Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And He said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And He turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath Wherefore I say unto

anointed my feet with ointment.

thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And He said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with Him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And He said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." I beg my readers to study this carefully. It is evident that our

Lord's discourse had been listened to by multitudes. Among them, a woman that was a sinner had heard His words about the Father and the kingdom of Heaven; she was apparently heartsick of her vocation, perhaps, heart-sick of her very life. Righteousness was a thing she dared not think of. Had she been bred in a righteous home? Did wandering memories throng thickly when these things of man's higher life rose up before her sight? Perhaps the denunciation of God's vengeance on the despisers of the Saviour had shaken her soul from its guilty slumbers. The prayer of Jesus to the Father, this communion of a brother man with the Lord of all, had opened the vision of Heaven above her. Ah! might she but look up and see a Father smiling, where she dreaded to find only a flaming sword. Then the tender pathetic appeal, into which the Saviour's communion with the Father glided, completed the conquest of her nature. Hope flashed its light into her spirit. Life had now some worth to her. It was worth while even to battle with this tyrannous evil, for there was born within her a hope that it might be forgiven and conquered. When the crowd

M

broke up, she marked that Simon had bidden the Saviour to the banquet. These ostentatious entertainments admitted the poor to behold their splendour, and to gather the crumbs from the loaded board. After a while, clasping something hidden in her bosom, she glided in among the guests; kneeling in the shadow of His couch, and grasping the precious casket, on which, perhaps, she had spent all her living, and which, with love's sure instinct, she had provided against this need, she looked eagerly on the scene. We can imagine how she would drink in the music of the voice of the Saviour, and feel that the breath of His presence stirred the torpid faculties of her spirit, and quickened the numbed affections of her heart. Silently she watched what men would do to this matchless teacher, how they would distinguish with their honours Him whose tones had poured new life into the poor sinner's bruised and bleeding heart. Scorn and indignation struggled in a bosom already bursting with emotion, when she saw that they wilfully dishonoured Him. Rising at length with the dignity of reverence and the beauty of love, her pent-up passion burst forth in a flood of uncontrollable

weeping. Then she broke the box which she had borne in her bosom, and shed on Him its odour like incense. Bathing His feet with her tears, and wiping them with her silken hair, she shewed, to the confusion of the mocking guests, and the eternal shame of their host, how the outcasts of earth can greet the Lord, who left His throne and the bliss of the Father's bosom to save them, to wipe the tears of broken-hearted mourners, lighten the darkness of hope-abandoned prodigals, and break the yoke, though He himself should die in the effort, by which Satan's captives were being led down into the deepest depths of hell.

In treating this subject more fully I shall try to analyse

I. The secret springs of the poor sinner's conduct.

II. The nature of the action, which was viewed so diversely by the Pharisees and the Lord.

I. The springs of the woman's conduct.

The woman was "a sinner." Into the precise form or extent of her transgression there is no need to pry. The word was very significant; a "lost woman" would be its equivalent now. The sin was

one which filled her whole consciousness. There was no chance of her forgetting it, poor outcast! known, shunned, hated, by man, and as the priests and doctors of her day told her, by the angels, and by God.

The springs of her action, perhaps, lie here.

I.

In her desperate self-abandonment the Lord had lit one ray of hope within her spirit.

“Come

unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." What sin-crushed spirit would not leap to hear such words from such Divine lips? Despair is the devil's own instrument. The first step in the reformation of the most abandoned profligates is to get them to care for themselves— to think themselves worth the care. How many men are there who, heart-sick of sin, loathing it in their better moments with an intensity which no Pharisee can measure, yet practice it recklessly day by day. Why? Because they see nothing beyond; and find nothing in themselves worth saving for a higher destiny. Black clouds close their future e; or if they lift they grow lurid. "What, then, is the use of struggling ?" they cry; "Fate is against us, to sin is our destiny, and the punishment of sin.