hearing" their Lord's call: "Go ye, also, into My vineyard " refused to comply; and some such there doubtless were, but an insignificant number — nothing to speak of. The sense, therefore, is that God invites all to labor in His service; some refuse and are lost; the multitude accept and are saved; many of these are called to the state of highest sanctity, which, however, is attained only by the chosen few. This interpretation is borne out by the latter parable which follows and explains the former. The wedding-feast signifies heaven; the guests, the elect. Now comparatively few refused the invitation; but the number of those who accepted was so great that we are told " the wedding was filled with guests." Now in all that multitude the king found just one — only one guest who had not on a wedding garment— one man unworthy of heaven whom he ordered to be cast into exterior darkness.
Brethren, it must be confessed that the human race, past, present and to come, is well typified in the parable of the cockle and good wheat, but I believe that the wheat, to flourish at all, must ever be in the ascendency. If we divide the human race into unbelievers and believers, we are, at first sight, appalled by the infidel throng, the Mohammedans and idolaters of the East and the Indians of the Western world. But yet we are assured by Christ Himself that " Many shall come from the East and the West and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven." When the idolater and fetish worshipper lives virtuously, and dies in the belief and practice of
