ds. And he called him, and said unto
him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy
stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward
said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from
me the stewardship: I 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.

This parable has always been considered a difficult one to
understand. Fathers and Divines, in all ages, have tried to explain
it in different ways; and have never, it seems to me, been satisfied
with their own explanations. They have always felt it strange, that
our Lord should seem to hold up, as an example to us, this steward
who, having been found out in one villainy, escapes, (so it seems,
from the common explanation) by committing a second. They have not
been able to see either, how we are really to copy the steward. Our
Lord says, that we are to copy him by making ourselves friends of
the Mammon of unrighteousness: but how? By giving away a few alms,
or a great many? Does any rational man seriously believe, that if
his Mammon was unrighteous, that is, if his wealth were ill-gotten,
he would save his soul, and be received into eternal life, for
giving away part of it, or even the whole of it?

No doubt, there always have been men who will try. Men who, having
cheated their neighbours all their lives, have tried to cheat the
Devil at last, by some such plan as the unjust steward's, but that
plan has never been looked on as either a very honourable or a very
hopeful one. I think, that if I had been an usurer or a grinder of
the poor all my life, I should not save my soul by founding
almshouses with my money when I died, or even ten years before I
died. It might be all that I was able to do: but would it justify
me in the sight of God? That which saves a soul alive is