XVIII.

Christ's Traders.

"AND he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come."-LUKE xix. 13.

HE Evangelist is careful to note the occasion for this remarkable parable. It was spoken in order to damp down the excited hopes of Christ's followers and of the crowd, occasioned by our Lord's final journey to Jerusalem. They "thought that the Kingdom of God should immediately appear"; that at last this Messiah was about to make a dash for temporal sovereignty, such as would meet their desires. He tells them this story which so significantly, though in veiled fashion, yet very clearly to a seeing eye, asserts His dignity, foretells His departure, hints at the long period of His absence, and prescribes the tasks of His servants.

"A certain nobleman," or, as the word literally rendered would be, a "well-born man "-there speaks the veiled consciousness of Divine Sonship-" went into a far country," therefore on a long journey, "to receive for himself a kingdom," as successive members of the Herod family had been accustomed to do, going to Rome, to get confirmation of their authority," and

to return."

And he left behind him, says the narrative, two sets of people, servants to work and rebellious citizens.

I have nothing to do with the latter class this morning, but I wish to turn to the imagery of my task as suggesting the work of the servants whilst the Master is gone.

Now we are to observe that the word "occupy," in our Authorized Version, is by no means-now, at all events-an adequate representation of the original. A compound form of the same word is rightly rendered in the fifteenth verse, "gain by trading"; and unquestionably the Revised Version gives the true meaning when, instead of "occupy," it reads "trade ye herewith till I come." The metaphor, then, is that of men to whom has been entrusted a capital not their own, and who are sent to do their best with it.

I.—Note, then, first, the stock-in-trade.

Now you will remember that there is another parable, so singularly like this one that superficial readers, and some readers who ought not to have been superficial, have gone the length of supposing that the two are simply versions of one. I mean the parable of the pounds in Matthew's Gospel. But there are, along with the resemblances of the two, several important points of difference, which enter into the very structure and significance of each, and contain the key to their interpretation. The two points of difference are the magnitude of the gift bestowed, and the fact that in the one parable the gift varies in each case, and in the other is identical in all. In our story the men get a pound a piece; in the other story they get a varying number of talents, beginning with ten, and tapering

down to one. Now, then, these two points, the smallness of the stock and its uniformity, are essential features in the significance of this parable.

What is there that all Christian men have in common? The answer may be, as often has been supposed, salvation, grace, or the like; but it is only very partially true that all Christian men have an equal measure of such gifts, for these vary indefinitely, according to the faith and receptivity of the possessor. But there is something which all Christian people have equally, though they do not all make the same use of it, and that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the message of salvation, the great truths of His mission, character, and work. And that, as I take it-the Word, or, to use a more frequent phrase, the Gospel-is the "pound" which every real Christian has equally. Remember Paul's word, which is only another phase of the same thought, where he speaks about "that good deposit committed to our trust." And remember also his frequent expressions, such as "I was put in trust of the Gospel," "the Gospel was committed to my charge," as to a steward, and I think you will see the meaning of the emblem. All Christians have the same gift committed to their charge.

But then, is it not very strange that, if that be at all the significance of the figure, our Lord should select a very small amount as representing it? A talent, whether it was a talent of gold or of silver— which may be questionable-was an immense sum. A pound was worth about six pounds of our English money, a very small amount for a man to set up in business with; or for an aspirant to a throne to give to his servants. Pretenders to crowns not yet won

are not usually very flush of money, and the smallness of the gift may be part of the propriety of the narrative.

But how can we think that Jesus Christ would have represented the gift of His Word as a little stockin-trade with which to go out? Well! fling yourself back to the time. Think of these forlorn men, left by their Master, and standing there face to face with an antagonistic world, with its treasures of poetry, philosophy, eloquence, literature, with its banded antagonisms, with its dead weight of indifference, What have they to meet all these with? One unlettered message, "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." By the side of the wealth that was stored in that wonderful literature of

Greece, what was the disciples' stock-in-trade? Nothing but one poor word; and with that word they shook the world. The "pound," small as it seemed was more than all the wealth hived in the treasurehouses of the poets and orators and philosophers of Greece, and than the might of Rome. It was a little gift, but it was sufficient. The gladiator was sent into the arena to face the lions unarmed, and with a poor rod in his hand, but he conquered. The foolishness of preaching was more than a match for the gathered wisdom of the world.

The servants had but their pound; they had to be contented, therefore, with dealing in a very small way. Little economies, and hard work, and slow savings had to be the rule of their trade. There are men in Manchester to-day who began with the traditional halfcrown, and have made it the basis of a large fortune. Christ sent His Church into the world with a similar

slender endowment, judged from the world's point of view. All of us have that gift. Let us see that we are not ashamed of it. David's five smooth stones out of the brook-bed, lodged in a rude leather sling, with a bit of string tied at the two ends of it, are fit to whiz into the forehead of any Goliath and lay him flat upon the plain. The Lord went to seek a kingdom, and all that He had to leave to His servants was one poor pound. That is their stock-in-trade.

II. Now, secondly, notice the trading.

"Trade ye herewith." That is a distinct and definite command. It covers, no doubt, the whole area of life, and goes down to its depths as well. In this trading is, I suppose, included the whole of the outward life, which is to be shaped by the principles and motives contained in the message of the Gospel. Thus to live is our business in the world. These men got their gift, not only to live upon it—of course they had to do that too-but to do the best they could with it by their faithfulness and their diligence. It remains for ever true that wheresoever men do honestly and conscientiously, and with a fixed and continuous determination, apply the principles of Christianity to their daily life, in great or small things, their grasp of the principles and motives is increased, and the "pound" becomes more in their hands, though they add nothing to it, but only penetrate deeper into its significance and its value.

But whilst thus the Christian life, influenced and dominated by Christian motives and principles drawn from the Gospel, is the general meaning of this trading, there is one special direction in which, as I think, the stress of the parable is meant to go, and that is,