At least, this is the kind of king which the parable shows to us. The king in it begins, not by asking his subjects to pay him taxes, or even to do him service, but to come to a great feast--a high court ceremonial- -the marriage of his son. Whatsoever else that may mean, it certainly means this--that the king intended to treat these men, not as his slaves, but as his guests and friends. They will not come. They are too busy; one over his farm, another over his merchandise. They owe, remember, safe possession of their farm, and safe transit for their merchandise, to the king, who governs and guards the land. But they forget that, and refuse his invitation. Some of them, seemingly out of mere insolence, and the spirit of rebellion against authority, just because it is authority, go a step too far. To show that they are their own masters, and intend to do what they like, they take the king's messengers, and treat them spitefully, and kill them. Then there arises in that king a noble indignation. We do not read that the king sentimentalised over these rebels, and said,--"After all, their evil, like all evil, is only a lower form of good. They had a fine instinct of freedom and independence latent in them, only it was in this case somewhat perverted. They are really only to be pitied for knowing no better; but I trust, by careful education, to bring them to a clearer sense of their own interests. I shall therefore send them to a reformatory, where, in consideration of the depressing circumstances of their imprisonment, they will be better looked after, and have lighter work, than the average of my honest and peaceable subjects." If the king had spoken thus, he would have won high applause in these days; at least till the farms and the merchandise, the property and the profits of the rest of his subjects, were endangered by these favoured objects of his philanthropy; who, having found that rebellion and even murder was pardonable in one case, would naturally try whether it was not pardonable in other cases likewise. But what we read of the king--and we must really remember, in fear and trembling, who spoke this parable, even our Lord Himself,--is this--He sent forth his armies, soldiers, men disciplined to do their duty at all risks, and sworn to carry out the law, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.