A little while ago, in one of the mining districts of England, a young man attended one of our meetings, and refused to go from the place till he had found peace in the Savior. The next day he went down into the pit, and the coal fell in upon him; and when they took him out he was broken and mangled, and had only about two or three minutes of life left in him. His friends gathered about him, saw his lips moving, and, bending down their ears to catch his words, this was what they heard him say: “It was a good thing I settled it last night.”
Begin now to confess your sins, and to pray the Lord to remember you when He cometh into His kingdom.
THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.
In this first parable we are told that men ought to pray always and everywhere; that prayer should not be left to a few in the churches, but all men ought to pray.
Jesus gives us a picture, so that we may understand in what spirit we ought to pray.
Two men went up to the Temple—one to pray to himself and the other to pray to God.
I think it will be safe to divide the audience into two bodies, and put them under these two heads. However, whether we divide the audience or not, we come under these two heads—those who have the spirit of the publican and those who have the spirit of the Pharisee.
You can find that the entire community may be correctly divided into these two classes. The spirit of the prodigal and the spirit of an elder brother are still in the world; the spirits of Cain and Abel are still in the world, and these two are representative men.