The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-05-02
INN Y
The Sunday School Lesson.
SERIES FOR 1885, SECOND QUARTER.
Studies in the Gospel According to Luke.

Pharieeee, as class, we're morally bad
lot There we're some upright Pharisees.
Some sections of the sect were what
they all professed to be. But the Phar-
isees as class fairly deserved the fear
full characterization given to them in the
New Testament. 2 Processing to despise
riches, they were covetous even OF wild
ow's houses. Protesting purity, they
we're luxurious and licentious. Profess
ing to be devoted to religion, they made
religion a cloak for their selishness
They were hypocrites. They were
generation of vipers.
One day Pharisee, as Jesus imagines,
"a typical representative, yet by no
means the worst of his class.-went up
into the temple enclosure to offer his
daily prayer. He selected place, pre-
sumably. in the Court Of the Women,
where he could stand apart and be seen
of men. With his blue-fringed mantle,
his phylateries on brow and sleeves, his
turban and his beard, and with his out
spread hands, he presented very priest
ly appearance. He took pains to seem
like man of God.
His prayer was presentation to God,
-professedly to God but really to men,
and especially to himself,-of the mega
tive excellences of his life. He thought
of mankind as in two classes-frst him
self; second, all others. He thanked God
that he was not like the rest of men. He
was not one of the extortioners. He was
not one of the unjust. He was not an
adulterer. He was not as the crown OF
his negative excellence, like yonder pub
lican. He kept two days in the week as
fast days. He gave to temple uses one
tenth of all his income.
Did he tell the truth? The story, as
narrated, implies that there was truth
in his claim. He was one of those, who
with apparent reason, trusted themselves
that they acre righteous. His prayer
was an ostentatieus exhibition OF his
own imagined righteousness.
2. The Publican's Prayer,-vs.
13, IA.
With the publican it was different. He
was specially detested because, being a
Jew, he had, as Roman tax-gatherer,
become an agent of Rome against his
own people. He was Inundated yet fur
Their by the remembrance that he had
forfeited the respect of his people, and
of all just people, by being an extor-
toner, dishonest. rebel against the
Right. But he had, under some untold
experience, been brought to repentance.
When he came to himself, he was over
whelmed with despair.
AS Jew he had, in other days, been
accustomed to pray in the temple court.
To that place he now turned again. He
desired, more than he desired life, to be
delivered from the guilt that was in
wardly crushing him. The temple was
the only gate he knew to Gods presence.
Very different from the Pharisee is
the publican as he appears in the tenn
pie enclosure. No ostentation is discov-
cradle in his dress or mien. He takes a
place afar off; herhaps barely inside the
Court of the Gentiles. He does not, like
the Pharisee. look upward, or spread his
upturned palms; he does not so much as
lift his eyes toward heaven. He does
not tell God of any good deed he has
dopo He rom ayo hare onlv tho uropu
deeds of which he has been guilty. They
are burned as with hot iron into his
memory. He desires to make amends
for the wrong he has done. He desires
to be mercifully dealt with by the Eter-
nal Justice. He smites his breast in an
agony of misgiving.
His verbal prayer is simply this: God
be propitidted to me, the sinner. He
virtually promises right life, with
which to propitiate Justice. BY his
words he now confesses himself THE sim
ner,--the unparalleled sinner, the sinner
against light.
And this man, and not the Pharisee,
went down to his common life JUSTIFIED
that is. with his character made just,
with sense of pardon for sins past, with
a reckoning vision of righteous course
of action in the future.
So Jesus taught that self -exaltation is
not prayer. The more completely child
of God feels his unworthiness. hunger
ing and thirsting to be made right, the
more shall his prayer bring Divine
answer.
3. The Mothers Prayer vs..
1917.
We learn by the parallel narrative in
Mark that it was after Jesus had spoken
probably against the essences, in favor Of
marriage as a Divine ordinance. that
mothers came to him bringing their lit
tie ones for him to bless. We are told
not simply that they came to him once,
but that they at this period thronged
him continually. There was, we must
infer, something in Jesus that attracted
the children. They coveted his friendly
touch. The mothers felt that his bene-
diction on their offspring would in some
way be to them life long good.
The disciples did not appreciate these
praying mothers. Their Master, they
thought, should not, in these crowded
days, waste his time blessing children.