sees of all time. God made the Sabbath for man and not man for the Sabbath, and it is a wicked perversion of truth which will make the observance of the Lord's day conflict with one's urgent duty to God, his neighbor, or himself. Even the fanatical Pharisees yielded when it was a question of self-interest, for they had decreed that, should a valuable animal have fallen into a pit on the Sabbath, he might without breach of the law be extricated. And ought not this child of God, this palsied one, be healed of his disease on the Sabbath day? Christ, therefore, healed him, and with infinite delicacy bade him go in peace, lest the cavilings of the Pharisees should mar his joy in his newly found health. Then turning to the others, He proceeded to expose their selfish pride and vanity, and their hypocritical pretensions to sanctity. The social standing of the dropsical man was doubtless vastly inferior to that of the others, nor would he have been there at all had not his condition served their purpose. Christ, too, though invited, was despised by them and hated. It is probable, therefore, that the Saviour and the sick man were assigned positions face to face at the very foot of the table, while the others with mock humility or shameless effrontery maneuvered for the first places. And when the host proceeded to rearrange his guests, and those highest up were forced to give place, blushing and confused, to others more honorable than they, what myriads of human lives, religious histories, divine judgments, the scene must have brought to the Saviour's mind! What millions of
