37. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. 38. Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. 39. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: A.D. 28. Autumn. SECOND YEAR. his colleague, Prof. Ramsay, suspected the presence with the atmospheric nitrogen of some other gas, which has now at length been found, having been discovered almost simultaneously by each of these eminent scientists. The name 'argon' signifies idle, slothful, and has been given to the new gas on account of its unexampled inertness. Up to this time it has not been found possible to make it enter into combination with any other element (we say 'any other element,' though it is not yet certain that argon is an element). A new significance is given to that verse in the New Testament (Matt. xii. 36) in which the word 'argon' occurs. 'Every idle (argon) word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.'"-Prof. Amos R. Wells. REFERENCE. See on xxv. 28. The man of one talent; "A Lesson in Chemistry." GATHERING SCATTERED THISTLE-SEEDS.—“The story is told of a woman who freely used her tongue to the scandal of others and made confession to the priest of what she had done. He gave her a ripe thistle-top and told her to go out in various directions and scatter the seeds one by one. Wondering at the penance she obeyed and then returned and told her confessor. To her amazement he bade her go back and gather the scattered seeds, and when she objected that it would be impossible, he replied that it would be still more difficult to gather up and destroy all evil reports which she had circulated about others. Any thoughtless, careless person can scatter a handful of thistle-seeds before the wind in a moment, but the strongest and wisest man cannot gather them again." "I have known one word hang starlike O'er a dreary waste of years, And it only shone the brighter, Looked at through the mist of tears; 40. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. 42. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. WORDS AS A TEST OF THE MAN.-The smallest things often show what a person is. 'Straws show which way the wind blows." Character is often shown in the smallest acts; as in handwriting or walking. "The difference is," says Whately, "that in all other ordinary actions the observation of manner is momentary; whereas, in writing, there is a permanent record of it, which may be examined at leisure." Cuvier could reconstruct a whole animal from a single bone. LIBRARY.-Conan Doyle's "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" gives a great many instances. 40. THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS.-"The Oriental way of counting days is not our way, yet the Bible conforms to the Oriental way. When we speak of a day,' we ordinarily mean a day and a 43. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. 44. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. A.D. 28. Autumn. CAPERNAUM. SECOND YEAR. THE EMPTY 45. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. night. When the Oriental speaks of a day he says 'a day and a night'; that is his phrase for 'a day.' A part of a day counts for 'a day' or for 'a day and a night,' whether it includes any of the night or not. Thus, an hour before a new day and an hour after a new day, together with the intervening day, counts as three days and three nights, because it includes parts of three days or of three of those days which are called 'a day and a night.' This was in accordance with ancient Jewish modes of speech current in the days of Christ in Palestine. Lightfoot shows that it was said in the Talmud that 'Rabbi Akiba fixed a day for an Onah and a night for an Onah, but the tradition is that Rabbi Eliezer Ben Azariah said, ‘A day and a night make an Onah, and a part of an Onah is as the whole.' And again, 'Rabbi Ishmael computeth a part of the Onah for the whole.' It is in Matthew's Gospel, written for the Jews, that the phrase occurs, 'Three days and three nights,' as based on an ancient Jewish figure. Mark, who writes for the Romans, says 'three days.' -Sunday-School Times. “This ancient usage as to time-reckoning still prevails in Palestine. Dr. Robinson, the distinguished author of Biblical Researches,' on going to the Holy Land found that 'five days' of quarantine really meant 'only three whole days and a small portion of two others."" Examples are found, I. Sam. xxx., the story of the Egyptians. The Book of Esther, iv. 16, compared with 18. 43-45. EMPTYING BY FILLING.-"We must empty by filling,' said a divinely enlightened woman, Ellice Hopkins; and a wise man has said, 'Nothing is ever displaced until it is replaced.' In these two utterances lies the secret (if it be a secret) of all reform. Here, as elsewhere, nature (which abhors a vacuum) teaches. We cannot 46¶ While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. 47. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. 48. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and wno are my brethren ? 49. And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren ! 50. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. pump the darkness out of a room; we must empty it by filling it with light. One tallow-dip will do more to exclude darkness than a thousand steam-pumps. The only way to shut out disease is to fill the veins with health. In morals we must banish the degrading by the elevating-not by prohibition but by substitution. We must crowd out the saloon by the reading-room, the lecture, the boys' guild, and the young men's club, with its light and pleasant rooms, its games, and its cheerful welcome. "The popular superstition which credits every deserted house with being haunted and peoples it with bad spirits has a germ of truth. If the demon be excluded and the soul be swept and garnished, yet, if it be empty, the demon will return with seven other spirits more wicked than himself. The Holy Spirit, by entering the soul, empties it of evil spirits; and, by dwelling in the soul, filling it to the utmost, he maintains the exclusion of the bad." -H. L. Wayland, D.D. CHAPTER XIII. 1. The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. 2. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. 3. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow ; I. SAT BY THE SEASIDE. A.D. 28. BY THE SEA SECOND YEAR. THE YEAR OF DEVELOPMENT. PARABLE OF SOWER. "O Galilee, sweet Galilee, Where Jesus loved so much to be; O Galilee, blue Galilee, Come sing thy song again to me." -Robert Morriss, LL.D. 3. SPAKE UNTO THEM IN PARABLES. See Preface. LIBRARY.-Mrs. Gatty's "Parables from Nature," Krummacher's 'Parables," Gotthold's "Emblems." Longfellow wrote of Agassiz, the great investigator of Nature : "Here is a story book Thy Father hath written for thee,— Come wander with me, she said, Into regions yet untrod, And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God." A PARABLE is a story picture of familiar things, which illustrates, illumines, and impresses some great truth. This world, with all its forces and powers, seems made purposely to express in visible forms, as in an incarnation, the invisible facts of the spiritual world. Earthly things are made after the pattern of the heavenly. |