t and found others
standing: and he saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day
idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He said
unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard. And when even was come,
the lord of the vineyard said unto his steward, Call the laborers,
and pay them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they
received every man a shilling. And when the first came, they
supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received
every man a shilling. And when they received it, they murmured
against the householder, saying, These last have spent but one
hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, who have borne the
burden of the day and the scorching heat. But he answered and said
to one of them, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree
with me for a shilling? Take up that which is thine, and go thy
way; it is my will to give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is
it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? or is thine
eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the
first last.--Matt. 20:1-16.

Judaism rested on legality. So much obedience to the law earned so much
reward, according to the contract between God and Israel. Theoretically
this was just; practically it gave the inside track to the respectable and
well to do, for it took leisure and money to obey the minutiae of the Law.
In this parable the employer rises from the level of justice to the higher
plane of human fellow-feeling. These eleventh-hour men had been ready to
work; they had to eat and live; he proposed to give them a living wage
because he felt an inner prompting to do so. In the parable of the
Prodigal Son the father does more for his son than justice required,
because he was a father. Here the employer does more because he is a man.
Each acted from a sense of the worth of the human life with which he was
dealing. It was the same sense of worth and sacredness in Jesus which
prompted him to invent these parables.

_Do we find ourselves valuing people according to their utility to us, or
do we have an active feeling of their human interest and worth?_ Let us
run over in our minds our family and relatives, our professors and
friends, and the people in town who serve us, and see with whom we are on
a human footing.

Seventh Day: The Courtesy