r poor,
who had neither the power of religion in their hearts nor the profession
of it on their lips,--came out in great numbers to hear this new
prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. The word was new: "never man spake like this
man" to these poor outcasts before. If at any time they sauntered into
the synagogue, and hovered for a few moments on the outskirts of the
congregation, the stray words that reached their ears from the desk of
the presiding scribe, were harsh supercilious denunciations of
themselves and their class. Hitherto their hearts had been like clay,
and the Pharisaic teaching, as far as it had reached them, had been like
fire: the clay in this furnace grew aye the harder. But now a new sound
from the lips of a public teacher saluted their ears. They could not
throw these words back in the speaker's face, if they would; and they
would not if they could. They permitted themselves to be taken, and
led. To them Jesus speaks "with authority, and not as the scribes." This
word had power; and its power lay in its tenderness: it went sheer
through their stony hearts, and made them flow down like water.

Nor did he gain favour among unholy men by making their sins seem
lighter than the scribes represented them to be: he made them heavier.
He did not convey to the profane and worldly the conception that their
sins were easily forgiven; but he fixed in their hearts the impression
that God is a great forgiver. Touched and won by this unwonted
tenderness, they came in clouds to sit at Jesus' feet.

The Pharisees counted their presence a blemish in the reputation of the
teacher. As for them, they had always so spoken as to keep people of
that sort effectually at a distance: the doctrine, they think, that
brings them round the preacher cannot be sound. "This man," they said,
"receiveth sinners and eateth with them;" and they said no more, for
they imagined that Jesus was convicted and condemned by the fact.

The occasion of the parables becomes in a great measure the key to their
meaning. These men, the publicans and sinners, are Abraham's seed, and
consequently, even according to the showing of the Pharisees themselves,
lost sheep,--prodigal sons; and the Redeemer's errand from heaven to
earth is to seek and find and bring back such as these to the Father's
fold. If they had not strayed, it would not have been necessary that the
shepherd should follow them in their wandering, and bear them home: if
they had not in a far coun