attempt to make an unmixed kingdom in this world by destroying the tares before the end of the world. The tares and the wheat have been sown together and they must be left to grow together until the time comes to garner the wheat and burn the tares.

The mystery of sin is not explained in this parable; but it is clearly recognized and the entrance of sin into this world is attributed to the devil who sowed bad seed in God's world. This parable is a miniature picture of the world's history as it may be traced in the Bible. There are two sowers, God and the evil one; there are two kinds of seed, true and false, and they are sown in the same world, where they grow together and cannot be wholly separated. But the time is coming when the works of the evil one will be destroyed and the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father. This parable is a call for patient, cheerful, hopeful waiting.

The first parables exhibited the establishing of the kingdom of God in this world as the sowing, growing and intermingling of good and bad seed, while the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven exhibit the establishing of the kingdom as a development of great power from very small beginnings. As the mustard seed, one of the small seeds planted in the garden, becomes the greatest of garden herbs, so the little seed of the kingdom is destined to become the greatest power in the world. This was as dark a saying as the words that afterwards puzzled the Jews when Christ said, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me." So too, the little leaven, leavening the three measures of meal, was an apt illustration of the mighty, silent and expansive force of the seed of Christ's kingdom. It is very easy for us, who have witnessed the growth of the

kingdom, to see the beauty and aptness of these parables; but, when they were first uttered, they seemed so incomprehensible that even the disciples did not so grasp them as to intelligently inquire concerning their meaning.

It is hardly necessary to remark that, while both these parables illustrate the growth of the kingdom from small beginnings, the parable of the mustard seed seems peculiarly adapted to exhibit the marvelous expansion of the seed of the kingdom, while that of the leaven exhibits its transforming power. Both work silently and mightily, but each in its own way. The kingdom of God is to fill the whole earth and shelter all nations, and leaven with the leaven of righteousness all who come under its influence.

If, as we have assumed, these parables were spoken to the multitude by the seaside in the forenoon, we may now see Jesus dismissing the multitude and going with the disciples "into the house" at Capernaum where he explained the parables of the sower and of the tares and then added the parable of the hidden treasure and of the net let down into the sea.

The parables of the treasure and of the pearl were adapted to impress upon the disciples the necessity for seeking and appropriating the kingdom. It was to be so valued that a man would rejoice in its discovery, and be willing to sell all his possessions in order to buy it. This parable shows that the kingdom of God is only for those who are willing to make such sacrifices for it as the pearl seeker makes for a pearl of great price.

The parable of the net warned the disciples against trusting to the mere fact that they were disciples. The net let down into the world would gather good and bad, but there would come a time of separation. The kingdom of Christ now in the world comprises more than

four hundred million nominal Christians but these are only the gross contents of the net, including the good and the bad.

This was a great day in the history of our Lord's teaching. These parables did not astonish and excite the multitude who heard them so much as did some of his mighty works, but we may safely say that they exerted more influence on the world. Christians, living in this age, see Christ's miracles as events that occurred far away in the dim vista of the past; but these parables seem as fresh and appropriate as if they were spoken for the first time in our own age. They increase in aptness and become more luminous as they come to each succeeding generation. They seem to have been spoken for and to us rather than for and to the men and women who walked by Galilee nearly nineteen hundred years ago.

XXIX

THE MOTHER AND BRETHREN OF JESUS

Matthew 12:50. "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister and mother." (Mat. 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8: 19-21.)

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HE first three evangelists tell of the mother and brethren of our Lord seeking to see him, and that they could not come to him on account of the crowd. Their accounts of what occurred do not differ essentially, but each one differs from the other two by giving the event a different place in the narrative. In view of the uncertainty as to time and place, we study it in immediate connection with our Lord's first teaching by parables at Capernaum.

When the mother and brethren of Jesus sought to speak to him they could not because of the multitude and a message was sent to him through the crowd. When it reached the inner circle some one interrupted the discourse, saying to Jesus, "Thy mother and thy brethren stand without seeking to speak to thee." When Jesus heard this message, instead of sending back some reply, or asking the crowd to give way, he said to the multitude, "Who is my mother and my brethren?" and, as he looked around on those who sat near him, he added, "Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother."

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These words must have surprised the multitude' who first heard them, and they surprise the average reader when he reads them for the first time. When one thinks of Jesus' tender regard for his mother, and remembers that he remained at Nazareth subject to his parents until he was thirty years old, these words, spoken in such circumstances, are a surprise. Why did he treat his mother and his brethren in this way?

If Mark refers to the same event when he says, in a different connection, that the friends of Jesus thought he was mad and sought to lay hands on him, we can easily understand his words and acts toward them. If the Pharisees had succeeded in so misleading the minds of his mother and his brethren that they had come to try to force him to give up his work, the answer of Jesus needs no explanation. There is doubt, however, as to whether Mark, in this part of his narrative refers to the same event, and such an explanation is not needed. In the temple, when Jesus was only twelve years old, he said to his mother, "How is it ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" On another occasion he said to her again, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." When she comes now, he is doing the work that his heavenly Father has sent him into this world to do, and he must not let even his mother and his brethren interfere with that work. In his answer, he recognizes ties of relationship that were more important than those of nature, since whosoever would do the will of the Father was his mother, sister and brother-his nearest and dearest kindred. He placed the conditions of discipleship on a high plane, when he said, "he that loveth father, mother, son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me," and he recognized the same principle here by his own conduct