their course this night at your door, and send the message
into the midst of the merry festival, The master of this house is wanted
immediately; he must arise and go, in obedience to the summons; he can
neither resist nor delay. He may weep, tremble, rage; but he must go,
and go on the instant. It is not the whole man, but only his soul that
is wanted: his body will be left behind. But the body, though left
behind, cannot claim, cannot use the goods. When the soul is summoned
over into eternity, it cannot carry the hoarded treasures with itself,
and the body left behind has no further use for them. A grave to rest in
while it returns to dust is all that the body needs or gets; and the
deserted wealth must advertise for an owner--whose shall it be?

Our Lord Jesus has spoken these piercing words, not for the sake of the
pain which they are fitted to inflict. He is the Healer[68] of diseased
humanity, and when he makes an incision he means to cure. This sharp
instrument, at whose glance we wince and shrink precisely in proportion
to the measure of our malady, he wields for the purpose of piercing
the deadly tumour, and so saving the threatened life. "A man's life
consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth"
(ver. 15); and the man who places his life therein, loses his life. That
is not his life; and if he take that for his life, he is cheated: when a
merchant has given all for what seemed a goodly pearl, he has not
another fortune in reserve wherewith to begin anew, if that for which he
paid all his possessions turns out to be a worthless toy of glass. Our
time, our life--this is our fortune, on which we trade for the better
world: if these be spent,--be thrown away for what is not life, then
life is lost.

[68] Der Heiland--the Healer--is the ordinary epithet applied to the
Lord Jesus in the religious phraseology of the Germans. The term is
suggestive and comforting.

Riches are truly enjoyed when they are wisely employed in doing good;
but hoarded as the portion of their possessor, they burden him while
they remain his, and rend him at the parting.

By way of contrast, the Lord mentions another kind of treasure, which
satisfies now, and lasts for ever. Those who are "rich toward God," are
rich indeed, and all besides are poor: and this wealth is, in Christ,
offered free,--offered to all.

Seeing that an evil spirit possessed this man, the Lord in mercy applied
his word to cast the evil s