The weekly examiner., 1901-07-06
USING OUR TALENTS.
Sermon for Those Given to Depreci-
 ate Themselves.
Discourse of pr. TaImage on the Short Text, 3sTO Another One"-DifH- cult Task to Accurately Es-
 timate Ourselves.

: l Washington, June g.
 This is a discourse by Dr. Talmage for those given to depreciate them
 selves and who have an idea that their best attempts amount to little
 or nothing; text, Matthew 25: 15, "To I another one."
 Expel first from this parable of the
 talents the word "usury." It ought to have been translated interest 1 ''Usury' is finding man in tight
 place and compelling him to pay an | unreasonable sum to get out. ln- terest" is righteous payment for the use of money. When the capital ist of this parable went off from home, he gave to his stewards cer-
 tain sums of money, wishing to have
 them prontably invested. Change
 also your idea as to the value of one talent. You remember the capital
 ist gave to one of his men for busi-
 ness purposes five talents, to another
 two, to another one. What a small
 amount to last, you think, and how
 could he be expected to do anything
 with only one talent? I have to tell
 you that one talent was about $7,2oo,
 so that when my text says: "To an-
 
 have the least have much.
 We bother ourselves a great deal
 about those who are highly gifted or have large financial resource or exalt- He'd official position or wide reaching 1 ohportunity. We are anxious that their wealth, their eloquence, their
 wit, be employed on the right side.
 One of them makes a mistake, and k SkvxY1 rG,,1 rJf fco -fav- v
 When one of them devotes all his great ability to useful purposes, we ;celebrate it, we enlarge upon it, we
 speak of it as something for gratl-
 tude to God. Meanwhile we give no time at all to consider what people are doing with their one talent, not realizing that ten people of one tai
 ent each are quite as important as
 one man with ten talents. In the one
 case the advantage or opportunity is concentered in a single pers onahty, while in another it is divided among ten individuals. Now, what we want to do in this sermon is to waken peo-
 pie of only one talent to appreciation
 of their duty. Only few people
 have five talents or ten talents, while
 millions have one. My short text is like a galvanic shock, "To another | one."
 The most difficult thing in the
 world is to make an accurate estl- I mate of ourselves. Our friends value
 us too high, our enemies<too low. To F find o51t57s are. worth nor Fly 1 and mentally is almost impossible. l We are apt to measure ourselves by l those around us, but this is not fair, as they may be very brilliant or very l dull, very good or very bad. Indeed l there are no human scales that can tell our exact moral and mental
 weight, nor is there a standard by l which we can measure our exact in-
 tellectual height, so the hardest thing
 to do is to calculate our real stature
 or heft But it will be no evidence
 of egotism in any of us if we say that we have at least one talent. What is | it and, finding what it is, what use | shall we make of it? The most of the people, finding that they have only one talent, do as the man spoken of in the parable, they hide it.
 But if all of the people who have one talent brought 1t out for use before this century is half past and core spondents begin to write at the head
 of their letters 1850 the earth would l be one of the outskirts of heaven. I ask you again: What is your one talent?
 Is it cheerful look? Carry that look wherever you go. It must come 1 from a cheerful heart. It is not that | inane smile which we sometimes see
 which is an irritation. In other words, it must be a light within us so
 bright that it illumines eye, cheek, | nostril and mouth. Let ten men who are accustomed to walking a certain | street every day resolve upon 1 cheerful countenance as a result of a cheerful heart, and the influence of such facial irradiation would be l felt not only in that street, but l throughout the town. Cheerfulness is catching. But a cheerful look is l exceptional. Examine the first 20 faces that you meet going through Pennsylvania avenue or Chestnut street or Broadway or State street | or La Sale street or Euclid avenue, | and 19 out of the 20 faces have either | an anxious look or severe look or a depressing look or an avaricious look or sneering look or a vacant look. Here is missionary work for those who have trouble. Arm yourself with, l Gospel comfort. Let the God who comfcrted Mary and Martha at the loss of their brother, the God who | soothed Abraham at the loss of Sarah and the God of David, who consoled the bereft spirit at the loss of his boy by saying: 'I shall go to him." the God who filled St. John with doxology when an exile on bar ren Patmos and the God who has given happiness to thousands of the bankrupted and persecuted, filling them with heavenly riches which l were more than the earthly advan- tages that are wiped outlet that | ho1, +o7r fr,1