njoyed a regular government, and that the men
had deliberately adopted a plan. In order to account for the
circumstances, you must suppose that the central government was
paralyzed, and that these men were as stupid as they were wicked. Great
criminals are often blind to their own interests: their blunders
generally lead to their conviction.

The murder of the heir by these greedy tenants, in the vague hope of
obtaining the property, is a probable event. To show that the scheme was
not skilfully devised, does not by any means prove that the crime was
not actually perpetrated. The owner was absent; no display of
irresistible power was made to their senses; they were not in the habit
of nicely considering the remote consequences of an act, and an
overmastering passion completely paralyzed at that moment a judgment
which was feeble at the best.

From this point the close of the tragedy is self-evident; the Lord
accordingly does not further prosecute the narrative. Here the Pharisees
are invited to pronounce judgment upon themselves; nor do they hesitate
to accept the challenge. Whether in simplicity, as unconscious of the
Teacher's drift, or in exasperation as knowing that by this time his
drift appeared to the whole company all too plain, may not be certain;
but in point of fact they gave the answer without abatement and without
ambiguity: "He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out
his vineyard to other husbandmen which will render him the fruits in
their season."

No serious difficulty occurs in the interpretation of this parable, and,
consequently, no considerable differences of opinion have arisen among
interpreters regarding it. The main lines of the lesson cannot be
mistaken; but there is need of careful discrimination in some of the
details.

Frequently in the Scriptures the seed of Abraham, called by God and
endowed with many peculiar privileges, are compared to a vine, or to the
aggregate of vines in a vineyard. I shall here point to three examples
of this usage, in order to show that, notwithstanding an obvious general
resemblance, they differ from each other and from this parable in the
specific purposes to which they severally adapt and apply the analogy:--

1. Isa. v. 1-7: "Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved
touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very
fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof,
and planted it with the