Ver. 2.-Faithful stewardship. This is a principle approved alike of God and man. Stewardship implies responsibility, and responsibility demands faithfulness. The prin- ciple is applicable specially to the ministry of the Word. No responsibility like that of those who are called to keep watch an<l. guard over the mysteries of God, to mioister in Christ's Name the richest treasures of his grace. Note St. l'aul's own profound sense of his responsibility. It was a comparatively "small thing" to him to be "judged of man's judgment;" but the consciousness of the righteous judgment of God \Vas always present with him, and the anxiety to approve himself to him as one who "needed not to be ashamed" was perhaps the deepest and strongest emotion he knew. And the principle may be applied to everything that distinguishes ns personally among men, and that puts any power for good into our hands (Parables of the Unjust Steward, of the Talents, etc.). Intellectual capacity, educational advantages, wealth, social position, power of speech, any kind of artistic or constructive skill, vigour of physical health, abundance of leisure time,-these and such as these are endowments that put the possibility of incalculable good within our reach, and for the use of which we must give account. All human life is a sacred stewardship. In every position in which Providence has placed us our fidelity is being put to the test, our loyalty to God and to conscience, to the eternal princiµles of truth and righteousness, to the sovereign authority of the Law of Christ, It is required of us thnt we shoul<l Le faithful always and in everything. And if at heart we are faithful men, it will be seen to be so. Observe respecting this stewardship- I. THAT IT IS INDEPENDENT OF WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE RELATIVE 11\IPORTANCE OF THE POSITIONS WE OCCUPY AND THE MATTERS WITH WHICH WE HAVE TO DEAL. \Vhat we call the trivial and commonplace affairs of life are q nite as effectual a test of moral faithfuloess as the greater; often more so, We are prone to treat lightly what seem t0 us to be "little things," nnd for that very reason they are often the truest revealers of our character. Our real dispositions come out most clearly in the way in which we deal with them, because then our behaviour is most spontaneous, unpremeditated, free from artifice. If you want to know what a man really is, don't judgtt of him as he appears on the broad open platform of public life, but follow hirn into his more private ways, and see how he speaks and acts when he feels himself to be beyond the ear and eye of the world, and in matters on which no great consequence seems to hang. It is quite possible to raise a purely artificial standard of moral obligation, and to magnify unwisely certain scruples of conscience. But a really conscientious man will be con- scientious in everything. And as a feather or a straw will show which way the stream is flowing, so do tho trivial circumstances of life reveal the moral drift of our being. (Note the bearing of this on the probation to which Adam was subject: "Thou shalt not eat,'' etc.) What is daily life t0 every one of us but a series of silent tests of our inward fidelit_y? \Ve are hedged in by little restrictions, called to take upon us man- fully the burden of many unwelcome duties; to suffer many abstinences, rebukes, self- mortifications. And when we are disposed to overstep the boundary, because at certain points it seems so narrow or so low, we show that we have not learnt the fn\l surrender of the spirit of obedience. "Offending in one point" of the law of our allegiance, we betray a spirit that is "guilty of all." So as regards the right use of faculty nnd passing opportunities of doing good. The temptations that belong to a low order of personal faculty and a narrow range of personal influence arc often greater than those that belong to the highest and the largest. You do nothing because the utmost you can do is so little; or you do carelessly and half-heartedly what, as it seems to you, for anything the world would really be the better for it, you might neglect to do at all. The spirit that dictates this is one that would trifle with the loftiest powers and abnse the noblest possibilities of life. "He that is faithful in that which is least," etc. (Luke xvi. 10). 11. ALL PRACTICAL FIDELI'rY IN THE STEWARDSHIP OF LIFE HAS A TENl'ENCY TO DEVELOP INTO IIIGIIE!t CAPACITY AXD NODLER DEED. Note here the power uf habit. Accustom yourself with an earnest spirit to meet the claims of every-day duty as in 158 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cu. 1v. 1-21'.
the :Master's sight, and you call to your aid a power and obey a law of life by which the highest moral victories shall ultimately be won. Let our children be trained to- act from principle and not from mere passion or policy, to habits of self-surrender, to simple forms of Christian service, and they will become so habituated to the rio-ht way that when the heavier responsibilities of _life begin to fall upon them they wi11°be prepared bravely to meet them-the "yoke will be easy and the burden light." Thus is it given to us all to educate ourselves for what awaits us in the future. The Jews say of David that "God tried him first with those few sheep in the wilderness, and then, because he faithfully and bravely kept them, took him from the shecpfolds to feed his people Israel." Only use manfully whatever moral power you possess, and you need not fear any. strain that shall ever b~ put upon it. Cast yourseH freely upon your faith, and though 1t be now but as a "gram of mustard seed," it shall be mi<>hty enough one day" to remove mountains," " III. SUCH FIDELITY LEADS TO BLESSED ISSUES IN THE GREAT FUTURITY. It is not given to us to trace the path of moral forces very far in this world. Om judgments are often at fault, our forecasts often strangely falsified. Only very imperfectlv and with ?autious hesitating steps can we follow the wiud(ug and widening stream' of earthly issues. And who shall say how so~e of the unnoticed doings of every human life, and the results that grow out of them, will appear in the all-revealing light of the day when "God will bring every work into judgment and every secret thing, whether it be o-oud or bad"? But of this we may be perfectly well assured, that to a lifelong endea~our to serve and please the Lord Jesus Christ there must be a blessed eternal reward. Let our iife be a faithlul one, a work faithfully wrought out in his Name, and we need not fear but that it will prove itself to be a life worth living and that ends well. "Be thou. faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life" (Rev. ii. 10).-W.