evolting places that which had fallen down, that He might build it
up again in fair proportions a holy temple to the Lord.

Therefore He laboured among the guilty; therefore He was the companion
of outcasts; therefore He spoke tenderly and lovingly to those whom
society counted undone; therefore He loved to bind up the bruised and
the broken-hearted; therefore His breath fanned the spark which seemed
dying out in the wick of the expiring taper, when men thought that it
was too late, and that the hour of _hopeless_ profligacy was come. It
was that feature in His character, that tender, hoping, encouraging
spirit of His which the prophet Isaiah fixed upon as characteristic.
"A bruised reed will He not break."

It was an illustration of this spirit which He gave in the parable
which forms the subject of our consideration to-day. We find the
occasion which drew it from Him in the commencement of this chapter,
"Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear
Him. And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, This man
receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." It was then that Christ
condescended to offer an excuse or an explanation of His conduct. And
His excuse was this: It is natural, humanly natural, to rejoice more
over that which has been recovered than over that which has been never
lost. He proved that by three illustrations taken from human life. The
first illustration intended to show the feelings of Christ in winning
back a sinner, was the joy which the shepherd feels in the recovery of
a sheep from the mountain wilderness. The second was the satisfaction
which a person feels for a recovered coin. The last was the gladness
which attends the restoration of an erring son.

Now the three parables are alike in this, that they all describe more
or less vividly the feelings of the Redeemer on the recovery of the
lost. But the third parable differs from the other two in this, that
besides the feelings of the Saviour, it gives us a multitude of
particulars respecting the feelings, the steps, and the motives of the
penitent who is reclaimed back to goodness. In the two first the thing
lost is a coin or a sheep. It would not be possible to find any
picture of remorse or gladness there. But in the third parable the
thing lost is not a lifeless thing, nor a mute thing, but a being, the
workings of whose human heart are all described. So that the subject
opened out to us