be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (v. 13-16). When "his disciples came unto him he taught them." The listeners to whom were specially spoken the words of this discourse (v.-vii.) were those whom he had chosen as his personal friends and scholars. "In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John i. 4). This is illustrated here by the figures "salt of the earth," and "light of the world." The "life" was, as received from him, to be like the penetrating and conservative power of common salt (chloride of sodium), as economically used for preserving animal matter. His spirit in them was to leaven with a living power their whole moral nature, in order to their usefulness in influencing others. Withdraw from salt its distinctive chemical element, and it becomes worthless "it is cast out and trodden under foot of men." Let the disciple cease to remember that life in Christ is given to him, that he might become a centre of living and inoculative power to others, and he ceases to be useful—he falls short of the high end of his being, the glory of God. The sun is the light of the material world, and the church is to be the light of the moral world. Christ as the Sun of righteousness, promised to the fathers, is her light. She is to show the righteousness and grace of the Father, but this can only be done by witness-bearing. Thus the call to works of faith and labours of love. God has committed the manifestation of his name to his people. He has chosen that by them only is the world to be warned, and seeking souls attracted to the lavish riches of grace in him. "Let then your light shine before men." Thus only will you come to glorify your Father who is in heaven. See under Luke xi. xii. The Baptist's faithful rebuke of sin had brought him into difficulties. The fame of his preaching had reached the ears of royalty. Even Herod Antipas had listened to him gladly. And so long as the stern ministry of the preacher of righteousness did not cross the path of the king's lusts, he had been willing to live for a season as if truly influenced for good by the Baptist's exhortations. In lawless disregard of the law of God and the claims of social morality, Herod Antipas had taken to himself the wife of his brother Philip, and John had denounced this conduct as sinful. In consequence he was cast into prison. The place VOL. II. 4 B of his imprisonment was the lonely castle of Macharus, situated in a wild region on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea. Thence he sent two of his disciples to Christ saying, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" (xi. 3.) In answer Jesus sends them back with the words in verses 5 and 6. The arrival and departure of the messengers from John, gave the Saviour the opportunity of opening up to the multitudes the character and work of the Baptist. He began to say unto them concerning John, "What went ye out into the wilderness to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" When John entered on his public ministry he had come up from the desert region on the west of the Dead Sea, and had chosen a place more suitable for his work, as nearer Jerusalem, the great centre of population and of interest. In the wilderness, or thinly peopled pastoral district in the plain of the Jordan, he entered on his great work of summoning the people to prepare for the coming Messiah. He was in the very locality where the people would see reeds growing luxuriantly, even as they still grow there, and shaken to and fro by the wind. Thus, the opening words of our Lord would recall to many the scenes amidst which they had first listened to the grand and stirring appeals and exhortations of him who was more than a prophet. The force of the figure "a reed shaken with the wind," is thus to be learned from the context. It does not point only to a weatherbeaten man inured to hardships. This may indeed be included in it, if set in contrast with the next query, "What went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment ?" But the meaning is to be gathered from the first impressions which the question of John's disciples must have had on the people, and even on the immediate disciples of Christ themselves. Had John, they might ask, begun to waver in his confidence in the Messiahship of Jesus? The Lord answers these thoughts. He says-When ye went out to the wilderness of Jordan to see John, you did not go to behold a man who was not sure of his own relation to me, and of my relation to the kingdom of God. You did not listen to one whose convictions as to my eternal Sonship were wavering and fickle, like the reeds which grow on the water's edge and are shaken by every breeze which blows. Do not conclude that John's message to me implies the least doubt or uncertainty, on his part, as to who I am and what are my claims. His testimony would now, were he to speak to you from the gloomy walls of Macharus, be the same as when he cried, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." "Reed," Heb. kaneh, Gr. kalamos, is the common reed (Arundo donax) of botanists, one of the grasses (Graminaceae), which still flourishes on the banks of the Jordan. See under Exod. ii. 3; 1 Kings xiv. 15; 2 Kings xviii. 21; Job xxxi. 21; Isa. xix. 6, 7. "As long," says Calvin, "as the church continues on the earth, there shall be in it bad men and hypocrites mixed with the good and sincere, that the people of God may arm themselves with patience, and still retain, amidst the troubles to which they are subjected, a firm faith in God." This is substantially the train of thought in this parable (xiii. 24-34). The church is represented as set up in the world as a visible institution, containing within it a mixture of good and bad. The former alone constitute the church in the eye of God, but man, who cannot judge the heart, must make profession and not true spiritual life his standard of membership, in all cases in which profession is not contradicted by immoral conduct. These two classes are to continue together to the end of time, when a complete and eternal separation will be made by the Head of the church himself. But the association of the insincere with the truly good does not change their nature. The difference between them continues as distinctly marked as in the difference between wheat and tares. Any attempt to identify the plant translated "tares" must keep this fact in view. Good seed was sown (ver. 24). Those to whom the care of the field was intrusted fell into a state of lukewarmness and carelessness as to its interests, and thus while they slept, the enemy of the chief sower came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way (ver. 25). But there is a persistent energy in all error, because it is associated as really with the living head of sin, as truth is with the person of the True One. The germinating power in the tare is as strong as that in the wheat. This force, in a short time, was awakened in both. "When the blade (of the wheat) was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also" (ver. 26). Struck and alarmed by the presence in the field of what they never had counted on, the servants hasten to the householder, saying, "Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?" (ver. 27.) The grace of the chief sower is to be noted here. The servants were to blame for their sleepiness and sloth, but he does not upbraid them with the sins of the past. They were alive now, and zealous for his honour and for the purity of his house. This satisfied him. "I will no more remember thy sins." In their zeal they wish to make speedy work-"Wilt thou that we go and pull them up?" (ver. 28.) He holds them back from the dangerous position :-"Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them" (ver. 29). This answer does not touch the question of discipline in the church of Christ. Full provision and clearly defined rules are laid down for this Fig. 177. in other portions of Scripture. But it does touch the hazardous attempts which men sometimes make to separate between the precious and the vile, taking for their rule their own estimate of what must characterize a true Christian. When the Lord lays an arrest on such forms of judging, he gives prominence to that charity which "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." แ Tares," Greek, zizania. The points in the narrative, specially helpful to the identification of the tare, are its growth contemporaneously with the wheat-ripening as it ripened—its close resemblance to the wheat up to the time when the ear was developed, its noxious character, and our knowledge of a corresponding condition in the crops of Syria at the present day. The corn-cockle (Agrostemma githago) has been proposed as the plant named here, but if all regard to the geographical distribution of plants, and to the manifest requirements of the parable are to be disregarded, it were far better to take poppies Bearded Darnel (Lolium temulentum) (Papaver rhœus)— "That flash and glance with their scarlet sheen, The beautiful corn-cockle with its "flow'rets in the sunlight shining," is not, unhappily for this guess, a native of Palestine. Couch-grass (Triticum repens) has also been named as a plant which may have been in the mind of our Lord in this parable. This is indeed a pest to the farmer; but it would have been easily known by the servants, long before the stem was fully developed. Besides, its grains are not hurtful like those of the tare named here. Neither could the true tare, or vetch (vicia sativa), have been the plant sown by the enemy. The bearded darnel (fig. 177) is the only grass which answers all the requirements of the text. It bears much resemblance to wheat. The time required for its full development is also the same. Its seeds are highly injurious when eaten; and it occurs in Palestine in circumstances precisely similar to those described in the parable. The writer had presented to him lately darnel grains picked from Syrian wheat imported into Liverpool. Some of them were eaten to try their effects, and they produced great dizziness. This species is the only one of the family which is poisonous. Verses 31, 32-see under Luke xiii. 19. The all-renewing power of the truth is set forth (ver. 33) under the figure of leaven hid in meal. Little in its beginnings, truth received gradually influences the whole spiritual nature of man. It assimilates to itself every desire and affection, as the leaven does the dough in which it is hid. Even as the all-renewing influence of truth lies out of view of man, so the glory of the kingdom of Christ is internal and hidden. It is as a treasure hid in a field (ver. 41). There is no question as to the reality of the treasure. It has been in the world since man needed it, but comparatively few have thought of seeking for it. It has been like treasure-trove under ruins; like gold hid in a most unpromising and unattractive-looking matrix. The thought of its reality, and the impression that it is worth obtaining, have led some to seek for it. When sought, it is always sure to be found, and when found it brings great gladness to the soul. This is all brought out here in a very touching way. The finder hides it. Its preciousness seems such to him, that at first he cannot think of making any man partaker of his joy. True, he lives to find that his own joy becomes intensified by others being brought to share in it; but this is not his first experience. He is willing to give up everything, that he might have the assurance of having found Christ, and being found in him. The very field in which the treasure was discovered becomes precious in his sight. He becomes devoted to the cause of Christ in the world, in connection with the purity and usefulness of the church. Verses 45, 46—see under Rev. xxi. 21. . "They make broad their phylacteries" (xxiii. 5). This expression may be noticed because of the material of which some of the phylacteries were made. The frontlets (Exod. xiii. 16; Deut. vi. 8) consisted of strips of parchment prepared from cows' hide, on which were written four passages of Scripture (Exod. xiii. 2-10, 11-17; Deut. vi. 4-9, 13-22). These were then put in a thin case of calf-skin, which was joined to soft leather of another kind, to which a riband was attached, for binding the frontlet round the head. Other forms were suited for |