been entrusted. We mark that, although he could only speak of two talents gained, he

met his Master with the same frank joyness as he who had made five. For he had been

as faithful, and laboured as earnestly as he to whom more had been entrusted. And

what is more important, the former difference between the two servants, dependent on

greater or less capacity for work, now ceased, and the second servant received

precisely the same welcome and exactly the same reward, and in the same terms, as

the first. And yet a deeper, and in some sense mysterious, truth comes to us in

connection with the words: 'Thou has been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over

many things.' Surely, then, if not after death, yet in that other 'dispensation,' there must

be work to do for Christ, for which the preparation is in this life by faithful application for

Him of what He has entrusted to us - be it much or little. This gives quite a new and

blessed meaning to the life that now is - as most truly and in all its aspects part of that

into which it is to unfold. No; not the smallest share of 'talents,' if only faithfully used for

Christ, can be lost, not merely as regards His acknowledgement, but also their further

and wider employment. And may we not suggest, that this may, if not explain, yet cast

the halo of His purpose and Presence around what so often seems mysterious in the

removal of those who had just attained to opening, or to full usefulness, or even of those

who are taken from us in the early morn of youth and loveliness. The Lord may 'have

need' of them, where or how we know not - and beyond this working -day and working -

world there are 'many things' over which the faithful servant in little may be 'set,' that he

may still do, and with greatly enlarged opportunities and powers, the work for Christ

which he had loved so well, while at the same time he also shares the joy of his Lord.

It only remains to refer to the third servant, whose sad unfaithfulness and failure of

service we already, in some measure, understand. Summoned to his account, he

returned the talent entrusted to him with this explanation, that, knowing his Master to be

a hard man, reaping where he did not sow, and gathering (the corn) where He did not

'winnow,'21 he had been afraid of incurring responsibility,22 and hence hid in the earth

the talent which he now restored. It needs no comment to show that his own words,

however honest and self-righteous they might sound, admitted dereliction of his work

and duty as a servant, and entire misunderstanding as well as heart-alienation from his

Master. He served Him not, and he knew Him not; he loved Him not, and he

sympathised not with Him. But, besides, his answer was also an insult and a medacious

pretext. He had been idle and unwilling to work for his Master. If he worked it would be

for himself. He would not incur the difficulties, the self -denial, perhaps the reproach,

connected with his Master's work. We recognise here those who, although His servants,

yet, from self-indulgence and wordliness, will not do work for Christ with the one talent

entrusted to them - that is, even though the responsibility and claim upon them be the

smallest; and who deem it sufficient to hide it in the ground - not to lose it - or to

preserve it, as they imagine, from being used for evil, without using it to trade for Christ.

The falseness of the excuse, that he was afraid to do anything with it - an excuse too

often repeated in our days - lest, peradventure, he might do more harm than good, was

now fully exposed by the Master. Confessedly, it proceeded from a want of knowledge

of Him, as if He were a hard, exacting Master, not One Who reckons even the least

service as done to Himself; from misunderstanding also of what work for Christ is, in