2. Fidelity in small things issues in an enduring possession. We cannot take with us beyond the grave our business or the success it may have gained for us, our money or the pleasures it may have brought. But we can take the good we may have won or done. The moral qualities with which our use of Mammon may have strengthened and disciplined our character, the kind- ness it may have enabled us to show, the compassion it may have enabled us to realize, the self-sacrifice it may have enabled us to practise, the strength and cheer it may have enabled us to give to our fellows — these are secured for us, waiting as it were in the eternal world to speak for us, and to welcome us. It is well for us to contemplate that solitary journey which awaits
^ H. G. Yoiiard.
2 G. W. E. Russell, Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, 221.
» David Smith, TTie Days of His Flesh, 315.
3i6 FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS
us all when death has knocked at the door and summoned us forth.
"Take with you in your journey what you may carry with you, your conscience, faith, hope, patience, meekness, goodness, brotherly kindness ; for such wares as these are of great price in the high and new country whither ye go. As for other things which are but this world's vanity and trash ... ye will do best not to carry them with you. Ye found them here ; leave them here."i
3. By means of this world God is testing character, and proving our capacity for the vaster world beyond. " He that is faithful " — Jesus sums up by saying — " faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much ; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much." The real character comes out under"' all sorts of circumstances — sometimes quite clearly and strikingly even in the most insignificant and incidental, when no great issue is thought of, and no special effort made. God knows it of course without any such testing. But He would make it evident to the man himself, and to every witness, and He would also call it forth, and foster it where it is excellent; make it manifest and shame it out of being, where it is evil. So, in little things He proves faithfulness, and makes it grow to capacity for the greatest trust. In little things also He proves injustice, and seeks, by detection and exposure now, to brand and burn it out in time, and before it becomes ineradicable and for- ever ruinous.
^ I cannot better sum up the thought given to us by this parable than by quoting the words, adapted from the ancient hymn of Cleanthes, in which a great and typical Englishman, William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, a man reserved/ in speech, almost morbid in his English dislike of emotional display, devoted to the sense of duty, reveals the secret of his humility and of his strength —
Lead me, Almighty Father, Spirit, Son, Whither Thou wilt, I follow, no delay,
My will is Thine, and even had I none, Grudging obedience still I will obey.
Faint-hearted, fearful, doubtful if I be,
Gladly or sadly I will follow Thee. * Samuel Eutherford.
ST. LUKE XVI. lo 317
Into the land of righteousness I go,
The footsteps thither Thine and not my own,
Jesu, Thyself the way, alone I know,
Thy will be mine, for other have I none.
Unprofitable servant though T be,
Gladly or sadly let me follow Thee.^
^ C. G. Lang, The Parables of Jesus, 190.
Ingratitude.
Literature.
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(H. S. Holland) ; xl. 155 (F. 0. Morris). Church of England Pulpit, xl. 184 (J. Silvei^te^). Churchman's Pulpit . Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, xii. 65 (H.
Goodwin).
Ingratitude.
And Jesus answering said, Were not the ten cleansed ? but where are the nine ? — Luke xvii. 17.
It was when He was on His last journey towards Jerusalem on the frontier of Galilee and Samaria, that our Lord saw, on the road towards a village which is not named, ten lepers. They might not come near the gates, as being tainted with the fatal disease and lying under the ban of God. They kept together in a band, endeavouring no doubt to find in each other's company some solace for their sufferings, for their sense of humiliation and disgust, for their exclusion from the civil and religious life of their countrymen.