Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/167

 greater efforts,  He  compares  the  steep,  thorny  path to heaven  with  the  primrose  path  to  perdition,  but He refuses  to  say  which  way  the  majority  goes. When He  says  few  find  the  small  door  and  narrow path, He  refers  to  Himself  and  His  contemporaries— to  Himself,  the  way  to  the  truth  and  the  life whom so  few  of  them  recognized  and  acknowledged as such. When He  adds  that  many  travel  by  the wide road  to  perdition,  He  simply  expresses  the infinite yearning  of  the  Sacred  Heart  for  man,  to which  one  lost  is  many  lost;  to  which  many  saved are few  saved — which  wishes  all  to  come  to  a  knowledge of  the  truth  and  be  saved. So far,  therefore, neither side  of  the  dispute  has  anything  like  a  definite argument to  adduce  either  from  Christ  or  the Church. In the  parable  of  the  virgins  five  are  foolish and five  wise. In the  twentieth  and  twenty-second chapters of  St.  Matthew,  however,  we  read :  "  Many are  called,  but  few  are  chosen,"  words  that,  to  some, prove that  few  indeed  are  saved,  but  words  that,  to my  mind,  prove  that  many  more  are  saved  than  are lost. If you  remember,  they  are  the  closing  words of two  famous  parables — the  parable  of  the  householder who  hired  laborers  for  his  vineyard,  and  the parable of  the  king  who,  to  procure  guests  for his son's  wedding-feast,  turned  from  the  discourteous rich  to  the  riffraff  of  the  highways  and  byways. Now, in  the  former  parable  there  is  no  mention  whatever of  those  that  are  lost,  for  we  read  that  all  the laborers, after  their  day's  work,  received,  every  man, a penny. The lost  would,  naturally,  be  those  who,