such a parable as this presents no sort of difficulty. A penny more or less would not be likely to stagger them, when the gift of heaven or the doom of hell raise no question as to the equity of the Divine decrees. But with the great multitude of Christian thinkers the parable has been the source of much grievous perplexity, as the manifold explanations amply prove. The question is, in which verse of the parable are we to find the key to it? "Unto this last will I give, even as unto thee," states the problem. Is the solution to be found in the body of the parable, or must we seek it outside in a general study of the ways of God?

There can be no question, I think, that the broad bearing of the parable is on the impending revolution in the visible Divine kingdom, whereby, as the Saviour says, the kingdom of God was to be taken from the Pharisees, and "given to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof." I say advisedly, from the Pharisees; from the party which held the chief influence and authority in the Church. Their influence, their standingground, was utterly shattered by the Saviour's advent; the kingdom passed visibly, absolutely, finally, out of the rule of their hand. But there was never any question of its passing wholly from the Jews; the Jews were never to be disowned. Paul earnestly, with intense emphasis, asserts this, and makes it the basis of a long and profound argument. "I say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew" (Rom. xi. 1, 2). The Jews, as such, were not cast away. We think all too slightly of the strength of the Jewish element in the apostolic Church. And it is the Jews-the people, not their leaders-who are in question here. They had borne the burden and heat of the day; they had done the work-with what result, well or ill, is not the point in debate. There is no idea of their being dismissed without honour or recompense; the question

is simply concerning the bringing in of other husbandmen, the Gentile nations, at the last hour, to share in full measure in all that the Jewish workmen had won by their long and hot day's toil.

Perhaps the favourite mode of reconciling the Master's dealings with fundamental principles of equity is to be found in the suggestion, towards which some sentences in Olshausen's Exposition strongly lean, that the first called laboured so lazily, and the last called so strenuously that (regarding the actual amount of work accomplished) the Master's arrangements were more equitable than might at first appear. Notwithstanding the apt illustration of this which appears to be offered by the history of St. Paul, who, though the last called, "laboured more abundantly than they all," the explanation seems to me to miss the whole point of the teaching of the parable, and to proceed upon very low and worldly conceptions of the method of the Divine ways. There is no hint of such a solution in the body of the parable itself; which is a sufficiently grave objection. If this be the key, its existence is carefully suppressed, and the souls that were most sorely perplexed by the appearance of injustice are left wholly ignorant of the truth. Nay, their ignorance is confirmed by the language, or rather by the silence, of the parable. The answer to their protest on the ground that they had "borne the burden and heat of the day" would have been decisive and was ready at hand. But no hint of a justification on this ground is suffered to appear. Their assertion is allowed to pass unanswered, and must be accepted for the purposes of the parable as the truth. Whether they had wrought well or ill, though it may be the main point in other parables, is plainly not the point which is in question here. And in the interpretation of parables we get into endless difficulties, if we, so to speak, travel beyond the record, and consider the details in any other light than as the garniture of the one central idea which the parable is intended to set forth. As far as this parable is

concerned, we must accept it as a fact that they had borne. the burden and heat of the day; and no explanation of its equity can be entertained which sets that fact at nought. That we may the better understand what it does mean, let us consider

I. The work of the vineyard to which all were called, and in which the first called bore the burden and heat of the day.

II. The reason of the idleness of the husbandmen who at the eleventh hour were called to the work.

III. The Lord's justification of His ways.

I. The work of the vineyard.

I believe that there is nothing very definite in detail here set before our minds, and that we shall get into dire confusion if we inquire about the class or classes of members of the Church which may be signified by the husbandmen. There is no question of classes of Christian labourers, or kinds of Christian work, in the narrative. It is God's work, and these are God's workmen in the field of His visible Church, in the broadest sense which those words may bear. The vineyard is the visible field of God's tillage. The vast invisible field we are not called to consider; except to assure ourselves that one grand principle rules, explains, and justifies God's methods with the whole. The visible field, up to the day of Pentecost, was the Jewish commonwealth, which was about to expand into the Christian commonwealth when our Lord delivered the discourses which contain our text. In the Jewish commonwealth, not priest and prophet only, but every child of Abraham was a called husbandman; just as every Christian disciple, as much as apostle, bishop, evangelist, or deacon, is a called labourer in the wider vineyard of the Christian Church. The broad feature of the work of the vineyard is, that it is man's true, noble, God-ordained work.

It is the work for which all his organs and powers were fashioned, and in which his whole being was made to rejoice. Why were these men standing in the market

place? What took them there? Why were they not lounging idly about the fields, or sleeping at home? Clearly because some divine instinct within them moved them thither, that they might be in the way of being hired for a day's toil. A divine instinct, I say. He little understands humanity, who imagines that the great bread and cheese question is at the bottom of even a tithe of the daily labour of mankind. It would be hard to find a man who just works enough to provide the bread and cheese and beer which he needs to sustain his animal nature, and then folds his arms and takes his ease until new hunger compels new toil. There are such men about the world, no doubt; but it is a hard matter to find them. And when they are found, men attach to such a bestial idea of life the epithet "unmanly" with a bitter emphasis, which reveals how deeply there is inwrought into the very texture of man's nature the divine instinct of work. Man is made for it, as the flower of the field is made for the free air of heaven. Shut out from it, he grows irritable and sickly, his powers droop, his courage fails, his hope dies, his life is a wreck. And very noble motive inspires well-nigh the whole of human labour. Love, pure self-denying love, love of wife, love of child, of friends, of mankind, is the moving spring of most of man's most strenuous toil. God's work, work for God, and for man for the love of God, is but the highest form or mode of human labour. Man's divine work is not something essentially different in principle from all his other work. All his best labour in his daily tasks proceeds upon the existence within him of powers and organs which can only find their highest exercise, and which can only justify their lowest exercise, in the work of the vineyard which the Lord has given us each one to do. Man is simply unmanned while he stands all the day idle in the market-place; his goodliest powers and organs are rusting, his blood trickles with dull stagnant motion through his lazy veins, his whole system is oppressed and burdened, his muscles ache for exercise, his cheek is pale,

his eye is dim. The kingly being is unbraced and discrowned; no joys or honours attend the fainéant king. Who are the pitiable ones here? On whom shall we spend our regrets and sorrows? The hardy sunburnt workmen, who have spent their strength manfully in a brave day's work; who watch the westering sun as only the tired labourer has the right to watch him; and who settle peacefully to the workman's rest, till the gay sunlight wakes them again to new glad toils in a young, fresh, dewy world? Nay, the work of the vineyard is man's honour, joy, glory, and bliss. To be called to work in it is the crown of his manhood; to finish his work with joy is his noblest praise. But why should it not end here? If he is to be counted blessed who works in the vineyard, if his work gladdens, enriches, and ennobles him, what room is there for the thought of pay? What can the pennies in this case mean?

Man is made with a large capacity, and a large thought and hope of happiness. He can take a large blessing into his being, larger than he can meet with in his present sphere. The range of his nature takes in the infinite and the eternal. The work is noble, glorious exercise; but God only can fill and satisfy his spirit. Man needs something beyond the mere play of his powers, though their free play is an intense exhilaration and delight. He needs the fellowship of beings to satisfy the yearning, to feed the appetite, of his nobler nature; he needs the love of God, and communion with all that is of God, that he may rest and be blessed. This is the reward which the earthly day of his toil and patience will bring. The true workman is happy in his work, and sings while he toils. But God has a yet richer benediction for His children when the work is done, a blessing which will beautify and glorify life through eternity. This He gives to the workman out of His royal bounty, His own blessedness. is His own to give; and all true workmen, whatever the measure of their work, because of the spirit of their work, shall claim it at His hand.

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