as the swine satisfy their nature, npon husks. Sensuality is seen by the famished one to be as unsatisfying as work. And then the last experience is the utter helplessness of man. "No man gave nnto him;" no one could minister to his mental trouble. It is through a similar experience the soul comes. Self-recovery turns out to be a delusion aad man is found to be of no avail. 4. The return of reason. (Vers. 17-19.) I~ his isolation he begins to see that all the past forgetfulness of God was a mistake· that lie was insane to take the course he did; and that in his right mind he mi:st act differeatly. Accordingly he begins in sane moments to reflect on the Father's house bow good a Master God is, how his hirelings have always enough and to spare and that the best thing for him to do is to return, confess his fault, and get what plac; in God's house be can. This is repentance-the remembrance of God and how we have sinned against him. 5. Ooming baclc. (Ver. 20.) 'l'he resolution to coma home must be put in practice. The hope may only be for a servant's place, yet it is well to begin the return journey and test the loving-kindness of God. 6. The welcwu, home. (Vere. 20, 21.) The father has been on the look-out for the son, and, the moment he beaina the journey, the father's compassion becomes overpowering, and he runs and fall: on the prodigal's neck and kisses him. And when the broken-hearted son pours forth his penitence, and that he is no more worthy to be called a son, he is met by the father's welcome and passionate embrace. In this most beautiful way does onr Lord bring out God's yearning for lost souls, and his intense delight when they return to him. 7. The feast of J°oy. (Vers. 22-24.) Orders are given to the servants to take away his rags, and put upon him the best robe, and a ring on his hand, as signa of his rank as hia father's son, and shoes on his feet, and to prepare the fatted calf and have a merry feast. In this way does our Lord indicate the joy which fills God's heart and that of the angels and that of the returned soul himself when he has come home to God. It is indeed "joy unspeakable and full of glory." These are the stages, then, in a soul's history as it passes into the far-off land of forgetfulness of God, and then gets back to his em brace. IL THE ELDER BON STAYING AT DOME, BUT NEVEB HAPPY. (Vers. 25-32.) We now turn to our Lord's picture of the Pharisees and scribes, under the guise of the elder brother. Although these men had not left the Church, although they put In their appearance at the temple, they never were happy in their religion. 1. Nominally at home, the el,der son is yet from home. (Ver. 25.) The elder son was always at work in the fields, happiest a.way from the father. The self-righteous spirit is after all an i -olating spirit. The elder son was really as forgetful of God as the younger, only the forgetfulness took a different form. 2. The merry-making at home distresses him. (Vers. 26-30.) He first asks an explanation of the unusual mirth, and then, when he gets it, bursts into a fit of censoriousness of the most exaggerated character, in which he accuses the father of favouritism in receiving his penitent child, and refuses to be any party to such merry-making. Bow it exposes the gloomy, Pharisaic spirit which with some passes for religion! 3. The godless spirit manife~ts itself within him. (Ver. 29.) He has been a. faithful and faultless servant, he believes, and yet he has never got even a kid to make merry with his friends. His whole idea of jo~ is away fr~m the father. He is still in the first stage or the younger brother, from which he happlly has escaped. 4. He is unable to realize how meet it is to rejoice over the return of the lost. (Vere. 31, 32.) The father's expostulations are v~in, although they. ~ught to have been convincing. Joy over the recovery of the lost 1s one of the necess1t1es of an unwarped nature. It was this great sin of which the scribes and Pharisees were guilty, that they would not rejoice at the recovery of fallen fellows by the ministry of Christ. May the broken-heartedness of the prodigal be ours, and never the heartlessness and censoriousness of the elder brother !-R. M. E.
EXPOSITION.
CHAPTER XVL Vers. 1-31.-The Lord's teaching on the I t-0 the pro,pect of another tJJorld, in the form of the two parables of the IIITljust steward, and Dives and Lazarus. right use of earthl11 po,au,iom with regard Veru. 1, 2.-And he said alao unto h.11 CII, XVI, 1-rn.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 61