brother's. "Self-praise is no recommendation" at any time; least of all when used by way of contrast, to depreciate another. A brother's demerit must not be made a foil to set off our own superiority. We should not seek "to wax great by others' waning."1 But was he not transgressing his father's commandment at that very time he was boasting that he never transgressed it? Is not this too an admission that he also has friends who are not his father's friends." 2 The grudging nature of his service too is shown in the word he employs, as though to share so good a father's work and gains were no better than slavery. To one who has received the spirit of adoption, God's "service is perfect freedom." " How contemptuous too, as well as cruel and unnatural, that term "this thy son," when the very servant's language might have reminded him that this was his own brother! He assumes too the very worst, and makes a charge which at least he cannot prove. He "speaks of him as a stranger" who is come, instead of a son who has returned to his own home, and resumed his old familiar place."

CCCLXXII.

THE SAME SUBJECT-continued.

St. Luke xv. 31, 32.

And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

How sweet, how absolutely imperturbable this temper, which not the elder son's unreasonableness even is allowed to ruffle! This was even in some respects more irritating and subversive of authority than the conduct of the other. He had at least withdrawn, and not ventured upon open

1 Second part of King Henry VI., IV. x.

2 Alford.

3 The Second Collect, for Peace, at Morning Prayer.

Abp. Trench.

opposition. The father condescends to expostulate, where he might have commanded and condemned. Still he calls him Son, though by his own language1 he had almost repudiated and forfeited that title. He speaks as though his company was a continual pleasure, not needing exceptional treatment like this. His words however have the force of a gentle reproof, intimating that he is "in fact, falling into the very sin of his brother . . . as though he did not truly possess what he possessed with his father."2 He puts the expensive side of the entertainment, on which the elder son had ungenerously dwelt, out of sight; and puts forward that joy of which it was the expression, and of which he nobly assumes him also a partaker. To him who had said contemptuously, "this thy son," he says movingly, "this thy brother." And returning to his former strain," he intimates that the elder brother should look upon this one with a father's eyes. The Lord leaves Pharisees and Scribes to draw for themselves the lesson of this part of the Parable; holding up to them this conduct of the elder brother as a mirror in which they might see themselves; drawing a portrait which they must recognise as their own.

man,

CCCLXXIII.

THE UNJUST STEWARD.

St. Luke xvi. 1-7.

And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive

1 V. 30 above.

2 Abp. Trench.

15.

3 V. 24 above. Compare Rom. xi.

me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.

The present parable was addressed to Disciples, as the three preceding parables had been addressed chiefly to Pharisees and Scribes, who had murmured at His mercy to penitent Publicans and sinners.' By Disciples here are not meant exclusively the twelve Apostles, but all who followed Him; and among them would be found some of those Publicans whose danger lay in the direction this Parable points out. The Steward of the Ancients was a most important personage. He managed the property, arranged the terms of the Tenants, and, like Eliezer in the house of Abraham, and Joseph in the household of Potiphar, was ruler over all his Master's goods; so that the Master oftentimes "knew not ought he had save the bread which he did eat." The pictures lately discovered in the Egyptian tombs bear interesting testimony to such particulars, where "the Steward is seen often with all his writing materials, taking an exact note of the amount of the harvest, before it is stored in the granaries." There is something that should have gone to his heart, if he had any, in the question, "How is it that I hear this of thee?"-one whom I so trusted, and who hast so abused my confidence. He calls for the account,* the rentroll, containing a list of the tenants and the terms of their engagements or contracts. Before giving this in, however, the unjust steward revolves in his mind during the interval allowed him for the purpose, what he shall do for a provision in the inevitable event of dismissal. Suddenly a thought strikes him. He rejects both of the two disagreeable, though at least honest, courses which first suggested themselves, and,

1 St. Luke xv. 1-3.

21 Tim. vi. 17.

3 Abp. Trench.

In the original the article is ex

pressed. The other expression too is very striking: "Thou art no longer able to guide the house," implying his incapacity for the duty.

1

true to his character, hits upon a plan which would be sure to procure him shelter from those who, for their own sakes, would connive at the common fraud. The debtors in the Parable were either "tenants who paid their rents in kind, according to a common custom in those times and countries, or dealers who contracted to supply the household with corn and oil," or possibly wholesale merchants who bought up such produce. If the olive-yards and harvest-fields were farmed by tenants who paid a fixed proportion of the produce, these bills would be like our leases or agreements. If it was as in either of the other cases, the bills would be literally such, notes of hand, acknowledging the amounts due or received. These, which were in his keeping, the Steward bids them now take back in order "to alter them, or substitute others in their room;" corresponding with his own altered list, on terms more favourable to themselves. Two instances are given, samples of the rest with whom he tampered. One tenant had, we may suppose, planted his land with olives, and agreed to deliver in return for the use of the ground an hundred measures,3 or as we might say tuns, of the oil those olives produced. Another had planted his portion with corn, and had agreed to give for it, say, an hundred quarters of the wheat. Those who acknowledged being indebted to this extent, he bade write fifty, or write fourscore, as the case might be, instead; remitting a larger or a smaller, but in any case a considerable amount, according as he had his reasons for being more or less favourable to the fraudulent tenants. He bids them do it quickly, for there was no time to be lost, nor does he wish to give them too much time for reflection. He hurries them on to participate in his fraud. Thus he thought to make these men his friends.

1 Macbride.

5

2 Bp. Wordsworth notes that "he makes him write the bill, his own bill... that he may have the evidence of his handwriting, as a proof that it was his act, and so protect himself. . . Another proof of his worldly shrewdness."

4

CCCLXXIV.

THE SAME SUBJECT-continued.

St. Luke xvi. 8-13.

And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

When the lord, or Master of the Steward, the land-lord as we might say, discovered by-and-by his servant's further fraud, he could not help admiring the man's prudence and foresight, though it was at his own expense. It was not of course his duplicity the master admired, for that was to his own loss, but simply his forethought. The man is expressly called "the unjust steward;" and he is commended by his own master, not because he had done dishonestly, but because he had done wisely, or prudently, so far as making provision for the future was concerned; "feathering," at all events, "his own nest." 3 The words which follow are added

See the original phrase, and compare St. Luke xviii. 6.

2 So in Wiclif's version.

In like manner Latimer, in his sermon of the Plough, has a passage in which he reproves the slothful pastors of his day, holding up to them Satan as an example; meaning of course that they should be as active

in the pursuit of good as he is in pursuit of evil. So in the Revelation our Lord says, "Behold, I come as a thief;" that is, of course, as respects the suddenness and surprise of the coming. Rev. iii. 3; xvi. 15; 1 Thess. v. 2; 2 St. Pet. iii. 10; St. Luke xii. 39.