It is no mere accident that in our Lord's great parable He represents
the man with the _one_ talent as the hider of his gift. There is
a certain pleasure in doing what we can do, or fancy we can do, well.
There is a certain pleasure in the exercise of any kind of gift, be it
of body or mind; but when we know that we are but very slightly gifted
by Him, there is a temptation to say, 'Oh! it does not matter much
whether I contribute my share to this, that, or the other work or no.
I am but a poor man. My half-crown will make but a small difference in
the total. I am possessed of very little leisure. The few minutes that
I can spare for individual cultivation, or for benevolent work, will
not matter at all. I am only an insignificant unit; nobody pays any
attention to my opinion. It does not in the least signify whether I
make my influence felt in regard of social, religious, or political
questions, and the like. I can leave all that to the more influential
men. My littleness at least has the prerogative of immunity. My little
finger would produce such a slight impact on the scale that it is
indifferent whether I apply it or not. It is a good deal easier for me
to wrap up my talent--which, after all, is only a threepenny bit, and
not a talent--and put it away and do nothing.'
Yes, but then you forget, dear friend! that responsibility does not
diminish with the size of the gifts, but that there is as great
responsibility for the use of the smallest as for the use of the
largest, and that although it does not matter very much to anybody but
yourself what you do, it matters all the world to you.
But then, besides that, my text tells us that it does matter whether
the poor man sets himself to make the most of his little patch of
ground or not. 'There is much food in the tillage of the poor.' The
slenderly endowed are the immense majority. There is a genius or two
here and there, dotted along the line of the world's and the Church's
history. The great men and wise men and mighty men and wealthy men may
be counted by units, but the men that are not very much of anything
are to be counted by millions. And unless we can find some stringent
law of responsibility that applies to them, the bulk of the human race
will be under no obligation to do anything either for God or for their
fellows, or for themselves. If I am absolved from the task of bringing
my weight to bear on the side of right because my weight is
infinitesimal, and I am only one in a million, suppose all the million
were to plead the same excuse; what then? Then there would not be any
weight on the side of the right at all. The barns in Palestine were
not filled by farming on a great scale like that pursued away out on
the western prairies, where one man will own, and his servants will
plough a furrow for miles long, but they were filled by the small
industries of the owners of tiny patches.
The 'tillage of the poor,' meaning thereby not the mendicant, but the
peasant owner of a little plot, yielded the bulk of the 'food.' The
wholesome old proverb, 'many littles make a mickle,' is as true about
the influence brought to bear in the world to arrest evil and to
sweeten corruption as it is about anything besides. Christ has a great
deal more need of the cultivation of the small patches that He gives
to the most of us than He has even of the cultivation of the large
estates that He bestows on a few. Responsibility is not to be measured
by amount of gift, but is equally stringent, entire, and absolute
whatsoever be the magnitude of the endowments from which it arises.
Let me remind you, too, how the same virtues and excellences can be
practised in the administering of the smallest as in that of the
greatest gifts. Men say--I dare say some of you have said--'Oh! if I
were eloquent like So-and-so; rich like somebody else; a man of weight
and importance like some other, how I would consecrate my powers to
the Master! But I am slow of speech, or nobody minds me, or I have but
very little that I can give.' Yes! 'He that is faithful in that which
is least is faithful also in much.' If you do not utilise the capacity
possessed, to increase the estate would only be to increase the crop
of weeds from its uncultivated clods. We never palm off a greater
deception on ourselves than when we try to hoodwink conscience by
pleading bounded gifts as an excuse for boundless indolence, and to
persuade ourselves that if we could do more we should be less inclined
to do nothing. The most largely endowed has no more obligation and no
fairer field than the most slenderly gifted lies under and possesses.
All service coming from the same motive and tending to the same end is
the same with God. Not the magnitude of the act, but the motive
thereof, determines the whole character of the life of which it is a
part. The same graces of obedience, consecration, quick sympathy,
self-denying effort may be cultivated and manifested in the spending
of a halfpenny as in the administration of millions. The smallest
rainbow in the tiniest drop that hangs from some sooty eave and
catches the sunlight has precisely the same lines, in the same order,
as the great arch that strides across half the sky. If you go to the
Giant's Causeway, or to the other end of it amongst the Scotch
Hebrides, you will find the hexagonal basaltic pillars all of
identically the same pattern and shape, whether their height be
measured by feet or by tenths of an inch. Big or little, they obey
exactly the same law. There is 'much food in the tillage of the poor.'
II. But now, note, again, how there must be a diligent cultivation of
the small gifts.
The inventor of this proverb had looked carefully and sympathetically
at the way in which the little peasant proprietors worked; and he saw
in that a pattern for all life. It is not always the case, of course,
that a little holding means good husbandry, but it is generally so;
and you will find few waste corners and few unweeded patches on the
ground of a man whose whole ground is measured by rods instead of by
miles. There will usually be little waste time, and few neglected
opportunities of working in the case of the peasant whose subsistence,
with that of his family, depends on the diligent and wise cropping of
the little patch that does belong to him.
And so, dear brethren! if you and I have to take our place in the
ranks of the one-talented men, the commonplace run of ordinary people,
the more reason for us to enlarge our gifts by a sedulous diligence,
by an unwearied perseverance, by a keen look-out for all opportunities
of service, and above all by a prayerful dependence upon Him from whom
alone comes the power to toil, and who alone gives the increase. The
less we are conscious of large gifts the more we should be bowed in
dependence on Him from whom cometh 'every good and perfect gift'; and
who gives according to His wisdom; and the more earnestly should we
use that slender possession which God may have given us. Industry
applied to small natural capacity will do far more than larger power
rusted away by sloth. You all know that it is so in regard of daily
life, and common business, and the acquisition of mundane sciences and
arts. It is just as true in regard to the Christian race, and to the
Christian Church's work of witness.
Who are they who have done the most in this world for God and for men?
The largely endowed men? 'Not many wise, not many mighty, not many
noble are called.' The coral insect is microscopic, but it will build
up from the profoundest depth of the ocean a reef against which the
whole Pacific may dash in vain. It is the small gifts that, after all,
are the important ones. So let us cultivate them the more earnestly
the more humbly we think of our own capacity. 'Play well thy part;
there all the honour lies.' God, who has builded up some of the
towering Alps out of mica-flakes, builds up His Church out of
infinitesimally small particles--slenderly endowed men touched by the
consecration of His love.
III. Lastly, let me remind you of the harvest reaped from these
slender gifts when sedulously tilled.
Two great results of such conscientious cultivation and use of small
resources and opportunities may be suggested as included in that
abundant 'food' of which the text speaks.
The faithfully used faculty increases. 'To him that hath shall be
given.' 'Oh! if I had a wider sphere how I would flame in it, and fill
it!' Then twinkle your best in your little sphere, and that will bring
a wider one some time or other. For, as a rule, and in the general,
though with exceptions, opportunities come to the man that can use
them; and roughly, but yet substantially, men are set in this world
where they can shine to the most advantage to God. Fill your place;
and if you, like Paul, have borne witness for the Master in little
Jerusalem, He will not keep you there, but carry you to bear witness
for Him in imperial Rome itself.
The old fable of the man who told his children to dig all over the
field and they would find treasure, has its true application in regard
to Christian effort and faithful stewardship of the gifts bestowed
upon us. The sons found no gold, but they improved the field, and
secured its bearing golden harvests, and they strengthened their own
muscles, which was better than gold. So if we want larger endowments
let us honestly use what we possess, and use will make growth.
The other issue, about which I need not say more than a word, is that
the final reward of all faithful service--'Enter thou into the joy of
thy Lord' is said, not to the brilliant, but to the 'faithful'
servant. In that great parable, which is the very text-book of this
whole subject of gifts and responsibilities and recompense, the men
who were entrusted with unequal sums used these unequal sums with
equal diligence, as is manifest by the fact that they realised an
equal rate of increase. He that got two talents made two more out of
them, and he that had five did no more; for he, too, but doubled his
capital. So, because the poorer servant with his two, and the richer
with his ten, had equally cultivated their diversely-measured estates,
they were identical in reward; and to each of them the same thing is
said: 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' It matters little whether
we copy some great picture upon a canvas as big as the side of a
house, or upon a thumbnail; the main thing is that we copy it. If we
truly employ whatsoever gifts God has given to us, then we shall be
accepted according to that we have, and not according to that we have
not.