But

What did our Master intend by thus sketching the judge? Does He mean to represent God in any degree as such? Is not the whole portrait framed on conditions of character the very reverse of our best and noblest conceptions of the Divine Father? Do we not expect to find in Him the highest justice linked with the tenderest readiness to stoop to the cry of the distressed and forsaken? In no sense can this harsh character represent God in His relation to man. as there must be some point of correspondence between the sketch and the condition of Christ's people, this must be sought not in any actual indifference of God to the cries and prayers of His people, but rather in the state of His people at the particular era Christ has been describing. The unjust judge is not the portrait of what God is, but of what, owing to circumstances of trial, and misrepresentations of unreasonable and wicked men, the suffering, waiting people of Christ will be almost tempted to think Him.

To them, in an era of heartless worldliness, shallow religionism, and noisy dogmatism, it might appear that God was absent from them. The cry would be no new one which complained, "Wherefore art Thou absent from us so long? Thou art a God that hidest Thyself;" till the climax doubt rose like the wild note of the storm-bird hovering on the dreary waste of tossing seas," Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" All about them they hear a language which haunts them with hideous dread; the voice of the enemy and the blasphemer are heard whispering, "Is there knowledge in the Most High? He will never regard it" or deepening into the hoarse utterance of half wish, half fear,"There is no God!" More, more dogmatically than the voice of the narrowest bigot, Providence is declared to be an unscientific conception, and the notion of prayer completely at variance with the understood and fundamental axioms of a higher philosophy— "All things continue as they are." At length,

some bolder in speech than the rest, because feebler in scientific knowledge, take up the words of a taunting proverb against Christ's waiting, praying Church; and cry, "Where is thy God? He will not interfere. He

who is the eternal God of unerring wisdom is too wise to err in His pre-arranged plan of law, and, therefore, will not acknowledge mistake by interfering at your request to change His unalterable purpose. Why rend the sky with useless plaints to a God whose cold, unchanging laws work evermore towards the great end He has in view, and will not deviate a hair's breadth for all the swelling murmurs of little-witted men? The true and philosophical conception of God is of one absolute and infinite, and unmoved by earthly passions; incapable of pity, which is a weakness, or of change, which is a folly." And this dreary deity, which is, be it noted, the true portrait of the unjust judge transferred to God the Almighty, the suffering and praying children of God are advised to

accept as the pure scientific exposition of the mighty Father of spirits.

Harassed by doubts, wounded and terrified by the oft-reiterated assaults and assertions of her enemies, driven to despair at the seeming unbroken stillness of the unanswering heavens, the Church of Christ is as the lone helpless widow, powerless and povertystricken. But she is mighty. Though this hideous portraiture of grim and impassive godhead is thrust upon her, she will have none of it. She will not abandon her plea, or accept the description. With this picture of hard, inexorable justice before her, she will not abandon her plea. If it be so that she is thus weak and poor, and dealing with one whom no cries for pity, or claims for justice, can arouse, and no aspect of misery touch and soften; then nothing remains for her but the might of her weakness in its unceasing supplications, which will take no denial, nothing remains but to weary him out into compliance.

So neither do Christ's people, wearied and dispirited, abandon their praying. They will not yield. They refuse to accept the portraiture. When the power, or the energy to argue against the suggestions of the enemy has forsaken them, they will still persevere in their cry, "We cannot fail, we must beat in at length; or if we perish in the cold cheerless Godhead you describe, yet better perish so labouring, battling, crying for the light, than be false to the nobler instincts and unquenchable convictions of our higher nature, or silence the sweetest music in the book of God."

Then, when their firm resolve is taken, the mist is taken away. Christ's loving hand removes the soul-freezing portraiture, and brings in the much-loved features. The unjust judge fades from view, and God, our own God, is there once more. "Shall not God," he says, bringing back the true idea of personal, righteous, loving, and watchful rule, "shall not God avenge His own elect which

C