says, not great and exceptional people. The
conditions are such as any life can fulfil. It is an honest and good
heart which hears the word and keeps it and is fruitful. Nothing but
sincerity and receptivity is demanded. A plain soil is productive
enough. God only needs a fair chance. He only asks that life shall
not be too hard, or too thin, or too crowded.

This is a saying of great comfort to plain people. And yet, even for
these, one last demand is added,--the demand for patience. If fruit is
to be brought forth it must be "with patience." The autumn comes, but
not all at once. Jesus is always recalling to us the gradualness of
nature; first the blade, {123} then the ear, then the full corn.
Nothing in nature is in a hurry. It is not a movement of catastrophes,
it is a movement of evolution. And so the last word of the parable is
to the impetuous. What a hurry we are in for our results. We look
about us among the social agitations of the day and demand a panacea;
but God is not in a hurry. Delay, uncertainty, doubt, are a part of
Christian experience. It brings forth its fruit with patience. It is
like these lingering days of spring, when one can discern no intimation
of the quickening life; and yet one knows that through the brown
branches the sap is running, and slowly with hesitating advance the
world is moving to the miracle of the spring.

{124}

L

THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS

_Matthew_ xxv. 14-30.

The parable of the talents takes up the side of life which is not
emphasized in the parable of the sower. In the story of the sower God
is doing the work and man is receptive of his influence. In the story
of the talents God is a master who leaves his servants to do his work,
and the parable is one of activity. These men are responsible agents.
Life is a trust. That is the natural teaching of the parable. All
these men are accountable; there has been given to them that which is
not their own, a trust from God, to be used in his service. But then
enters the extraordinary teaching of this parable as to the fact of
diversity. We talk of men as created free and equal. The cry of the
time is for equality of condition, for leveling down the rich, and
leveling up the poor; for paying the genius and the hod-carrier alike;
time for time, and man for man. But this parable stands for no such
definition of {125} equality. It recognizes diversity. Some have many
talents and some have f