of land which bounds the eastern plain of Acre, and through which the Kishon flows into the sea.

IV. Two or three obvious conclusions are forced upon us by this general view of the Parables and Dis- Conclu

courses.

sions.

First, if it is clear that the form of the teaching was suggested by the objects immediately present, if the character Reality of of the Parables thus coincides with the notices of the the Teachlocalities where they occur,-it is a proof, incontest- ing. able, and within small compass, that even that revelation, which was most unlike all others in its freedom from outward circumstance, was yet circumscribed, or (if we prefer so to state it) assisted, by the objects within the actual range of the speaker's vision. It is an argument, such as in the days of subtle theological speculation might have been justly and forcibly used for what is termed the Perfect Humanity of Christ. It is an argument which, in our own time, may be more practically used to show the simplicity and reality of a teaching which took its stand on the ordinary sights and sounds, still seen and heard in the same land where that teaching was delivered. And, if it was thus suggested by outward existing images, it must also, by those images, be judged and explained. We are apt sometimes to carry out into an infinite series of moral and theological conclusions the truths which are stated under these material forms. It might, perhaps, serve both to restrain us from precipitate inferences, and also to relieve us from some difficulties, if we bore in mind that the distinctness which necessarily belongs to physical objects cannot be transferred bodily to the moral world'. When, for example, we look on the track of the road, on the protruding rocks, on the thorny thickets, on the deep mould of the corn-fields of Gennesareth; or, again, on the white sheep and the black goats of the flocks in Judæa; we ought to feel that the division of mankind. into various classes, when represented under those figures, necessarily assumes a definiteness of separation, which cannot be applied without modification to the complexities of the actual world.

I owe this remark to a friend to whom it was suggested by the above descriptions.

2. Again, the mere fact, that our Lord's teaching was Homeliness suggested by familiar and passing objects, is not without interest and instruction. It shows that He

and Uni

versality. was affected by the outward impressions of the moment, not only in the graver events of His life, as when the sudden view of Jerusalem filled His eyes with tears, or the sight of sufferers drew forth the heaving sigh and the bitter groan, but habitually, and in His daily intercourse. Even if we knew no more than this general fact, it would be to us a touching proof that He was of "the same flesh and blood," "tried," in all points, "like as we are." But another and a higher thought strikes us when we consider what were the especial objects which thus, if one may so say, gave a colour to the thoughts and expressions of Him who spake as never man spake. Though characteristic not only of the country, but of the particular spots of country, where the parables and discourses were uttered, they are yet so common and obvious that, but for these sacred allusions, one would pass them by without notice. The grander features of the scenery, the mountains, the forests, the striking points of Oriental vegetation, palm and cedar, and terebinth, the images, in short, which fill the pages of the Psalmists and Prophets of the Older Dispensation, have no place in the Gospel Discourses. He must have been familiar with the magnificent prospect from the heights above Nazareth. Hermon and Tabor must have been constantly before Him in His later wanderings. The Pisgah-view must have been His from the Peræan hills. Yet none of these came within the circle of His teaching. Perhaps the only exception is the allusion, noticed before, in the Sermon on the Mount to the city set on a "mountain;" but this, even if certain, is a mere passing glance at a single point in the landscape. As a general rule, every image, every emotion is drawn from the humbler and plainer figures of every-day life and observation,―vineyards and corn-fields, shepherds and ploughmen, travellers and fishermen. And if the beauty of nature attracts His notice, it is still of the same simple and general kind,-the burst of the radiance of an eastern sun,—the lively instincts and movements of the careless birds over His head, the gay colours of the carpet of flowers under His feet. If there be any one passage

of the older Scriptures which specially represents the natural storehouse of the Parables of the Gospel, it is the gentle and touching burst of the imagery of spring in the Song of Songs: "The winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell'." It were vain to ask the precise cause of these omissions and selections. Perhaps there may be found some answer in the analogies, partial as they are, of the absorption of the greatest of ancient philosophers, of the noblest of medieval saints: which made Socrates delight in the city rather than in the country: which made St. Bernard on the shores of Geneva unconscious of the magnificence of the lake and mountains round him. But, rather, perhaps, we may say that it was the same humble and matter-of-fact, yet at the same time universal spirit, which characterised the whole course of His life on earth, and has formed the main outlines of His religion since. The homeliness of the illustrations, whilst it links the teaching with the daily life of His time, yet sufficiently frees them from local peculiarity to render them of universal application. They gain more force and vividness by being still seen on the spot, but they need little or no explanation beyond what they themselves convey. What has often been said of the two Sacraments is, in fact, but one instance of what applies to His whole ministry. Taken from the common usages of Eastern life, ablution and the social meal, from the common elements of nature, water, bread, and the fruit of the vine, there is hardly a country where they are not easily accessible and intelligible. A groundwork of historical and geographical fact, with a wide applicability extending beyond the limits of any age or country; a religion rising in the East, yet finding its highest development and fulfilment in the West; a character and teaching, human, Hebrew, Syrian, in its outward form and colour, but in its inward spirit and characteristics universal and divine-such are the general conclusions, discernible, doubtless, from any careful study of the Gospels,

1 Song of Solomon ii. 11-13,

FF

but impressed with peculiar force on the observant traveller by the sight of the Holy Land.

Union of

Divine.

3. Lastly, the whole effect of these points of homely contact between the life of Christ and the earthly scenes of His Human and ministrations, leaves two thoughts not to be set aside. On the one hand, it is useless to deny that there is a shock to the religious sentiment in finding ourselves on the actual ground of events which we have been accustomed to regard as transacted in heaven, rather than on earth,-which we have been led by pictures and preaching and poetry to invest with an atmosphere too ideal to be brought into contact with anything so prosaic as the actual stocks and stones of Syria. "Is not this the son of the carpenter? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? A Prophet has no honour in his own country." But, on the other hand, this very feeling gives us a sense of solidity and substance in the character thus presented to us, which it is our own fault if we do not turn to account. So completely one of the sons of men, a career so circumscribed by the roads, and valleys, and hills of an ordinary home and country; and yet (to go no higher than the point to which we are led by the mere outward contemplation of the history), so universal in the fame, the effects, the spirit of His teaching and life.— "From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands1?"

1 Matt. xiii. 54. Mark vi. 3.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE HOLY PLACES.

Psalm cii. 14.-"Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof."

Catalogue of the Holy Places: I. Bethlehem. 1. Church of Helena. 2. Grotto of the Nativity. 3. Cell of Jerome. II. Nazareth. 1. Spring of the Greek Church. 2. Grotto of the Latin Church. 3. House of Loretto. III. Jerusalem. 1. Mosque of the Ascension. 2. Tomb of the Virgin. 3. Garden of Gethsemane. 4. Conaculum. 5. The Holy Sepulchre the Church-Greek Easter-Holy Fire-Conclusion.