48 The highest Rewards belong CHAP. 



forgive you your trespasses." ] In the passage be- 

 fore us He both introduces and concludes the parable 

 of the Labourers in the Vineyard with the warning, 

 " Many shall be last that are first, and first that are 

 last ; " showing that the highest rewards including 

 the Master's approval, which is the greatest of them 

 all do not necessarily belong to the longest service 

 or to the greatest quantity of work done, or even 

 to the most steadfast endurance of the "scorching 

 heat " of persecution ; but to those who show an un- 

 selfish, ungrudging, and unmurmuring spirit. The 

 same words "the last shall be first and the first 

 last " might have occurred at the end of the parable 

 of the Prodigal : the elder son was first, but with 

 his unloving Pharisaic spirit he was in danger of 

 becoming last. It is the same teaching as that of 

 Saint Paul, in a passage which is perhaps seldom 

 thought of in connection with this parable : " Though 

 I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though 

 I give my body to be burned (a harder thing than 

 to toil under the scorching noonday heat of summer 

 in Palestine), and have not the charity that envieth 

 not, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, 

 and thinketh no evil, it profiteth me nothing." 2 But 

 neither here, nor in the conversation between the 

 father and the elder son, is there any threat of final 

 and eternal condemnation, except the hint to the 

 Pharisees implied in the words, " And the elder son 

 was angry, and would not go in" (to the festival 

 1 Mark xi. 25. 2 1 Cor. xiii. 3, 5. 



