Parables, I was struck with the way in which the subject was divided. First were discussed the parables taken from agriculture, of which there were said to be seven; then those taken from the work of the vinedresser, of which there were six; then those taken from the work of the shepherd; then those from the industry of the fisherman; and so

on.

It brought home to me more distinctly than I had ever observed before, how the common life of Palestine was all swept, for purposes of illustration, into the teaching of Christ-with what an observant and sympathetic eye He had looked upon the common occupations of men, and how suggestive they had been to Him of spiritual analogies.

I suppose, the four occupations to which I have referred were the most common in Palestine. There was, first, agriculture: this was the basis of existence, and in it the body of the people were employed. Then there was the occupation of the vinedresser : every sunny hillside was covered with vineyards, and at the time of the vintage the

whole land was filled with the songs of those who gathered and those who trod the grapes. Then there was the occupation of the shepherd the hills which were not suitable for the cultivation of the vine were clothed with flocks; and every village had its droves of great and small cattle, which were led out to the pastures every evening. Then there was the labour of the fisherman, which Jesus could not possibly omit, because it was so conspicuous in the part of the country in which the principal scene of His ministry lay.

It was not only, however, nor was it first by Him that these features of common life in the Holy Land were beautifully described and used as vehicles for conveying spiritual truth. In both the poetical and prophetical parts of the Old Testament we find the same. practice in full operation. How often, for example, in the Psalms and the Prophets, are the people of God compared to a vine, of which God is the husbandman; and every single step in the history of the vineyard, from the time it is cleared of stones and fenced in from the surrounding waste on to

the point where the wine is in the cup and at the owner's lips, is made use of to illustrate some aspect or other of divine truth. Still more common, if possible, is the use for the same purpose made of the shepherd's calling. As early as the age of the patriarchs, God is called the Shepherd of Israel; and in a hundred different forms subsequently this thought recurs, every phase and incident of the life of the shepherd and the life-history of the sheep being turned to account, as in the unspeakably beautiful words of Isaiah, "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young."

Here, then, we see a distinct and prevalent habit of the religious mind. The inspired teachers perceived in the common occupations of daily life innumerable hints and suggestions of heavenly truths, and they taught those who received their teaching to brood upon these analogies as they engaged in their ordinary occupations.

Now this is a precious habit; and we also -both those who teach and those who are taught ought to cultivate it. The aspect of our modern life is, indeed, very different from that ancient one. Though we still have in our population the agriculturist, the shepherd, and the fisherman, we are not an agricultural but a commercial people, and we have a vast number of other occupations. Some of these may not be so poetical or suggestive as the occupations of a simple open-air existence. But many of themsuch as the calling of the builder, the banker, the manufacturer, the engineer-are pregnant with instructive and impressive suggestions; and there is no occupation which is altogether unable to yield such nutrition to the brooding mind.

Existence is ennobled when, besides the prose of mere loss and gain, its occupations thus whisper to the heart the poetry of spiritual suggestion; and our modern world would be a far happier place if it had poets who could thus interpret the hidden meaning of common things. It is not, indeed,

destitute of these; but they are required in far greater numbers. I like to think of the poets who are still to be. There are Homers and Shakspeares, Miltons and Burnses, still to be born. The generations of the future. will read glorious books which we have never seen, and be inspired with songs, full of melody and joy, which our ears have never heard. What these strains of the future will be we can only guess; but no office of poetry is so valuable as that of dignifying common life by revealing the filaments by which it is connected with an ideal region—the life spiritual and eternal.

Meanwhile, let us be thankful for this, that every man is in some degree a poet. There is an inarticulate poetry which never goes into words or books, but warms, delights and refines the soul in which it simmers. The apprentice has it who, as he measures a yard of ribbon or sells a pound of sugar, is thinking of how trade unites the races of the world and makes all men servants one of another; the working man has it who, as he chisels a stone for its place