The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-10-05
H PARABLE OF
THE TALENTS
Sunday School Lesson for Oct. 9, 1910
Specially Arranged for This Paper

A4Ao
him. Well done. h o good and faithful
servant; thou hast been faithful over
a few things. I will make thee ruler
over 9Ns many things; enter shou into the
TIME.-Tuesday afternoon. April 4.
A. D. 80. Immediately following the
last lesson. r.
PLACE.-On the slopes Of Mount
Olivet, overlooking Jerusalem.
Suggestion and Practical Thought.
. The parable shines clearest in the
light of the circumstances. Jesus and
his disciples are still or Olivet, over
looking Jerusalem and the Temple In
all their glory. Jesus had just fore
told their destruction. Let the dis
ciples learn a necessary lesson from
the cause Of that ruin.
Many and great talents had been
committed to the Jewish nation. No
nation had ever received so great a
trust as they-the divine Revelation,
religious truth, and best of all the
Messiah, the Son Of God; and thus
power to become a blessing to all the
world. 81
This nation had refused to use these
talents intrusted to them; again and
again they had buried the talent In.
stead Of using it; and now they were
about to murder their Messiah. in
stead Of using him, and thus to bury
this talent in the earth.
The parable lay in full view before
the disciples eyes. What the city
then was, multiplied into the new
Jerusalem Of the Revelation, could
have been theirs evermore by faithful
use of the diyinely entrusted talents.
The loss Of all, "the outer darkness"
"the weeping and crashing Of teeth"
as the fruit of unfaithfulness, lay in
the prophetic vision shown by Christ.
And now that buried talent was
brought forth and was to be entrusted
to the disciples and to the Christian
church they were to found. The five
talents were now offered to them, and
the vital question was. what they
would do with them. The two courses
were made very plain to them by the
parable. 1t was written in letters OF
light on their sky, printed indelibly
on their minds. sc
A man travelling into a far country,
and therefore wishing to leave his af-
fairs in competent hands. He repre-
sents Jesus Christ who was about to
leave his disciples and 60 to heaven,
which was a far country in the sense
that his servants could not have Wis
ible communication with him. He
was to leave the spread Of the gospel.
and the salvation Of the world in the
hands of his disciples, although he
was with them in invisible but real
presence.
The servants denote all those to
whom the interests of the kingdom of
heaven were entrusted. The Jewish
rulers are among those represented
by the man with one talent, for they
looked upon the kingdom of God placed
in their charge as a matter Of small
account compared with their W sell
fish interests. The apostles and early
Christian leaders received some five
talents, some two, some one; and so
do all Christ's protested followers, and
all who have received from Christ
the privileges and blessings Of his
gospel. The principle applies to all
men, for all have been entrusted by
God with many things. ,.
Robert Louis Stevenson was talking
one day to the children of a school in
Samoa about the Parable Of the Tai
ents, and told them there were three
possessed by them all. Tongues, to be
used to make all about them cheerful
and happy. Faces to be kept as
bright as a new silver coin, that they
might shine like lamps in their homes.
Hands, to, be kept employed in useful
work cheerfully done.
His lord said unto him, Well done,
thou good and faithful servant. He
had his lords approval. Faithfulness,
not success, nor the amount gained,
was rewarded. God will say "Well
done" only to those who have done
we'll. There are nc empty compli-
ments in the day of judgment. Han
del tells US that when he wrote the
'Hallelujah Chorus he saw the heav-
ems opened and all the angels and the
great God himself" A modest man
of moderate ability said that he could
not expect Gods Well done, but he did
expect that he would say, Well tried;
Well attempted.
Enter thou into the Joy Of thy
Lord, participate in his Joy and share
with him in his pleasure, the same
kind of Joy which u Lord himself
feels. Leighton's words on this en-
tering into the Joy Of the Lori are
beautiful: 1T is but little we a re-
ceive here, some drops Of Joy that
enter into us, but there we shall enter
into JOY, as vessels put into a sea of
happiness" The Joy of the Lord
Jesus Christ, of which the faithful,
like him, shall partake in some meas
ure here, and in its ~fullness hereafter,
is the Joy of a free activity in doing
right, like the joy of motion in health,
like the song Of a bird in the morning.
Edward Everett Hale writing OF
George Washington says: "He was
always s~ubordinating himself to the
duty that was before him. He was
born, as we saw, to small opportuni-