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such passages as these, till we have almost ceased to feel the wonder of them? It is a heavenly mind, said Thomas Boston, that is the best interpreter of Scripture.

Now

WOW first let us note how self-will leads to misery. Like many another child of other countries, this younger son chafed at the bonds of home. He wanted to live; he wanted to see the world; it was intolerable for a young fellow like him to be pent up in that lonely farm. His heart was away, long before he left. He had really wandered before he ever set out. So he came to his father and he got his portion; and without a thought of the sore hearts at home, he started lightly for the far country. I daresay the sun had never shone so brightly, and the world was never so magical, so intoxicating, as on that morning when he left the farm. Now he had burst the shackles, now he was going to be free-and before long, instead of being free, he found that he had made himself a slave! It was a sweet slavery for a little while; but the sweetness passed and the degradation came. Then (for troubles never come singly) there broke out a great famine in the land, until at last there was nothing left for him but to take service with some citizen and feed his swine-and you know what degradation that was for a Jew. It was to this that his self-will had brought him. He longed to be free, and he was free to starve. It was a strangely different world, out with the swine, from the world that had danced before him when he started-and he had no one to blame for it except himself. He had been self-willed, and now he was selfmade. There was a way that had seemed right in the man's eyes, and he was finding that its end was death.

AGAIN mark that it was the prodigal's want that turned

his heart homeward. In his days of pleasure he had forgotten his home. Life sped so merrily when money was plentiful, that he hardly ever gave a thought to his

father. And had his portion only lasted long enough, he might have been forgetful till he died. But the day came when he began to be in want, and on the back of his hunger memory revived. He had never known the value of his home till he was homeless in a stranger's field. But he knew it then; he saw it clearly then. His need set everything in its true light. And then urged by his destitution, and spurred by these happy visions of love and plenty, he was thrilled by the strong purpose to return. Had he sat still and only dreamed of home, he would have been the victim of remorse. When he rose up and started out for home he was the subject of genuine repentance. For repentance, says the catechism, is a saving grace, whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience.

THEN note how strong and deep the father's love was.

The prodigal had well-nigh forgotten his father, but the father had never forgotten his younger son. He never waked in the morning but it flashed on him that perhaps the wanderer would come home to-day. His heart had given a strange leap many a time when he spied a distant figure on the downs. But always it was another disappointment—and a stronger entreaty arose in the evening prayer. But to-day there was no disappointment. However ragged and haggard and wayworn, he would have recognised that figure in a thousand. They say that love is blind, but the love of the prodigal's father was not so. His love, then, was unchanging, ever watchful; but it was more, it was generous, royal, forgiving. There is the kiss of peace; there is the noble welcome; there is never a whisper of 'I told you so.' I think that if the elder brother had met the prodigal, he would have sneaked him round and in by the back door. But the

love of the father wishes no concealment; the whole house must be sharers in the joy. Is not that worthy of the name of love? Do you not say such love is wonderful? Yet that is the picture of the love of God when He pardons and welcomes and blesses you and me.

NOTE lastly how unbrotherly the elder brother was.

He was almost unworthy to have such a father. He took the feasting as a personal insult: he cannot call him brother 'this thy son.' You might have thought he would have been glad to get him home. Instead of that he was angry at the welcome. And he who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen? The younger brother had been selfish once; but the elder brother was selfish all along. The younger brother had a broken heart; the elder brother knew not his need of one. The younger brother, through bitterness and famine, had realised the priceless worth of love; but the elder brother, with everything he wanted, was loveless still. God keep us from that narrow and nasty spirit! May we all grow brotherly, and never elder-brotherly. And we shall never do that if in every evening prayer, amid all the joy and thanksgiving of grateful hearts, we whisper seriously, 'Father, I have sinned, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.'

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY

D

Morning

DAVID AND SAUL

Passage to be read: 1 Sam. xxiv. 1-22.

AVID and his band were wandering among the high cliffs that look down on the Dead Sea, when this most touching incident occurred. In the limestone crags of the district there are many caves, some of them ample enough in their recesses to shelter large bodies of men. A traveller indeed tells us that in one of them, which lies some twenty miles from En-gedi, no fewer than thirty thousand people once hid themselves to escape the suffocating blast of the simoom. To this day, too, around the mouth of these caves, hundreds of the sheepcotes mentioned in the chapter may be seen. Loose stones are piled up around the entrance of the cave till a rough wall is formed in a semicircle; this is then covered with thorns as a protection against marauders and wild beasts, and during times of storm, or by night, the sheep find safe housing in the cavern. It has been noted, further, that these caverns are dark as midnight. One can see outward clearly, but to see four paces inward is impossible, and all that must be borne in mind if we would wish to realise our chapter. Let the young folk, also, be interested in En-gedi-the old Hazezontamar where the Amorites dwelt (Gen. xiv. 7). I wonder if they could find the verse which says, 'My beloved is unto me as a cluster of samphire in the vineyards of En

gedi.' And though there are no vines at En-gedi now, I have read that in the stirring times of the Crusades, the best vineyards in Palestine were found there. Such is the scene and setting of this peerless incident.

IN N this neighbourhood, then, Saul is pursuing David, guided by the highlanders from Ziph (xxiii. 19). And one day, tired with his morning's march in the rough country, the king withdraws for a short rest in one of the dark caves on the hill-side. There he lies down to sleep, with his royal cloak lightly thrown across his feet, and he little dreams that in the side-hollows and chambers of his resting-place David and his men are hidden. There is no mistaking the rank of the intruder. His towering height would betray him in an instant, if his jewelled armour and the deference of his retinue failed to do it. The sleeper is Saul. God has delivered the arch-enemy into the hands of justice. There runs a whisper through the dark vaults and passages that the great hour of David's life is come-and perhaps for a moment David thinks the same. One stroke with Goliath's sword-and he is king. But a glance at the sleeper's face revives the past, obliterates the bitter memories of wrong, recalls the hour when he first stood, a ruddy shepherd-lad, in the presence of the Lord's anointed. He cannot kill him. His tender and gallant heart forbids the murder. The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed.' Then he stoops down, over the heart that hates him so, and with a deft stroke severs the golden fringe of the royal cloak. What means that stirring and quick breathing round the cave? It is David's followers eager to rise and slay. But David stays them-crushes them down, the word is; and Saul rises up out of the cave and goes his way. David was never more truly a king than when he refused, in En-gedi, to grasp the crown. And then how David goes out and cries on Saul,

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