hours of setting. Bend thy soul to the task, put thy
heart into the labour of the hour, and the same meed shall be thine.
Even as unto this first, will I give unto thee; come in."

9. On a wider scale the parable is Christ's assurance, that through all
outward inequalities of gift, endowment, opportunity, position,
prospect, which jar this jangled world, there is a sublime equity ruling
which will right all wrongs, adjust all balances, and square all issues
with pure celestial justice at last. "_No man hath hired us._" How much
does this explain of the bitterness and misery with which the world is
filled! Cross purposes, cross callings, cross relationships, cross
necessities, cross issues of life! Men with power in them for a service
which is never asked of them; tied down to a desk or a counter, it may
be, while they feel within them the stirrings of a power to guide the
coursers of the sun. Men bound in a home which has no beauty for them,
no love; while beyond there is a vision of the Eden which might be, if
bonds could be unbound and bound afresh. Some overflowing with fatherly
or motherly tenderness, in a barren home. Some shrinking from the
prattle of infant voices, yet with stuff in them of noble texture, shut
up to a nursery through the prime of their days. Some longing, pining,
panting for a work they love, bound to a work they loathe. Some with a
genial, generous, royal nature, wrestling with the serpents of care and
penury their long life through. "This is a mad world, my masters;" "the
times are out of joint;" it is all out of joint everywhen and
everywhere! "No man hath hired us" to the work which we are fit for; a
glorious wealth of being, of power, is left to "fust in us unused."

Patience, brothers, patience! One grand work, the grandest, spreads
broad and fair before you; "in your patience possess ye your souls." The
hiring is in higher, wiser hands; the patience, the hope, are in yours,
with all their glorious eternal fruit. None of the sighing, none of the
groaning, none of the desire and yearning of your spirit, is hidden from
Him who made you, and who in His own good time will call you to your
God-ordained work. "UNTO THIS LAST WILL I GIVE, EVEN AS UNTO THEE"
reveals the sublime equity of His dealings. Await with strong patience,
with steadfast hope, the things and the times of His sovereign
appointment; till you find with profound and wondering joy, that your
patience has won a prize whose splendou