HAVING charged and sent forth His disciples on their first work, the King went forward with His own work of teaching and preaching in enforcement of His claims.

His path was now beset with new difficulties, and the attitude of His enemies was marked by increasing opposition. In this chapter some of these things are vividly revealed. It is one of general survey in which different aspects of the obstacles confronting His work are brought before us in the revelation of the different attitudes of mind with which He had to deal, as He went forth upon His work. They are all typical. The same attitudes still confront His disciples as they go forward to service.

Let us first glance at this section in rough outline. In verses two to fifteen we have the story of John, in which the perplexity of the loyal-hearted is evident.

Then, at verse sixteen there begins the second section of the chapter, which is a very brief one, occupying four verses only. In this section we see the unreasonableness of His age.

In the third section, beginning at verse twenty and ending at verse twenty-four, we are brought face to face with the fact of the impenitence of the cities which He had visited. He names Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.

At verse twenty-five begins the final passage in which we meet with quite another class of persons, which the King described as babes.

Four classes are thus revealed, and so four aspects of the opposition and difficulty which the King encountered. In each of these we see the perfection of His method. The loyal-hearted, who was perplexed, He corrected and vindicated. The unreasonable He committed to the judgment of time. The impenitent He cursed. The babes He called to Himself for rest

First let us consider this story of John. A great many have attempted to defend John from what they .seem to think a lapse in faith and confidence in the King Whose herald he was. In attempting to defend John from this supposed lapse of faith, it has been suggested that he sent his disciples because his disciples were wavering, and he knew that if they came into contact 'with Jesus, and had His answer, they would be re-assured. While there may be an element of truth in the suggestion, when John sent the question, there can be little doubt that he was strangely perplexed; it was a question not of disloyalty but of perplexity. Some have attempted to account for the question by saying that John, after the thrilling excitement of preaching to thousands, and being now in prison, was like Elijah under the juniper tree, disheartened. That however is hardly likely. John was too accustomed to loneliness to be disloyal because within prison walls. His hard and rugged life in the wilderness had probably made him quite independent of the soft raiment and luxury of kings' houses; and one cannot believe there was a tremor in his courage. His question was rather an evidence of the continuity of his courage. The thing that surprised him was that Jesus was not doing exactly what he thought He was going to do. He neither doubted nor faltered in his convictions about right, but he doubted and faltered as to the method of the Master. Let us therefore look at John and Jesus, and then at Jesus and John ; that is to say, let us take first the question of John and the answer of Christ; and, secondly, Christ's vindication of John, after John's disciples had gone back with their answer.

In order to understand the question which John sent by his disciples, we must place the works of Jesus into contrast with what John had said of Him before He began His public ministry. John had been an almost fierce ascetic, thundering against the sin of his age. He had shaken off the dust of his feet against the cities, and had gone into the wilderness; and by that wonderful attraction of a man with a living message, he had drawn multitudes after him. There on the banks of the Jordan this rough, rugged, magnificent man, the final prophet of the Hebrew economy, had thundered against the sins of his time, had singled out from the crowds about him, the ring-leaders who were seducing the people from loyalty to God, and had called them a generation of vipers. Having denounced sin, he had spoken of the coming King in a wonderful description: "Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor; and He will gather His wheat into the garner, but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire." This was magnificent and majestic language, describing the King as a great and mighty reformer, breaking down abuse, sweeping out oppression, gathering precious things, and blasting evil things as with thunder-bolts. John in prison inquired about the King; and the prophetic fire was still burning within him, the passion for righteousness was still like a blaze in his heart. They told him that Jesus had gathered a handful of men, had gone up into the mountains, and had been talking to them; that He had healed a leper; that He seemed to be doing gentle, sweet, loving things. So far there had been no word of judgment. So far no woe had fallen from His lips. His was a mission of mercy, not of judgment; and John in prison was strangely perplexed. Abuses were everywhere; lightning was needed to blast them; and He was healing men. Men had turned their back upon the Divine government; they should have been dealt with in judgment; and He was preaching good news. John thought He would have smitten the oppressor to death; and He was singing the song of the Gospel. Out of the perplexity of his heart he sent his disciples hurriedly to Him, with the blunt and honest question, "Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?"

Now carefully observe the Master's method with such perplexity of the loyal. Jesus said to his disciples, "Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see; the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them." If we are surprised at the question of John we are more surprised at the answer of Jesus. But we miss the whole point if we do not notice that He linked the story of His works with a great prophetic word which John, who was of the very spirit of the prophets, would understand. When the answer came back in the words of Jesus to John, he must have found in it a new interpretation of the mission of the King. The last thing Jesus said was, "The poor have good tidings preached to them." This was a quotation from the great prophecy of Isaiah, and from that portion of it which He had already read in the Synagogue as He entered upon this very work that was causing John perplexity (Isaiah Ixi.1,2) [Isa 61:1-2]. When Jesus read that in the Synagogue at His induction, He did not read the whole statement, but stopped before the last clause, "the day of vengeance of our God," ending with the words, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." He it is Who proclaims the acceptable year of our Lord. He it is Who will proclaim the day of vengeance of our God. He has never proclaimed it yet. In the Bible there is only a comma between the two, and that comma indicates a measurement already of over nineteen hundred years. But the proclamation will be completed: "This Jesus, Who was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven." "He shall appear the second time apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto salvation." He Who came to usher in the day of the acceptable year of our Lord, must come to usher in the day of vengeance of our God. When John's disciples came back and told him what Jesus did, that He was making the blind to see, the lame to walk, raising the dead, and giving them life, he knew that He was fulfilling the ancient prophecy. He would turn back to it, and would see that the first part of the Messianic mission was the preaching of the acceptable year of our Lord; he would come to understand that he had not been wrong as the herald of the King, to speak of thunder and of judgment; but that he must understand the larger value of the Messianic work, and know that, before the final judgment falls, there is a mission of tenderness and grace, and healing and wooing and blessing. In effect Jesus said, Go back and tell John to look again at the things that puzzle him, to look at them in the light of his own prophetic mission, in the light of the declared purpose of God concerning Me, of all that has been written concerning Me; tell him to look more carefully, and there will be light instead of darkness.

Are you troubled about Jesus? Then look more carefully and comprehensively at the very things that have troubled you, and you will find the mist merge to light, and a larger understanding will end in the solution of all your problems.

The King added another word, very tenderly, not rebuking him, but warning him, "And blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in Me." If you cannot perfectly understand My method, trust Me. If you are not able for the moment to see how I am going to accomplish that upon which your heart is set as a passion, do not be offended, do not stumble, do not halt, trust Me perfectly. That is always the word of the King to His followers.

Then Jesus turned to the crowd who had heard John's question, and who might have been inclined to say, John has evidently failed, he is afraid, he is trembling; and He said to them in effect, Let Me tell you the truth about John. What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? Do you imagine he is weak and trembling? And the question carried its own answer in the very tone and emphasis in which the Master asked it. No wind shook him. He dared guilty Herod, and told him the truth.

"But what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? "-a man, weak, enervated, spoiled by luxury. And then with infinite and fine scorn, "Behold they that wear soft raiment are in kings' houses-not in kings' prisons that is the emphasis. John might have had soft raiment if he would excuse the king's sin. Make no mistake about him because he has sent Me this question. This was the King's defence of a loyal soul, and it is very beautiful.

"But wherefore went ye out? To see a prophet?" He had brought them back from wrong impressions to the earlier and the truer thought of John. "Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet;" he was the herald of the King, commissioned, inspired, sent before His face. "This is he, of whom it is written,

He had prepared the way for Jesus, having fulfilled the prophetic word of Isaiah, "Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Jehovah, make level in the desert a highway for our God." The throwing up of a highway is a. rough, laborious process. Kings will pass along the highway presently, but there must be a great deal of work to prepare it-blasting with dynamite. That was the work of John; no reed, no soft man, no mere prophet was he, but the last of the prophets, the herald himself, flinging up the highway and preparing for the coming of the King.

And then the Master spoke perhaps the most wonderful word of all; "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." The simplest exposition is that of changing the phrasing. Of natural men, never has there been a greater than John. It was Christ's tribute to his moral fibre, to his mental breadth, to his magnificent natural endowments. Born in the priestly line, he turned his back upon priestism to become the rough prophet of the wilderness; he was a statesman seeing national life and understanding the national sore; and he had rent the garments that hid the sore, and laid it bare in all its hideousness to the gaze of his age.

Then the King accounted for the fact that he was perplexed: "Yet he that is but little in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he." This again is a passage which has been very much discussed. The only way to understand it is to take it in close connection with all the rest of the defence of Jesus. Our Lord meant to say, You have seen this man who naturally is greatest among men asking a question in perplexity. Yes, there are things he cannot know, there are methods that he cannot understand, and presently the least soul brought into the Kingdom will have greater light than this man, with all his natural endowments, has had in the past. Presently the little child who comes into My Kingdom by the mystery of My mercy, might, and passion, will have more light than John, until he also comes to understand the sweetness and mercy and majesty by coming into this Kingdom of power. John was in the light that preceded the Kingdom, and the weakest inside knows more than John.

Upon this vindication .of John the King based an appeal to the people. He said of the prophets, "for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John." Theirs was not the message of experience and realization; and one five minutes of experience is worth long years of anticipation; one single half-hour in the Kingdom, by the mystery of the death of the King, has more of light, than gathered in all the centuries before His work was done. "The prophets and the law prophesied until John."

Now said Jesus, "The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force;" because men cannot understand the method, they must enter in by the violence that tramples under foot all pride, and is content to trust the King.

Then followed the last word of Jesus to the people about John; "And if ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah that is to come;" this is the reformer; follow him, obey him, and he will lead you by his thunder past Sinai until you find yourself in the presence of the dawning light and the new glory of the rule of the Kingdom of God.

And so we come to that brief paragraph in which the King complained of the unreasonableness of the age. Having answered John's questions, and vindicated him, He put John into contrast with his age-John, the rough, the violent, the magnificent, the strenuous. Of the age He said, "It is like unto children who sit in the market-places," and they "call unto their fellows and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn." Anyone who has children understands the figure perfectly. There come moments when nothing is right, and the only unanimity is that of complaint, of dissatisfaction. What is the meaning of it among children? First, an evil nature which they have inherited. Do not be angry with your bairns when they are discontented-they derive their nature from you. Then there is weariness which they have contracted. And again a little, strong, tender, shepherd-like discipline is lacking. All that was the matter with the age. Mark His application of His illustration. "We piped unto you, and ye did not dance." John came, and you all piped to John, you went out after him, you made him popular, you crowded to him, but he did not dance to you, he thundered at you. "We wailed, and ye did not mourn." The Son of Man is come, and you wail in His presence, but He has not lamented; He has been your friend, comforting, cheering, eating and drinking with you; and you say He is gluttonous. Oh, the unreasonableness of the age!

And what was the King's answer? "Wisdom is justified by her works." Some ancient manuscripts have the word "works" and others "children," so decision must be based on the context, and it would appear best to adopt the revised word "works," for this harmonizes with the words of Jesus throughout this section. In every case He appealed to His works. Of these John in prison was to be told; and these were the evidences of His right, refusing to obey which, the cities were condemned. The works of John and Jesus were wise. They were both the methods of God. To the restless and unreasonable age the King declared that wisdom would yet be vindicated in John's ascetic strength, and in His own comradeship of tenderness.

The supreme value of this study is its revelation of the King as a worker. The picture of His dealing with John shows us that honesty is always valued and patiently answered. Let us be true with the Lord; do not let us affect a confidence which our heart does not feel. Only, if the doubt be there, instead of turning our back upon Him and abandoning His cause, instead of turning to the philosophies of men for explanation of the method of God, let us go straight to Him and tell Him. Oh the comfort of being able to go into the Master's presence and tell Him that He is doing something that we cannot understand. He loves honesty, He would rather the Thomas who blurts out his unbelief, than the Judas who kisses Him. Thank God for John, who was honest, and more, thank God for Jesus, Who received the honest question and answered it so patiently and so perfectly. His answer to all such doubt, is a call to a larger vision of the facts creating the doubt.

WE now turn to the subject of the impenitence of the cities. There is something startling in the words with which this paragraph commences-"Then began He to upbraid." This spirit of upbraiding seems to be so foreign to Him, so unlike Him; and yet such an idea of Him reveals a very superficial understanding both of the cause and the meaning of His upbraiding. If we think it is foreign to His nature to upbraid, and to pronounce woe, because we think of Him as loving and gentle, we misunderstand love. Jesus is quite capable of being stern, severe. There is such a thing as the wrath of the Lamb, even though that description seems to contradict itself. If we are astonished, as we hear Him, in the midst of His teaching, upbraiding cities, it is because we do not understand love perfectly. Love is not always gentle, sometimes it is rough. Love is not always uttering sweet, smooth things. By the very necessity of its own nature there are moments when its speech is rugged, scorching, devastating. We have neither understood the Master, nor His essential love, if we really are surprised in the presence of such a section as this.

Three cities are here named by the Lord Himself-Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. We have no account of any visit to Chorazin, but it is perfectly evident that our Lord went through all these cities, and incidentally this whole passage shows us how much more Jesus did than we know. Chorazin was one of the cities in which most of His mighty works were done, and yet we have no account of His work there.

Then we pass to Bethsaida, and we find that the records refer to frequent visits by our Lord. We need to remember in passing, that from the city of Bethsaida, Peter, Andrew, and Philip had all followed Him, had obeyed Him, had repented in answer to His call, and set their faces towards the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

When we come to Capernaum we are almost irresistibly driven back to one of our earlier studies in the Gospel (chapter iv.12-16) [Mat 4:12-16]. We have already seen that in the prophecy quoted there, interpreted from the Jewish standpoint, when they spoke of " the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles," their terms were those of reproach, because that whole district, more than any other, had become influenced by Gentile thinking. But when the King began His work, this public ministry of the Kingdom, "He came and dwelt in Capernaum." That is always His method. If there is a district neglected, abandoned, forsaken, there He comes and dwells. So we know of Capernaum that it was the adopted home of Jesus for a long period, during His public ministry, the centre from which He went forth upon His way. That fourth chapter goes on to say, "From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." When John preached that, he did so in the tone and with the emphasis of severity. When he was cast into prison Jesus commenced His more public, set, and orderly ministry, with exactly the same message, and He delivered it in Capernaum. He came and dwelt there, and Capernaum then first heard the word of the King spoken with His own grace and tenderness, and ineffable sweetness, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

But now we see Jesus looking out upon the cities where most of His mighty works had been done, and we hear Him beginning to upbraid. What was the cause of His upbraiding? "Because they repented not." This does not merely mean that Jesus was angry because they did not obey Him. That was true in a sense, but the reason of the anger lies deeper. It was not selfish resentment at being rejected; that was never present in the upbraiding of Christ; there was something infinitely deeper. We must go back to the initial word of Jesus-"Repent"-that is, Change your mind, for whenever a man changes his conception, his thinking is changed, and his conduct. The real creed of a man is the inspiration lying behind his conduct, and when Jesus began His ministry, and said to men, Repent, change your minds, He was doing a simple and yet a searching thing. He was asking men to change their ancient conception of things, in order that their conduct might be changed, in order that finally their character might be changed. That is always the order. First, the conception; then the external conduct based upon it; and, finally, the character resulting therefrom.

Christ's word was not only Repent. He indicated the direction of the change necessary; for a man may change his mind, and the new set of convictions may be as false as the old-"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." The mind must be changed in the direction of submission to the Kingdom of Heaven. The root-wrong in all civic life then, and to-day, is godlessness; the fact that God is left out of account in its arrangements. So it was in these cities of the past, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum and the rest. He came to the city and He said, Change your mind toward the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; it is here, embodied in the Person of its King. I am here to show you the Kingdom, to lead you into the Kingdom, to be your King within the Kingdom. Change your minds towards it. He had healed their diseases, and in the enforcement of His claims, He had been calling these cities to change their minds towards God, and towards the Kingdom of God.

He had shown the real meaning of the Kingdom of God. As we have seen, every miracle of Jesus was a revelation of what the Kingdom of God really means when it is perfectly set up. None of the miracles of Jesus was a violation of law; they were all reversions to law. Here was a man diseased; He healed him. He was not violating the law of the universe by doing so. Nay, verily, He was restoring the law broken by the presence of disease. All the way through, His mighty powers, operating in the realm of the physical, were revelations of what the Divine Kingship meant, and what the Kingdom of God really is. He had been to Chorazin, and to Bethsaida, He had dwelt in Capernaum, and in these three cities He had said, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." In these three cities, by mighty works, He had shown the meaning of the Kingdom; but they did not repent; and because they did not repent He began to upbraid them.

Now the second question that we ask is, What was the note of His upbraiding? The words "upbraid" and "woe" in this paragraph are mutually expository. We can only understand the upbraiding, as we hear Him say "Woe"! We can only understand what He meant when He said "Woe" as we catch the tone of His upbraiding! The meaning of upbraiding very literally is that He reproached them. Reproach may be perfectly pure, and inspired by love. It may, of course, be impure, and inspired by hatred, but that was impossible with Jesus. We take the word, then, in its simplest meaning. He reproached the cities. "Woe unto thee, Chorazin!" is not the thunder of some one highly angered, not the denunciation of some plague that is about to fall on the city; it is rather the wailing declaration of what must inevitably result from the city's own deliberate choice of action. "There is a wail in the woe," said one of the old puritan commentators, and in that sentence he comes to finest exposition of the meaning of the "woe." Jesus meant to say, You have refused to repent, you have deliberately chosen for yourselves the woes that are to come upon you, you have deliberately refused the light, and chosen the darkness; by refusing the life you have chosen the death. He was not pronouncing a judgment which He would inflict capriciously; He was announcing the result which they had deliberately chosen, and from which there could be no escape.

How have these woes been carried out? Remember they were woes pronounced upon cities. There is absolutely no trace of Chorazin to be found to-day. Men have never been able perfectly to agree about the site of Bethsaida. While Dr. Thomson argues for the probability of the site in Naphtali, a great weight of opinion is against his decision, and so we may broadly say Chorazin and Bethsaida, cities of nineteen centuries ago, rich and flourishing, in the midst of which the Bang came with light, and life, and love, have absolutely vanished as cities, because they repented not. The woe has wrought itself out by the working out of the law from which there is no escape, this simple law-whatever a man or city chooses, that is the destiny of the man or the city. I should like to lay emphasis upon this principle, in case some one should merely be interested in the exposition, and find no message for himself. This is the supremacy of Jesus, the sovereignty of Jesus, and the full majesty of Jesus, that, when He confronts a man or a city, then in the light of His coming that man or that city must make its choice. If the city shall return and repent, it shall be exalted to very heaven. If it will not hear Him, it must be thrust down into darkness. It is not His hand that thrusts it out; it is the city's own hand which slays itself when it rejects God's Kingdom.

This is still more markedly emphasized in the words which He addressed particularly to Capernaum, in which, town He had dwelt. Notice the change from the Authorized, a change giving a more accurate rendering. Jesus did not say Capernaum was exalted to heaven. He asked a question, "Shalt thou be exalted unto heaven?" And He answered, I tell you no. Thou shalt be thrust down into Hades, into death, into darkness, into obliteration. Remember again, this was a civic word, the word concerning a city.

Observe the connection of this doom with the word He had spoken at the first, "Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Capernaum had refused to repent. Then said Jesus to Capernaum, If you will not repent, do you suppose you will ever gain the benefits of the heavenly order? Do you suppose you can set up heaven's order, when you have rejected heaven's King? If you refuse to hear the voice of the King, will you be exalted unto heaven, with heaven's order, where love is the impulse, and light is the illumination, and love the energy? Do you hope to climb into the realization of a perfect civic life when you refuse the King? Nay, verily; thou shalt go down into Hades. Capernaum desired the heavenly order, as all cities desire the heavenly order; yet, while the great ideal was seen, refused to repent. And in the prophetic words of Jesus-more than prophecy if prophecy be merely foretelling, but great prophecy if prophecy be foretelling with forth-telling of God's will-Capernaum has passed down as a city into Hades, into darkness, and into death, and into cessation. Why? Because she refused to repent at the call of the King.

From this upbraiding of Jesus, what is the teaching of value for us? First, that the greater the light the greater the responsibility. That leads us to touch upon a part of this section to which we have not yet referred-Jesus' comparisons. Look at them briefly in order that we may make other comparisons presently. He said, "It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you." More tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for Chorazin and Bethsaida. Tyre and Sidon were cities then existing. Then when He came to Capernaum, the most highly blessed of all the cities, He said, "But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee." Sodom was a city that had long ceased to exist It had been blotted out of existence for specific reasons hinted at in the Old Testament history, clearly declared in later prophecy. He took the cities of Tyre and Sidon, and put them into comparison with Chorazin and Bethsaida; and the land of Sodom into comparison with Capernaum.

Thus He revealed the truth that responsibility is always created by light. Tyre and Sidon had not been visited as Chorazin and Bethsaida had been. Tyre and Sidon had perchance heard the rumour of His work, but He had not come into the midst of them. They were two living cities when He spoke.

We hear His word and bow in the presence of it. He declares that it will be more tolerable for the cities of our own day to which He has not come, than for the cities to which He has come if those cities refuse to repent.

When He speaks of Capernaum, we have a yet more startling contrast. We have but to read the history of the Old Testament which is veiled and guarded with an extreme delicacy, to know how fearful were the conditions of life in Sodom, how awful was the corruption that held that wealthy city fast in its grip. At least the Old Testament history reveals this much to us, that there were not ten righteous men to be found in the whole city, and therefore it was swept out. Could anything be worse than Sodom? Yes, Capernaum. Now the possibility is that Capernaum never descended to the beastliness of Sodom. The probability is that the sins of Sodom, judged by all human canons, were far more terrible than the sins of Capernaum; but Jesus Christ said in effect, If Sodom had received My light, if Sodom had heard My message, if Sodom had seen My works, it would have continued until this day. That is to say, in the sight of God, sin is never measured as it is in the sight of men. We measure sin and call it vulgar, or debased, or pardonable, or excusable, according to some false measurements of our own. God measures sin by the light a man has had, or a city has had. The city to which Jesus has come with His message, in which He has manifested His mighty works, if it refuse Him, and His ideals, if it will not crown Hun, is guilty of a more terrible sin than the sin of the city which has sunk to the lowest level of beastliness, if it have never heard His message, and never seen His work. This is Christ's own estimate.

Let us, then, proceed further with our comparison. We have compared, following our Lord's word, Tyre and Sidon with Chorazin and Bethsaida, and Sodom with Capernaum. Now let us compare Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum with the cities of to-day, simply indicating a line for solemn consideration. Our cities know Jesus Christ far better than Chorazin, Bethsaida, or Capernaum; because when Jesus Christ was in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, according to His own estimate, He was straitened, limited. His mighty powers operating very largely in the sphere of the physical, because He had not yet unlocked the gate, had not scattered the fire, had not yet Himself bent His head to the great passion Baptism.

When Jesus came to Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, He was a Man among men, a Teacher among teachers. He was infinitely more, for His words at once lifted Him above all other teachers in His own age; and the purity of His life, its glorious beauty, perfect tenderness, elevated Him above all men in character. Nevertheless, as men heard Him they had nothing to base their conclusions upon save His imperial presence and the essential and inherent truth of the things He uttered. We have a great deal more. We have His resurrection from among the dead, attested by witnesses, proved by the miracles of the centuries. We have in our midst to-day works that are far more wonderful than any miracle He ever performed in the physical realm. Do we, as Christians, quite believe it? Before Jesus went away He said, "Greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father." There is a sense in which He did not value the miracles as credentials, but put them in a secondary place. He said, "Believe Me-or else believe Me for the very works' sake." "The works" constituted a secondary line of argument Now He has been demonstrated in the centuries in His own Person by the resurrection, as that resurrection has been demonstrated in the life and progress of the living Church; and that Church by His living presence, His spiritual presence, is more wonderful and powerful than His bodily presence was, and He is still working miracles more marvellous, more wonderful, than any He wrought then.

Need we labour this point? If our cities have but eyes to see, in every quarter of the globe miracles are being wrought by Jesus Christ more wonderful than any He wrought while He was here miracles of so renewing men in the inner facts of their life, that in the power of that renewal, they renew the externality of their lives.

This is the supreme miracle. The supreme miracle is not that the body shall be healed, but that the spirit shall be healed. The supreme miracle is that a man low sunk in the social scale, a beast, a plague to the city, may be touched by the Spirit of Jesus and be re-made, and become one who blesses the city wherever he goes. These miracles are on every hand.

What has this to do with us? Everything! If we are prepared to receive the King on His own terms, if we are prepared to obey His "repent," in the individual life, and if we are prepared to set our faces toward Him for the establishment of God's Kingdom, individually, then socially, and in all civic matters; then our cities may be lifted into the realization of the blessedness of the Kingdom of Heaven. But if we turn our back upon the proof Jesus gives, if we turn our back upon the ministry He exercises, if we will not crown the King by obeying Him, then nothing can save the city. Its sorrows will put out its joy, its sighing will make its songs to cease, its sin will submerge it as sin has submerged the cities of the past

Our duty, therefore, as Christians, is to preach the Evangel, to carry the great Gospel not narrowly but broadly, yet always with insistence upon the primal necessity of the yielding of the individual will to Christ, in order that the social relationships of the city may be influenced from that standpoint of regenerate humanity.

May God grant we may so live and serve as to help to bring our city into line with His law, and into obedience to His gracious will.

THERE can be no doubt that these A last verses of chapter eleven tell the story of what happened immediately in connection with the events recorded in the previous verses. The King had upbraided the cities; He had pronounced woes upon them; He had declared that the measure of light creates the measure of responsibility; and with great severity, in every tone of which there vibrated the pity of His heart, He had pronounced the doom of the impenitent cities.

And now what followed? He turned from upbraiding the multitudes, and spoke to God. Having done that, He spoke again to the multitudes in proclamation and invitation.

It is important that we recognize this order and sequence. Pausing in His upbraiding, He lifted His heart to God: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes, yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in Thy sight." Having thus spoken to God, He made a proclamation concerning Himself: "All things have been delivered unto Me of My Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him." And then immediately, without a break, He said, " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will rest you." This more literal translation, "I will rest you," is very beautiful. Not as though rest were something apart from Himself. It was the mother love of God that spoke, "Come unto Me . . . and I will rest you. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

First, then, He offered praise to God. Secondly, He made the proclamation concerning Himself; and wonderful are its terms. Then, turning to the multitudes, He called them to Himself in the light of the proclamation He had made, promising to lead them into relationship with the Father Whom He had worshipped, that they might find their rest.

Taking first of all His attitude toward His Father, we notice that the King worshipped in the presence of difficulty, that He offered praise in the face of discouragement. One supreme value of this chapter is its revelation of the fact of His restfulness even in the face of obstacles. John, loyal soul, whom He was so careful to defend, was wondering, perplexed by His methods; His own generation was petulant, unreasonable, complaining; and the cities that had seen the working of His power were rejecting Him. All these things He clearly understood, and yet He took the position of the worshipper. There was yet one other class of persons with whom He came in contact, the simple-hearted, who perhaps did not think deeply enough to be perplexed about anything; they were merely babes. The King saw more clearly than we do, and He said, "I praise Thee, O Father." That fact in itself comes as a ministry of inspiration, and of love. Are you discouraged? Have you felt as though the people you are trying to reach are hopeless, always perplexed, always criticizing, always impenitent? Pause then and worship! Make your difficulty the occasion of your thanksgiving. But this we shall never do save as we live very near to Him.

Now let us look at the reason of His praise. That reason He distinctly stated. God had hidden the things He had come to make clear from the wise and understanding, and had revealed them to the untutored, the immature. He praised God for this method.

The first thing to be noticed is that the King rested in the absolute supremacy and will of His Father. He thanked God that this was so because it was God's will. Perhaps some of us must rest there very often, being unable to understand the reason of the will.

We may press this matter a little further and ask the question: was the fact that this was God's way the only reason for the thanksgiving? No, the Son knew that it was the best way, that it was the only way; this way of hiding these things from the wise and understanding, and the revealing of them to babes. Our Gospel is a Gospel for those who are fools and blind. That is not to say that the Gospel is not wise, that it lacks intelligence.

Who are the people from whom the Gospel is hidden according to Jesus? He called all people, but there are those whom He described as "the wise and the understanding" who do not come. "The wise" are, very literally, people who are gifted with practical skill, natural acumen, and ability to understand. The "prudent," in the Authorized, or "understanding," as it is in the Revised, are those who are able to put things together. Jesus says, Father, Thou hast hidden these things from the people who are naturally wise and have the power to put things together. We have heard a man say, "Oh, believe me, I know what two and two make." That is the man! Not that he does not know what two and two make; not that it is wrong to put two and two together; but that the putting of two and two together brings the man to the conclusion that when he has put two and two together he knows everything. It is the man of natural acumen, who is able to put things together and come to logical conclusions; who imagines that he can express the things of the Spirit in the formulae of the mind; from whom these things are hidden. The condition for acquiring knowledge is always conscious ignorance. The moment a man says he does not know, then at least he has fulfilled the first condition for acquiring knowledge. Some years ago a remarkable article appeared in The Engineer discussing the question whether the man of technical knowledge, or the man without it, was most likely to serve his age by the way of invention. In the course of that article the writer said: "There is not a portion of the framing of a bicycle that is not, in the eyes of any one carefully educated in the strength of materials, utterly wrong. If any one of our readers will take the trouble to work out the stresses in a bicycle weighing twenty-eight pounds, and carrying at ten miles an hour, a man weighing twelve stone, he will see that from first to last the whole machine is so completely impossible that nothing of the kind exists outside the land of dreams. Let us suppose that a law was passed under which no one was permitted to use a bicycle that was not pronounced to be quite safe by the Board of Trade; and let the Surveyors of the Board deal with the cycle precisely on the same lines as they deal with marine boilers, and see then what the Board of Trade machines would be like. Is it too much to say that, twenty years ago, any and every thoroughly trained engineer would have pronounced the modern light roadster a mechanical impossibility? Such men would know too much to attempt to produce anything of the kind. . . .

"Knowledge is too often assumed to have reached finality, when it has done nothing of the kind, and the belief is fostered and inculcated by those who write books, and treatises, and teach in various ways.

"Lastly, we would point out that it is not the possession of knowledge that stops progress; the mischief is done by the assumption that the knowledge is final."

That is the philosophy of our paragraph. There were men of Jesus' day who said; We know this is so, and that is so, and therefore this must be so; therefore He is wrong! They were wise men, they were understanding men, they put two and two together, and they called it four; and they said this is final, there is nothing beyond, we know all to be known. And Jesus said, "I thank Thee, O Father, . . . that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding;" that Thou hast not revealed these things to these men.

To what sort of people, then, does He reveal these things? To babes. And here the Greek word traced to its root means "not speaking," and in this use indicates the immature, which means that they are not indisposed to receive. Or again, to leave the figure of the infant, let the Master speak as He spoke on another occasion, and we see how His philosophy is always the same. "Except ye be converted"-turned back-"and become as little children" believing that there is something you do not know, believing that the knowledge in your possession is not final-unless you get there, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding"-the men of acumen who put things together and imagine all God's truth can be expressed in the sequence of their reasoning-"and didst reveal them unto babes,"-who do not know anything, but who are dreaming towards truth, in whom is the spirit of romance, the spirit that soars.

What a blessed thing it is that God has always revealed these things to the simple-hearted and the simple-minded! One may have lost the priestism of ecclesiasticism, but there is a new priestism abroad to-day which says that we cannot interpret this Book unless we know original languages in all their ramifications. It is not true. The man who can put two and two together as to Semitic languages, and as to Greek dialect, may never see the flame of glory that any little child can see who takes up the Book and studies it with the simple heart of the babe.

Having uttered these words of worship, the King made the claim for Himself. His words are so clear and comprehensive, we need do little more than read them. The statement falls into three parts. First, the King claimed His own investiture with some peculiar authority. "All things." What things? We must go back to the previous verse, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes." Revealed them, the things of truth, the things He had come to reveal, the things at which the unreasonable generation scoffed, the things the impenitent cities would not accept, the things of truth and righteousness and love. God has given Me, said the King, all these things. "All things have been delivered unto Me of My Father."

You may say, But does not this break down your argument? Would you speak of Jesus as a babe, as immature in any sense? We are speaking of Jesus in the realm of His humanity, as One Who did not depend upon His own human wisdom. He spoke always and only out of the infinite wisdom of His Father. We speak of Jesus as He spoke of Himself before these words were finished; said He, "I am meek and lowly in heart;" I am not petulant and unreasonable, I am not disobedient to light as it falls upon My soul. I am amongst the babes, and therefore all things are delivered unto Me. He was the great Mystic, the One Who, in all simplicity, waited for light, and recognized in all its infinite reaches, its relation to God and eternity. Speaking out of the realm of His perfect humanity He said, He hath committed all things unto Me; I come to bring the words of revelation. This is what Paul meant concerning Him in the Colossian Epistle when he wrote, "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell." Jesus thus stood in the midst of the men of His age and said to them, The things that wise men did not understand, the things that understanding men could not formulate and finally state, are committed to Me. I know them, not by deduction and logical sequence, but because God has committed them to Me, seeing that I am meek and lowly in heart.

Having thus claimed investiture, He went on to say, "No one knoweth the Son, save the Father." Here He was accounting for the fact that men had not understood Him. He thus declared the mystery of His own personality; no one perfectly understands Him, except the Father. This, is a perpetual truth, and it may be said to this hour that no one knows the Son save the Father.

Let us carefully observe what now immediately follows. "Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him. Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Consider, then, this twofold fact. Jesus declared that no one can know the Son perfectly, except the Father; but He affirmed that the Father can be known through the Son. We have a far more correct knowledge of God at this hour than we have of Jesus. The great mysteries and the great problems, and the great perplexities, are still concerning the Person of Jesus. Grace operates by revealing the things that never were known through the instrument of a Person; but the things revealed are so mighty that the instrument of their revelation must remain a mystery. "No one knoweth the Son, save the Father, neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him."

We make a great mistake when we commence to quote this passage at verse twenty-eight. We have no right to begin at "Come unto Me, all ye that labour." If we do so, we miss the music; we may indulge in a great deal of sentiment around this text, but all its strength, that upon which the soul of man takes hold for strength, is missed if we omit verse twenty-seven and fail to recognize the connection. This is no mere lullaby; it was no mere expression of sentimental pity when Jesus said, "Come unto Me." Reverently changing the actual wording it is as though He had said: Come unto Me and I will reveal the Father unto you; trust Me, and find God; accept My law of life by accepting Me, and so find rest; for My yoke, the yoke I wear, is easy; and My burden, the burden I bear, is light. Come to Me, be identified with Me, let Me become the window through which the light flashes, the door through which you pass to God. The trouble with men is that they do not know the Father, and seeing that they do not know the Father, they are hot, and restless, and feverish, and in agony. To all such He said, Come unto Me, I know the Father; I will bring you to Him, and when you find the Father you will find your rest. "Come unto Me, all ye that labour."

Notice finally that this call was uttered, not merely to the babes, but to all the multitude. "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden." It was His call to John when John was in difficulty about His method Come to Me, and I will rest your perplexed spirit. It was His call to the unreasonable and unsatisfied age, to come to Him and be satisfied, by faith, and wait for the dawning light for full explanation. It was His call to the cities, rejecting, and rejected-Come to Me, and I will come back to you with healing and with blessing. It was His call to the babes-Come to Me, be obedient, and gain the light that leads you into the places of God's own wisdom. It was His call to all. They did not all obey as John did in his perplexity. When his disciples went back and set the works of Jesus in relation to the ancient prophecies, surely there came to John a quiet sense of rest. He found God anew in the dungeon, because in honest perplexity he had sent directly to Jesus. Perhaps some of the discontented children of the age found rest because they ceased their criticism and became babes. The cities would not come, and Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum are names only, their very sites being blotted out. And the babes? Thank God they have been coming ever since, and as they come, they find God and rest.

Mark the conditions. "Come," that is the first. "Take My yoke," that is the second. "Learn of Me," that is the third. We must get to Him, we must submit to Him, we must obey Him. By these things we find our rest, a twofold rest some commentators say, but probably they are two manifestations of the same rest-the rest of finding the Father; the rest of obeying the Father.

Oh, there is rest for the storm-tossed soul in finding God! The cries of the old Bible are the cries of to-day. "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God!" "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! "And not in tones that ring through centuries only, but in the still small voice sounding in our hearts to-day, we hear the same sweet Saviour say, "Come unto Me." We have tried to find God, we have tried to encompass Him; but We have felt that such small atoms as we are, must be of small account; and it is almost impossible to be sure of God by these processes. But, when the Infinite Word, Whose tones fill eternity, Whose wisdom guides, and Whose power upholds all things, becomes flesh, a Man of men, human, warm, sweet, tender, we come to Him, and we find God. With one's head upon His bosom there comes to the fevered heart the rest of eternity, the peace that passeth all understanding.

How shall we perfect our rest? By obeying Him. When Jesus said, "Take My yoke upon you," He did not mean only the yoke He would give us, the burden He would impose upon us. He did mean that ultimately; but primarily He meant the yoke that He wore is easy, the burden that He bore is light. What burden did He carry? There was only one. The burden of doing God's will, the burden of obedience to the Divine command. "I do always the things that are pleasing to Him." "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work." "We must work the works of Him that sent Me." That was the master-passion in the life of Jesus. He said, His burden was light. We hardly believe it. We say it is hard work to please God. In that view we are wrong. It is fearfully hard work to please our neighbours. It is impossible to please our friends. It is absurd to try and please ourselves. Then let the prayer of each one of us be; "Teach me to do Thy will, O my God." That is the easiest, the sublimest, the simplest law of life; and therein is rest. May we all find it.