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THE REV. PROFESSOR A. S. GEDEN, M.A., D.D., 



With its beauty, the emblematic teaching is inexhaustible as the 

 Divine treasures it is needed to convey to our understanding and 

 the field of nature and of man whence it is drawn. It would have 

 been both interesting and instructive, doubtless, to have shared the 

 privilege of our colleague's exposition, to which (as unable to be 

 present) I feel to add a short comment, as if one had been, on the 

 general theme — and, thus, indirectly on his — for those who are. 



John's being excepted from the synoptic Biographies as parabolic, 

 even at all, one concludes is due to the more spiritual Gospel's little 

 needing, or transcending, this mode. But the singular absence of 

 them remarked in the last memoir of our Saviour is not complete, 

 as is said — which, perhaps, the Lecturer may point out — as one 

 may see in the cases of the wind, the li\nng water, and the Vine. 

 Many are hinted and may be here, as the allusion to John the pre- 

 cursor, (?lit.) beautifully, as "the Lamp that burneth and shineth," 

 in which the Light was exhibited then only through him and giving 

 him all its glory and good — really expressing, in admirable metaphor, 

 the same as the Evangelist so named, utters at the beginning : John 

 came to witness unto that Light, and the true Light now shone — in 

 coming, as the Ward made Man, as Men's Life and the Life which 

 was Light illuminating the world He would save, even in all. 



Author's Reply. 



I am grateful for the very generous and kindly manner in 

 which the thoughts that I have ventured to lay before you 

 have been received this evening. There is little, I think, that 

 I need add by way of comment or explanation. WTien I wrote 

 with regard to the metaphor of the harvest, and the improbability 

 that our Lord was counting the months, I did not mean, of course, 

 to deny that the season may have been summer. It is quite likely 

 that it was. It does not seem to me however that the importance 

 of the imminence of the spiritual harvest has anything to do with 

 measurement of weeks or months. 



Mr. Hoste raises a difficult question, but I think he misinterprets 

 Christ's meaning. The " earthly things," which to Nicodemus 

 seem incredible, are all those to which reference has been made, 

 including the spiritual birth. AVith these Nicodemus as a Jew and 

 " the teacher of Israel " should have been familiar, both in theory 



