ceal the dreadful fact, and leave
unwarned sinners to learn it first by feeling it. It was love,
overflowing love in the heart of our Brother, that drew these warnings
repeatedly from his lips. The reason why he tells us that the wicked
shall be cast away, is that we may never be cast away. The good Shepherd
would compel the sheep to flee to the fold by sending out his terrors,
when they refused to be more gently led.

There is a machine in the Bank of England which receives sovereigns, as
a mill receives grain, for the purpose of determining wholesale whether
all are of full weight. As they pass through, the machinery, by unerring
laws, throws all that are light to one side, and all that are of full
weight to another. That process is a silent but solemn parable for me.
Founded as it is upon the laws of nature, it affords the most vivid
similitude of the certainty which characterizes the judgment of the
great day. There are no mistakes or partialities to which the light may
trust: the only hope lies in being of standard weight before they go in.

I gratefully recognise tender, overflowing love, in the faithful
testimony of Christ regarding the punishment of the wicked: it is meant
to compel sinners now to take refuge in his righteousness.[29]

[29] Arndt closes his exposition of this parable with a hymn, which
I subjoin, not only for the sake of the doctrinal statement
regarding the ground of a sinner's hope contained in the first
verse, but also, and still more, for the union of simplicity and
solemnity in the conception of future punishment contained in the
second:--

Christi Blut und Gerechtigkeit,
Das ist mein Schmuck und Ehrenkleid;
Damit will ich vor Gott besteh'n
Und zu der Himmelsfreud' eingeh'n.

Hilf, Gott, dass yeder kommen mag,
Wo tausend Yahr' ist wie ein Tag:
Vor dem Ort uns, O Gott, bewahr',
Wo ein Tag ist wie tausend Yahr'!

Christ's blood and righteousness
Shall be the marriage-dress,
In which I'll stand
At God's right hand
Forgiven,
And enter rest
Among the blest
In heaven.

Help, Lord, that we may come
To thy saints' happy home,
Where a thousand years
As one day appears,
Nor go,
Where one day appears
As a thousand years
For woe.

VIII.

THE UNMERCIFUL SERVAN