f phraseology at the close, do not indicate a
substantial difference. "What man of you having an hundred sheep, if
he lose one of them?" and "What woman, having ten pieces of silver,
if she lose one piece?"--these questions, so carefully and
completely parallel, conclusively show that, after making allowance
for the necessary difference in the nature of the subjects, the two
cases, in relation to possession, loss, and finding, are precisely
the same.

Assuming from the fact of its repetition that some feature or features
of the lesson must be contained in the second picture which the first
was not fitted to display; and finding in the possessors, with their
misfortune, their success and their joy, no difference, but on the
contrary, a studied balanced parallelism, I look for the distinction in
the nature of the property which, in the two cases respectively, was
lost and found. The sheep is an animated being, with desires, and
appetites, and habits, and locomotive powers; when it is lost, it is
lost in virtue of its own will and activity. The silver coin, on the
other hand, is a piece of inanimate matter; and when it is lost, it is
lost through its own gravity and inertia. When support fails, it falls
to the ground. Here lies an inherent and essential difference between
the two cases. It is through this opening mainly that light comes to me
regarding the specific difference between the lessons which these two
cognate parables respectively convey. The inquiry at present concerns
this difference only, for the doctrine which is taught in common by both
is abundantly obvious. While in both examples alike the property is lost
and found again, the manner of the loss and the finding corresponds in
each case to the nature of the subject. In the case of the living
creature, the loss is sustained through its spontaneous wandering; in
the case of the inanimate silver, the loss is sustained through its
inherent inertia. The one strays in the exercise of its own will, and
the other sinks in obedience to the laws of matter; the method of search
varies accordingly.

Both parables alike represent the sinner lost and the Saviour finding
him; but in the one case the loss appears due to the positive activity
of an evil will, and in the other to the passive law of gravitation. Not
that, in the spiritual sphere, one sinner departs from God by an
exercise of his corrupt will, and another is drawn away by the operation
of an ir