:

loaves for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?' And he from within shall answer and say, 6 Trouble me not the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.' I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth."

This is one of those beautiful home illustrations which show how our Lord entered into the life of the poor. The sudden demand upon the small household store, the running to a neighbour to borrow, the dialogue through the window, the getting up at last, and handing out the provisions wanted, are incidents that might occur any night, in any village street in our land, even at this day.

But what is the lesson this illustration is meant to teach? It seems at first sight strange that importunity-teasing, to use a plain word, should be a recommendation in our prayers; that we should be told to imitate the priests of Baal,* who called on the name of their god from morning to evening, saying, "O Baal, hear us." Is not this contrary to the express words of our Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount :-" Use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye, therefore, like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him"? But the perseverance

here enjoined is not Balaam's attempt to extract something from God contrary to His will.* It is the perseverance which springs from "the confidence we have in Him that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us." As the friend in the parable, however, delayed to rise till convinced, by his neighbour's urgency, that he could not do without him, so does God sometimes delay till He draws from us the acknowledgment that in Him alone is our Refuge. "I say unto you"-our Lord adds, as the inference from His previous remarks "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."+

But do we find, in fact, that everything we ask for in prayer we obtain ? We know this is not so ;

and St. James tells us

that it is because we ask

amiss. We ask not "after the manner" of the Lord's Prayer, not with the full proviso that, above all things, God's will should be done, and His kingdom go on. What we are asking is something, which though we know it not, God sees would be hurtful to ourselves or others, mischievous to that great cause which ought to be nearest to our hearts; and therefore God will not give it us, for "if a son

* See Numbers xxii. 19.

This "declares to us," says Dean Alford, "not merely a result observable here among men (in which sense it is not universally true), but a great law of our Father's spiritual kingdom, a clause out of the eternal covenant which cannot be changed."

Chap. iv. 3.

shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion ?" In other words, if he asks for that which is beneficial and necessary, will he give him that which is worthless or poisonous? No; and if the child asks for what he thinks is good, but which the father knows is evil, he will deny it him. The berries of the deadly nightshade are very like a bunch of currants, and children will often ask to have them gathered for them, but no parent or nurse would think of giving the child, what it asks for as a pleasant fruit, but which is really a poisonous berry. "If ye then," is the conclusion, "being evil,” and liable to mistakes, yet "know how to give good gifts," and none else, "unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit"-and with Him all good gifts" to them that ask Him."*

SECTION XVI.

AGAINST COVETOUSNESS-PARABLE OF THE RICH

HOUSEHOLDER.

LUKE xii. 13-21.

ND one of the company said unto Him, 'Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." "

Both St. Matthew and St. John tell us that

* Matth. vii. 14.

numbers of people resorted to our Lord during His residence beyond Jordan. Wherever He was they were not long in finding Him out, and though He might well have desired to avoid everything which Ishould draw the attention of His enemies to His retreat, yet we read that He "healed them there." His works of mercy soon betrayed Him, and now we find Him again leading a kind of public life, for St. Luke says at the beginning of this chapter, that "there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another." After various cautions and instructions, most of which we have met with before in the other Gospels, our Lord was suddenly appealed to by one of His hearers to use His influence to get him righted in a question of family property. "Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.' And He said unto him, 'Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you?'" A wonderful reply! Though He was indeed Judge and Divider of all things, yet would He not interfere with the functions of those whose business it was to hear and decide such causes on earth. Neither would He, at the request of one party only, meddle with the matter even as an adviser. And herein it is probable He meant to leave a caution to His servants and ministers generally, not to be forward in using the influence which is theirs for moral and spiritual purposes, to bring about ends which are out of their jurisdiction.

Putting aside the direct merits of the question between the brothers, our Lord strikes at the root

of the wrong, on which side soever it might lie. One of the brothers must be acting in a grasping spirit. Either the possessor of the inheritance was selfishly excluding the claimant from what he ought to have shared with him, or the other brother was trying to obtain what he had no right to. One of them was certainly guilty of covetousness, and so our Lord lays His finger on that sin. "And He said unto them, 'Take heed and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."

This great principle is a truth of every day's observation and experience. We go for a summer day's excursion into some beautiful park, and as we wander about under the shade of the trees, and catch every now and then some lovely effect of sunlight, some vista which seems to open into paradise, we think to ourselves, "How delightful it must be to live here-how the owner must enjoy it!" Well, the owner perhaps is an invalid, hardly able to move out of the house, and has scarcely more enjoyment of his domain than a prisoner would have. His life, that is, the comfort of his life, his well-being, does not consist in the extent of his possessions. And we know by experience that we are not happy in proportion to the amount of our wealth, or to the luxuries we may succeed in getting round us. We may feel a little pleasure and excitement at every fresh acquisition, but these things lose their charm with their novelty, and though we might not like to be deprived of them, we are in reality little happier than we were before we had them. They