er teach, as at Luke xvii. 4,--"If he trespass
against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again
to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him." But evidently the
number seven in that discourse has substantially the same meaning with
seventy times seven here: seven times a day, even when literally
understood, includes as much as the absolute seventy times seven. The
doctrine in both cases is that it is not lawful to set any limit to the
principle and the practice of forgiving injuries.

To repeat, expand, and enforce this lesson, the parable is introduced.
The kingdom of heaven is like a man king--[Greek: anthropo basilei].
Expressly the divine is in this respect analogous to the human. This
ruler proposed to take account of his servants. It was not the final
reckoning, but a periodical balance. A king is in this respect like a
merchant: he takes account from time to time of his own affairs, and the
intromissions of his servants. "Short counts make long friends."

These servants were not slaves, the property of their master; for
afterwards it is assumed that he may sell them, not as an ordinary
right, but as the special penalty incurred by an insolvent debtor. A
king, in ancient times and oriental regions, entered into pecuniary
transactions with his servants on a great scale. One man, who owes all
to the personal favour of the sovereign, is the governor of a wealthy
province. Bound by no written law, and living at a distance from the
seat of government, that servant possesses always the power, and too
frequently seizes the opportunity of oppressing the people on the one
hand, and defrauding the royal treasury on the other. In many cases
fortunate or powerful dependants farmed the taxes of a district, paying,
or at least promising to pay, a certain sum yearly to the supreme
government, and obtaining authority in return to levy contributions on
the inhabitants for their own behoof, sometimes almost according to
their own pleasure. Vast sums passed through the hands of these great
officers, and vast sums also remained in their hands that should have
passed through them.

The amount specified in the parable--ten thousand talents--is very
great, of whatever species you may suppose the talent to be. The inquiry
which has been prosecuted with a view to determine precisely the value
of the talent in this case is difficult, and does not lead to any
certain or important result. The question is interest