and fine linen, rags or nakedness, power or pride, or position. But they cannot remain. He sweeps all off by the breath of his mouth, or by the hurricane of adversity, or by the gentle but persistent zephyr of sovereign and saving love. He searches every nook, descends the shaft of the deepest mine-traverses the breadth of the broadest sea-ascends to the giddy heights of the world's most exalted greatness, in order to seize and save. Having resolved to find, repolish, and replace the lost in the sacred currency of heaven, He spares no pains, and in no instance fails of success.

War is man's fierce passion, laying bare the long-buried coin. Revolution is a nation's wrath, in this case accomplishing unintentionally the purposes of God. Faithful preachers sweep off the obscurations of prejudice, and the layers of ignorance, and the rust of incisive and fretful passion.

Found at last-at so great a cost-it is cleansed and brightened, and on its fair face is retraced by the Holy Spirit the shining likeness of the children of God.

Heaven hears of the discovery, and resounds with anthems of praise and thanksgiving to Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb,

Fabe Lost Son.

Luke xv. 11-32.

HIS, the last of the three parables, is the most exquisite. It has more of detail. Its side lights are more varied and beautiful. It is still the study of youth and the joy of age. None need despair while this parable is in the Word of God.

And the younger of

give me the porHis father did so.

"A father had two sons. them said to his father, Father, tion of goods that falleth to me." "And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together." He was bent on being independent. The desire not to be dependent on others for daily bread, as long as our own heads or hands can earn it, is good; but there is a spirit of proud independence in itself most sinful. This younger son gathered all his share together, and took his journey into a far country; but instead of working, as he meant perhaps at first, he wasted his substance in riotous living: and, "when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land." He could not help or foresee an event of this kind; but he ought, instead of spending all in profligacy, to have been prepared to meet such a possibility. He began, for the first time in his life, to be now in He must either lie down and starve, or go out and seek work. He joins himself to a citizen of a distant country. He is sent by him to do what, of all things, was most distasteful to a Jew-to feed swine. His hunger was so great, and his destitution

want.

so real, that "he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." It was not the husks or shells of beans or of peas that he ate, but a distinct fruit. The tree that bears it is called the Carob-tree. It was something like the bean, and was found in the hedges; neither nutritive nor agreeable to the taste. But even of these he could not find enough to satisfy his hunger; and he found no one to pity. Hunger and misery made him contrast the far country in which he sojourned with the beloved home, the roof-tree, and the fireside he had wickedly left, till he cried out, "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father." That relationship, and his sense of its existence, led by grace to repentance and the resolve,-"I will arise, and go to my father, and I will say unto him, Father, I have sinned "-I did grievous wrong in leaving home, I sinned by wasting my substance in riotous living-" I have sinned against heaven and before thee." While one regards sin as against a brother only, there is no evidence of true repentence; but, as soon as he sees it to be sin against God, there is the germ of repentance. David had sinned grievously against man, yet he said, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." The prodigal therefore says, "I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." He arose-not satisfied with resolving, as Felix did, in the hope of a convenient season-he carried into practice the resolution of his heart; and arose and came. He went, no doubt, with slow and hesitating footstep, sometimes hoping, "He will welcome me;" at other times fearing, "He will only treat me as I deserve." « But, when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him." The father, on the roof of his house, as is common with Orientals in eastern lands, was looking, not for the rising cloud or the setting sun, but for him of whom he thought more than of the elder son who remained at home. The father saw him " a great way off." At first