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These "children sitting in the market-place" very well illustrate the perverse and contradictory of all generations. Many are they, here and everywhere, who will neither dance at the wedding nor mourn at the funeral, who will work neither along one line nor yet along its opposite, to whom all ways are objectionable because their own spirit is out of tune with everything. But the special folly which these children are brought forward to condemn is that of objecting to John because he was abstemious, and to Jesus because he participated in the good gifts of God. The right course to take is not that of objecting to both, but rather that of accepting and honouring both. We shall find, if we care to look for it -

I. CHRISTIAN ABSTEMIOUSNESS. John came "neither eating nor drinking." He acted, no doubt, under Divine direction in so doing. But John was not our exemplar. We are not called to follow John, but Christ; and Christ came eating and drinking. Is abstinence, then, a Christian course? It is so; it is justified by the language of our Lord and by that of his apostles. He said that there were some celibates "for the kingdom of heaven's sake" (Matthew 19:12). And he urged upon men that they should pluck out their right eye, or cut off their right hand, rather than perish in iniquity (Matthew 5:29, 30). His apostle wrote that men should neither eat meat nor drink wine, if by so doing they put a stumbling-block in the way of another (Romans 14:21). And it is certain that we are acting in a strictly and, indeed, an emphatically Christian spirit when we:

1. Abstain because indulgence would be perilous to ourselves. This may relate to food or drink, or to any kind of amusement or occupation, to anything of any kind in which we find ourselves under a strong temptation to excess if we once begin.

2. Abstain because our abstinence will make the path of virtue or piety more accessible to others. Anything we can do, any privation we may accept, any habit we may form, by which we help men upwards and Godwards, must be an essentially and radically Christian thing.

II. CHRISTIAN PARTICIPATION. "The Son of man came eating and drinking." He was no ascetic; he was present at the festivity; he accepted the invitation to the rich man's board; he did not choose the coarser garment because it was coarser, or the severer lodging because it was severer; he did not habitually and conscientiously decline the gifts of God in nature. He knew how to decline them when occasion called for it (see Luke 6:12; Luke 9:58), but he did not do so regularly and as a sacred duty. Surely it was well for the world that he acted thus; for, had he sanctioned asceticism, we should have been continually oscillating, or everywhere divided, between an unamiable severity on the one hand and a degrading self-indulgence on the other hand. The wise and the true course is that of a Christian participation; this is a partaking of the gifts of God and of the sweets and enjoyments of earth, which is:

1. Sanctified by devout gratitude; by a continual and wholesome mindfulness that every good gilt is from above, and calls for a grateful and reverent spirit.

2. Controlled by a wise moderation; so that nothing is indulged in which is in the smallest degree excessive; so that no injury of any kind is done to the spiritual nature.

3. Beautified by benevolence; the participation by ourselves being very closely and constantly accompanied by the remembrance of the wants of others. "Eat the fat and drink the sweet," but be careful to "send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared." - C.

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KJV: And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like?

WEB: "To what then will I liken the people of this generation? What are they like?