his character, unconscious of the warring elements beneath-the troubled sea that cannot rest. He was occupied with the "outward appearance;" and respecting this he only knew what he was not, when compared with others who seemed to him worse than himself. His expression of thankfulness had really no reference whatever to God. It was not the countless mercies of God, the felt sense of His grace, the constraining influence of His unmerited love, which filled his mind; but he was wrapped up in self. He stood by himself, he prayed by himself, and it might without exaggeration be said that, instead of communing with God, he was engaged in the worship of himself. Confining his thoughts to a profitless comparison of himself with others, instead of looking into the mirror of the Divine Law, he fancies he discovers merits instead of sins. He judges himself better than "other men"-" all others" is the force of the original,—and in point of fact he thanks himself because he is so. Instead of his heart overflowing with gratitude to God, he accounts himself God's donor -he gives God his negative virtues, his fastings and his tithes.

O blind Pharisee! Thou art a self-truster -and a self-deceiver! True thankfulness to God has its root in His grace, not in thy merit. And thy merit is a delusion. "When a man compares himself with robbers and adulterers, for whom the sword and the prison are prepared, he may easily seem to himself like an angel." "To the law and to the testimony." Self-knowledge can only be acquired there. That knowledge attained -seeing thyself as God sees thee, the humbling truth will convince thee that there is nothing in thy nature, condition, or character, upon which the foot of human pride and self-confidence and self-congratulation may

abide for one moment.

God, when He deals with the soul, teaches man not what he is not, but what he is. Isaiah, thus taught, exclaimed not, "God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are," but "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." Isaiah did not learn this of himself by self-deceiving surface-work-by foolishly com

paring himself with others who had been betrayed into special sins, from which he was at present free. He had been taught of God. The Divine light in the temple made clear to his vision the "chambers of imagery" in his own heart, which ought to have been, like the temple itself, a sanctuary meet for God's presence: and hence His humble confession-"I am a man of unclean lips. for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!" So was it with the Apostle Peter. When he realized the Deity of Christ, manifested in the miraculous draught of fishes on the lake of Gennesaret, "he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." There was no disposition to recount his merits, or dwell on his sacrifices-no forwardness in avowing, as on another occasion he avowed, "Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee." Human merit and sacrifice may come into view when men are occupying themselves with what they are not, but they will never be named by those who are being taught of God what they really are. Job could boast himself when "God's candle shined upon his head," and his "glory was fresh on him." In the perilous time of prosperity he was too ready to observe the reverence paid to him by the aged and the young, by princes and nobles, and to hearken to the blessing of the "poor," and the "fatherless," and the "widow." He was an "upright man," one who "feared God and eschewed evil," but he needed a severe discipline, and Divine light shining into his heart, to guard him from the Pharisee's spirit, and bring him to the self-renouncing confession, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Always God's truth reveals what a man is. It will be so when the great white throne is set in judgment, and the books are opened: and it is so now. It is therefore worse than useless to be occupied, as the Pharisee in the Parable was occupied, in discovering what we are not. We may not be like this man or that man or the other man, but the question for each to ponder is, What am

I?

If we see ourselves as God sees us, so far from being satisfied with what we are, because we are led to conclude that others are worse than ourselves, we shall not fail to acknowledge that the Gospel of His saving grace has not over-estimated our spiritual need-that our fitting place is by the side of Isaiah and Peter and Job-aye, by the side of the poor Publican, crying out in contrition of soul, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

And this brings us to the portrait of the Publican, delineated in the thirteenth verse:

"And the Publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner."

The lines in this portrait are few, but they are distinct, and the picture is perfect. The Publican was a man who knew himselfknew what he really was.

This knowledge led him to "stand afar off." He reminds us of the Apostle's description of the spiritual position of the Ephesian converts, before they were "brought nigh by the blood of Christ"-"Ye who sometime were far off." He felt this distant position to be his own. He had a sense of guilt-a holy fear of the greatness of the majesty of God. He came for mercy, but he knew that he merited judgment. He acted as if he understood what David meant when he prayed, "Cast me not away from Thy presence: and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me."

This self-knowledge also tells us why he "would not lift up so much as his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast." Shame covered his face-shame for sin. Not the shame of the sinner taken in transgression, which prompts him to fly from God's presence; but a godly and holy shame, which brought him to God to confess his transgression. Like David, again, he might have testified, "Mine iniquities have taken such hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up." He knew what he was,

and he knew also that God knew what he was. He was guilty, he had sinned; and before the true God, the living God, the righteous God, he stood judging himself, condemning himself. He looked not up to

Heaven, for he knew that Heaven was not the portion his deeds had merited; he felt the weight of sin, and as if bending down beneath that weight, his eyes were fixed upon the earth as the scene of his transgressions. He "smote" too "upon his breast." With shame there was mingled "godly sorrow," aversion to sin as the cause of his guilt, and an honest tracing of that sin not to the example or influence of others, but to his own heart. As if he would say, "Here, in this heart of mine, lies the root of the malady-the true seat of my sore disease!"

What we might thus learn from the Publican's gestures is unmistakeably expressed by himself in his prayer,-"God be merciful to me the sinner [7 àμaprλ]."

Instead of the icy individuality of the Pharisee, indulging in self-righteous thoughts in the very presence of God, we have the intense individuality of true conviction and heart-contrition, avowing personal unworthiness and guilt. As the Pharisee counted himself better than all, the Publican counted himself worse than all.

His words of prayerful confession are simple but full. For a man to confess himself a sinner, is really to speak all against himself that can be spoken. He does not say he was, or had been, but that he now is, a sinner. And he advances no palliating pleas. He might have urged that he was of the seed of Abraham, and so a privileged man; he might doubtless have found, as all men can find, excuses for his sins, and probably he might have been able to speak, if not so vauntingly as the Pharisee, yet with truth, of the fastings and payment of tithes, and outward ceremonial observances which he had not altogether neglected as a Jew. But he had no such pleas. Fastings, tithes, sacraments, and prayers, are the resting-place vainly sought by those who occupy the platform the Pharisee occupiedwho trust in negative righteousness, building upon the self-deceiving foundation of selfignorance. The Publican knew what he was—a sinner: and he knew the evil of sin, not merely as committed against his brother man, and exposing him to such a condemna

tion as even a Pharisee might utter, but as committed against God, and exposing him to the righteous condemnation of the Divine Lawgiver Himself. His confession implies that he regarded sin as the worst of things, since he acknowledges that it had placed his soul beyond the reach of all remedy, short of the sovereign grace and mercy of God. "God be merciful to me the sinner."

He sought "mercy"-not conditional mercy, dependent on promises of amendment or self-reformation, but absolute mercy -mercy in the way of grace.

This is a most important point. No doubt it is difficult to say how far the Israelitish worshipper was permitted and enabled to understand what we may call the Gospel of the Old Testament, which presented in sacrifices many the ever-visible type of the one Sacrifice of the Lamb of God which "in the fulness of time" should "put away sin," and prove the basis for the exercise of Divine and Holy Mercy. But, without attempting to define how clearly the faith of the spiritually taught Jew, standing as the Publican stood in the temple of sacrifice where the priest was executing his typical office, might rest on the Atonement as the channel of justifying righteousness to the sinner, we know the one primary lesson of the Hebrew ritual was this-"Without shedding of blood is no remission." We know, too, that David certainly understood the cleansing efficacy of this typical blood-shedding, in that he prayed, "Purge me with hyssop,"hyssop dipped in the blood of atonement"and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

We are fully conscious that the main object of the law and its sanctions, as made known to Israel, was to convince of sin-to bring home to the people a sense of their guilt as transgressors. But we cannot imagine that God's purpose in the early dispensation was confined to this end-that the people, convinced of sin, were to be plunged into a state of irremediable despair. It is true the provisions of the Gospel were not revealed to them as they are revealed to us, but at the same time, as we have said, the ordinances of the Levitical Code were highly significant

of Gospel truth; and, recognizing this, we cannot doubt but that many a penitent and believing Jew realized the "blessedness" of the man of whom David spake, whose "sin is covered" and whose "iniquity is forgiven." As we see the Law fulfilled, they saw the Gospel predicted; and, like. Abraham, by the faith of anticipation, they embraced its promises of pardoning grace, and rejoiced in the Coming Saviour, who was verily in the Divine purpose, as the true Paschal Lamb, "slain before the foundation of the world." Faith in the Christ to come wrought effec tually for and in them, as faith in the Christ who has come, now works for and in us.

Bearing all this in mind, it is very remarkable that, in this special case of the Publican, his plea, "God be merciful to me the sinner," contains in it no indistinct recognition of the idea of atonement or propitiation. Ὁ Θεὸς ἱλάσθητί μοι τῷ ἁμαρτωλῷ. The word translated "be merciful," is totally different from that used in the very same chapter by the blind man who sat by the wayside begging,-"Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!" [Yè Aaßið 'Xénoóv μɛ]. In this instance the meaning is simply "Have pity on me"-compas

sionate me, the ground of the plea being his blindness. In the case of the Publican the word employed is from the same root as "propitiation," "a propitiatory victim," in Rom. iii. 24, 25, and 1 St. John ii. 2. It is part of the verb which is rendered in Heb. ii. 17, "to make reconciliation." It is, in fact, identical with the word which signifies the Mercy-Seat, the lid or covering of the ark of the covenant, made of pure gold, on and before which the high-priest was to sprinkle the blood of the expiatory sacrifices on the great Day of Atonement, and where Jehovah promised to meet His people. St. Paul applies the very word to Christ (Rom. iii. 25), assuring us that He was the true Mercy-Scat, the reality of what this Marpor -the Mercy-Seat itself-represented to the ancient believers.

Literally, then, the Publican's prayer may be rendered, "God be propitiated towards me the sinner." It is the cry of guilt pleading for mercy, for mercy's sake. As a sinner her

sought God as a Saviour-and this is the very essence of Gospel faith; and, so seeking, he "went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

To sum up what has been said, the Pharisee and the Publican were both sinners: but the self-righteousness of the Pharisee blinded his eyes to his true state and character, so that he did not feel the need of justification-did not seek it, and did not find it: whereas the Publican felt his need, and sought, and found what he needed. "The Pharisee asked no forgiveness from God, and got none. He departed from the temple as full and satisfied, or rather as empty and poor, as he entered it. For aught that we learn to the contrary, he went on tithing his mint, anise, and cummin-went on blindfold till he stumbled on the judgment-seat." The publican went down to his house "justified "-not simply pardoned, but accounted righteous. "Not by works of righteousness which he had done, but according to God's mercy He saved him" (Titus iii. 5). Like Abel, he "obtained witness that he was righteous" (Heb. xi. 4): not righteous in himself, but accepted, justified, accounted righteous before God, as a believer in the Divine Propitiation.

So is it still. Mercy flows in the same unchanged and unchanging channel. It can never reach the self-justifiers, who are vainly trusting to a negative righteousness,

which is only surface-deep, and utterly worthless before God. The pharisaic spirit will not allow an honest cry for mercy to pass the lips; and where there is no prayer for mercy there can be no answer in grace. Or there may be the form of prayer in public and even in private, and that form, unlike the Pharisee's, may be orthodox enough; but all the while the lips may be uttering truths to which the heart gives no responsive sanction, and the formalist necessarily departs unblessed.

Self-knowledge-the knowledge of what we really are in God's sight-must be attained before the desire for mercy can be either felt or expressed; but when that desire is felt and expressed by the self-judging, self-condemning sinner, abasing himself, and acknowledging the glory of God's justice, it will ever be found that there is more virtue in the Divine mercy to save than there is in the Law and sin to condemn. "God is love:" He is "rich in mercy," and "ready to forgive." And although self-knowledge, as we progress in its attainment, will make more and more clear to us how much cause we have for self-condemnation and selfhumiliation, we may always have this comfort, as penitent believers, that He who knows us better than we can ever know ourselves, has in the Gospel of His Son put away our sin according to His own sense and knowledge of its guilt and heinousness, so that we may confidently exclaim, IT IS GOD THAT JUSTIFIETH, WHO IS HE THAT CONDEMNETH?

DWELLING, rented or owned by a man, in which his own wife keeps house, is not always, or of course, a home. What is it, then, that makes a home? All men and women have the indefinite knowledge of what they want and long for when that word is spoken. "Home!" sighs the disconsolate bachelor, tired of boardinghouse fare and buttonless shirts. "Home!" says the wanderer in foreign lands, and thinks

of mother's love, of wife and sister and child. Nay, the word has in it a higher meaning, hallowed by religion; and when the Christian would express the highest of his hopes for a better life, he speaks of his home beyond the grave. The word home has in it the elements of love, rest, permanency, and liberty; but besides these it has in it the idea of an education by which all that is purest within us is developed into nobler forms, fit for a higher life.

The little child by the home fireside was taken on the Master's knee when He would explain to His disciples the mysteries of the kingdom.

Of so great dignity and worth is this holy and sacred thing, that the power to create a HOME ought to be ranked above all creative faculties. The sculptor who brings out the breathing statue from cold marble, the painter who warms the canvas into a deathless glow of beauty, the architect who built cathedrals and hung the world-like dome of St. Peter's in midair, is not to be compared, in sanctity and worthiness, to the humblest artist, who, out of the poor materials afforded by this shifting, changing, and selfish world, creates the secure Eden of a home.

A true home should be called the noblest work of art possible to human creatures, inasmuch as it is the very image chosen to represent the last and highest rest of the soul, the consummation of man's blessedness.

In this art of home-making I have set down in my mind certain first principles, like the axioms of Euclid, and the first is,

No home is possible without love.

All business marriages and marriages of convenience, all mere culinary marriages and marriages of mere animal passion, make the creation of a true home impossible in the outset. Love is the jewelled foundation of this New Jerusalem descending from God out of Heaven, and takes as many bright forms as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of that mysterious vision. In this range of creative art all things are possible to him that loveth, but without love nothing is possible.

We hear of most convenient marriages in some countries which may better be described as commercial partnerships. The money on each side is counted; there is enough between the parties to carry on the firm, each having the appropriate sum allotted to each. No love is pretended, but there is great politeness. All is so legally and thoroughly arranged, that there seems to be nothing left for future quarrels to fasten on. Monsieur and Madame have each their apartments, their carriages, their servants, their income, their friends, their pursuits,-understand the solemn vows of marriage to mean simply that they are to treat each other with urbanity in those few situations where the path of life must necessarily bring them together.

Such an idea of marriage has its root in an ignoble view of life-an utter and pagan darkness as to all that man and woman are called

to do in that highest relation where they act as one. It is a mean and low contrivance on both sides, by which all the grand work of home-building, all the noble pains and heroic toils of home-education,-that education where the parents learn more than they teach,―shall be (let us use the expressive Yankee idiom) shirked.

It is a curious fact that in those countries where this system of marriages is the general rule, there is no word corresponding to our English word home. In many polite languages of Europe it would be impossible neatly to translate the sentiment with which we began this essay, that a man's house is not always his home.

Let any one try to render the song "Sweet Home" into French, and one finds how AngloSaxon is the very genius of the word. The structure of life, in all its relations, in countries where marriages are matter of arrangement, and not of love, excludes the idea of home.

How does life run in such countries? The girl is recalled from her convent or boarding. school, and told that her father has found a husband for her. No objection on her part is contemplated or provided for; none generally occurs, for the child is only too happy to obtain the fine clothes and the liberty which she has been taught come only with marriage. Be the man handsome or homely, interesting or stupid, still he brings these.

"How intolerable such a marriage!" we say, with the close intimacies of Anglo-Saxon life in our minds. They are not intolerable, because they are provided for by arrangements which make it possible for each to go his or her several way, seeing very little of the other. The son or daughter, which in due time makes its appearance in this ménage, is sent out to nurse in infancy, sent to boarding-school in youth, and in maturity portioned and married, to repeat the same process for another genera tion. Meanwhile father and mother keep a quiet establishment, and pursue their several pleasures. Such is the system.

Individual character, it is true, does something to modify this programme. There are charm. ing homes in France and Italy, where warm and noble natures, thrown together, perhaps, by accident, or mated by wise paternal choice, infuse warmth into the coldness of the system under which they live. There are in all states of society some of such domesticity of nature, that they will create a home around themselves under any circumstances, however barren.