indignant self-reproach.

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LV

CAPACITY EXTIRPATED BY DISUSE

_Matthew_ xxv. 29.

The parable of the talents begins with its splendid encouragement to
those who have done their best, but it ends with a solemn warning and
with the stern announcement of a universal law. It is this,--that from
him who does not use his powers there is taken away even the power that
he has. The gift is lost by the lack of exercise, or as Horace
Bushnell stated the principle, the "capacity is extirpated by disuse."

This principle has manifold illustrations. The hand or muscle disused
withers in power. The fishes of the Mammoth Cave, having no use for
their eyes, lose them. Mr. Darwin in an impressive passage of his
biography testifies that he began life with a taste for poetry and
music, but that by disuse this aesthetic taste grew atrophied so that
at last he did not care to read a poem or to hear a musical note. So
it is, says Jesus, with spiritual insight and power. Sometimes we see
a man of intellectual {137} gifts lose his grasp on spiritual
realities, and we ask: "How is it that so learned a man can find little
in these things? Does not he testify that these things are illusions?"
Not at all. It is simply that he has not kept his life trained on that
side. His capacity has been extirpated by disuse. He may know much of
science or language, but he has lost his ideals. We hear a young man
sometimes say that he has grown soft by lack of exercise. Well, if you
live a few years you will see people who have grown soft in soul, and
you will see some great blow of fate smite them and crush them because
their spiritual muscle is flabby and weak. Ignatius Loyola laid down
for his followers certain methods of prayer which he called "Spiritual
Exercises." So in one sense they were. They kept souls in training.
The exercise of the religious nature is the gymnastics of the soul, and
the disuse of the religious nature extirpates its capacity. That is
the solemn ending of the parable of the talents. From him who does not
use his power there is taken away even the power that he hath.

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LVI

THE PARABLE OF THE VACUUM

_Matthew_ xii. 38-45.

It is easy to see where the emphasis of this parable lies. It is on
the impossible emptiness of this man's house. A man casts out the
devil of his life and turns the key on his empty soul and feels safe.
But he cannot thus find safety. That is not the way to