JOY OF THE ANGELS,

Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.-Luke xv. 10,

HIS assurance, coming from the lips of Jesus him

THIS

self, exhibits Christianity, both in its spirit and in its grandeur. As you will remember, these words were spoken in reply to certain self-righteous formalists who shrunk with horror from any association with publicans and sinners, and who marveled that one who professed to be a divine teacher should sit down and eat with them. To these Scribes and Pharisees our Saviour made known the truth, that the great purpose for which he came was to seek and to save the lost. He showed them that throughout the universe there were no objects of more solicitude than these fallen and guilty ones, and that their repentance and restoration was the cause of great and heavenly joy.

Now I do not understand Christ to say-no one can understand him to say-that God takes more absolute delight in a sinner than in a saint. Nor does Jesus at all encourage the strange conceit that the wandering prodigal is more an object of divine favor than one

who keeps within the bounds of reverent love and service. It seems to me that there is one view which may settle any confusion of thought in this matter, and that is merely the question, whether it is better to sin than not to sin? It is a fact that there is no man without sin; there is no man who stands absolutely in that class of pure and perfect beings upon this earth who might be supposed to be aggrieved by any demonstration of love toward the returning sinner. These Scribes and Pharisees, however, were taken up upon their own assumption; even supposing them to be as righteous as they claimed to be, was the course of the Saviour's argument, still there was this love and care for the repentant sinner. But in reality they were worse sinners than the prodigal. So, practically, there can be no confusion in regard to the matter. And the question really is, whether it is better to sin than not to sin, which hardly needs an answer. And I repeat, therefore, Christ does not encourage the conceit that God loves less those who keep near him in reverent faith and service, because he receives and cares for the wandering or returning prodigal.

But the fact which Jesus teaches here is that gladness and surprise, that joy and gratified affection, with which love welcomes at last its alienated but unsurrendered objects. In one word, my friends, our Saviour, in the passage before us, shows the identity of the great sentiment of love in heaven and upon earth, in the depths of divine love and in the heart of

man.

He appeals to those affections which are most profoundly interwoven in our being. He exhibits the spirit and power of the Gospel as not above or foreign to the elements of our own consciousness, but intimately allied to it. He based this appeal upon that which can be demonstrated from the most familiar and common experience. Take any family circleand, alas, how many there are!—take any family circle from which one self-deluded member has gone forth, has gone astray, has gone, the rest know not whither; tossed upon some wave of desperate fortune, or fettered in the consequences of his own transgressions; thrown somewhere in this wide world, finding conditions of existence somehow, the Omniscient alone knows how. How many such there are, not in some far-off country, upon some desolate island, or some rugged shore, but right here in the midst of this great city, wrecked among its temptations, drawn down in its whirlpool of sin and shame! yes, how many such are there even in the midst of its luxuries and splendor, groveling in the meanest conditions of sensuality, feeding upon husks, and consorting with swine! How many a stray sheep is there that has wandered far from its fold! how many a lost piece of silver, buried among the rubbish, but belonging still to the great treasury, upon whose dim disk you may yet trace the Maker's image and superscription! How little we know, how little the multitude knows or cares about these lost ones! how little they know or care for themselves, not

having yet come to themselves! Decked it may be in some outward drapery or harlot tinsel, living in abomination, drunk with folly, fascinated with ruin, yet there are those who know and care for them in some far-off home nestling among the hills, around which the new spring is beginning to wreathe its beauty, but in which there buds no springing joy, because one is not there, has gone astray, is worse than dead. There is some mother there, watching and praying, hoping against hope, but never losing out of her mind, never casting out of her heart that child's face which once laid upon her bosom, and the life and soul which unfolded under her tender care. There is some father there, whose stern face is only the thin mask of a broken spirit, and whose brief words rise from the depths of an aching solitude. They know and care for this poor outcast, this wretched wandering sheep out in the wilderness, amid the perils of an inhospitable world. Now suppose

that on this very day that prodigal should return; suppose that at this hour that lonely, sorrowing mother should be surprised with a glad joy, and that father should see the poor shattered child that has gone out from his love, but has never been beyond its exercise, or beyond his thought-suppose he should see him reeling back to him in his weakness, in his penitence, in his utter abasement, I ask you, could the earth-I might say, could all heaven-restrain the burst of joy that would sweep away all considerations of the

long years of guilt, of the long neglect and shame? Would they not all be swept away before the rising force of that mighty tide of surprise and joy? It is in our nature, it is among its necessities-not merely its possibilities, but its necessities-that all the force of the affection of that father's and that mother's heart should rally in behalf of the alien and outcast. And would there be injustice and unfaithfulness toward those who have remained within the inclosure of obedient love and service? Is love of that nature, that if you give to one you take from another? No, my friends, love is of that nature that it is exhausted not at all, however much it is given to another; but it expands, increases, and unfolds according to the greatness of its nature. There would be no injustice to those who remain, no lack of love, no altering of affection. But only the love that has been secreted through long days and years of sorrow, of loss, of anguish, that love would overflow to welcome back the prodigal.

Now this I take to be the force of our Saviour's declaration in the text, that it is in the nature of love so to cling to its objects, so to care for them, so to claim them, that when they do return it overflows all barriers, it breaks down all other considerations, it shows itself in a more strange and manifest joy than it does for those who are nearer to it, and who remain constantly under the dominion and influence of loyal obedience and affection. Hundreds and thousands there are in this very city who, however far they wander, however deeply