Luke 18:13

13. Publican standing afar off From the Pharisee.

Would not lift up so much as his eyes Modestly the publican stands in the distance, turns his face toward the Most Holy, and casts his eyes upon the ground.

Smote upon his breast Within which ached a wounded conscience. Six different positions, thrice repeated with corresponding positions of hands and expression of face, all thrice or more repeated, are described by oriental tourists as the monotonous mechanical performance of the Moslem in mumbling his formula of prayer. Millions of such repetitions are not worth this single impulsive unprescribed movement of the feelings; this agonized smiting of the suffering breast.

Be merciful Be propitiated. Do we owe to Luke’s Pauline sympathies the use of this word? It is the very word by which the apostle of the Gentiles expresses the reconciliation of God to us by the accepted atonement of Christ.

A sinner Rather the sinner. Just as the Pharisee was the righteous distinctly from the rest of men, so our publican is the sinner, though without any thinking about what anybody else is. Be propitiated to the sinner, me. Religious formalism can, however, adopt the publican’s style when that is understood to be the true religious fashion. A modern puritan can deal in the strongest hyperboles of self-abhorrence as taught by his traditional tenets, and be proud of the intensity of his self-condemning phrases. The true Christian can sincerely say with the dying Grotius, “I am that publican;” yet, fixing his eye on Christ, can thank God that through the grace given him he has this testimony, that he pleases God.