This parable seems to have a reference to the case of the Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles, after having been long far from God, returned at length to him through the Gospel, and God willingly received back his outcast children. The Jews, like the elder brother in the parable, were indignant at the thought of the Gentiles being admitted to the same rights and blessings as themselves, and refused to come into that Church, which was opened to the Gentiles also.

But this beautiful parable is for all times and ages of the world. It sets forth the sad course of sin, the first origin, happy progress, and blessed end of repentance in the soul of the converted sinner. It shows how discontent with that quiet peace which the service of God ensures, and a desire to be independent of the wholesome trammels which that service entails, will lead the man far away from his heavenly Father's home in search of pleasures and excitement, which may satisfy his perverse and evil cravings. Soon he grows reckless in his conduct, and squanders the talents entrusted to him in selfish indulgence or in riotous profligacy. Such conduct brings its own reward; and happy is he who, like the prodigal, after much painful suffering and well earned misery, at length comes to himself. Happy he who is at length convinced of the folly and wretchedness of his behaviour; who, by the grace of God working on his heart thus opened, feels his own base ingratitude in having forsaken his kind and merciful Father; who looks back at his past life with shame and dread, and earnestly

desires to amend his ways. Conviction such as this, duly improved, 'works a godly sorrow unto repentance not to be repented of;' not a mere temporary regret, but a real, deep, lasting grief—a grief not for the consequences and the penalty of sin, but for the sin itself, because he has disobeyed his long-suffering Father, because he has returned his Redeemer's love with ingratitude, because he has quenched the influence of the Holy Spirit. A sorrow such as this urges the penitent to the resolution that he will arise and go to his Father,' in full assurance that those who come to him that Father will by no means cast out. And the true penitent will go, not with sullen pride or forced humility, but in a deep consciousness of his own guilt, and with the hearty, overflowing confession, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.' He will go to pour out his soul at the footstool of God's mercy seat, concealing nothing, extenuating nothing, laying open his whole heart, and trusting surely in the promise, 'If we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' He will go to his offended Father, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life, with sincere and well-considered resolutions of amendment, and with a fixed determination never again to wander from that Father's home-that home in which alone there is peace, in which alone a refuge can be found, when the soul is wearied by the hollow joys and empty pretensions of the world.

And how does that Father receive the returning prodigal? While he is yet a great way off, the Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.' What words can more adequately describe the readiness and the welcome with which God will receive a penitent, whenever He, who knoweth the heart, is satisfied that the sinner feels deeply the burden of his baptismal vows broken, of privileges despised, of mercies set at nought— whenever He, before whom all things are open, sees that the offender loathes his former sin, and has made steadfast and deep resolutions of amendment? It must not, however, be forgotten that repentance, however sincere or lasting, can never of itself merit pardon of sin from God. It is for the sake, and through the merits of Christ, and for these alone, because 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,' because 'the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,' that the Father accepts a returning penitent. Repentance is indeed the condition of pardon; the death of Christ, and the reconciliation effected between God and man through that death, is the one sole yet sufficient ground by which pardon can be secured. All who return to him with a sincere repentance for their past sins, and with a hearty trust in the merits of the Saviour's sacrifice of himself, God has promised to accept with the open arms of his mercy—a mercy far more wide and comprehensive than the heart of man can conceive; a mercy which never grudges the restoration of spiritual privileges and blessings, even to those who

have forfeited, by the most wilful resistance, any shadow of a claim to the divine favour. This stretch

of mercy, undeserved and boundless, the heart of men fails to comprehend-they expect justice to be more rigidly exercised; they, like the elder brother in the parable, at times take offence because mercy seems to prevail over judgment. But God's ways are not as man's ways. He knows that all his creatures, all without exception, require mercy at his hands, and that in strictness none would be able to stand before him. His pardon, therefore, he graciously measures, not according to men's several merits-for these, in all cases, are nothing,-but according to the riches of his love to men in his one well-beloved Son, and according to the reality of a sinner's repentance. In proportion as they trust in that love, and in the merits of that Saviour, and turn every one from his evil ways, so does he pour out the abundance of his mercy on them.

107

THE UNJUST STEWARD.

LUKE XVI. I-8.

And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

HIS parable was delivered to our Lord's disciples.

THI

The particular occasion upon which it was spoken is not stated, nor does it seem to have any direct connexion with the preceding narrative.

1. Steward. The original implies a general manager of his master's property, and a superintendent of his household.

2. Give an account of thy stewardship. That is, render the statement and reckoning of the property which its master has a right to ask, and its steward is bound to give.

Thou mayest be no longer steward. According to the