On the almost pictured page of the evangelic history you may often observe two persons, sometimes in presence of a multitude, and sometimes far apart, engaged in close and earnest conversation. In most cases you discover, when you approach, that one of them is the Lord Jesus, and the other one of the lost whom he came to save. At one time it is a rich Jewish ruler, and at another a poor woman of Samaria; now, it is Nicodemus in a private house, and then Pilate in the judgment hall; here the Saviour, suffering, converses with the thief on the cross, and there the Saviour, reigning, calls to Saul as he is entering Damascus. Many of the precious words of Jesus which now constitute the heritage of the Church, were at first spoken in answer to friends or foes, during the period of his ministry on earth, or after he ascended into heaven. Thus the Lord's word frequently took its form from the the character and conduct of those with whom he conversed. On their ignorance, or simplicity, or malice, his wisdom and goodness were cast for keeping till the end of time. The temper, and conceptions, and tricks of those Jews, like sand in a foundry, constituted the mould in which the pure gold of our Redeemer's instructions was poured; and like the sand, when they had served that purpose, they were allowed to fall asunder, as being of no further use. Here is a case in which the question of a self-righteous Jew elicits and gives shape to the subsequent discourse of the Lord; here, accordingly, the meaning of the discourse depends, in a great measure, on the history in which it grows. At some pause in the Lord's discourse, while the multitude still remained on the spot expecting further instruction, a certain lawyer who was watching his opportunity, interposed with the demand, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"[61] The question was not put in simplicity, with a view to obtain information, it was employed knowingly as an experiment and a test. [61] "How eagerly would the critics seize on this passage, and pronounce the question of a certain lawyer to be identical with the narrative contained in Matt. xix. 16, only differently reported--if St. Luke had not himself subsequently narrated that second incident (xviii. 18)! This once more shows that many things could naturally, and would necessarily, occur more than once in the life of Jesus."--_Stier_.