Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1916-02-09

talents mas suffered spiritual neSltCt
There is nothing very interesting
about him. He was merely an aver
age man. Two talents were what
most of his neighbors had, so he was
neither better nor worse off than they.
There was nothing conspicuous about
him, SO he escaped attention in the
crowd. When the time came for the
extra dividing of the talents through
the distribution of the forfeited ia
lent of the Improbable servant, he
was neither great enough nor good
enough to share i'm il. He kept the
talents that were given to him and
earned more in proportion, and had
his modest reward and then the world
proceeded to forget about him. That
is the way the world has always done,
but the man with the two talents is
an important although neglected man.
In the first place he bears heavier
burdens than justly belong to him.
He is not poor enough to escape from
taxes under the exemption law and
he is not rich enough to become a
successful tax-dodger, and so he pays
taxes out proportion to his real
wealth.. He is not poor enough to
have his children brought up in an
Vi HdH ASYLUM, UOT ElCU enough 10
turn them over TO tutors or send them
to private schools, so he has the joy
and the burden of bringing up his
usually large family while his neigh
Dor with a great deal more wealth has
fewer children and grumbles about
paying taxes for the support of the
schools. If he has a surgical opera
ton he is never poor enough to get it
cd ~, fsnn olt ,,fn .o1
enough to pay for it without feeling
the strain of it. The doctor charges
his 500 when he would charge a mil
for nothing, but the 500 he pays is
one hundred times as much in proper
ton to his means as the $500 paid by
the rich man. Upon the man with the
two talents fall heavily the burden of
supporting the church and the state.
His taxes make up the great body of
the income of village, state and ma
ton. His free contributions sustain
the church and provide for its bene-
violence, but people forget his SO in
the excessive gratitude for the sub
scription of 500 from the man who
has ten talents.
The man of two talents is never of
interest to the reformer; he is always
looking out for the man who is down
and out. He never figures in the
statistics of the social uplifter; his in
terest is in the man in the slums. The
man of two talents seldom gets on to
the front page of the paper, either for
doing any good thing or any bad
thing He is a husband of one wife,
the father of half dozen healthy,
happy children; he has few bad habits
and no vices. He is monotonously
virtuous. The minister never breaches
about him and seldom breaches to
him. Sermons are addressed either to
the very good, exhorting them to con-
tinue in their goodness and assuring
them that the world expects great
things of them, or TO the very bad
with exhortations to repent and do
better, but the man with two talents
who comes to church every Sunday
and pays his modest pledge to the
support of the church gets overlooked
between the two, and perhaps this is
fortunate.
The average man is member of
the church, but he gets little credit
for his conversion. He has no great
religious experience to record. He can
not tell how he wandered into ter
rible and well advertised sin; he can
only say that in his humble way he
has always tried to be a Christian
man. He cannot tell when he was
converted, but only knows that he has
passed from death unto life because
he loves God and man. He does not
know when he began to love God any
more than he knows when he began to
love his mother. There is no demon
stration made over him such as is
made over the returning prodigall
There is nothing to be said about him
except that he did his duty.
The world sheds its tears over pen
intent Magdalenes, but not over wom-
en- who endure temptation and pre-
serve a virtuous character. The world
\ is interested in the conversion of the
thief on the cross and the confession
of the murderer on the gallows; but
for the man who resisted anger and
so never became a murderer, for the
man who struggled on and paid his
debts without stealing, the world has
little sympathy. 1t is because, thank
God, there are so many such good men
and women.
The worlds wealth is safe in the
hands of the man of two talents.
Forgotten as he is, he is the resouce
of his country in peace and war. The
farmer, the printer, the small mer-
chant and the honest mechanic are
worth more to society than all the
millionaires. The man who makes
two blades of grass to grow where
formerly there was one, is now, as
ever, a benefactor, even though the
world has so much grass that it never
distinguishes his blade in the meadow
or knows what man sowed the seed
or dug out stone or weed to make
room for it.
God bless the man with two talents.
The man with two talents is neither
the hero nor the william in the play;
neither is he supernumerary. If he
has a speaking part at all it is a
short one and his principal business
is to give a cue to someone else who
is later called before the curtain for
the applause Of the multitude. Never
theless the play could not go on with
out him.