and the performance of those miracles was a sign that the kingdom of GOD was come upon them-i.e., a sign that the devil's power over men was coming to an end, and that the reign of GOD was beginning. The devil was like a strong man; he had kept his hold on men's hearts and lives for many years, but now a stronger than he [i.e., Our Lord Jesus Christ] had come, and would dispossess him, and drive him out from the position which he wrongfully held. So that, instead of Our Lord being in partnership with the devil-as the Pharisees blasphemously asserted-He was utterly opposed to him, and the purpose of His coming into the world was that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John iii. 8).

Then Our Lord told them that in this conflict which was being waged between Himself and the devil, every man must take one side or the other; the man who did not declare himself on Christ's side was against Christ, and fighting for the devil; he who did not gather with Our Lord-i.e., did not help in His work was scatttering abroad-i.e., was hindering and opposing His work.

The Sin against the Holy Ghost. The importance of our Words. Read St. Matthew xii. 31-37.

Commentary and Explanation.-The Pharisees had ascribed the miracles of Our Lord to the agency of the evil spirit. Since they could not deny His power, they denied His goodness, and represented Him as in league with the prince of the devils. It was to this horrible sin that Our Lord referred, when He spoke of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Of this sin Our Lord says it shall not be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come. The Pharisees were on the verge of committing this sin (if they did not actually commit it) when they rejected the testimony of their reason and conscience, and, to escape the necessity of acknowledging Our Lord, represented His worksdone by the Holy Spirit-as the works of the devil. Sometimes advice is given to us, which we know to be good and right; but, to escape following the advice, we say that the person who advises us does it out of spite, or ill-nature, or dislike of us. Is not this acting very much in the same way as the Pharisees acted, and ought we not to fear lest we should fall into a sin so awful in itself, and so dangerous in its consequences?

Then, in verse 33, Our Lord showed them how inconsistent they were in the explanation which they gave of His miracle. If the miracle was good-if it was a benefit and a blessing to a man to be thus delivered from the power of the devil, then it must be the work of One who was Himself good; this was just

as certain as that good fruit could only be produced by a good tree. If they wished to show that He, the worker of the miracle, was evil, and in league with the powers of evil, then they would be compelled to prove that the result of His work was evil, which it plainly was not.

And Our Lord further pointed out why it was that they represented His works as done by the power of the evil one; it was because they themselves were evil. Evil men must needs speak evil words, and so our words are an index to character; some men are justified [i.e., are shown to be good] by their words, and others, in like manner, are condemned [i.e., shown to be evil]. Every idle word we speak-i.e., every light, careless, thoughtless word-shall come up in judgment against us at the last day; how much more then such wantonly wicked and malicious words as these Pharisees had spoken, such profane and evil words as men too often utter now!

The Return of the Evil Spirit.

Read St. Matt. xii. 43-45.

Commentary and Explanation.-The conversation before this had been about devils going out; Our Lord now speaks of the possibility of devils coming back. His concluding words-Even so shall it be unto this wicked generation-show that He meant His lesson in the first place for the Jewish people. An evil spirit had gone out from them, the sin of idolatry, of which they seem to have been effectually cured during their captivity in Babylon, but the house had been left empty, swept, and garnished; the idols had been cast out, but God had not taken the place of those idols, and so other evil spirits came in the room of that which had been cast out; pride, and bigotry, and obstinacy, and hypocrisy, and untruthfulness-these were the prevailing sins of the Jewish nation which prevented them from accepting Our Lord as the Messiah, their Saviour.

This was evidently the first meaning of Our Lord's words; but they have their lesson for us. They teach us that it is not enough for us merely to get rid of bad habits. We must endea

vour also to acquire good habits in their stead. It is not enough, e.g., for men to conquer, or expel the evil spirit of intemperance, which they may perhaps do by joining a temperance society and taking a pledge, unless they also seek the aid of GOD's Holy Spirit to make them pure in heart, and to lead them in the paths of virtue and Godliness.

Questions. What was the Pharisees' explanation of Our Lord's miracles of casting out devils? [St. Matt. xii. 24.] Who was Beelzebub? [A heathen god, mentioned in 2 Kings i. 2, whom the Jews regarded as representing the chief of the devils.]

By what name did Our Lord speak of the chief of the devils? [Satan.] What is the meaning of this name? [The Adversary; the evil spirit is so called because he is man's adversary or foe.] How did Our Lord show the absurdity of the Pharisees' explanation of His miracles? [St. Matt. xii. 25, 26.] What was the meaning of this? [Our Lord said that, according to the Pharisees' explanation, Satan must be doing evil, as it were, with one hand, and undoing it with the other.] How did Our Lord further reply to their charge? [v. 27.] Who were meant by the Pharisees' children? [Their followers or disciples.] How did Our Lord say that He cast out devils? [By the Spirit of GOD.] Of what was His casting out devils a sign and a proof? [That the kingdom of GOD was come upon them.] Under what figure did Our Lord speak of His hostility to the devil? [v. 30.] Explain the meaning of Our Lord's words He that is not with Me is against Me? What lesson do they teach us? [That if we are not doing good, we are doing harm; if we are not Christ's soldiers and servants, we are in the opposite camp, fighting against Christ and on the side of the devil.]

Of what did Our Lord speak after this? [Of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.] What did He say of this sin? [That it was unpardonable.] What was this sin? [It appears to have been of a like nature to that of the Pharisees, who attributed the works done by Our Lord through the agency of the Holy Spirit, to the agency of the evil spirit.] What did Our Lord say was the reason why the Pharisees spoke evil of Him? [Because of the evil of their own hearts; vv. 34 and 35.] How did Our Lord state the importance to be attached to our words? [vv. 36 and 37.]

How did Our Lord illustrate the condition of the wicked generation in which He lived? [By speaking of the return of the unclean spirit that had gone out of a man.] What was the unclean spirit that had gone out of the Jewish people? [Idolatry, which had been their besetting sin in the early years of their history.] What was meant by the house being left empty, swept, and garnished? [The people were respectable in their outward acts, they were garnished-or adorned with outward religious observances, but they had not the Spirit of GOD in their hearts.] What were the other evil spirits that entered in? What does Our Lord say of the Jewish people? [Their last state is worse than the first.] How may we apply this teaching to our own case?

HYMN.

Hymns Ancient and Modern, No. 383.
'We plough the fields and scatter.'

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSONS.

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER

TRINITY.

OUR LORD'S TEACHING BY PARABLES.

'I will open my mouth in parables.'

We begin to-day the study of some of Our Lord's parables, and before we do this it will be well that we should try to understand what a parable is.

Meaning of the word Parable.

The word Parable is derived from two Greek words which signify to put side by side for the purpose of comparison. [We may notice the similar word parallel which is used, of two lines running along side by side.] In the parables we have the things of earth and the things of heaven put side by side, as it were, so that the things of earth, with which we are well acquainted, may help us to understand the things of heaven of which we know less. Thus a parable may be well defined as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Our Lord takes some common incident of daily life, such as sowing seed, or making bread, or fishing, and shows that in these common incidents we may find lessons about GOD, and GOD's relations to man. The use which Our Lord thus makes of common things and common occurrences should teach us that truth which is expressed in one of our hymns:

There is a book, who runs may read,

Which heavenly truth imparts,
And all the lore its scholars need,
Pure eyes and Christian hearts.

The works of GOD, above, below.
Within us and around,

Are pages in that book to show

How God Himself is found.

The first of these parables spoken by Our Lord, and recorded by the Holy Evangelists is

The Parable of the Sower.

Read St. Matthew xiii. 1-9; compare St. Mark iv. 1-9, and St. Luke viii. 4-8.

Commentary and Explanation. It will be best for us, first, to look at the earthly story in this parable, and then to take,

one by one, the several parts of its heavenly meaning, as they are explained by Our Lord Himself further on in the chapter.

The Earthly Story.

Our Lord had gone out of the house, probably at Capernaum, where He had delivered the discourse narrated in the previous chapter, and was sitting by the side of the Sea of Galilee [or Gennesareth] the most sacred sheet of water which this earth contains.' Here crowds of people thronged round Him, and, to avoid the crush, He entered into a boat, and made this His pulpit, as it were, from which to address the multitudes gathered on the shore. In the first of His parables, He probably took the earthly story from incidents which the people might see before their eyes at the time when He was speaking. There was a cornfield coming down to the edge of the lake: through the midst of this field was a pathway [what is called in verse 4 the way-side], trodden hard by the feet of men and beasts passing over it. Some parts of the field were stony places i.e., patches where the rocks were covered with only a thin layer of soil. In some parts, again, the thorns had not been cleared away from the land. The remaining portion was good rich soil. Even while Our Lord was speaking, He may have seen a sower scattering his seed over this field. Some fell on the hard pathway, and was quickly eaten up by the flocks of birds that followed the sower. Some fell on the stony places, and Our Lord could tell them what would become of that, and their own experience would confirm His words; it would spring up very quickly, but the shoots would be withered by the heat of the sun, because there was no depth of earth to supply them with food and moisture. Some again fell among the thorn roots, and Our Lord foresaw that, as these seeds sprang up, the shoots would be choked by the stronger thorn shoots which would spring up at the same time. Lastly, some seed fell on the good rich soil, and this alone would bring a rich return in harvest time.

The Heavenly Meaning.

Read St. Matt. xiii. 18-23; compare St. Mark iv. 13-20 and St. Luke viii. 11–15.

Commentary and Explanation. From the commonplace incident narrated above, Our Lord bade His hearers learn a lesson about Himself, and His teaching, and the effect which that teaching would have upon the different persons to whom it would be addressed.

The Sower represented Our Lord Himself.

The Seed was the Word of God, the Divine teaching which Our Lord delivered to men. The different sorts of ground represented men of different characters and dispositions, and the