Tj With special clearness Dr. Martineau shows that, as the Greek proverb, which Emerson so aptly quotes, well put it, " The Dice of God are always loaded," and goodness must ever in the long run win the victory. It would be difficult to find in English literature a more perfect combination of depth of thought with beauty of expression than is presented in that section of
1 Life and Letter $ of James Hinton, 215. ■ 0. C. Baker.
ST. MATTHEW xxv. 21 397
A Study of Religion, in which Dr. Martineau illustrates " The Triumphs of force in History," and shows how rude strength always gives way at length before intelligence , how intelligence, when it chiefly subserves the ends of pleasure or of gain, is sure to be worsted in the struggle with moral principle, and how in our present civilization the unobtrusive elements of Christian faith and love are gradually over-mastering all lower and coarser forces and tending to become, in the course of centuries, the dominating influence in the social and political life of humanity.1
2. Faithfulness imparts the quality which answers God's test of moral value; and value and award in the Kingdom of God turn upon quality, and not upon quantity. Faithfulness spans the differences of ability. No difference of endowment can put one out of reach of that test. It follows endowment down to its vanishing-point, and binds the possessor of an infinitesimal fraction of a talent to raise his fraction to the highest power as stringently as it binds the holder of five or ten talents. The servant with the smallest capital was condemned simply because he did not use it. On the other hand, endowment never rises out of the atmosphere of faithfulness. No measure of ability ever exempts from duty. No amount of brilliancy compensates for unfaith- fulness.
T| There is no lack of great works going on for our Lord to which we may safely attach ourselves, and in which our talent is rather used by the leaders of the work, invested for us, than left to our own discretion. Just as in the world there is such an end- less variety of work needing to be done, that every one finds his niche, so there is no kind of ability that cannot be made use of in the Kingdom of Christ. The parable [of the talents] does not acknowledge any servants who have absolutely nothing; some have little as compared with others, but all have some capacity to forward the interests of the absent master. Is every one of us practically recognizing this — that there is a part of the work he is expected to do ? He may seem to himself to have only one talent, that is not worth speaking about, but that one talent was given that it might be used, and if it be not used, there will be some- thing lacking when reckoning is made which might and ought to have been forthcoming. Certainly there is something you can do, that is unquestionable ; there is something that needs to be done which precisely you can do, something by doing which you
1 Life and Letters of James Martineau, ii. 442.
398 THE GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT
will please Him whose pleasure is you will fill your nature with gladness. It is given to you to increase your Lord's goods.1
3. When we think of the world's great men, when we get to know them intimately in their lives, there is perhaps nothing so arresting as the fidelity which we discover there. When we are young we are ready to imagine that the great man must, he free from common burdens ; we think he has no need to plod as we do and face the weary drudgery daily ; we picture him light- hearted and inspired, moving with ease where our poor feet are bleeding. Tn such terms we dream about the great in the days when we know little of them, but as knowledge widens we see how false that is. We see that at the back of everything is will. We come to see how every gift is squandered if it be not clinched with quiet fidelity, until at last we dimly recognize that the very keystone of the arch of genius is something different from all the gifts, that something which we call fidelity.
Tj One of the latest critics of Shakespeare, Professor Bradley, insists upon the faithfulness of Shakespeare. It is the fidelity of Shakespeare, in a mind of extraordinary power, he says, that has really made Shakespeare what he is. The same is true of Sir Walter Scott. It is written on every page of his journal. If there ever was a man who was faithful unto death, faithful to honour, to duty, to work, and to God, it was that hero who so loved his country, and died beside the murmur of the Tweed. Yes, one mark of all the greatest is a fidelity which is sublime. No gifts, no brilliance, no genius can release a man from being faithful. Not in the things we do but how we do them, not in fame but in fidelity, is the true test of a man's work, according to the teaching of our Lord.2
^f On that great day when the nobility of England assembled in Westminster Abbey before the open tomb in which the body of David Livingstone was to be laid, all eyes were fixed on the quiet, black man, Jacob Wainwright, who stood at the head of the coffin. He was the Zanzibar servant who with his companions had brought his master's body back from the swamp in the heart of Africa where he died, and had delivered him to the representative of the Queen at the seacoast, and had asked as his sole recompense the privilege of atteuding the body until he could deliver it to his friends in the distant home. Now the service was completed ;