that immediately precede it on the other. These two
divisions of the group contain two different and in some respects
opposite representations. Both exhibit the salvation of lost men; but in
the first, that deliverance appears as the effect of the Redeemer's
sovereign love and care; in the second, it appears to spring in the
depths of the sinner's own soul. There the wanderer is sought and found
and borne back; here he spontaneously repents and returns. There the
Saviour's part is revealed; and here the sinner's.

These examples represent not two distinct experiences, but two sides of
the same fact. It is not that some of fallen human kind are saved after
the manner of the strayed sheep, and others after the manner of the
prodigal son; not that the Saviour bears one wanderer home by his power,
and another of his own accord arises and returns to the Father. Both
these processes are accomplished in every conversion. The man comes, yet
Christ brings him; Christ brings him, yet he comes. In the two pictures
which we have last examined, the sovereign love and power of the
Redeemer occupied the front, while the subjective experience of a
repenting man was thrown scarcely visible into the back-ground; in the
picture which is now under inspection the view is reversed--the
subjective experience of the sinning man is brought full size into the
centre of the field, while the compassion of a forgiving God, although
distinctly visible, lies in smaller bulk behind.

Among the parables that of the prodigal is remarkable for the grandeur
of the whole, and the exquisite beauty of the parts. The sower is the
only one that can be compared with it in comprehensive completeness of
outline and articulate distinctness of detail. These two greatest
parables, however, are thoroughly diverse in kind. The two chief
elements which generally go into the composition of a parable are the
processes of nature and the actions of living men--parables, in short,
as to their constituents, are composed of history and natural history.
In the tares, for example, both these elements are combined in nearly
equal proportions. In the malicious sowing of the darnel, the zealous
proposal of the servants, and the cautious decision of the master, you
have threads of human motive and action running through the whole; but
in the growth of the darnel, its likeness to the wheat in spring, and
the decisive difference between them in the harvest, you have the
processes o