Vore. 38, 39.-Our return/or God's greater kindnesses. The outcasting of a demon from II man was certaiuly one of the greater miracles Christ wrought, and the greater benefits he bestowed. It required special power, and it conferred a boon of the highest onler. We look at- I. THI!: onEATER KINDNESSES WE RECEIVE FROM Goo. It might be argued that all God'.s mercies a.re great, inasmuch M (1) corning from his heart, all his kindnesses are loving-kindnesses; and (2) they are all 80 thoroughly undeserved. God senda us a gift when he might send us a blow, a blessing when we deserve a rebuke (Gen. xxxii. 10). Yet some of God's gifts to us are greater than othere, and we may ask which they arn that might fairly draw such words as these from Christ concerning them, "how great things God bath done for thee." And it is worthy of remark: 1. That some of them are little marked by u,. Among these a.re: (1) Our being itself, our intelligent, immortal nature, with e.11 its illimitable capacities. We so gradually awaken to the realization of this, that the boundless value of the gift does not impress us as it should. (2) Our health. We accept this as a matter of course, little affected by it until we lose it. (:3) Our kindred. So does the mantle of parental, filial, fraternal love wrap us round from our infancy, that its beauty and its blessedness do not strike us as they might well do, and we live on for years, failing to appreciate all the mercies which are associated with the one word "home." (4) Our education; all those educational influences and privileges which build and shape our mind and character. But it is clear: 2. That there are ,pecial kindnesses we cannot fai'l to note. Of these are (I) deliverance from sudden peril, from the railway accident, from death by drowning, etc.; (2) recovery from dangtlrous sickness; (3) rescue from the grasp of some fell temptation; (4) special Divine influences, those which make the truth of God clear to our understanding, and bring it home to our heart and conscience, thus placing eternal life within our reach. II. THE RETURN WHICH WE lllAKE TO GoD for these greater kindnesses. Jesus Christ bade this man to whom he rendered such signal service return and show his friends what great things he had received; and he did so freely and fully. What is our response to our heavenly Father, our Divine Saviour? 1. What are we being to him? What is the measure of our thought concerning him who never for one moment forgets us, and who, in so full and deep a sense, "remembered us in our i<,w estate"? of our feeling toward him who has spent on' us such geuerous, such self-sacrificing love? of our service of him whose we are and to whom we owe everything we are and have? 2. What testimony are we bearing to him-what testimony concerning the goodness, the patience, the faithfulness of God are we bearing in the home in which we live? Are parents impressing on their children by their whole bearing and demeano•1.r that, in their deliberate judgment, the service of Christ and likeness to Christ are thin~s of immeasurably greater concern to them than the making of money or :he !!-aining of position? Are elder brothera and sisters doing their best to commend the truth they have come to appreciate to the understanding and the e.lfection of those who ar, younger, and who are taking their cue from them? \\"hat testimony are we bearing iu the shap and the factory, to our fellow-workers, to those whom we are employing'! What testimuny in the Churcl1 1 Are we avowing our faith, our love, our hupe, our joy? Are we, who have received greater kindness by far than even this poor demoniac, so acting that as much is ascribed to us in God's book of account as is here recorded of him, that" he published throughout ths whole city how great things," etc. ?-C.
Vere. 37, 40.--Jesus Christ: rejection and welcome. We have in these two passages a very striking contrast; we have in the one a very deliberate and consentar.eous dis- missal, and in the other a very corJ.ial and unanimou~ reception of our Lord,-it i~ illustrative of the treatment he is now receiving at the han<l8 of men. I. 'l'HE REJECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 1. It may be deliberate and determined. In the ease of the Gadarenes it was emphatic11lly so. They all came together tu seek him and to entreat of him that ho woulJ. loave their ueighbourhood. Thtir request wa~ unq•l,ilificd with any condition; it was docisive, absalute. It is uot ul'ten th:., men 1uduenly arriv~ at tho couclusion tLut they will not have the Son of man to reign o,·er LUKE. ij 226 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. [on. vm, 1-66.