ur fellow-subjects unjustly off the face of the earth; then I
will destroy you off the face of he earth, and burn up your city. I will
destroy any government or system of society which you set up in
opposition to my good and just laws. And if you merely despise the
gifts, and refuse to use them--then I will cast you out of my kingdom,
inside which is freedom and happiness, and light and knowledge, into the
darkness outside, bound hand and foot, into the ignorance and brutal
slavery which you have chosen, where you may reconsider yourself, weeping
and gnashing your teeth as you discover what a fool you have been.

Our Lord's parable has fulfilled itself again and again in history, and
will fulfil itself as long as foolish and rebellious persons exist on
earth. This is one of the laws of the kingdom of heaven. It must be so,
for it arises by necessity out of the character of Christ, the king of
heaven.--Infinite bounty and generosity; but if that bounty be despised
and insulted, or still more, if it be outraged by wanton tyranny or
cruelty, then--for the benefit of the rest of mankind--awful severity.
So it is, and so it must be; simply because God is good.

At least, this is the kind of king which the parable shows to us. The
king in it begins, not by asking his subjects to pay him taxes, or even
to do him service, but to come to a great feast--a high court ceremonial-
-the marriage of his son. Whatsoever else that may mean, it certainly
means this--that the king intended to treat these men, not as his slaves,
but as his guests and friends. They will not come. They are too busy;
one over his farm, another over his merchandise. They owe, remember,
safe possession of their farm, and safe transit for their merchandise, to
the king, who governs and guards the land. But they forget that, and
refuse his invitation. Some of them, seemingly out of mere insolence,
and the spirit of rebellion against authority, just because it is
authority, go a step too far. To show that they are their own masters,
and intend to do what they like, they take the king's messengers, and
treat them spitefully, and kill them.

Then there arises in that king a noble indignation. We do not read that
the king sentimentalised over these rebels, and said,--"After all, their
evil, like all evil, is only a lower form of good. They had a fine
instinct of freedom and independence latent in them, only it was in this