serted none, that the best expositors have rejected it. It cannot be maintained either on exegetical or moral grounds, and would find no acceptance but for the narrow and imperfect views of the grand scheme of Providence with which the Church has been too willing to satisfy itself. It conflicts with the justice of God's administrations, that "virgins" should be visited with the same doom as sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters." It is irreconcilable with the humility, honesty, and charity of true saints that they should give such advice as these unfurnished virgins received in the hour of their perplexity, if their case was already and forever hopelessly decided. It is also a reflection upon the goodness of the Savior himself, to suppose that any should come to him at any time, as these virgins. finally did, with their virginity preserved and the oil no longer wanting in their lamps, and be repulsed with the condemnation of the dissolute and the graceless.

And, as these virgins do not cease to be virgins, and every change in their case from the time of the midnight cry is in the direction of improvement, how can their portion be other than that which appertains to virgins? They are delivered from their folly, as intimated in the fact that they are no longer called "foolish." They also procure the requisite supplies of oil. And though these preparations are effected too late for them to move with the bridal party or to share in the marriage, that does not exclude them from the proper claims of virginity, and from all kind

regard from Him who was once willing to make them his Bride. When a man marries a maiden, all others are, of course, excluded from being his wife, but they are not therefore to be held and reprobated as unchaste and forever excluded from his friendship and respect. No such logic ever applies in the ordinary affairs of life. Common sense would repudiate it as the height of folly and injustice. Why, then, insist on forcing it into our interpretations of the word of God?. There is also a great incongruity and selfcontradiction in assigning to these virgins "the blackness of darkness" whilst they retain their lamps all filled, trimmed, and brightly burning. How can he walk in darkness who has a lighted flambeau in his hand?

The answer of the Bridegroom to these virgins, when they came praying to be admitted to the marriage, upon first view might seem to imply that mercy had clean gone from them. Somewhat similar language is used elsewhere, in such evident connection with judicial exclusion from all further interest in the Savior's mercies, that we are hence, perhaps, too much predisposed, without sufficient evidence, to take what is here said by the Bridegroom as if it were the In three instances, and once in writing, since I commenced remarking on this parable, have I been asked what I make of the Savior's saying to these unwise virgins, "I never knew you." My answer is, that I make nothing of it, as the Savior has not said SO. The words are simply, “I know you not,”—and these uttered, not as a judge passing final sentence,

same.

but as a Bridegroom explaining why he could acknowledge no further applicants to be his Bride, no matter how well qualified they might be for such a position. The words thus mistakenly inserted are from quite a different discourse, where they are used with reference to very different characters. They are from the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, (and in substance repeated again in Luke xiii. 25-27,) where Christ says, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matt. vii. 22, 23.) The persons here described are not virgins, but evil-doers and workers of iniquity, self-deceivers and hypocrites of the most wicked sort. Their "Lord Lord!" is not, as in this parable, the call of affectionate and humble entreaty, but the language of adjuration and insolent questioning. The basis of acceptance which they propose is not that of a pure life and the grace of God earnestly sought as directed, as in the case of these virgins, but a vain presumption, and overweening confidence in associations and powers which do not at all touch the real heart and quick of Christian experience. There is also a wide difference between the final sentence of a judge pronounced upon a criminal at his bar, and the answer of a bridegroom to certain belated maidens who came after the wedding asking to be received as his bride. In the one case, guiltiness and unfitness constitute the dis

ability; in the other, the greatest purity and fitness on earth would be unavailing, for the reason that the man is already married. His simple announcement that they have come too late to be his wife, and that, having missed their time, he can no longer acknowledge them as his betrothed, in no way shuts the door to his recognition of them in some other capacity. Though they can never partake of the marriage honors and endowments, they may still be his friends, and hold high places in his favor and esteem, and in ulterior adjudications still not lose such an acknowledgment as would save them. Nor am I alone in this view of the case. Olshausen says, "It is clear that the words, I know you not, cannot denote eternal condemnation. The foolish virgins are only excluded from the marriage of the Lamb, . . . but are not thereby deprived of eternal happiness." Stier also agrees that "a further hope as regards the last end must remain." Dean Alford also concurs in the same. So, too, the Theological and Literary Journal, in an article on this parable.

*

It is not, however, the opinion of these expositors,

*See Olshausen's Commentary, Stier's Words of Jesus, and Alford's Greek Testament in loc., and vol. viii. of the Journal, p. 191, in which last place it is said, "That that which the foolish virgins lacked was actually obtained by them afterwards, though too late to allow their admission to the banquet, implies that that which those whom they denote are to lack, is something which they are to obtain afterwards, though not in time to allow their admission to the supper of the Lamb."

The same view is also maintained by Poiret, (Div. Econ.,) Von Mayer, (Blätter für höhere Wahrheit, and others.)

nor would I have you for one moment suppose, that the "further hope" of the belated virgins is the hope of having the deficiencies of the present life repaired after death. When a man once passes beyond the theatre of time, I know of no authority upon which to rest the belief that the pardon and grace which he neglected or despised in this world are still open to him, or that any possibility remains for retrieving the errors and follies of his life in the flesh. No man, of course, can trace the limits of the Divine mercies or set bounds to the operations of the Savior's grace; but the whole tenor of revelation seems to be that death puts an everlasting seal of fixedness upon moral character, and carries with it the decree, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still." (Rev. xxii. 11.) In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, an impassable gulf is represented as separating between the believing and the unsanctified, to which also the strongest expressions of permanence are applied. And if there were no hope for these virgins but that which bases itself upon a reparation of deficiencies to be made in the state after death, I should despair of their ever being other than eternally lost. The scene amid which they replenished their exhausted stock of oil is, in general, the same as that in which they obtained their first supplies. Those to whom they were sent could be none else than those from whom they bought at the beginning. And the whole transaction must