of changing their dress. This, however, is not expressly
asserted in the narrative, but may be gathered from the term [Greek:
ephimothe] (he was speechless) in ver. 12; and must be understood on
this account also, that, otherwise the sentence in ver. 13 would
stand exposed to the charge of injustice."--_Storr, de parabolis
Christi_, p. 113.

From the circumstances in which that motley company was collected and
introduced into the palace, we may safely conclude that no kind of
clothing, however torn and mean, would have been counted a
disqualification. Over the whole surface of the scene is spread the
proof that nothing in the character or condition of the attire which a
street porter or a field labourer might happen to wear, when he was
intercepted on the highway by the king's messengers, and hurried away to
the palace without an opportunity of visiting his own home, could
possibly have been a ground of exclusion. When such persons in such
circumstances were invited to the banquet, assuredly the king was
prepared to welcome them, as far as dress was concerned, precisely as
his servants had found them. No man forfeited his place at that table on
account of any defect in the quality or condition of the clothing which
he wore when he unexpectedly met the messengers and was suddenly hurried
away to the feast. Thus far, treading on firm ground, we tread surely.

Alike from the facts of the case, from the analogy of others, and from
the corresponding spiritual lesson as elsewhere declared in Scripture,
we conclude with confidence that the wedding garment was a well
understood distinctive badge, expressive generally of loyalty, and
specifically constituting and declaring the wearer's fitness for sitting
as a guest at the marriage supper of the king's son. In appearance it
must have been conspicuous; but its value may not have been great. It
was not the inherent worth of the material but the meaning of the symbol
that bulked in the estimation of both the entertainer and his guests. It
may from analogous cases be shown to be probable that a loyal heart
could have easily extemporized the appropriate symbol out of any
material that lay next at hand. Where there is a will there is a way.
Italian patriots at the crisis of their conflict with multiform
oppression, and while the strong yoke of the despot was still upon their
necks, contrived to display their darling tricolor by a seemingly
accidental arrangement of red, wh