l times incidentally mentioned in the Scriptures
of the Old Testament. See, for example, the preparation of bread by
Sarah, as it is narrated in Gen. xviii. The various suggestions which
inquirers have made regarding the specific significance of the _three_
measures of meal, are interesting and instructive. As they do not
directly traverse the lines of the analogy, they are entitled to a
respectful hearing; but the subject is subordinate, and the meaning must
ever be comparatively obscure. Whether the three measures are understood
to point to the three continents of the world then known, or to the
three sons of Noah by whom the world was peopled, or to spirit, soul,
and body, the constituent elements of human nature, an interesting and
useful conception is obtained. Each of these suggestions contains a
truth, and that, too, a truth which is germane to the main lesson of the
parable.

The same historic incidents which show that three measures were the
ordinary quantity, show also that the women of the house were the
ordinary operators. Baking the bread of the household was accounted
women's work; as men ploughed and sowed in the field, women kneaded and
baked at the oven. An inversion of this order would have been noticed
as incongruous, and presented a difficulty. Exceptions may be found,
both in ancient and modern times, but the representation in the text
proceeds obviously upon the ordinary habits of society. On this account,
although I willingly listen to interesting and ingenious speculations
regarding the significance of the woman who hid the leaven among the
meal, I cannot accept them as the foundation of any positive doctrine. I
am jealous, not without cause, of ecclesiastical tendencies and
prepossessions in the interpretation of the parables. It is quite true
that both in the discourses of the Lord and in the epistles of his
followers, reference is made sometimes to the community or communities
of believers constituted as a Church; but the Church in the Scriptures
is a much simpler affair than it is in ecclesiastical history. Moreover,
in these lessons which were taught by the Lord in the beginning of the
Gospel, we find much about the individual man, and about the aggregate
of mankind, but little about the Church in its visible organization.
Accordingly, while I endeavour to keep my mind open for everything that
the Scriptures bring to the Church, I am disposed to shut the door hard
against anything that I sus