. The timid renew the old cry, We are all about to become materialists and atheists.
\nWait awhile; the light of truth will pierce the darkness here too. To-morrow there shall be unfolded to man a spiritual creed, set free for evermore from the old Popish and Calvinistic errors, in which the teaching of Jesus shall shine out with a beauty, truth, and splendour, undreamed of by man. The \u201clength and depth and breadth and height\u201d shall be seen to be infinite.
\nTo sum up. Still, then, the lord gives his talents to the world. Still wise and good men trade with them. Still, in the result, they get answer, \u201cWell done, good and faithful servant.\u201d And, unhappily, still the foolish are afraid, bury their gifts, and find themselves written down in history as \u201cunprofitable servants,\u201d doomed to eternal darkness. Still, as Jesus said of old, \u201cthe first are last and the last first;\u201d the \u201cbelievers\u201d deny, and the \u201cdeniers\u201d believe.\u2014\u201cBecause ye say, we see, therefore ye are blind.\u201d<\/p>\n
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? OR, THE PRIEST, THE LEVITE, AND THE SAMARITAN<\/p>\n
What is the difference between the religion of Jesus and that of the pharisee? Both taught one and the same religion. \u201cWhat is written in the law; how readest thou?\u201d says Jesus to the lawyer, on the occasion of this parable. And yet surely there is a difference. Undoubtedly; namely that between the letter and the spirit, that between darkness and light. And so it is now. The teacher of the spirit of the gospel is quite another manner of man from the teacher of the letter, and his religion is quite another manner of religion. And further, the religious world of to-day, like that of yesterday, claims to itself all orthodox belief, and denounces its spiritual brother as \u201ca setter forth of strange gods.\u201d
\nThe lawyer, in the opening of this parable, asks Jesus, \u201cMaster, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?\u201d evidently expecting to detect the simple Nazarene teacher in the utterance of some glaring heresy, and thus to expose him; for we read he asked this question \u201ctempting him.\u201d But, for answer, he is sent back to his own law, not indeed to its letter, but to its spirit. \u201cThou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.\u201d
\n\u201cThis do,\u201d says Jesus, \u201cand thou shalt live.\u201d Or, as he says elsewhere, \u201cThis is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God.\u201d According to Jesus, eternal life is the soul\u2019s life, begun here, now, to-day; not deferred to an after-world, according to the unspiritual teaching of many in our own time.
\nBut the lawyer desiring to \u201cjustify himself\u201d as a skilled disputer, in the presence of the assembled multitude, or to \u201cjustify himself\u201d in his own conscience\u2014either reading would seem admissible\u2014\u201csaid unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?\u201d
\nAnd now the great teacher opens his instruction according to his wont, by a method as distinctive as that of Socrates himself, although of an entirely different kind. He replies by a parable, full of human life and action. He takes the man out of himself in order that he may see himself, and reveals to him his own mind in the mind of another:\u2014
\n\u201cA certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.\u201d
\nNo story ever opened with a more immediate promise of keen interest; no story was ever more realistic; for did not the hearers know right well that any man journeying along that road was only too likely to meet with a similar adventure. This startling announcement to the assembled multitude may be, perhaps, best paralleled by a tale of highway robbery on Hounslow Heath narrated to the Englishman of fifty years ago.
\n\u201cAnd by chance there came down a certain priest that way, and, when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.\u201d
\nThe priest \u201csaw,\u201d but gave no look of pity. The Levite was a shade better, he \u201ccame and looked on him,\u201d but did nothing. If the Jewish multitude could readily realise the picture of the man who \u201cfell among thieves,\u201d their knowledge of the world, and of the professors of religion in the world, both priests and Levites, would not render this part of the story at all more difficult of belief. Probably, like the religious world in these later times, the priest and Levite regarded this man\u2019s suffering as \u201ca just punishment for his sins:\u201d \u201cWho did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?\u201d There are, alas! in the present day, by no means wanting, Christians, so called, who will not step out of their way to relieve a terrible disease due to the artificial condition of society, and who, moreover, obstinately hold back the hands of others who would render help, because, forsooth\u2014as they blasphemously assert\u2014this suffering is \u201ca judgment of God.\u201d They are, unhappily, too blind to see that, here, nature is but asserting her inevitable laws, in the face of these very \u201crighteous\u201d folk, who are themselves, after all, at the bottom of the whole mischief.
\n\u201cBut a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and, when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.\u201d
\nThe Good Samaritan\u2014this is the title he has won for himself\u2014he, too, was, and is, thank God, no unknown character in the world. If the hearts of the hearers were moved with pity for the robbed and wounded man, and with disgust at the unworthy priest and Levite, not less were they stirred with just pride and sympathy at the narration of the noble deeds of him who \u201chad compassion;\u201d not the sham compassion of one who looks and then passes by, but of one who leaves no act of self-sacrificing service unperformed. Which of us cannot recall similar noble acts; and whose heart is not rejoiced at their remembrance? Such deeds we name, and rightly, Christ-like deeds.
\nJesus having, now, given his story an admirable completeness, turns towards the lawyer, with this almost abrupt enquiry, \u201cWhich now of these three thinkest thou was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?\u201d
\nThe young man would willingly escape from giving an answer; for his choice lies between declaring the hated Samaritan\u2014the heretic\u2014to be an \u201cinheritor of eternal life,\u201d to the exclusion of the orthodox priest and Levite, or pronouncing a decision which his own conscience, and the too evident judgment of all assembled, would disallow. His ready wit so far saves him that he avoids naming the Samaritan by name; he replies, \u201cHe that showed mercy on him.\u201d
\nJesus now spares the poor fellow further exposure, but at the same time stamps his lesson with the direct application, \u201cGo, and do thou likewise.\u201d
\nThe spirit of Jesus yet echoes these words through the world, and brother goes forth to help brother, in the name of the \u201cGood Samaritan.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE SEED WHICH GREW SECRETLY<\/p>\n
The teachings of Jesus are, even to-day, seen to go deep down into human nature, into the motives of man. It is just because they are so well rooted in humanity that they can take such divine flights without becoming morbid and visionary; and it is just because the religious teaching of the present day is not so rooted that it exhibits those very evils in their worst form. The psalmist\u2019s words are true, in an especial manner, of the \u201ccarpenter\u2019s son:\u201d \u201cIf I climb up into heaven thou art there; if I go down into the depths of the earth thou art there also.\u201d In Jesus, the divine teaching is always incarnate. It was left for Paul to say, \u201cWhether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell.\u201d
\nBut there is a depth of wisdom in the parables of Jesus of which men have, as yet, but feeble glimmerings. And some such indications are not wanting in this parable of \u201cThe seed which grew secretly.\u201d At the risk of being charged with giving a fanciful interpretation, we shall here attempt to set forth what in \u201cbroken lights\u201d appears to us.
\nOur parable stands thus: \u201cSo is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.\u201d
\nTruth then, goodness, faith in divine grace, all virtues of whatever kind, grow secretly, silently, persistently, towards completeness, when once sown in the heart of man; and this apart from all conscious effort, as by some mysterious hidden law; just as, Jesus goes on to say in the next verse, \u201cthe earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.\u201d
\nBut is this only true of the kingdom of righteousness? Assuredly not. It is true of the kingdom of unrighteousness also. Hence Jesus says, in words just before, \u201cTake heed what ye hear.\u201d For any seed sown\u2014if it be seed\u2014will grow; tares as well as wheat; thorns and thistles as well as tares.
\nAnd this growth follows a law of natural development: \u201cfirst the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, and then\u201d\u2014\u201cthe harvest is come.\u201d
\nAnd this harvest is abundant\u2014\u201ca thousand-fold.\u201d This last thought carries Jesus along with it, so that from seeds generally he passes, at once, to \u201cthe grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. But when it is sown, it groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.\u201d
\nHence we have this further teaching, that goodness does not stop, but goes on growing in heart and life, till the soul reaches \u201cthe measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;\u201d till it realises its divine sonship, its joint heirship. And that other complementary truth stands witnessed to also, that badness does not stop until men have filled up the cup of their iniquity, and drunk it to the dregs.
\nBut it will be said, Surely all these are old truths; where is the new light, the new philosophy? We answer, In the doctrine of an inviolable law of secret growth, which is uninfluenced by the conscious will of the individual. The man sleeps, he rises night and day, but the seed grows on, he knows not how; it \u201cshooteth out great branches\u201d\u2014all before he is aware.
\nSo says Jesus, and so says our latest science. Spiritual and philosophic teaching are here at one, in setting forth a truth, glorious as it relates to divine life, terrible when the seed sown is sin. When mankind have once accepted this doctrine in its fullest results, it will change their whole method of life; it will modify their enforcement of moral law, enlarge their charity, and deepen their pity for the erring brother. As men love their soul\u2019s peace and their soul\u2019s life, and as they love their brethren, they will look more to the seed sown and less to the action of individual freewill.
\nThat small seed of righteousness sown in the heart of Abraham, how it grew! The man died; little enough accomplished after all, one may say; but the seed grew on in his children\u2019s children, till Moses came. Moses, like Abraham, saw the promise afar off, and he too died; but the seed grew on\u2014tares and wheat mixed, as always\u2014till in the Nazarene it yielded fruit, an hundred-fold. And so to this very day. Death does not stop its growth. Persecution does not stop its growth. Death and the opposed will of man are powerless; as is witnessed in the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and in the persecutions of his followers. All the great convulsions of the world point to the same result. If force could crush out truth, the Inquisition would have done so; the fires of Smithfield would have done so; the bigotries of Catholics and Protestants would, long ago, have done so. But no! praise be to God, it grows ever on, \u201cas seed cast into the ground springeth up, man knoweth not how.\u201d
\nSuch is the record of the world\u2019s history, both Eastern and Western. And so is it in man\u2019s life. Behold, now and again, one higher than his fellows in virtue, so that \u201cthere is none like him among all the people.\u201d Whence came these gifts? They were sown secretly in the child\u2019s life, having their seed buried generations back. They beamed from his eye in infancy; they gave strength to his lisping tongue to utter truth and shame the devil; they suppressed the struggling sob in the child\u2019s suffering heart. That same love which entwined the mother\u2019s neck with its feeble embrace, after a while clasped the bitter cross, on which hung truth and virtue, with man\u2019s full-grown vigour. Hence our heroes! \u201cThe seed sown, when it groweth up shooteth out great branches.\u201d
\nAnd if the world\u2019s history and man\u2019s life have yielded fair fruit, the promise of an earthly paradise in ages yet to come, there are not wanting dreary out-looks of sin, past and present, which tell their own sad tale. But God\u2019s children \u201cawait the gentle advent of his Day,\u201d having that two-fold trust which comes of spiritual truth wedded to scientific truth: a trust in \u201cThe seed which groweth secretly,\u201d sown in the hearts of men by the Divine Husbandman.<\/p>\n
THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR<\/p>\n
When we see the painting of a really great master, that which strikes us most, perhaps, is the vigorous grasp of the subject and the completeness of the treatment. The mind feels satisfied; all has been accomplished that was aimed at. Hence, in such a picture, we recognise genius, inspiration. And as these are the marks of a great picture so are they of a great poem. Such a poem is that now before us; a poem we call it\u2014a dramatic poem. It was not in the mind and purpose of its author that it should be regarded in the light of a history, or of a theological treatise. Oriental metaphor was not so misread in the olden times. It remained for a later and a Western world to twist and distort the meaning from its original simple purpose.
\nThe poem divides itself naturally into two parts. In the first part, the action takes place in this life; in the second, the veil is drawn back and we gaze into the after-world. Each part has its tragic action and its \u201cgulf fixed.\u201d In the first part the beggar is the unfortunate one, and the gulf is that which society digs wide and deep to protect its own class interests. In the second part the rich man and the beggar change places, and the gulf is that which hollows itself out between the righteous and the unrighteous, through the working of the inevitable laws of man\u2019s moral being.
\nThe first scene is in the palace of the rich man. He is pictured as sitting at his festal board, \u201cclothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day.\u201d At the gate or doorstep of this palace there was laid Lazarus the beggar, \u201cdesiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man\u2019s table; moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.\u201d This concludes the first part, that acted in this life.
\nNow what manner of man was this rich man? Was he vicious, a drunkard, or a glutton? There is no hint at such a thing. Had he gained his wealth in some questionable manner? We are not told so. We are merely informed that he was \u201ca certain rich man.\u201d But had he entirely neglected the beggar? About this there is a difference of opinion. Some think he had. But others think he had not. These say, No, he gave him his crumbs; for the beggar would not have been so foolish as to be \u201claid at the gate\u201d of this palace, day by day, \u201cdesiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man\u2019s table,\u201d if he did not get them. About the moral conduct of the beggar we are told nothing whatever.
\nThe second part is so complete in itself, and so full of dramatic force, that we are reluctant to break it up by comment; we shall do so as little as possible.
\n\u201cAnd it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham\u2019s bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.\u201d
\nAnd here we must pause to note the expression, \u201csend Lazarus.\u201d The rich man has carried his class views with him into hell; and so strangely are they embedded in his nature, that although he finds himself a lost soul in hell, and sees Lazarus in heaven, in the very bosom of Abraham, yet he still regards him as a menial, to be sent running at his bidding.
\n\u201cBut Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.\u201d
\nNow let it be observed, that Abraham, in this reply, brings no charge of evil living against the rich man. He merely states the fact that the tables are turned. Virtually, his answer comes to this: You in your lifetime accepted to the full all that the world offered, not recognising any claim of your poor brother, beyond that to your crumbs which you would scarcely have given to your dogs. You had no pity; you stretched out no hand to help. Now, \u201cwith what measure you were wont to mete, it is measured to you again;\u201d \u201che is comforted and thou art tormented.\u201d
\nAbraham continues, \u201cAnd beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from thence.\u201d
\nThere is keen satire in this reply, and admirable logic. The patriarch would seem to say, You ever recognised this \u201cgreat gulf\u201d between you and the beggar; nothing would have induced you to fill it up; it is of your own digging, you cannot dispute it. You can scarcely now, in decency, ask that it should be removed. Indeed, that is no longer possible; you and Lazarus cannot exist in the same moral atmosphere. The decree of eternity has gone out, sealed with your own seal.
\nEven the rich man himself accepts this reply as unanswerable. And now for the first time he shows that he is not altogether selfish. \u201cThen he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father\u2019s house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.\u201d
\n\u201cTestify unto them\u201d of what? Plainly this, of an irrevocable moral law, that he who fixes gulfs of selfishness in this world, cannot fill them up in the next, even if he have all eternity to attempt it in.
\n\u201cAbraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.\u201d That is, they have the laws of their duty to God and to their neighbour, and the warnings of what comes to those who neglect those duties.
\n\u201cAnd he said, Nay, father Abraham; but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.\u201d
\nIn these last words, we have the most solemn declaration of Jesus himself as to the utter fruitlessness of all supernaturalism to win back the heart and life to God. This doctrine, from him who is believed to be the Word of Truth, forms a fitting conclusion to the whole. We will not risk weakening its force by venturing any further reflections of our own. It is sufficient to our purpose if we have shown that the common reading of the parable is scarcely exhaustive.<\/p>\n
LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD, AND THEIR HIRE<\/p>\n
There is a profound philosophy of life in this parable, which the religious commentators hasten to explain away, \u201cas also they do the other scriptures,\u201d because such teaching does not accord with their pietistic notions of the ordering of the universe. Jesus faced life boldly, and drew it as he saw it, not as he or we might wish to see it.
\nWhat is the history of these labourers who were called to work in the vineyard? We are told that no matter at what hour they were hired to labour, whether \u201cearly in the morning,\u201d at the \u201cthird,\u201d \u201csixth,\u201d or \u201cninth\u201d hour, or even at the \u201celeventh,\u201d each received the same wage\u2014that due for a full day\u2019s work. Hence the \u201cmurmurers,\u201d not altogether without excuse, said, \u201cThese last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.\u201d And yet the teacher replies, in the person of \u201cthe good-man of the house,\u201d \u201cFriend, I do thee no wrong;\u201d or in words earlier in the tale, \u201cWhatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.\u201d
\nAt the beginning and at the end of this parable there stands a motto or proverb; and it is a strange one, seeming to overthrow all moral justice in the world. It runs thus: \u201cThe last shall be first, and the first last.\u201d It is plainly on the teaching of this motto that the whole story is based.
\nNow the question for us is but one: Is this the true law of life, or is it false teaching?
\nIn attempting a reply, we will, as before, look at life in its two aspects\u2014the history of men, and the experience of man.
\nIn history, we witness the ceaseless struggle for existence through which the myriads of mankind are doomed to make their way across the path of life from their birth hour to their death hour. At last, for each suffering soul there comes the end; and the man drops out of life exhausted by the conflict, receiving for payment but his miserable \u201cpenny.\u201d Thus mankind from the beginning\u2014\u201cearly in the morning\u201d of life\u2014fought the elements, contended with wild beasts, slew their enemies, wrestled with their own souls. Through strange ages\u2014ages of flint, ages of steel, ages of lust, ages of superstition, ages of slavery of body, ages of slavery of soul\u2014men toiled, \u201chaving borne the burden and heat of the day,\u201d and got but their \u201cpenny;\u201d hardly, indeed, that!
\nEach generation of men steps into the world to inherit, at once, the fruits of the labours of all who have gone before\u2014the beauty of Greece, the righteousness of Israel, the wisdom of the ancients, the science of to-day. By-and-by there shall come for the world a \u201cninth,\u201d yea, an \u201celeventh\u201d hour. And as we have inherited the labours of all who came before, so those who shall come after will inherit our labours and the fruits of the toil and suffering of all who may have come between.
\nSo says Scripture everywhere: \u201cOther men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.\u201d \u201cTo him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.\u201d And so says Jesus here: \u201cThe last shall be first, and the first last.\u201d
\nAs a teaching for those who are merely thinking of their own interests\u2014material or spiritual, it matters not which, for there is an \u201cother-worldliness\u201d\u2014this is most disappointing. But as a teaching for the unselfish, for those who have the mind of Christ, for those who live for their brethren, here is all that the heart can desire. So says Paul: \u201cI will very gladly spend and be spent for you.\u201d So, in act and deed, says Jesus, when he hangs upon the cross.
\nSo, too, is the law for man\u2014as for men. He who comes into the world, morally, intellectually, and physically weak, has the hardest struggle. Never one moment may he rest. And after all is over? Well, he was but a poor fool! men say. And if so, yet this was by no fault of his; he did not make himself.\u2014\u201cSome to honour, and some to dishonour.\u201d Again; the drudge in the field, the drudge at the desk, the drudge behind the counter, the drudge in his profession; there are millions of such, now, toiling all the day through, all the life through; these are the veriest slaves of their brethren. And what is their reward? The market-price payment\u2014\u201ca penny.\u201d
\nBy whose fault is all this? By no one\u2019s. It is the law of life.
\nSo, too, curiously, is it at the other extreme. Those who would have been the leaders of men to-morrow, are made martyrs by men to-day. There is the cup of poison for one; the cross for another; the stake for a third; the world\u2019s sharp tongue, which pierces like a two-edged sword\u2014pierces the heart\u2014for a fourth. To-morrow, for these there would have been a throne and a golden crown. But \u201cto-morrow\u201d is too late\u2014they are gone! \u201cYe slay the prophets, and then whiten their sepulchres,\u201d said Christ. Yet who is to blame? Men knew no better. These were \u201cborn out of due time,\u201d and they must accept their destiny.
\nBut the strong, if not too strong; and the weak, if not too weak\u2014these inherit the land. Into their laps falls all the fruit, well ripened by other men\u2019s labours. To such as these all offer worship. To these one hour\u2019s light work\u2014or no work\u2014brings full payment; while the feeble child and the giant who have laboured from the sunrise to the sunset of life get their due from the world\u2014their \u201cpenny!\u201d
\nSo true then are found those words of Jesus, \u201cThe last shall be first, and the first last.\u201d And so true is his story of the vineyard, which he founded upon them.<\/p>\n
THE FIG-TREE AND ITS FRUIT<\/p>\n
The teaching of this parable is plain: as the fig-tree \u201cplanted in the vineyard,\u201d so is man \u201cborn into the world.\u201d The tree must \u201cin due season\u201d yield fruit; so must the man. If the tree, after a while, having had the opportunity of trees, \u201cbear fruit, well; if not, then cut it down.\u201d And man, if he bear fruit, well; if not \u201che shall likewise perish.\u201d
\nJesus, when he teaches, seizes some fact in life, and brings it to the front, setting it in bold relief. If by this means he, for the time, shuts out some other side, it does not trouble him. Everything cannot be made prominent at once. Colour is lost when all light is blended. Our teachers of every school of thought forget this; but most of all do our religious teachers forget it.
\nLet us try to look at the doctrine here set forth, with some singleness of purpose.
\nA man, then, is put into the world, not to live from day to day in the full free enjoyment of his own selfish existence, but to yield fruit for others: this must be his one end and aim and hope. To live for self and yield no service is to be accursed. To live for others, to leave men better for having dwelt amongst them, to live in the future of humanity by some new light of truth given, by some new motive of virtue imparted, by some new exercise of grace wrought in the world\u2014this is the eternal law of man\u2019s moral being.
\nBut men reply to this doctrine, The motive is not strong enough; it is absurd to talk of the \u201centhusiasm of humanity;\u201d a motive, i.e. that which will move a man, must have in it a selfish outcome; either pleasure and place here\u2014Mammon; or pleasure and place hereafter\u2014Paradise: a man, to work, must have his sop; if not from the devil, then from God.
\nIf we quote Paul to these men: \u201cI would that I were accursed for my brethren\u2019s sakes,\u201d they answer, This is but a form of speech; he did not mean his words. If we quote Jesus in his life and in his death, they fall back on the argument of his supernaturalism.
\nBut there are not wanting those who think they see in this teaching of Jesus, namely that man, like the fig-tree, lives but to yield fruit, the highest conceivable motive for endeavour, and, indeed, the highest conceivable reward. There are some men, and these not the least wise or worthy, who read the whole history of the world as one unbroken testimony to this principle of action. So far from fearing that the \u201centhusiasm of humanity\u201d will prove weak in its results, these believe that it will supply a motive power in the spiritual world to which the application of science in the physical world, wonderful as that is, affords no kind of parallel.
\nSuch men hold that the application of this principle to life, on all its sides, will create nothing short of a complete revolution, both in individual and social morals. For the motive of all action will be changed from the egoistic to the altruistic; as John puts it, \u201cWe have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.\u201d
\nBut is the \u201cEnthusiasm of humanity\u201d an all-embracing title for this doctrine? We think not. Man is assuredly not the measure of all things. If man lives only for his fellow-man, is this enough? Is there to be no thought, or labour, or care, or love for the whole world, teeming with life, organic and inorganic: a life which is a part of our life, akin to ours, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, dust of our dust? Here, men of science are rapidly unfolding to us a grand, new revelation. There is one law, one life, one source, \u201cone beginning and end to all,\u201d says Solomon. The breathing of the plant is but a feebler breath of man; its blood is but a whiter blood; its accomplished end is our highest aim\u2014fruit. It, too, has its laws of sex and of offspring.
\nIn bird and beast and fish, all is still higher and closer akin to man. How much suffering do they not bear for us, and how much service do they not render us; what lessons in art, music, poetry, morals, and, indeed, intellectual wisdom, do they not impart. For all this have they no claim? Our own varied cries of pleasure and pain; our hopes and fears, loves and hates, aims and strivings, all find their birth-place here!
\nBut men are unwilling to recognise their kinship and common origin, and their dependence on the past; and hence they fail to see their fair promise in the future. Yet here, in this very truth, lies the secret of our parable. If the present, in all its wealth, is but the garnered fruit of a feebler past, what abundant harvests may not the future bring forth!
\nWe look for a new heaven and a new earth, not through miracle, but through the working out of an eternal law of growth, of fruit-bearing; a law true in the highest and in the lowest, in the fig-tree and in the saviours of men; a law which ever works, unhasting yet unresting, \u201cwhether we will hear or whether we will forbear;\u201d but a law which slays that which will not yield to it: \u201cIf it bear fruit, well; and if not, then cut it down. Why cumbereth it the ground?\u201d
\nAnd who of us would have it otherwise? The morbid sentimentality of the day, which shrinks from \u201cthe suffering of this present time, which is not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,\u201d has no sympathy from generous minds. Out of evil to bring forth good, out of suffering to bring forth joy, this is the grand law of life; and till a man has learnt to love the labour and suffering which enable him to bring forth fruit for his brother and for the world, his spiritual aspirations are but as an empty dream.<\/p>\n
GOODLY PEARLS<\/p>\n
The merchant-man, in this parable, who made it his life\u2019s object to \u201cseek goodly pearls,\u201d when at last \u201che had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had\u201d\u2014all his other pearls\u2014\u201cand bought it.\u201d He would not have acted thus when he first started in the business, for two reasons: it must take him time to learn the relative value of pearls, to know which was the \u201cone pearl of great price;\u201d and it is only by continued exercise that the desire for their possession would become developed.
\nThe conduct of this merchant-man is in complete accordance with the general rule of life. All men soon set about getting together, acquiring \u201cgoodly pearls,\u201d anything, everything which seems worth having. As life passes on, the passion for possession increases, and along with it is developed a higher capacity of discerning true worth. Towards the close of life the man has found, or thinks that he has found, the \u201cone pearl of great price;\u201d and for this he is willing to sacrifice all\u2014to \u201csell all that he hath.\u201d
\nThe children of men, therefore, are like unto this merchant-man. All life-interest is pearl-seeking. The foolish, as well as the wise, are engaged in this one search. But all do not find the \u201cgoodly pearls,\u201d and still fewer find the \u201cone pearl of great price.\u201d Should a man weary of his quest, or lose faith in the existence of life\u2019s pearls, he becomes as one dead, as one lost to life. On the other hand, if his quest be keen, and his judgment sound, then he is the hero of his day\u2014his hand is on the key of paradise.
\nFurther, each age has its own estimate of the \u201cgoodly pearls;\u201d indeed it is wise and well that all men, in all times, should not follow the same quest. For one age, valour is the \u201cpearl of great price\u201d without which the world cannot be won. But, valour gained, there now come the \u201cgoodly pearls\u201d beauty and peace. To these are presently added the pearls of virtue, moral heroism. Here, again, all are not of the same worth; hence, Paul says, \u201cNow abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity.\u201d
\nIn Christ then, it will be said, the quest is ended; the \u201cone pearl of great price\u201d is found. Not altogether so. The highest virtue demands the highest wisdom, and that men have not yet reached. Christ himself says, \u201cHe, when he is come, will guide you into all truth.\u201d Now all truth is not yet attained, therefore he is not yet come.
\nWell may the world be called \u201cchildren of men.\u201d The \u201cchildren\u201d go seeking; but with them anything may be made to pass for a \u201cgoodly pearl,\u201d indeed, for the \u201cone pearl of great price.\u201d The Pope has it; Calvin and Luther, both have it; every church and chapel, every creed and sect throughout the world holds it tabernacled in its holy of holies. Too often, alas! all proves but a juggler\u2019s trick, a spiritual swindling. Sir Galahad, the blameless knight, who finds the true life\u2019s blood of the world, is, after all, but a poetic dream. The Holy Grail is yet far beyond. Men may still go seek it.
\nAnd here, science steps in and shows the law and method of the working of all. Brain-knowledge must begin with the simple facts of nature\u2014forms, colours, sounds, felt by the nerves, perceived through the senses, and then catalogued by the mind: remembered, reasoned upon, ranged all in order according to worth, as \u201cgoodly,\u201d \u201cof great price,\u201d worthless. And now we have arrived at the next step in mind-growth, for soul touches soul, and heart heart, and thus from the perception of the world\u2019s life men rise to the perception of the soul\u2019s life. And hence, all the problems of love and hate, hope and fear, yearning and striving, are, in their turn, worked out and recorded. Then, and not till then, the mind of man enters on its final path of social and intellectual advance\u2014an eternity of progress.
\nThus, then, it would seem, do the children of men pursue their search for \u201cgoodly pearls:\u201d from love of nature to love of man, from love of man to love of men, gaining both zeal and wisdom through their enterprise. And more and more do they get to see that the \u201cone pearl of great price\u201d is Truth. Thus, creed gives place to creed, and philosophy to philosophy, and science climbs step by step into the higher atmosphere of truth\u2014but \u201cthe end is not yet.\u201d Many a \u201cgoodly pearl\u201d must be sold before that wisdom is gathered in which shall purchase the \u201cone pearl of great price.\u201d
\nWe said, all life is pearl-seeking. The boy, in the first rush of vigorous youth, finds a \u201cgoodly pearl\u201d in every impulse to action, in all physical exertion, in the mere joy of existence. To live and move and have his being, to breathe and laugh and use his limbs, all this is to gather pearls. But, after a while, to satisfy his mere animal nature is not enough, and there come new cravings. To become wise, to become rich, to become famed, to seek enterprise and adventure of some sort, this is the youth\u2019s future aim. But here, the choice once made, there must be a further narrowing of the field. For instance, if a student\u2019s is the vocation chosen, the study must be limited to some single branch. And, as years advance, the scholar is seen to cast aside, more and more, the encumbrances of learning, that he may pursue with greater freedom his quest for the hidden pearl. It is only a giant like Goethe that can work a whole mine of wisdom; perhaps not even he. And thus it is in all the other life enterprises.
\nBut there are few men whom even this will satisfy. The heart looks out once again for a yet more \u201cgoodly pearl,\u201d and, may be, finds it in the love of wife and child and home.
\nHere now, at last, there is rest to man\u2019s labours, one might hope. Not so. Only the real is, as yet, attained, and the soul yearns for the ideal; the present may be ours, but hope looks for a future. And hence, there is opened out once more a yet further world for pearl-hunting. He whose view is centred in self now finds his treasure in some fable of the schools; but the larger hearted man recalls the words of him who said, \u201cIn my father\u2019s house are many mansions,\u201d and, forgetting self, sees in the \u201cpearl of great price,\u201d a future heritage for the whole human race.<\/p>\n
TWO MEN WHO WENT UP INTO THE TEMPLE TO PRAY<\/p>\n
The dramatis person\u00e6 of this parable are but two, and the action lasts merely a second or so. The story, both in its physical and moral aspect, stands out sharp and clear, pictured like a photograph. There is the vast, silent interior of the temple; there are the two men praying, and the words of their prayers seem to reach our very ears.
\nNow, first of all, let it be noted that neither of these men are hypocrites; they both \u201cwent up into the temple to pray;\u201d their motive was, doubtless, good and sincere.
\nWe will take the prayer of each, singly, for consideration.
\n\u201cThe Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican; I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.\u201d
\nWe have said this prayer was sincere; the man, we are told, \u201cprayed with himself.\u201d But was what he said of himself really true? We may all be easily self-deceived; this Pharisee then might be self-deceived. Now everything would tend to show that the prayer was strictly true, that there was no sort of exaggeration about it. There is nothing in it in the least inconsistent with the life of the typical Pharisee; on the contrary, it reads like a fair average description of such an one. The man was, in fact, \u201ceminently respectable,\u201d and a \u201csound churchman,\u201d and this is all that he declares himself to be.
\nBut, further, the truth of the statement would seem indisputably conditioned by the very nature of the parable itself; for we are informed that the story was told by Jesus \u201cunto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous\u201d\u2014or, as the marginal note has it, \u201ctrusted in themselves as being righteous\u201d\u2014\u201cand despised others.\u201d
\nHere then stands the Pharisee in the midst of the temple, wearing his religious dress, embroidered all round the hem with holy texts; his attitude, that natural to one who is conscious of his spiritual \u201chigh calling,\u201d and justly proud of his right of free access to the God of Righteousness.
\nWe almost think we can verify this picture from our own experience. We fancy we have seen such a Pharisee thus worshipping, and that we have caught just a word or so of his prayer: \u201cGod, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, as this publican. I, a member of the true church, regenerate by baptism;\u201d or \u201cI, a child of God by the election of grace.\u201d
\nWe would not have it for one moment suspected that we are speaking in any tone of scoffing or of disrespect of such men; on the contrary, worth of this sort establishes its own claims, whether the righteous Pharisee be a Jew, a churchman, or a methodist.
\nBut now, leaving the Pharisee for a short time in the enjoyment of those religious ecstasies which are invariably attendant on a vivid sense of divine illumination and spiritual indwelling, let us turn our attention to the poor publican.
\n\u201cThe publican, standing afar off\u201d\u2014in some obscure corner of the temple\u2014\u201cwould not lift so much as his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.\u201d
\nNow, was this prayer also true? No doubt it was. This man may have been all that the other was not\u2014\u201can extortioner, unjust, an adulterer;\u201d he may have never once fasted in his life, nor have given a single tithe. This and worse was the scandalous mode of life typical of the publican in those days. Moreover, the manner of the confession would seem to indicate a conscience weighed down with the sense of guilt. The man, smiting his breast in bitter contrition, dared not so much as lift his eyes to heaven; still less would he venture a direct address to the Almighty; his prayer is, after all, but the expression of a feeble hope: \u201cmay God have mercy on me, a sinner.\u201d
\nAnd here, again, this Eastern fable would seem to demand the full antithesis: self-complacent innocence on the one hand; guilt with contrition on the other.
\nWhich then of these two men, they being such as we now understand them to be, will find himself accepted in the eyes of God?
\nOn this point the Galilean teacher would seem to be somewhat vague. He does not set himself down in his Father\u2019s judgment seat, as too many in our own day are ready enough to do. All he ventures to say is this: \u201cI tell you, that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other:\u201d \u201cjustified,\u201d \u201crather than.\u201d
\n\u201cJustified,\u201d by whom? By his own conscience? Assuredly not; the facts of the case are the exact reverse. By God? This may be implied; it is not stated. No; but \u201cjustified in his deed,\u201d made just; and this, not to the full, only \u201crather than the other.\u201d
\nWhat then, to sum up, is the moral of the story? It would appear to be this: Of the two it is better to be a sinner and know it, than to be a mere formal \u201crespectable\u201d church or chapel \u201cmember,\u201d and account one\u2019s self a saint.<\/p>\n
LAMPS WITHOUT OIL<\/p>\n
The story of the \u201cfoolish virgins\u201d who \u201cslumbered and slept,\u201d and awoke at last only to find life wasted and \u201cno oil in their lamps,\u201d is, perhaps, the truest and saddest of all the parables of Jesus. When we look closely into life, our own and that of those around us, there comes a horrible dread that men\u2019s supposed activities, endeavours, and usefulness are but, too often, mere restless and feverish dreams; that very many, perhaps we ourselves, have never once been really awake. As our life draws to an end this dread suspicion may become confirmed, till at its last moment the soul awakes to see but outer darkness\u2014no oil in the lamp, and the door of life closed.
\nThe wasted and misdirected energies of men\u2014labour which profiteth not\u2014form one of the saddest aspects of life. And nowhere is this more true than in the history of religions zeal. The record of the Christian churches is, too often, that of men who have laboured, studied, fasted and wept, alas! suffered and died, for a fallacy which the next generation has exposed. The truth of one age is the falsehood of the next; and for this falsehood the noblest of men have sacrificed life\u2014all its joys, all its uses: such is theological controversy. Such, too, are the wars between papist and protestant; between the witch and the bewitched; between crusader and infidel. And although ignorance and superstition form a less explosive element in religious life now than formerly, yet we see the same hopeless efforts of men to limit the boundaries of religious enquiry. Who can study the most advanced liberal theologians of to-day without a suspicion, which presently becomes absolute conviction, that to-morrow such teaching will be weighed in the balance and found utterly wanting? And yet how confident are these men that they, at least, have oil in their lamps.
\nAnd as it is with theological dogma, so is it with that which we may be allowed to call moral and social dogma. The very principles for the maintenance of which the hearts of men, women, and children have bled through thousands of years, are, at last, giving way, and we now see Nature advocating her own laws in the teeth of the conventions of ages. The relation of the sexes; the conditions of their alliance; the rights of labour and capital; the duties of the state to the citizen, and of the citizen to the state: in all these questions the moral and social centres are shifting and changing almost day by day.
\nIf then so much which one does with zeal to-day, to-morrow one would wish undone, who is the man that has oil in his lamp to meet the bridegroom of the future?
\nWhat is it that we do not live to repent? Let two men get together within closed walls, who dare speak each to the other his inner mind, and what revelations should we not hear! mistaken life-callings, mistaken marriages, mistaken religious belief, mistaken pleasure-theories and pain-theories; art studies, literary pursuits, social reforms, once taken up with the fervour of a martyr, now seen \u201cto perish with the using,\u201d and thrown on one side with little short of loathing.
\nBut nations, which cannot keep silence like men, loudly proclaim the same tale. What else is the meaning of French revolutions, with their strange alternations from communism to imperialism, and back again; or the ebb and flow of all European governments\u2014conservative to-day and therefore liberal to-morrow\u2014till politicians are found dubbing themselves \u201cKnow-nothings?\u201d
\nWhere in the world is there a fixed law? Poets rise and fall in fame like the car of a \u201cround-about\u201d at a fair: this one, because he is at the top to-day shall be at the bottom to-morrow. When art is gothic we know the renaissance is at hand; unfortunately it is not so easy to pull down stones as to tear up verses. The best hope for the \u201cmusic of the future\u201d is that it is not acceptable now. And so too in religion; unchanging belief is but unbelief; it is because there is so much of the mummy in \u201cpopular Christianity\u201d that Christianity is not popular.
\nBut it may be argued that if all else change there is no change in goodness. Strange as it may appear, there is nothing in which change is greater. \u201cYoung England\u201d of to-day is zealously engaged in demolishing its work of yesterday. Moody and Sankey with their \u00a328,000 have hastened the overthrow of their creed by at least a century. Almsgiving and poverty, the cardinal virtues of last week are the cardinal vices of this: we have but to read our old texts backwards. And in personal life, while our acts of stern justice may hold their ground for a time, those which in the weaker moments of generosity we accounted our best virtues will quickly turn and rend us. Who is the man most blamed in the world? Not he who draws back the hand, but he who is too ready to help; for such a fool men have naturally no pity.
\nGravity is the law of the material world; struggle for existence and \u201cthe devil take the hindermost\u201d of the social; gold of the commercial; but for the man who would have oil in his lamp there is no law\u2014it is a Sphinx riddle; in scriptural phrase, \u201cStrait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.\u201d<\/p>\n
TARES AND WHEAT<\/p>\n
We are not going to discuss this parable in detail; there is no occasion to do so, for Jesus has expounded it himself. We shall merely take its main teaching, namely this: Good and evil must go on together till the end; man cannot safely try to separate them; he may pull up the wheat with the tares. In the end the good shall last and the evil shall disappear\u2014the wheat is gathered into the barn, the tares are burnt.
\nWho can say for certain, at any time, what is good and what is evil? Sometimes, indeed often, they are seen to change places; the evil of yesterday is the good of to-day; that which seemed to be wheat turns out to be tares, and the tares wheat. Roughly we might say all life experience is that of one long blunder in choosing between the wheat and the tares. Well would it have been for the world if men had always acted on this precept of Jesus, \u201cLet both grow together until the harvest.\u201d Then they would have spared the great Teacher himself, together with that vast army of martyrs which reckons in its ranks such names as Socrates, Galileo, Spinoza, and many not yet canonised, by reason of the ignorance and bigotry of men, no less than those who, as yet, await the time of their coming, first for martyrdom and then for their crowns.
\nThe prize wheat of the world has always been accounted tares; there is something too distinctive about it; it does not look like the ordinary crop.
\nMay we not now go a step further and say, not that good and evil change, but that the ideas of good and evil are mainly relative, being in great measure dependent on our point of view, which in the first place is partial, and in the next is human. Jesus himself says that men \u201ctake evil for good and good for evil.\u201d Again he says, \u201cWhy call ye me good, there is none good save one, that is God;\u201d but in another place, \u201cBe ye perfect even as your father which is in heaven is perfect;\u201d and again, \u201cMy father and I are one.\u201d What are all these seeming contradictions of speech but points of view? These considerations are enough alone to account for the many theories of good and evil which have exercised the human understanding from the beginning of time.
\nBut what, after all, is evil? When a thing hurts us we say it is evil. Is it not often well to be hurt? Where would be industry, without the pains of hunger and cold; where virtue, without the conflict with vice; where truth, if there were no error? That good and evil ever grow together\u2014no wheat if no tares\u2014is the law of life. Hence the bad logic of those theologians who would have a God and heaven, but no devil and hell. An inside connotes an outside, and so good connotes evil.
\nAnd yet we have said that, in the end, evil shall disappear and good remain. Here again the conception is relative; rather it is mathematical. As truth and light advance, error and darkness recede, to disappear in the limit\u2014a limit which shall ever be approached but never be attained. Why never attained? If for no other reason at least for this, that men having reached the goal of perfection, would, as men, be accursed. When humanity has perfected itself, then the end of the world has come. Possibly in the future ordering of things, before that day and hour arrive, the earth will have fallen into the sun, as some men of science prophecy. Then the whole labour of creation may begin over again; a new heaven and a new earth; a new struggle and a new victory.
\nBut we will approach this subject from yet another side. We say that truth and goodness grow. How so? The mind which perceives them grows. First there is the sense of duty to self; then to those on whom self depends and together with whom self is bound up. And who are these? The reply comes slowly, bit by bit, as the mind grows: the family; the state; humanity. This is not all; again the answers come: all life\u2014animal, vegetable, inorganic, for are we not also of the dust of the earth? But yet again the oracle speaks: all time\u2014past, present, and future. And yet once more: all suffering, all labour, all joy. Thus man, bit by bit, gets to know himself to be a part of all\u2014nothing is too small or too distant to love; nothing is too small or too distant to fear. Thus is developed the moral sense. It is the law of the Eternal, and so it is divine; it is the condition of man\u2019s existence from day to day, and so it would seem human. It is both egoistic and altruistic, for self and not-self are in the end one\u2014each is a part of all.
\nAgain, as the area of duty extends till it embraces the all, so the sense of duty developes till it arrives at the just. Hence it is that the right of yesterday is seen to be the wrong of to-day, and that to-morrow shall assuredly bring a still fuller revelation. Why are men not honest enough to acknowledge a truth so indisputable that every page of history, every utterance of Jesus, every revelation of science re-affirms it?
\nTo know to refuse the evil and to choose the good, is the problem of life. When it is solved, earth will be no longer earth, it will be heaven; and man will be no longer man, he will be God. Hence the blasphemy of those who, naming themselves\u2014or not naming themselves, but being\u2014popes, issue their fallible decrees as though they were the hidden wisdom of Deity.
\nWe will conclude by quoting our parable. \u201cThe servants said, Wilt thou that we go and gather them up? But he answered, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE END.<\/p>\n
title= New Readings of Old Parables
\npublisher Henry S. King & Co
\nauthor= Anderson, Charles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE PARABLES OF JESUS THE MARRIAGE FEAST This \u201ckingdom of heaven,\u201d which is here \u201clikened unto a marriage feast,\u201d what is it? the after-life, or this life? Most assuredly and most evidently not the after-life, but the kingdom of righteousness in this life. There is nothing more remarkable than the way in which the religious … <\/p>\n