most essential duties of industry, integrity, and piety; it followed that many were thus branded with an opprobrious epithet, who were possibly, better men than those who affected to despise them. And it is certain that this description of persons contributed more than any other among the Jews to the number of our Saviour's followers. Such as were already cut off from the synagogues and people of Israel, had nothing to hold them back from embracing the truth whenever and by whomsoever offered to their acceptance. Those who surrendered no privilege, who broke no ancient tie, who deserted no long-loved society, had a lighter cross to bear in the Messiah's kingdom, and found the narrow gate far wider than they who were folded gorgeously and warm in the trappings of self-love, and the distinctive mantle of a sect or a party. They who were unused to any notice from persons of a religious character, and who were abandoned, by the uncharitable contempt of their graver countrymen, to infamy, impenitence and despair, it was likely that they would flock with joy to any door which should be opened to their restoration, and be willing to recover their lost self-esteem by any sacrifice which the Messiah might enjoin them. And our Lord, whose errand it was to reconcile the differences and heal the intestine feuds of the house of Israel, appears to have taken delight in displaying His superiority to these unfounded traditions, and in kindly extending His charitable notice to those who needed it most and received it most gladly.

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When taunted by the Pharisees for this line of conduct, He sometimes replies that He came to save that which was lost," and that "they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."* Sometimes, as in the case of Zaccheus, He reminds them that these sinners and publicans were children of Abraham as well as themselves, and partakers with them in God's promises. And sometimes, as in the parable of the prodigal son, and in that from which my text is taken, He lays down the broad, and to the Jews, the unusual principle, that not only is the

St. Matt. xviii. 11. St. Luke v. 31.

penitent prodigal accepted by His Almighty Parent, but that he is accepted with joy; not only that he is admitted on his return, but is sought for during his wanderings; and that when found, there is more joy in Heaven on account of his repentance, than over the salvation of very many just persons to whom repentance was comparatively needless.

He appeals to the natural feelings and daily experience of every man, whether that which is lost does not, on that account, acquire an additional value in our hearts; and whether that which is recovered is not many times more dear to us than if we had always continued its possessors. "What man of you," are His words, "having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing; and when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbours saying, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost! I say unto you that, likewise, joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repent

ance."*

The instruction contained in this parable is of two kinds, and addressed to two different classes of hearers.

The first are those happy characters whom our Lord designates by the name of the righteous, "the just persons who need no repentance." Not that any have existed, save Christ alone, to whom in some sense or other, and that a very cogent one, repentance has not been necessary. But they who have escaped the greater and more glaring crimes, who have, through good education or timely repentance, overpowered, in some considerable degree, the principle of evil within them; whom the habit of successful resistance has rendered superior to the ordinary assaults of Satan; and whom the grace of God, both prompting and helping their endeavours, has marked out, amid the wickedness of the multitude, as faithful, at least, though not per

• St. Luke xv. 4, 5, 6, 7.

fect followers of their Saviour; these just persons, so happy in their good name and their good conscience, may learn from the present parable and the occasion on which it was spoken, to cherish new feelings, and to observe a new conduct towards those unfortunate wanderers from the fold of virtue and happiness who are described as lost sheep, and the objects, on that account, of an especial solicitude on the part of their owner. They will learn from His conduct, who is our hope, our example, and our God, that far from shunning such persons as unclean, or abhorring them as heirs of perdition, it is their duty, as servants of Christ, to exert their utmost influence to snatch them from the intolerable dangers by which they are at present surrounded; and that they can no better prove their love for Him by whom they are redeemed, than by forwarding His gracious purposes concerning those whom it was the main object of His coming into the world, to enable to an effectual repentance.

Nor is this a task confined to any peculiar order or profession. It is the duty of the layman as well as of the priest, of the catechumen as well as of the teacher; and all who can supply a word of private warning against sin, or of private encouragement to repentance; all who have a prayer or a tear to give for the soul of a wicked neighbour, are as much bound to do their best to snatch that neighbour from sin and its consequences, as they would be called on to pluck him out of the fire, or to prevent his walking down a precipice.

It is not, indeed, the prevailing fault of the present times, that the contact of sinners of a common degree is abhorred or shunned by those who think themselves righteous. Yet there is a smooth insincerity which carries itself alike with all; there is an indifference as to the moral condition of those with whom we live; and there is a readiness to desert and despair of those who have advanced beyond a certain point in the broad and beaten track which leads to perdition, as distinctive, perhaps, of the present day, as the superstitions I have noticed were of the later Jewish republic; and as hurtful to the souls of men, and as opposite to the obligations of Christian charity, as the intolerance

of the modern Turk, and the stiffness of the ancient pharisee.

We see our neighbour wasting his goods, impoverishing his family, destroying his health, and flinging himself, body and soul, into intolerable and everlasting misery, without a word or a look which can show we disapprove of his conduct, or a single entreaty to consider what he is doing and retrace his steps in time. We smile on his progress as he wades further in sin and ruin, and when, at length, he plunges out of his depth, and the stream hurries him away beyond those bounds of vice which the custom of the world has marked out as tolerable, then those who sport in the shallows of the torrent, and they that linger by its side, alike grow zealous in the cause of morality and of insulted Heaven, alike begin to "shake their heads and whisper much, and change their countenances,”* and call all mankind to witness their indignation against vice, and thank their God that they are not such as this man is, who went, if the truth should be told, but a few paces further in wickedness than themselves.

Many a man whom the neglect or flattery of his neighbours has consigned to incurable destruction, might, if those neighbours had, in the beginning of his wanderings, stepped in with their advice, their entreaties, their prayers, have been preserved forever in the sheepfold. And many a man, and still more, many a deceived and miserable woman, who had been given up by her former, and, perhaps, less strongly tempted associates, to infamy and to perdition, might yet have been recalled, when their situation appeared most desperate. A little unexpected notice from persons of unblemished character, a little advice conveyed with meekness and affection, a little confidence shown, and some little help or countenance given to enable them to begin their lives anew; these, or less than these, if administered with prudence and good-will, and in a manner of which the motives admitted of no doubtful interpretation, would have opened many a heart which unkindness and despair had dried up and withered, and (unless they were

Eccles. xii. 18.

entirely hardened and forsaken by God as well as by men) would, under His blessing and with His assistance, have preserved a member to society, delivered the soul of a fellow-creature from torment unspeakable, recovered a servant to his Lord and ours, and occasioned a day of joy in Heaven.

If any of those who hear me have an opportunity to try their generous zeal in such a task as I have now marked out for them, let me express an earnest hope that no unreasonable timidity, no culpable indifference will be allowed to interfere with a work so holy! Suffer not, I would say to a person thus situated, suffer not your unhappy brother to perish if your advice can save him. I do not call on you to become a public teacher, an intrusive and unauthorized censor of other men, occupied in detecting their faults, and vexing society with morose and needless admonition. But, in the moments of private intercourse, amid the confidence of private intimacy, there are times to be found, by whoever looks for them in sincerity, when the honest and affectionate counsels of a friend are worth more than many sermons. And do not, above all, when a wretched fellow-creature is given up as irreclaimable and not to be endured by that very world whose example first led him into transgression, when his heart is sick and can find no physician, and they who might help him lift up their voices against him, or pass by on the other side, do not, if you have any chance of reclaiming such a creature, do not be hasty to abandon him.

St. Paul the apostle, during his abode as a prisoner at large in Rome, is related in ecclesiastical story to have met with the runaway slave of one of his friends who had robbed his master. Instead of giving up this unfortunate man immediately to justice, instead of hardening him by reproaches, or shunning him as pestilential or dangerous, the apostle undertook, it is said, the care and conversion of the reprobate; he received him into his house, and by the counsels and comforts of the Gospel, awakened in him a sense of his errors, and a faith in the great Redeemer of mankind. He did more, he persuaded him, as a proof of his sincerity, to return to his injured master, whom he,