ceases to be a battle, when it is not a race, and sometimes a hard race, it is not the life to which the Kingdom of Heaven is promised. And as each in her turn, you go out into the world, whatever it may have pleased GOD to appoint for you, -happiness, if it be His will, in this world,— happiness, because it is His will, in the next, for all; try always to have, while you live, that text near to your heart: "They do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." Do it? Do what? Why, they bear so much, they exercise so much, they obey so well. Do you not think that a crown of parsley leaves is easier to come by than the Crown of Righteousness?

Yes try then that in your whole future course this Crown may be before your eyes. Then, I know, if from time to time we all hear of you here, it will be a dear pleasure to be able to say what S. John said to the Elect Lady: "I have no greater joy, than to hear that my children walk in the truth."

But what will that be to the joy hereafter, if GOD shall give us grace to enter into His Kingdom, of welcoming each of you, as one by one you join us there, no single lamb lost, no single racer defeated, no single one now here in this Oratory missing in the Eternal Temple!

And now, &c.

READING V.

"Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants."-S. MATT. xviii. 23.

THEREFORE; and so we have to look back and see why S. Peter had come to our LORD and had asked Him: "LORD, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” And if it seems strange to us, his thinking that seven times was so often to forgive, you must know that the Jews thought this: If a man offended his neighbour three times, his neighbour was bound to pardon him; the fourth time there was no longer any duty of forgiving him. So at all events S. Peter, even then, long before the HOLY GHOST had come down upon the Apostles, felt that the law of our dear LORD was a law of love, far beyond anything that was written in the law of Moses. Therefore: because of this question, our LORD tells us this story: "The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a certain King, which would take account of his servants." Now, here the kingdom means that new Kingdom which He had come to set up on earth; that Kingdom into which we have all been baptized, and in which we all hope to die. "His servants:" now we must not look

No;

on these as if they were household servants. they were the governors under him of great countries just as we read in the book of Daniel that "it pleased Darius the king to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes" (because there were a hundred and twenty provinces.) It spoils the Parable to think of these servants as we generally think of them, as if they were household servants. No; they were great princes; and all the revenues, that is, the money which came in from their provinces, they were bound to keep, not for themselves, but for their king; and in due time he would call them to account for it. And so he did and we find what happened at the very beginning of this reckoning. "When he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents." It is almost impossible for us even to fancy what such a huge sum of money Ten thousand talents! Now GOD's House, the Tabernacle in the wilderness, cost only, taking it altogether, twenty-nine talents. And think of the Temple. The Temple itself, was about the size, both in length and breadth and height, of our three houses that stand facing the street: and it stood in the middle of a court, about as large as the College, and with another set of buildings all round that. So think. If our three houses had all the walls and the roof lined with gold, the walls themselves being made of most precious cedar wood (to say nothing of the golden altar,

means.

and all the marble that was in the court round about) the whole of this, as we read in the book of Chronicles, cost about ten thousand talents. And that was what this servant of the King, this nobleman, owed. Now, my children, you know what this means; it means how much we all owe to GOD for what He has done for us, and for what we have done against Him. "It is He That hath made us, and not we ourselves;" and therefore we owe to Him everything that we can do or say or think. It is He That, when there was no other way of our being saved, died for us; and it is He Who, when we had no power of ourselves to keep His commandments, gives us the HOLY GHOST that we may have that power.

And then, what have we done in return for all this? What have each of you done this very day? Ask yourselves. Ah, my children, I wish you asked yourselves better! And then, what you have done to-day, you have done every day of your lives; oftentimes much worse. And so put those two things together, the heap of GOD's Love and the heap of your faults, and you may have some kind of understanding what the ten thousand talents mean.

And then see what this servant had to pay. "Forasmuch as he had not to pay;" that is, had nothing! And so you know very well that of ourselves we could do nothing at all for GOD's service. You see, one parable cannot tell us everything.

с

This does not teach us at all about our dear LORD's death, or our Baptism: about those we hear in other parables. Here we are only told that this poor miserable servant who owed this immense sum of money had nothing to pay at all. And then see what he did.

if

"The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all;" that is, he really felt in earnest then ; and he determined to do what he could in future. That was right; but when he said, "I will pay thee all," it shows how little he knew of that which he owed. "If thou, Lord, wilt have patience with me, I will pay thee all." And so you, my children, you think for one moment that anything you in yourselves can do in the future can make up for the past, you would do what, as I suppose, this nobleman intended to do: "for the future, all that comes in from my province I will pay thee; but as to the time past, I can do nothing; I only trust in thy mercy." That time, those opportunities are gone, we can never bring them back again: we can only pray very humbly that GOD will forgive us for our past sins. Nothing but His mercy can blot them out. And so, my children, you know very well that if any of you from this time forth set yourselves with all your heart and soul to pay your KING all you owe, you can but bring Him a very poor imperfect little fragment, which, however, He will accept, because it is your best.