their affected reverence for the sacredness of the Sabbath was speedily disregarded. Hypocrites that they were, they would put forward high religious pretences to keep others from the receipt of any benefit; but their affected zeal was soon cooled when its operation was found to be disadvantageous to their own interests. Are there not too many like these Pharisees of old? Sometimes, of course, such persons are arrant hypocrites, but oftener they are self-deceivers, who, from selfishness and lack of imagination, are unable to place themselves as it were in the position of others, and to see themselves as others see them, or to see those others as they really are. The shrewd American, Wendel Holmes, has observed, that when two persons, A and B, are talking together, there are really six persons present, namely, A and B as they actually are; then A as B imagines him, and B as A imagines him; and lastly, A as he imagines himself, and B as he imagines himself. Truly, as Goethe says, Lust" and "Pride" deceive us as to our own natures and our own true interests, and lead us to over-estimate our own merits and our own sufferings and to underestimate the merits or the sufferings of others.

""Tis all men's office to speak patience to those that weary under the load of sorrow. But no man's virtue nor sufficiency to be so when the like himself."

he shall endure

No. XIX.

18th Sunday after Trinity. The Intelligent Lawyer. "WHEN THE PHARISEES HAD HEARD THAT HE HAD PUT THE SADDUCEES TO SILENCE, THEY WERE GATHERED TOGETHER. THEN ONE OF THEM, WHICH WAS A LAWYER, ASKED HIM A QUESTION, TEMPTING HIM, AND SAYING MASTER, WHICH IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENT IN THE LAW?"—Matt. xxii. 34-36.

INTRODUCTORY

THE incident described in the above notice took place on what is known as the great day of questions, namely, the Tuesday in the week, Passion week, of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians came to test and to inveigle; if they could, by their dangerous, crafty questions, the infinite Wisdom and the infinite Truth. All their sophistries, however, were turned back upon themselves, and then a lawyer,-tempting Him, as St. Matthew says, or one of the scribes, as St. Mark more fully declares,-" came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto Him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; for there is one God; and there is none other but He; and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding,

and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask Him any question."

The inquiry as to which was the great commandment in the law, was to the Jewish rabbi what the quest after" the summum bonum" was to the ancient classical philosophers, and what the investigation as to the origin of evil was to the medieval schoolmen. Unlike the two latter subjects of investigation, however, the question, Which was the great commandment in the law? was not to be left to all time unsolved. It was fully answered in the declaration of our Lord that is to be found in the Scriptural passage already quoted.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED.

I. THAT THOSE WHO COME TO SCOFF, OFTENTIMES REMAIN TO PRAY.

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This lawyer came tempting Him," as St. Matthew informs us, but he remained to express his grave approval of the words of Christ in the utterance of the expression, "Master, Thou hast answered well," and to receive the approbation of the Divine Teacher, declared in the sentence, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven.”

So, oftentimes, men go with a sneering spirit, or an angry temper, or a gloomy disposition, into the privacy of their chamber, or out into the world of nature, or even to listen to the feeble ministry of some earthly teacher. And their spirit, by the meditation in prayer

or thought on the Divine mysteries of grace, or by the contemplation of the physical glories of the universe, or by the consideration of the "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," of some human preacher, becomes purified, soothed, and gladdened to an extent that renders them "not far from the kingdom of heaven."

The voice of God, speaking by the conscience in answer to the earnest ejaculations of the soul, the harmonies to be noted amidst all the myriad sounds that fill with sweet and solemn echoes the world of nature, the effects of the fervid preacher or teacher, that awaken in the spirit loftier aspirations and holier desires; all these form, in a greater or less degree, an ever-waking Divine presence amongst men, dimly suggestive of a greater glory yet to be revealed, transformative in its action as was the presence of Christ Himself, that could change sin and suffering and sorrow into purity and painlessness and peace, and could alter the lawyer referred to in the passage of Scripture before us, from a subtle tempter into a personage "not far from the kingdom of heaven."

II. THAT MANY WASTE THEIR TIME IN SUBTLE THEOLOGICAL DISQUISITIONS, INSTEAD OF DEVOTING THEMSELVES TO THE PRACTICAL MORALITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE.

If all the controversial treatises and sectarian disquisitions were to be burned to-morrow, it might be better for real Christianity. Can any man be sanctified by the mere utterance of some party shibboleth, or redeemed by the logical accuracy of his doctrinal views? By those professed ministers of the Gospel of peace who spend their time in sectarian squabbles and in anathematizing and persecuting those whose religious

opinions differ from their own, a heavy account will have to be rendered. It is a remarkable fact, that all the lawyers mentioned in the New Testament,—all those, that is, who spent their time in minute disquisitions on and elaborate paraphrases of the Law,-are described as crafty, disingenuous men. The lawyer now brought to our notice came, we read, "tempting" our Lord; and many a lawyer and many a divine since that time has sorely tried the patience and long-suffering of God by misspending the time and the talents that God has given in useless verbal dissertations and in angry controversies, instead of devoting them to the greater glory of God and to the more extensive sustentation of man. As it is easier to criticize than to create, so it is easier to indulge in the sneer of incredulity or the passion of controversy about the revelation of God to man, than to carry out in sincerity and humility the Divine commands into every day. How many, we wonder, of the Jews of old who disputed subtly as to "which was the great commandment in the law” made any real effort to fulfil, in their ordinary conduct, the requirements of the Decalogue? It is an easier and a cleverer pastime to dispute about ONE commandment, than to practise TEN commandments; and so it happens, that in every age of the world there are to be found many CRITICS and many CONTROVERSIALISTS, but only few CHRISTIANS.

III. THAT MANY ARE NOT FAR FROM THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, WHO DO NOT EVER REACH HEAVEN.

We do not desire to enter upon any inquiries as to the locality or the character of that region of future bliss known as heaven; nor as to the duration or the inevitableness of that region of future pain known as hell; nor as to the existence of that region of purifica