es to instruct. The pardon
which this woman had obtained Simon did not and could not see; but her
love being embodied in action was palpable to his senses. The energetic
act of adoration was evidence of the heart-love from which it sprang. To
this love accordingly Jesus points, and thence infers the existence of
the great forgiveness which prompted it. In the end, He confirms and
seals, by his own lips, the pardon which the repenting sinner had
already secretly received. The Redeemer's forgiving love to sinners is
the only cause of all their love to him. "We love him because he first
loved us." Have you seen a broad, straight path of silver brightness
lying by night upon a smooth sea, and stretching from your feet away
until it was lost in the distance--a path that seemed to have been
trodden by the feet of all the saints who have ever passed through a
shifting world to their eternal home. Oh that silver path by night
across the sea,--it glittered much: but it was not its brightness that
lighted up the moon in the sky. Neither was it the love to Jesus
trembling in a believer's heart, that kindled forgiving love in him. We
love him because he first loved us; the love that makes bright a
forgiven sinner's path across the world was kindled by the light of life
in the face of Jesus; from him and to him are all things.

There is a peculiarly wise and tender adaptation to our need in that
feature of our Lord's character, which consists in his desiring and
appreciating our love. He is not a distant, cold, omnipotence. He
lavishes love on the world, but he is disappointed when the world does
not throw back a reflection of his own love, as the rippling sea throws
up to heaven again, the light it got from heaven. When the ten lepers
were cleansed, and one returned to lavish love on his healer, that
healer, while he enjoyed the single penitent's devotion, permitted a
sigh to escape his lips, articulated in the sad pensive question, "Where
are the nine?" I love the Lord for uttering that complaint. It proves to
me that he counts it no intrusion when we burst in upon him with our
glad thanksgiving. In the bold in-bursting of this woman; in her
premeditated anointing, and unpremeditated tears, the Lord Jesus
sees--tastes of the travail of his soul and is satisfied.

XVII.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN.

"And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to
Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of hi