who had five talents, five opportunities, gained ten. The
servant who had two gained two more. But the servant of whom only one
little service was asked refused that, and was cast into outer darkness,
to witness another performing the task which should have been his. Hell,
here and hereafter, was the spectacle of wasted opportunity, and there is
no suffering to compare to it.

The crime, the cardinal sin was with those who refused to serve, who shut
their eyes to the ideal their Lord had held up, who strove to compromise
with Jesus Christ himself, to twist and torture his message to suit their
own notions as to how life should be led; to please God and Mammon at the
same time, to bind Christ's Church for their comfort and selfish
convenience. Of them it was written, that they shut up the Kingdom of
Heaven against men; for they neither go in themselves, neither suffer
them that are entering to go in. Were these any better than the people
who had crucified the Lord for his idealism, and because he had not
brought them the material Kingdom for which they longed?

That servant who had feared to act, who had hid his talent in the ground,
who had said unto his lord, "I knew thee that thou art an hard man,
reaping where thou hadst not sown," was the man without faith, the
atheist who sees only cruelty and indifference in the order of things,
who has no spiritual sight. But to the other servants it was said, "Thou
halt been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many
things. Enter thou into the joy of thy lord."

The meaning of life, then, was service, and by life our Lord did not mean
mere human existence, which is only a part of life. The Kingdom of
heaven is a state, and may begin here. And that which we saw around us
was only one expression of that eternal life--a medium to work through,
towards God. All was service, both here and hereafter, and he that had
not discovered that the joy of service was the only happiness worth
living for could have no conception of the Kingdom. To those who knew,
there was no happiness like being able to say, "I have found my place in
God's plan, I am of use." Such was salvation . . . .

And in the parable of the Prodigal Son may be read the history of what
are known as the Protestant nations. What happens logically when the
individual is suddenly freed from the restraint of external authority
occurred when Martin Luther released the vital spark of Christianity,
which he go