40.]
The Lord Jesus knew it, too. His teaching, unlike that of Paul, does
not throw into the foreground the divided will and its accompanying
sense of sin and guilt. But he does not ignore it. He brought it out
with infinite tenderness but inexorable clearness in the parables of
the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost boy. The sheep were but
young and silly, they did not wish to be lost on the mountain-side;
they knew no better; inexperience, ignorance were theirs, and
for their sad estate they were not held responsible. For them the
compassionate shepherd sought until he found them in the wilds, took
them, involuntary burdens, on his heart, brought them back to safety
and the fold. The coin had no native affinity with the dirt and grime
of the careless woman's house. It was only a coin, attached to anklet
or bracelet, having no power, no independence of its own; where it
fell, there must it lie. So with the lives set by fate in the refuse
and grime of our industrial civilization, the pure minted gold
effectually concealed by the obscurity and filth around. For such
lives, victims of environment, the Father will search, too, until they
are found, taken up, and somewhere, in this world or another, restored
to their native worth. But the chief of the parables, and the one that
has captured the imagination and subdued the heart of mankind, because
it so true to the greater part of life, is the story of the lost boy.
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