t's name search
themselves to see whether they are ready for his presence. There is no
visible distinction at this stage between those who have only a name
that they live, and those who have attained also the new nature: all
bestir themselves to examine the ground of their hope, and the state of
their preparation.

At this point the decisive difference which existed in secret long
before emerges into view. The foolish virgins, having no oil in separate
vessels, could not keep the flame of their lamps any longer alive. Both
classes had a profession; the formalists had a profession and nothing
more. Finding in the hour of their extremity that they had neglected
their souls while the day of grace was running, they make a piteous
appeal to believing neighbours for help, "Give us of your oil, for our
lamps are gone out." How true to nature is this picture! He who draws it
knows "what is in man." How fondly the empty, in such a crisis, lean on
the full. Alas, even the full is but a little vessel filled by Christ.
That vessel is not a spring; this saved sinner is not a saviour of
sinners. He has gotten from his Lord all that himself needs; but he
cannot supply a neighbour's want. Brother, if the call come to you while
you are not in Christ reconciled and renewed, though all the saints in
heaven and earth stood weeping at your bedside they could not save you.
If you neglect the Son of God while he stands at the door and knocks, in
vain will you apply to a godly neighbour, after the day of grace is
done.

Taking into view generally the intimate relations which subsisted among
that group of maidens, and in particular the unselfish tenderness which
must have characterized the wiser five, we should expect to learn that
they had generously resolved, at all hazards, to share their oil to the
last drop with their unfortunate companions. But this, though consonant
with nature in the external body of the parable, would have been
incongruous with the spiritual truth which the parable has been framed
to convey. In the structure of the parable provision is made for
defining sharply the spiritual lesson, even at the expense of some
measure of harshness left on one feature of the story. True Christians
cannot impart a share of the grace that dwells in their own hearts to
deluded formalists in their departing hour. On the spiritual side such a
distinction cannot be made, and therefore the Master represents the wise
virgins as distinctly and