ity of our great men and women, color it with the story of their struggles, breath into it the freedom and faith of our fathers, and teach it to our children. But this was to be a sermon, and lest you may have forgotten the text, I will repeat it: "Other men labored and ye are entered into their labors." This text, taken from its connection, is often misunderstood to say that in entering into the labors of other men we are to enjoy the results of labor without the toil of labor; but this is very far from the meaning. Our Saviour had called the attention of his disciples to the fact that the fields were already white for the harvest. He said that they were sent to harvest that on which they had not bestowed labor. Now harvesting is harder work than seeding. It may not be any more important, but it is a good deal hotter. The wider the fields the prophets had sown, the greater the fields the apostles must gather. It is exactly so in our denominational life, other men have laboredbut the more our fathers have sown, the more our responsibility to harvest. In the past generation our people have not gathered much, but they have sown abundantly. Our fathers labored well, often better than they knew; we are

entered into their labor. The harvest is hereit is already suffering. Old arguments and theories have passed away. Sunday as a Sabbath is gone. If the harvest is not gathered, whose fault will it be? Who can make the excuse that he is idle in the market-place because he has not been hired?

I

X

"I go, sir; and went not."-Matt. 21: 30c

USED to think that this second son changed

his mind something as his brother did, but I am inclined to believe now that the fellow lied. When his father said "Go," the easiest way out of what might otherwise have been an embarrassing situation was to say, "O yes, I'll go, certainly I'll go." At any rate he had no fixed purpose to go, and he did not go.

The speaker has taught school a good deal in his time, and he never had a boy or girl say, “I wont," to him; but he has had very many say, "I go, sir," when that was not the last of it, or the least of it.

In looking at this very suggestive little parable we must be on our guard against the thought that Jesus commended the first son who said, "I will not," but who afterwards repented and went. It does not lessen sin to be defiant in it. Neither

does our Saviour say that the dishonest and vile and rebellious shall ever enter the Kingdom of God. What he does say is that, regardless of

the past, men may come by repentance and faith to the service of the Lord and to salvation.

Without doubt the key to the first interpretation of the text is in the words of Jesus that immediately follow where he says, "Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." Not that bad men and women are to be saved in their sins; but rather saved from their sins. The second son, the one spoken of in the text, like the eldest son in the parable of the prodigal, was the Jewish church.

But this little story, so short and so sharp, has in it a world of meaning for this day; when God is still saying, "Son, go work to-day in my vineyard," and when there are those who are still saying, "I go, sir," but who do not always go.

Is this not true of those who accept all the fundamental facts and doctrines of Christianity, and who have not given their hearts and wills and lives to God? That is, to those who are not Christians. You believe in God and in his Son, Our Lord. But you will not trust him, nor pray to him, nor acknowledge him before the world, nor lead others to him. Jesus lived as

your example and he died as your sacrifice. God loves you. His voice calls you. You hear that call and many times you have said, "I go, sir." Again your father says, "Son, go work today in my vineyard." Why not go? Why not work? Why not work to-day? Why not into his vineyard?

Again there are those who are Christians but who have chosen not to acknowledge it to the world. We are not supposed to know where the line is drawn between you and the class of whom we have just spoken. Some, we feel sure, are the children of God. But are you not saying, "I go," and partly pausing there. We thank God for the pure life you live, but why not go work to-day in His vineyard? Why not acknowledge Him by word as well as by life? Why not come by confession and baptism into the church? Why not work to bring others to a saving knowledge of Christ? Would not this be the exchange of a doubtful, uncertain, discouraging position for one of splendid service and example?

Another class who are clearly in danger of the sin suggested in the text, is that large class of professors who have apparently lost all inter