But his lord answers him on his own grounds, and making his own mouth condemn him (Job. xv. 6; 2 Sam. i. 16); nor does he take the trouble to dispute or deny the truth of the character which his servant had given him:-" Thou wicked and slothful servant;" "wicked," in that he defended himself by calumniating his lord, and "slothful," as his whole conduct has shown, "thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I had not strawed;—that is, Be it so, grant me to be such as thou describest, severe and exacting, yet even then thou art not cleared, for thou oughtest to have done me justice still; and there was a safe way, by which thou mightest have done this, with little or no peril to thyself; and thereby have obtained for me, if not the large gains, which were possible through some bolder course, yet something, some small but certain return for my moneys;-Thou oughtest, therefore, to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury." This putting the money to the exchangers, Olshausen ingeniously explains: "Those timid natures which are not suited to independent labor in the kingdom of God, are here counselled at least to attach themselves to other stronger characters, under whose leading they may lay out their gifts to the service of the Church."+

*Zur Tók, with increase. So fenus is explained by Varro, à fetu et quasi à feturâ quâdam pecuniæ parientis atque increscentis. To estimate how great the master's gains even in this way might have been, we must keep in mind the high rates of interest paid in antiquity. See the Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt., s. v. Interest of Money, p. 523; and see also the lively chapter in BECKER's Charikles, v. 1, p. 237, for a graphic description of the тpañeĊîτai, the bankers of antiquity.

† Cajetan has nearly the same explanation: Intendit per hoc, quod si non ausus fuit uti dono Dei in actionibus multi periculi, uti tamen debuit illo, in actionibus in quibus est lucrum cum parvo periculo. Teelman (Comm. in Luc. xvi.) has a curious explanation of this giving the money to the rpane(irai, starting from the notion that the business of these money-changers was in itself and necessarily unfair; "If you thought me this unfair man, why were you not consistent ?—why did you not seek for me the gains which you must then have supposed would have been welcome to me?" not saying this as though he would have had him so to have done, but only convicting him of conduct inconsistent with his own assertions. -It is an interesting question, whether the saying so often quoted in the early Church as our Lord's, and not any where to be found in the New Testament, riveσθε δόκιμοι (οι καλοί, or φρόνιμοι) τραπεζῖται, has its origin here. Many have thought they found it in this passage, but it is difficult to see on what ground, except that the word Tрañeiraι here occurs. The point of that exhortation is evidently this: Be as experienced money-changers, who readily distinguish the good from the bad coin, receiving the one but rejecting the other. Now in this parable, there is no direct or indirect comparison of the disciples with money-changers, and such an exhortation lies wholly aloof from its aim and scope. The words can as little be said to be implicitly contained in the parable, as they can to be plainly read in the text, though it is true that SUICER (Thes., s. v. трañε(irns), defends this view. The precept would be much more easily deduced from 1 Thess. v. 21, 22;

This explanation has the advantage that it makes these words not merely useful to add vivacity to the narrative, as the natural exclamation of an offended master,—but gives them likewise a spiritual significance, which is not generally sought in them, but which, if they yield it easily and naturally, must by no means be rejected. Certainly this meaning is better than that which Jerome proposes, that the moneychangers are believers in general, to whom the intrusted word of grace should have been committed, that they, trying it, and rejecting any erroneous doctrine which might be admingled with it, but holding fast what was good, might be enriched with the knowledge of God. Such can hardly be the meaning, for that is the very thing which the servant ought to have done in the first instance, boldly to have laid out his gift for the profit and edification of his brethren; while this of committing the talent to the money-changers is only the alternative proposed to him, in case he had shrunk from that other and more excellent way.

And hereupon, his doom who neither in one way or the other had sought his master's interests, is pronounced; it consists first, in the loss of the talent which he had suffered to lie idle,-" Take, therefore, the talent from him." We have here a limitation of Rom. xi. 29. deprivation may be considered partly as the directly penal, and partly as the natural consequence of his sloth. For there is this analogy between the course of things in the natural and in the spiritual world, that as a limb which is never called into exercise loses its strength by degrees its muscles and sinews disappear, even so the gifts of God, unexercised, fade and fail from us: "From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."* And on the other contrary, as

even as we find yív, dók. Tρаπ. sometimes called an apostolic saying, attributed by many of the Fathers not to the Lord but to one of his apostles, or to St. Paul by name, and by some, indeed, even inserted before this very passage,-for examples, see Suicer; and the whole question is thoroughly discussed by Hansel, in the Theol. Stud. und Krit., for 1836, p. 179. He maintains this latter origin of the words. See also COTELERII Patt. Apostol., v. 1, p. 249, and the Annott. in Euseb., Oxford, 1842, v. 1, p. 930.-There being mention of interest here, тpareÇirns is the fitter word than KоλλUßiσThs, which, however, rightly finds place, Matt. xxi. 12; Mark xi. 15. Jerome (Comm. in Matth. xxi. 12, 13,) has a singular, but erroneous derivation of the last word.

4

* Augustine asks here (Enarr. in Ps. xxxviii. 4): Quid exspectare debent, qui cum luxuria consumserunt, si damnatur qui cum pigritiâ servaverunt? And again, Intelligatur pœna interversoris ex pœna pigri.

† Chrysostom (De Christ. Prec., Con. Anom., 10) has two other comparisons, to set forth that the grace unused will quickly depart: "For as the corn, if it be let lie for ever in the barns, is consumed, being devoured of the worm; but if it is brought forth and cast into the field, is multiplied and renewed again: so also the spiritual word, if it be evermore shut up within the soul, being consumed and eaten into by envy and sloth, and decay, is quickly extinguished; but, if, as on a

the limb is not wasted by strenuous exertion, but rather by it nerved and strengthened, not otherwise is it also with the gifts of God; they are multiplied by being laid out: "Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance." "The earth which bringeth

forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing," that is, a farther blessing, the gift of a continued fruitfulness "from God." (Heb. vi. 7.) Nor is it merely that the one receives more, and the other loses what he had; but that very gift which the one loses the other receives; he is enriched with a talent taken from the other; while on his part, another takes his crown. We see this continually; one by the providence of God steps into the place and the opportunities which another left unused, and so has forfeited. (1 Sam. xv. 28.)

For this taking away of the unused talent which will find its complete consummation at the day of judgment, yet is also in this present time continually going forward. And herein is mercy, that it is not done all at once, but by little and little, so that till all is withdrawn, there is still the opportunity of recovering all: at each successive withdrawal, there is some warning to hold fast what still is left, "to strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die." It is quite true that at each successive stage of the decline, the effort required for this is greater,— the strength for it less: but to complain of this, is to complain that sin is sin, that it has any curse with it; and however this is the mournful truth, yet, at the same time, it remains always possible, till the last spark is extinguished, to blow up that spark again into a flame: even the sense of the increasing darkness may be that which shall arouse the man to a serious sense of his danger, and to the need of an earnest revival of God's work in his soul. But this servant had never awoke to the sense

fertile field, it is scattered on the souls of the brethren, the treasure is multiplied to them that receive it, and to him that possessed it;-and as a fountain from which water is continually drawn forth, is thereby rather purified, and bubbles up the more; but being stanched fails altogether, so the spiritual gift and word of doctrine, if it be continually drawn forth, and if who will has liberty to share it, rises up the more; but if restrained by envy and a grudging spirit, diminishes, and at last perishes altogether."-Augustine too, (or Cæsarius, as the Benedictine editors affirm, August. Opp., v. 5, p. 81, Appendix) has an admirable discourse on the manner in which gifts multiply through being imparted, and diminish through being withholden. It is throughout an application of the story of the widow (2 Kin. iv.) whose two sons Elisha redeemed from bondage, by multiplying the oil which she had in her single vessel so long as she provided other vessels into which to pour it, but which, when she had no more, at once stopped:-et ait Scriptura stetisse oleum, posteaquam ubi poneret, non invenit. Sic, dilectissimi fratres, tandiu caritas augetur quandiu tribuitur. Et ideo etiam ex industriâ debemus vasa quærere, ubi oleum possumus infundere, quia probavimus quod dum aliis infundimus, plus habemus. Vasa caritatis, homines sunt.

of his danger till it was too late,-till all was irrevocably lost; and now it is said, not merely that he shall forfeit his talent, but yet further, "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." While there is light and joy and feasting within, to celebrate the master's return, the darkness without shall be his portion.

The comparison of the causes which led to this servant's exclusion, and those which led to the exclusion of the foolish virgins, is full of important instruction for all; the virgins erred through a vain overconfidence, this servant through an under-confidence that was equally vain and sinful. They were overbold, he was not bold enough. Thus, as in a chart, the two temptations, as regards our relation to God and his service, the two opposing rocks on which faith is in danger of making shipwreck, are laid down for us, that we may avoid them both. Those virgins thought it too easy a thing to serve the Lord,-this servant thought it too hard;-they esteemed it but as the going forth to a festival which should presently begin, he as a hard, dreary, insupportable work for a thankless master. In them, we have the perils that beset the sanguine, in him the melancholic, complexion. They were representatives of a class needing such warnings as this: "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matt. vii. 14); "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. ii. 12); "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself" (Matt. xvi. 24). He was representative of a class that would need to be reminded: "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear" (Rom. viii. 15); “Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest; but ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, . . . . . and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" (Heb. xii. 18, 22, 24).

XV.

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.

MARK iv. 26-29.

THIS is the only parable which is peculiar to St. Mark. Like that of the Leaven, of which it seems to occupy the place, it declares the secret invisible energy of the divine word,-that it has life in itself, and will unfold itself according to the law of its own being; and besides what it has in common with that parable, declares further, that this word of the kingdom has that in it which will allow it safely to be left to itself. The main difficulty in the parable is the following: Whom shall we understand by the man casting seed in the ground?-is it the Son of man himself, or those who in subordination to him declare the Gospel of the kingdom? There are embarrassments attending either explanation. If we say that the Lord points to himself as the sower of the seed, how then shall we explain ver. 27?-it cannot be said of him that he knows not how the seed sown in the hearts of his people springs and grows up; since it is only his continual presence by his Spirit in their hearts which causes it to grow at all. Neither can he fitly be compared to a sower who, having scattered his seed, goes his way and occupies himself in other business, feeling that it lies henceforth beyond the sphere of his power to further the prosperity of the seed, but that it must be left to itself, and its own indwelling powers, and that his part will not begin again till the time of the harvest has come round. This is no fit description of him, who is not merely the author and finisher of our faith, but who also conducts it through all its intermediate stages: and without whose blessing and active co-operation it would be totally unable to make any, even the slightest, progress. Or on the other hand,

*It is a poor way to get out of this difficulty to say with Erasmus, that, “he knoweth not how," ought rather to be, "it knoweth not how,"-that is, the seed knoweth not how it grows itself; since, as no one could have supposed that it did, who would think of denying it?