you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and
lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is
easy, and my burden is light.' _Matthew_ xi. 28--30.


The words of the Lord in the former two of these paragraphs, are
represented, both by Matthew and by Luke, as spoken after the
denunciation of the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum; only
in Luke's narrative, the return of the seventy is mentioned between; and
there the rejoicing of the Lord over the Father's revelation of himself
to babes, appears to have reference to the seventy. The fact that the
return of the seventy is not mentioned elsewhere, leaves us free to
suppose that the words were indeed spoken on that occasion. The
circumstances, however, as circumstances, are to us of little
importance, not being necessary to the understanding of the words.

The Lord makes no complaint against the wise and prudent; he but
recognizes that they are not those to whom his father reveals his best
things; for which fact and the reasons of it, he thanks, or praises his
father. 'I bless thy will: I see that thou art right: I am of one mind
with thee:' something of each of these phases of meaning seems to belong
to the Greek word.

'But why not reveal true things first to the wise? Are they not the
fittest to receive them?' Yes, if these things and their wisdom lie in
the same region--not otherwise. No amount of knowledge or skill in
physical science, will make a man the fitter to argue a metaphysical
question; and the wisdom of this world, meaning by the term, the
philosophy of prudence, self-protection, precaution, specially unfits a
man for receiving what the Father has to reveal: in proportion to our