ite, and green among the vegetables
which they exhibited in the market or carried to their homes. Nay more,
the loyalty of a loyal man may in certain circumstances be more
emphatically expressed by a rude, extemporaneous symbol, hastily
constructed of intractable materials, than by the most elaborate
and leisurely products of the needle or the loom. In such cases, the
will of the man is everything; the wealth of the man nothing. The
meanest rag suddenly thrown across the shoulders, arranged so as
unequivocally to express the wearer's faith may be a better evidence of
loyalty than the richest silks of the East.[48]

[48] A custom connected with funerals, which prevails in some
districts of England, if not in all, approaches closely in some of
its essential features to that which occupies the most conspicuous
place in this parable. A scarf of black silk, large, conspicuous,
and expensive, yet constituting no part of the proper garments of
the wearer, is given by the person who invites, and worn by every
one who accepts the invitation. A single person without the badge in
the procession would be instantly detected, and the omission would,
in the circumstances, be taken as proof of disrespect.

* * * * *

Let us now endeavour to appreciate and express the spiritual lesson.
True to nature on the earthly sphere the parable represents the
invitation, the assembling of the guests, and the entrance of the king,
as three several and successive acts; but in the processes of the
spiritual kingdom these three operations advance simultaneously. Some
are in the act of hearing the invitation,--some are accepting it and
going to the feast,--some are sitting at the table under the inspection
of the king,--all at the same moment. The process is like the habit of
some species of fruit trees, on which flowers, green berries, and ripe
fruit may be seen at the same time; the flowers of this season become
the green berries of the next, and the green berries of this season
become the ripened fruit of the next; and thus a constant succession is
maintained. In like manner, as the generations pass, all the processes
of Christ's kingdom are simultaneously carried forward.

The guests who have come at the call of the servants, and taken their
places at the table of the king, are those who hear the Gospel and fall
in with its terms,--who adopt Christ's name and enrol themselves among
his people,--w