Of the four Gospels St. Luke's is the most exquisite in style and finished in form. As one of our severest Bible critics has admitted, "from the purely literary and humanitarian standpoint, it is the most beautiful book ever written." Its author must have been a remarkable man, a man with many gifts and graces, and yet in his life-time, one gathers, without even the glory en of abuse,—just the companion of St. Paul and always overshadowed by the greater man, seldom mentioned and then: only incidentally, always in {he background. And yet now we see that he has rendered us a service little less than that of the great Apostle. If St. Paul was the Apostle of the Gentiles, St. Luke their Evangelist. He was a Greek himself and it may be that he had a special purpose in writing, in that he wished Pte show to his countrymen, and to other non-Jews, the wideness of the sympathies of the Lord Jesus, to reveal him as the Saviour, not only of the Jews, but of the whole world. enables us to realize God's saving love for sinners, so more than any other does he emphasize the dangers that lie about our path. He sees most clearly the perils of prosperity. Wealth has its snares and its responsibilities, and so he records our Lord's parables which set these facts before us;—the parables of the Rich Fool and of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
We can best understand St. Luke's apparent hostility toward property and prosperity when we understand that in all probability he comes from. the class to which his words apply so sternly. He has been saved from these perils himself and that is why our Lord's words have burnt themselves into his mind. In his Gospel alone we read of Divos damned, and of the fool who heaped up treasures for himself and was not rich toward God. Here only are recorded the woes pronounced on the self-satis-fed rich. "Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger."
ito you that laugh no shall mourn and weep." you when all men shall speak well of you." Here we read the searching words, "Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." And Luke it is who remembers and records the Lord's teaching of stewardship. He alone gives the parable of the steward and the servants, and of the Unjust Steward. In this teaching of stewardship all that alone might be difficult to understand becomes clear and consistent. Wealth is 'a snare unless it is accepted as a trust from God, to be used for His glory and not selfishly. Luke could speak, for he had given up all for Christ.
Above all, in life and writings, he stands out as the type and repre-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.