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And in truth we may learn, from the working of human affection, that the rejoicing more of the lost sheep than of the ninety and nine, proves not that the one is more beloved than the rest. If one member of his family be in sickness or danger, does not that one seem almost to engross the heart of the parent? Are not the other members comparatively forgotten, so completely, for a while, are the thoughts absorbed in the suffering individual? It is not — and the fathers and mothers amongst you know that it is not — that the sick child is better loved than those which are in health. It is not that your affections are more centred on the son who is far away amid the perils of the deep than on those who are sitting safely at your fireside. It is only that danger causes you to feel a special interest for the time in some one of your offspring — an interest which for the most part ceases with the occasion, and which would be immediately transferred to another of the family, if that other were the subject of the peril. Oh, we quite believe that the mother, gazing on the child who seems about to be taken from her by death, is conscious of a feeling of passionate attachment which does not throb within her as she looks on her other little ones sleeping in their unbroken healthfulness. And if disease be suddenly arrested, and the child over whom she had wept in her agony smile on her again, and again charm her with its prattle, why we are persuaded that she will rejoice more of that child than of its brothers and its sisters, over whose beds she has never hung in anguish. Yet it is not that the one is dearer to her than the others. The probability of losing the one, whilst the others were safe, has caused a concentration of her solicitudes and anxieties. But her heart is all the while as thoroughly devoted to those who need not the same intenseness of her maternal care; and you have only to suppose the sickness from which one child has recovered seizing on another, and presently you will see her centring on this other the same eager watchfulness; and for a time will there be again the same apparent absorption of the affections: and if again there be restoration to health, oh, again there will be the manifestations of an exuberant gladness, and the mother will rejoice more of the boy or the girl who has been snatched back from the grave than of those members of her household who have not approached its confines. But not, we again say, because she loves one child better than the rest — not because the healthful must become the sick in order to their being cherished and prized. Whatever her rapture on being told "thy son liveth," the mother would far prefer the deep and unruffled tranquillity of a household not visited by danger and disease. And thus also with regard to moral peril, which brings the case nearer to that of the parable under review. If one member of a family grow up vicious and dissolute, whilst the others pursue stedfastly a course of obedience and virtue, it is not to be disputed that the thoughts of the parents will almost be engrossed by their profligate child, and that the workings of anxious affection will be more evident in regard of this prodigal than of the sons and the daughters who have given them no cause for uneasiness. Is it that they love the reckless better than the obedient? is it that they would love the obedient better if they were turned into the reckless? You know that this is no true account of the matter. You know that the seeing what we love in danger excites that interest on its behalf which we are scarcely conscious of whilst we see it in security. The danger serves to bring out the affection, and to show us its depth; but it rather affords occasion of manifestation than increases the amount. And, beyond question, if the child whose perverseness and profligacy have disquieted the father and the mother, causing them anxious days and sleepless nights, turn from the error of his ways, and seek their forgiveness and blessing ere they die, there will be excited such emotions in their hearts as have never been stirred by the rectitude and obedience of the rest of their offspring. And, in like manner, so far as we may carry up the illustration from the earthly to the heavenly we deny that, in representing God as rejoicing more over the recovered tribe than over those which never fell, we represent Him as better pleased with repentance than with uniform obedience. We do but ascribe to Him human emotions, just in order to show that there is a tenderness in Deity which makes Him solicitous, if the word be allowable, for those who have brought themselves into danger and difficulty, and which renders their deliverance an object of such mighty importance that, when achieved, it may be said to minister more to His happiness than the homage of the myriads who never moved His displeasure. And when, through the energies of redemption, the human race was reinstated in the place whence it fell, it was not that God prefers the penitent to those who never swerved from allegiance, and has greater delight in men who have sinned than in angels who have always obeyed; it was not on these accounts that He was more gladdened, as we suppose Him, by the recovery of what had wandered than by the steadfastness of what remained. It was only because, where there has been ground of anxiety, and a beloved object has been in peril, his restoration and safety open channels into which, for a while, the sympathies of the heart seem to pour all their fulness — it was only on this account that, Divine things being illustrated by human, our Creator might be likened to a man who, having found on the mountains the one sheep he had lost, "rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which went not astray." We judge from its context, as given by St. Matthew, that Christ designed to indicate the carefulness of God in reference to the erring members of the Church, which is specially His flock. He is there speaking of the little ones, who are His disciples and followers; and the truth which He declares illustrated by the parable is, that it is not the will of the Father that "one of these little ones should perish.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

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KJV: And he spake this parable unto them, saying,

WEB: He told them this parable.