he
impatience of the reformer. He wants to redeem the world all at once.
As Theodore Parker said of the anti-slavery cause: "The trouble seems
to be that God {50} is not in a hurry, and I am." Thus we are beset by
panaceas which are to regenerate society in some wholesale, external,
mechanical way. When such a reformer not long ago presented some quick
solution of the social question, and it was criticised, he answered:
"Well, if you do not accept my solution, what is yours?" as though
every one must have some immediate cure for the evils of civilization.
But the fact is, that the world is not likely to be saved in any
wholesale way. A much wiser observer of the social situation has
lately said: "When any one brings forward a complete solution of the
Social Question, I move to adjourn." Jesus, let us remember, saved men
one at a time. The patience of nature taught him the patience of
faith; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn.

Or, again, we are afflicted in our day by the impatience of the
theologian. He wants to know all about God. It seems somehow a
depreciation of theology to admit that there is anything which is not
revealed. But the fact is that the wisest feel most the sense of
mystery. The only theology which is likely to last is one which admits
a large degree of {51} Christian agnosticism. As one of our University
preachers once said: "We do not know anything about God unless we first
know that we cannot know Him perfectly." [1] How superb, as against
all this impatience of spirit, are the reserve and patience of Christ.
Accept doubts, he says. Bear with incompleteness. Give faith its
chance to grow. First the blade, then the ear, and then the harvest.
There are some things which youth can prove, and some which only the
experience of maturity can teach, and then there are some mysteries
which are perhaps to be made plain to us only in the clearer light of
another world.

[1] Henry van Dyke, D. D., _Straight Sermons_, p. 216, Scribners, 1893.

{52}

XIX

THE BOND-SERVANT AND THE SON

_Luke_ xvii. 7-10.

"We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which it was our duty
to do." It seems almost as if we must have misread this passage. Can
one who has done his duty be called an unprofitable servant? Shall one
have no credit because he has done what is right? This seems strange
indeed. But Jesus in reality is contrasting two ideas of duty,--the
duty of a bon