confidence?

much as to say, "Do you desire a post of trust and If so, it is to you I speak; take heed that you earn the reward of faithful service." "But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers."

Now here is a warning which we shall all do well to take to ourselves. Our position, if we understand it aright, is that of servants of God. We have all something in charge-some responsibility-something to deliver up when the Lord comes. Now do we presuming upon that time being yet afar off-do we allow ourselves to behave in a way in which we should not dare to behave, if we were certain we should immediately be called to account? Two kinds of ill-conduct are particularized-overbearing treatment of our fellow-servants and careless self-indulgence. Oh, how much is there of both! How much unkindness, tyranny, and insolence towards those with whom we are associated! Servants domineering over their fellow-servants, workmen over their fellow-workmen, shopmates over their shopmates, schoolboys over schoolfellows, neighbours over neighbours-everywhere the strong taking advantage of the weak! Do you think the Lord does not notice such things? See how he has come down in this parable to speak of the homely

fact of a tyrannical steward beating his master's men and maids. Do you think He will not call us to account? Be assured He will be as good as His word; and He has represented the master coming upon the culprit unawares and putting him to a fearful death.

Then there comes the even yet more common state of self-indulgence, and utter neglect of our proper work. The two are often combined, for the same fault is at the root of both; thinking of the Lord's coming as something very distant and uncertain. This it is which emboldens people to throw aside restraint, and act just as it suits them. Selfindulgence and brutality very commonly go together; we see it among boys, and we see it with common working men. But where the class, the age, or the sex sets us above these coarser misdoings, the principle still breaks out. The feeling, "My lord delayeth his coming, I may do as I please," leads those in higher stations to extravagant expenses, luxury and ostentation, and, as a concomitant, to hardness, meanness, and oppression of those who have to do with them, and who are in their power.

The Lord adds one other feature to the picture. "And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes." Everything that is wrong, that is blameable, shall be punished; but the severity of the punishment shall be in proportion to the clearness with which the

offender has known and perceived it to be wrong. A solemn thought this, when we allow ourselves to go on in a course which we cannot but acknowledge to ourselves we know to be contrary to God's will! "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." This is a generally admitted maxim of justice even among men; and shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

SECTION XIX.

THE WORLD AND THE GOSPEL.

LUKE xii. 49-53.

"I AM come to send fire on the earth; and what

will I, if it be already kindled ?"

The Lord here passes to another subject. Many perhaps had brought themselves to think of Christ's mission too exclusively as something uniformly peaceful and gentle, stealing imperceptibly into the hearts and lives of men. Not so; He tells them that He has come to light a fire on earth-a fire of irrepressible zeal, of strong impulse and excitement, which would force itself into notice, and spread to everything that came in its way. This indeed had been foretold of Christ by the Baptist.* "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire;" and He here even speaks as longing for the time to He wished that it were already kindled.

rive.

* Matt. iii. 11.

But there is something else to come first. I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" Very solemn and affecting are these words, giving us a momentary glimpse into the blessed Saviour's soul, showing us that He, like ourselves, when on the eve of some great and solemn crisis in our lives, felt something of the misery of suspense, the longing that the worst should come at once and be over. But in His case there was not an atom of selfishness or impatience. He was willing to wait till all should be accomplished which had been appointed of His Father.*

Reverting then to their notions of the future of the Gospel, He says, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-inlaw, and the daughter-in-law against her motherin-law." There are only two states of the human mind with regard to religion, and indeed with regard to any truth of deep importance, in which absolute peace is possible to human society. One is that blessed one to which all our prayers and efforts are tending, when all shall be perfectly joined in one mind and one judgment, having the heart undi

* See John xix. 28.

videdly set on one object, and seeking that with complete forgetfulness of self. The other state is when all alike are sunk in the complete stagnation of indifference. Every intermediate state, from the time when the fire of God is first cast into the inert mass, till it has assimilated all to itself, is a struggling, discordant state, emitting more or less the smoke of dissension and the fiery sparks of angry resistance. But the ultimate result is worth the conflict of the strife, for, in spite of all resistance, the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.

SECTION XX.

SIGNAL JUDGMENTS-THE BARREN FIG TREE.

LUKE Xiii. I-9.

66

HERE were present at that season some that told Him of the Galilæans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices."

What the precise nature of this occurrence was, we have no means of knowing, but it evidently was one which struck the public mind with a kind of horror, just as it would strike us if soldiers were to

*Those who read the public papers, or listen to the current opinions of men, will sometimes meet with assertions to the effect that scarcely any cause, no not the complete crushing out of the civil and religious life of a nation, is worth the suffering which war entails in seeking emancipation. But surely these sentiments are not in harmony with this passage and other similar ones. The Lord did not hesitate to declare that He came to send a sword, since that sword was to achieve the destruction of evil.