44 places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house, from whence I came out. And when he 45 is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. 46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and 47 his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand 48 without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are 49 my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his dis50 ciples, and said, Behold, my mother, and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. itself, shall enter in and dwell and dwell there. So shall it be with this evil generation, as compared with the generations which have gone before. 47. thy brethren] The word brother is still used in the East, as it was in the days of Abraham (Gen. xiv. 16, compared with xi. 31), to denote a near relative, as, e. g. a nephew or cousin, and even to denote a friend. It has been supposed that the word is so used here; but its connection with the word mother would imply that it is used in its stricter sense. See xiii. 55. CHAPTER XIII. PARABLES. THE fountain of life within flows forth into outward acts, and those outward acts are an emblem of the mind from which they come. So in nature, whatever we see proceeds from a fountain of life within, and is an emblem and token of the divine source from which it proceeds. Everything in nature, therefore, is an expression of the Divine Mind, and has its message or its influence from Him for us. The lightest forms of nature associate themselves with our deepest feelings or our highest thoughts, and the more entirely we are born into the realm of spiritual things, that is, the more alive our spiritual perceptions are, the more shall we be able to see the tokens and to feel the influences of the Divine Mind in our intercourse with nature. To him who looks through the visible forms to the great spiritual realities which they would express, every object around us, every change in nature, as an expression of the Divine Mind, is the outshadowing or the foreshadowing of something higher than itself. This great fact finds its way more or less into our common speech. The morning or evening of the day leads us spontaneously to think of the morning and evening of life. When we see the sun go down, and as it departs light up the western heavens with a richness and glory which the day has never known, we can hardly help thinking of the good man's life, which when withdrawn from our sight throws around the whole place where he dwelt, in gracious and touching remembrances, affections, virtues, and prayers more beautiful and holy So the flower, than when he was bodily present with us. the fruit, the leaf is each suggestive to us of thoughts and emotions which lie in a higher plane of life. Thus it was that Jesus saw all outward objects and events in their higher relations, and made use of them to express the higher facts which they bodied forth to his mind. No one can understand his language who receives it merely in its literal acceptation; "for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2 Cor. iii. 6). We have only to open the Gospels to see how in his use of speech material things are made to lift us up into the realm of spiritual being. When he says, "Ye are the salt of the earth," he speaks in no literal sense. When he speaks of light and darkness, it is the light and darkness of the soul. When he speaks of hell fire, he speaks of it, not in its material, but its spiritual sense, as an emblem of the anguish into which the souls of the wicked shall be cast, unless they repent and are converted. So when he says, "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life," it is in the higher and spiritual sense that these expressions are used. The devout heart catches this inner meaning of the Saviour's words, and finds them, as he has said, becoming to him "spirit and life." He that would read the Gospels in any other way loses all that is most holy and divine. It is as if we should confine our eye to the glass of the telescope, instead of looking through it to the worlds of light which it reveals beyond. These remarks are especially applicable to the chapter before us, which has been called the chapter of parables. The parables, like all figurative language and most of our reasoning from analogy, derive their power from the fact that material things, not only have certain established relations among themselves, but also certain relations to spiritual things, which they may help to illustrate, explain, and enforce. The connection is not one arbitrarily assumed by man, but has its foundation in the constitu tion of the universe and of the human mind. The analogies which reach from one department of thought to another, from things material to things intellectual or spiritual, have impressed themselves on all languages, and perhaps most decidedly on those which have been used to express the highest spiritual ideas. The simplest mind catches these resemblances, and delights in the higher meanings which are bodied forth in the most common forms of speech. The image borrowed from some familiar object of sense, and standing as the representative of some higher truth, fixes itself in the mind, and acts upon it through the imagination with a power which more literal terms could not have. The greatest poets, the profoundest reasoners, and the common language of mankind alike abound in examples of this kind. Shakespeare, for instance, may be taken to show how, in the highest poetry, images drawn from material things or common life shadow forth to the heart a deeper, higher, or more affecting meaning. "The immortal part needs a physician."- Henry IV. "Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field."— Romeo and Juliet. No literal terms of description could convey to the mind the ideas here suggested with such exquisite beauty and tenderness. The Scriptures abound in expressions of this sort, which introduce into the mind some image easily comprehended, that fills the whole soul with sentiments and emotions suggested by it. Take expressions like these: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer. viii. 20.) "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." (Rom. xiii. 12.) "Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." (Luke xxiv. 29.) "I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine: and I lay down my life for the sheep.” (John x. 14, 15.) "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me . . . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. xi. 29, 30.) We see at once how the simple facts, which are presented in the words, spontaneously awaken other ideas; and the images, so familiar to us in nature, carry us on to thoughts which lie wholly beyond them. And not merely are other thoughts suggested, but sentiments and emotions, which we can hardly define, are awakened by the words, and lift us up into a higher sphere. "It is not merely," says Trench in the introduction to his Notes on the Parables, "that these analogies assist to make the truth intelligible, or, if intelligible before, present it more vividly to the mind, which is all that some will allow them. Their power lies deeper than this, in the harmony unconsciously felt by all men, and by deeper minds continually recognized and plainly perceived, between the natural and spiritual worlds, so that analogies from the first are felt to be something more than illustrations, happily but yet arbitrarily chosen. They are arguments, and may be alleged as witnesses; the world of nature being throughout a witness for the world of spirit, proceeding from the same head, growing out of the same root, and being constituted for that very end. All lovers of truth readily acknowledge these mysterious harmonies, and the force of arguments derived from them." All just reasoning from analogy depends on the recognition of a unity of purpose running through all the works of God, and making them all, as parts of one great plan, point upward to the same results. The outward system of things stands forth to the mind as the representative of higher powers than address themselves to the senses. "The heavens declare the glory of God." (Ps. xix.) "The invisible things of Him, even his eternal power and godhead, are clearly seen from the creation of the world being understood by the things that are made." (Rom. i. 20.) says Tertullian, "are witnesses of a resurrection; all things "All things here," |