cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what
to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive
me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors
unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?
And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take
thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to
another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures
of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done
wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser
than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they
may receive you into everlasting habitations."--LUKE xvi. 1-9.

On the face of this parable a difficulty presents itself, all the more
formidable in that it lies not in the critical, but in the moral
department. In almost all the other examples, the acts attributed to
human agents are either morally blameless in themselves, or are
manifestly exhibited in order to be condemned: but here, an element of
injustice is inseparably mixed up with the prudence which is commended
in the conduct of the steward. The difficulty lies in this, that the
specimen of worldly prudence presented in order to suggest and stimulate
spiritual prudence in securing the interests of the soul, is dyed
through and through with the loathsome vice of dishonesty. It is not
easy, at least for us, to gather the lesson which this man's prudence
contained, out of the dishonesty in which in was steeped.

When we read the parable we may detect a feeling of surprise creeping
over our minds, that the Lord, who had the whole world and its history
before him whence to select his examples, should have chosen a specimen
of worldly wisdom, damaged by an admixture of downright falsehood, in
order to stimulate thereby the spiritual zeal of his own disciples. The
three following observations will, in my judgment, explain and
completely remove the difficulty:--(1.) The Holy One, precisely because
he is perfectly holy, can come closer to the unholy than we who are
infected with sin and susceptible of injury from contact with impurity.
Jesus talked with the Samaritan at the well, and permitted the sinner to
wash his feet with tears in Simon's house