light within the guest-chamber.'* The phrase outer darkness, was derived from these circumstances; and as those who were thrust out, were exposed to shame and disappointment, it is said they wept and gnashed their teeth;-a proverbial expression to describe their extreme anguish. These expressions have long been applied to the imagined misery of the damned in hell, in the future world. We have endeavored to give their primitive sense. They are a part of the parable, and are to be understood as representing the extreme misery of the Jews, excluded from the kingdom of the gospel, shut out from the light of truth, enveloped in the darkness of error, and suffering the tremendous misery brought upon them at the destruction of their city and nation. This is not only their primitive, but their only application. If this was the sense Jesus affixed to them, what right have the doctors of the church to give them any other sense? The parable now under consideration was completely fulfilled within fifty years after the Saviour's death; and there is no reason that any part of it should be supposed to refer to the events of the future existence. The words of the great Teacher should be interpreted with the greatest caution; their original meaning should be sought; and when this is ascertained, it should not be put aside, or caused to share credence, with any secondary sense whatsoever. 'Whoso readeth, let him understand.'

*Adam Clarke's Commentary on Matt. viii. 12.

PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.

Matt.. xxv. 1-13. Luke xii. 35-37.

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage; and the door was shut. Afterwards came also other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not. Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.' (Matt. xxv. 1-13.)

THIS parable refers to the same time and events which occupy the preceding chapter. The remark of Kenrick is very just: The word then, with which this parable begins, shows that our Lord is still speaking upon the same subject about which he had been discoursing in the last chapter, viz. the period of the destruction of Jerusalem.'* To the same purport is the comment of Bishop Pearce. "Then shall the kingdom of heaven," i. e. at that time, and under those circumstances. This shows, that Jesus, in this chapter, is speaking on the same subject as in the foregoing one, viz. what was to happen at the destruction of the Jewish state.' And again, on ver. 13, the Bishop says, This plainly shows, that what was said before in this chapter, relates to the destruction of the Jewish state, expressed by the Son of man's coming, as in chap. xvi. 27, 28.†

*Expos. on the place.

t Commentary on Matt. xxv. 1 and 13.

On the connexion of the twenty-fifth with the twenty-fourth chapter, we remark no further here, as it must. be brought up again in the notes on the parable of the Sheep and Goats.

The parable before us is evidently drawn from the nuptial ceremonies of the Eastern nations. It was a custom with them, for the bridegroom to repair, on the night of the marriage, with great pomp, to the house of the bride, accompanied by his attendants, called 'the children of the bride-chamber,' (Matt. ix. 15,) for the purpose of receiving the nuptial benediction, and conducting the bride to his own mansion. 'Four persons walked before him, carrying a canopy, supported by four poles, that if the bride intended to walk home to the bridegroom's house, after the ceremony, she might walk under it, in company with her husband.'* On arriving at the residence of the bride, it was usual for her neighbors and friends, particularly young women, to welcome his approach, by going out to meet him, with torches or lamps in their hands. Lightfoot remarks, † that they carried before them ten wooden staves, having each of them at top a vessel like a dish, in which was a piece of cloth or wick, dipped in oil, to give light to the company. C For this act of civility, they were rewarded, if they came in time, with the honor of being admitted to the marriage feast, which was always held at night.' It will appear perfectly evident from this relation, that the parable is founded altogether on the events of an Eastern marriage. There were ten virgins § who took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five are represented as having been wise,

"Brown's Antiq. of Jews, Part xi. sec. 2.

+ Works, xi. 307.

Kenrick's Expos. Matt. xxv. 1.

§It is not to be supposed that any particular circumstance is intended by the number ten. If any other number had been selected by the Saviour, it would have answered the purpose equally well. Ten was probably chosen, because the Jews never had less than that number in their ceremonies and solemnities. Parmi les Juifs on ne devoit jamais etre moins de dix, soit aux noces, soit aux enterremens, soit dans quelque autre occasion de ceremonie et de solemnite.' Beau. et L'En.

because they were prepared for the coming of the bridegroom; the other five were foolish, because they were not prepared. The cry was made at midnight, 'Go ye out to meet the bridegroom.' The wise went out to receive him, and went in with him to the marriage; the foolish were excluded, because, not having watched for his approach, nor made ready for it, they did not arrive in season.*

*The following accounts of Eastern weddings will be interesting to the reader, and serve to illustrate the parable before us. The first (see A. Clarke's Commentary on Matt. xxv. 6,) is taken from the ZeudAvesta, vol. ii. p. 558.

On the day appointed for the marriage, about 5 o'clock in the evening, the bridegroom comes to the house of the bride, where the mobed, or priest, pronounces for the first time the nuptial benediction. He then brings her to his own house, gives her some refreshment, and afterwards the assembly of her relatives and friends, re-conduct her to her father's house. When she arrives, the mobed repeats the nuptial benediction, which is generally done about midnight; immediately after, the bride, accompanied with a part of her attending troop (the rest having returned to their own homes) is re-conducted to the house of her husband, where she generally arrives about three o'clock in the morning. Nothing can be more brilliant than these nuptial solemnities in India. Sometimes the assembly consists of not less than 2000 persons, all richly dressed in gold and silver tissue; the friends and relatives of the bride, encompassed with their domestics, are all mounted on horses richly harnessed. The goods, wardrobe, and even the bed of the bride, are carried in triumph. The husband, richly mounted and magnificently dressed, is accompanied by his friends and relatives, the friends of the bride following him in covered carriages. At intervals, during the procession, guns and rockets are fired, and the spectacle is rendered grand beyond description, by a prodigious number of lighted torches, and by the sound of a multitude of musical instruments.'

Mr. Ward has given the following description of a Hindoo wedding, which forms a striking parallel to the parable before us. At a marriage, the procession of which I saw, some years ago, the bridegroom came from a distance, and the bride lived at Serampore, to which place the bridegroom was to come by water. After waiting two or three hours, at length, near midnight, it was announced, as if in the very words of Scripture, Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. All the persons employed now lighted their lamps, and ran with them in their hands to fill up their stations in the procession; some of them had lost their lights, and were unprepared; but it was then too late to seek them, and the cavalcade moved forward to the house of the bride, at which place, the company entered a large and splendidly illuminated area, before the house, covered with an awning, where a ⚫ great company of friends, dressed in their best apparel, were seated upon mats. The bridegroom was carried in the arms of a friend, and placed on a superb seat in the midst of the company, where he sat a short

It will be hardly possible for the careful reader to mistake the true application of this parable. By consulting verse 13, he will perceive that Jesus himself made the application of it. In deducing the lesson he meant to enforce, he said, 'WATCH, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.' Compare this with verse 42 of chap. xxiv. It is evident, that the design of the Saviour was to teach his followers watchfulness, in view of his coming to destroy the Jewish state. Dr. Proudfit, an orthodox writer of high repute, and who not very often departs from the common interpretation of the Scriptures, allows that this parable has primary reference to the Jews. We give his sentiments on the subject. 'These words may be considered as referring, primarily and principally, to the people of the Jews. The slumber and sleep, which the virgins were indulging, may be designed to express the deep and deplorable infatuation of that nation : they remained unalarmed and unreclaimed amidst the most pointed and repeated admonitions of our Lord and his apos

time, and then went into the house, the door of which was immediately shut, and guarded by seapoys. I and others expostulated with the door-keepers, but in vain. Never was I so struck with our Lord's beautiful parable, as at this moment-" and the door was shut."' (Ward's View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos, vol. iii. pp. 171, 172.) Smith and Dwight give us rather a ludicrous account of a wedding procession, which they saw in Armenia; but as it tends to show the customs of the Orientals at their weddings, we give it place. Our musing was soon interupted by a scene as comic as the spot was charming. It was a procession conducting a Turkish bride from some neighboring village to her spouse in the one which we were approaching. She and her veiled companions, of every age, were stowed in six covered carts, so narrow as barely to accommodate them, as they sat, tailor-like, upon the bottom, facing alternately the right and the left. They were drawn by buffaloes, to whose yokes were attached standards, ornamented with fying handkerchiefs of every color, as if to add comeliness and gaiety to the most ungainly of beasts. By their sides walked armed men and musicians, to announce, by their guns, and the music of squeaking pipes and coarse drums, what otherwise certainly would not have been expressed, the joy of the occasion.' (Researches in Armenia, vol. i. pp. 76, 77.)

We give, also, in this place, one or two extracts from the highly interesting journal of Tyerman and Bennett. This being what the Chinese call a lucky day, (Dec. 5, 1825) we saw, along shore, in the course of our cruise from Canton to Wampoa, four marriage processions, with