e are diversities of gifts, but
the same Spirit."[1171] Of the man endowed with many talents greater
returns were expected; of the one-talented man relatively little was
required, yet in that little he failed.[1172] At the least he could have
delivered the money to the bank, through which it would have been kept
in circulation to the benefit of the community, and would have earned
interest meanwhile. Likewise, in the spiritual application, a man
possessed of any good gift, such as musical ability, eloquence, skill in
handicraft, or the like, ought to use that gift to the full, that he or
others may be profited thereby: but should he be too neglectful to
exercize his powers in independent service, he may assist others to
profitable effort, by encouragement if by nothing more.

Who can doubt in the spirit of the Lord's teaching, that had the man
been able to report the doubling of his single talent, he would have
been as cordially commended and as richly recompensed as were his more
highly endowed and faithful fellows? It is notable that to the charge of
unrighteousness made by the unfaithful servant, the Lord deigns no
refutation; the spirit of the reply was the same as that expressed in
the earlier parable: "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou
wicked servant."[1173] The unworthy man sought to excuse himself by the
despicable but all too common subterfuge of presumptuously charging
culpability in another, and in this instance, that other was his Lord.
Talents are not given to be buried, and then to be dug up and offered
back unimproved, reeking with the smell of earth and dulled by the
corrosion of disuse. The unused talent was justly taken from him who had
counted it as of so little worth, and was given to one, who, although
possessing much, would use the additional gift to his own profit, to the
betterment of his fellows, and to the glory of his Lord.

THE INEVITABLE JUDGMENT.[1174]

The Lord had uttered His last parable. In words of plainness, though
suffused with the beauty of effective simile, He impressed upon the
listening disciples the certainty of judgment by which the world shall
be visited in the day of His appearing. Then shall the wheat be
segregated from the tares,[1175] and the sheep divided from the goats.
"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels
with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him
shall be gathered all nations: and he shall