ST. MATTHEW xx. 28 389
of safety it seems to him that he sees a form walking on the surface of the water like unto the Divine form of the Son of God. Thus he finds the way to a fellowship with his Lord that is deep and rich, sweet and glorious and divine.
The spirit or the teaching of the little poem is thus beautifully summed up by the author :
This is the gospel of labour — ring it ye bells of the kirk — The Lord of Love came down from above, to live with the
men who work. This is the rose that He planted, here in the thorn-cursed
soil — Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of Earth is
toil.1
1 W. F. Anderson.
The Good and Faithful Servant.
Literature.
Baker (0. C), in The Methodist Episcopal Pulpit, 203
Brooks (P.), Christ the Life arid Light, 222.
Dawson (W. J.), The Reproach of Christ, 37.
Farrar (F. W.), Social and Present-Day Questions, 254.
James (J. A.), Sermons, iii. 260.
Jordan (W. G.), The Crown of Individuality, 175.
Jowett (J. H.), Meditations for Quiet Moments, 98.
Llewellyn (D. J.), The Forgotten Sheaf, 99.
Matheson (G.), The Joy of Jesus, 5.
Moule (H. C. G.), Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year, 35.
„ „ The Secret of the Presence, 194.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, i. 301. New (C), The Baptism of the Spirit, 289. Nicoll (W. R.), Ten-Minute Sermons, 115, 268. Shannon (F. E.), The Soul's Atlas, 86.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Taitrnacle Pulpit, xxvi. (1880), No. 1541. Vincent (M. R.), God and Bread, 117. Christian World Pulpit, lxxiv. 373 (G. H. Morrison) ; lxxv. 391 (J. S.
Robertson). Expositor, 2nd Ser., vi. 204 (G. Matheson).
The Good and Faithful Servant.
Well done, good and faithful servant : thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things : enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. — Matt. xxv. 21.
The plain ethical purpose of this parable is to teach the need for fidelity to duty in all human concerns. The great idea on which it is based is that man is the depositary of a great trust. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who went into a far country and left his property to be administered by his servants. We have all of us as children been puzzled by the unaccountable fact that God is unseen, and that the Governor of the universe seems to take no active part in its affairs. This is Christ's answer to the puzzle : God has delegated the administration of His world to His servant, man. In man there is a Divine capacity for truth, and duty, and righteousness: and still further to guide and strengthen that capacity in its development, God has given him a code of instructions, which goes by the name of the " Kingdom of Heaven." Obeying that code of moral law it is in the power of man to administer the world rightly as the vicegerent of God, and to develop his own highest self in the process. Time and talent — every form of human gift and opportunity — are part of the wealth of God which is invested in man, and the one business of man in this theatre of human life is to be a faithful steward of the trust reposed in him.
The Text defines—
I. The Life that Christ Approves. II. The Eewards that Christ Dispenses.
I.
The Life that Christ Approves.
"Good and faithful servant." Here are the elements of a great life. Christ does not say a great life is brilliant. He does
394 THE GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT
not say a great life is splendid. He does not say a great life is
illustrious. He does not say a great life is heroic. A great life
is all these and more, but Christ does not say so. He simply says " good and faithful."
1. Goodness is a fundamental and essential element of Christian character. It is a household grace, adapted to every changing circumstance, and to every occasion. Some of the Christian graces seem not to enter into every act of life, but are called out in peculiar emergencies. Patience and resignation exhibit them- selves only under the ills of life, or in the dark hour of adversity ; but Christian goodness, from whatever position it is viewed, is equally conspicuous.
TJ There is one place where the difference between the good man and the bad man is hidden out of sight, and that is when both are kneeling at the foot of the Cross. But till men are brought there in repentance, the gulf which separates the desire to serve God from the disregard of His will is as wide as from heaven to hell. Nor can we do a greater mischief to our con- sciences than by trying to teach them that because we are weak therefore all Christian goodness is worth nothing, and there is little to choose between living one way and living the other way. On the contrary, weak as we are, we are expressly told that our goodness is in kind the same as our Lord's. " He that doeth right- eousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." The little good of which we are capable is for all that in its nature heavenly, and comes directly from the other world. Our weakness may make us incapable of attaining much of it : and our want of earnestness may rob us of still more. But still in its kind it is of heaven and not of earth, and nothing on earth can be compared with it in value. We cannot be as true and just and unselfish as we should be ; and we are not as true and just and unselfish as we can be ; but for all that, what truth and justice and unselfishness there is upon earth is of the same priceless heavenly quality as shall be found in the other world.1