ght
a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have
me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I
go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I
have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant
came, and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house
being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and
lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and
the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as
thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto
the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to
come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, That none
of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper."--LUKE xiv.
16-24.

A chain of connected lessons, consisting of several links, immediately
precedes the parable in the evangelic history; but we may appreciate all
the meaning of the parable without reference to the circumstances in
which it sprung. In some cases the connection with the context is such
that light from the history preceding is necessary to elucidate the
meaning of the lesson that follows; but it is not so here. Although one
thing suggests another in the conversation which the Evangelist records,
the lesson ultimately given is independent of the things that suggested
it.

Touched by the solemn teaching of the Lord Jesus, one of the company,
well-meaning, but dim and confused in his conceptions, made the remark,
"Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." Observing
that this man and the Pharisees around him were clinging to the notion
that to be invited to enter the kingdom is the same thing as to be in
it, he spoke the parable to point out the difference, and to show that
the invitation will only aggravate the doom of those who refuse to
comply with it. He intends to teach the Jews, and through them to teach
us, that those who are near the kingdom may in the end come short of
it--that those who stand high in spiritual privileges may be
excluded--may exclude themselves from the kingdom of God.

Both in the natural objects employed, and the spiritual lessons which
they convey, there is, at some points, a marked resemblance between this
parable and that of the royal marriage; but the two, though similar, are
manifestly distinct.

"A certain ma