CHAPTER II.

THE MASTER'S GOODS.

MATT. XXV. 14.

"And delivered unto them his goods."

OUR gifts and graces are Christ's goods. They are His property, and never become absolutely our own; they are a trust in our hands, to which He never surrenders His title, or abandons His claims. We may put a new label upon them, and call them by our own names; but we cannot destroy the Divine Maker's mark, nor make them cease to be His. We may dye them with earthly colours, and alter their original form; but He can trace them in all their changes, and put His finger upon what is His own. Stolen goods, and spoiled goods, are still His goods. We may rob the owner, and damage the article; but our guilt cannot efface His goodness, nor make Him cease to be the Proprietor of what came from His hand. Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from the Father of lights;" the marring of the gift is the fault of the creature, but to the Creator it still belongs.

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Look at the gifts of nature, and see how entirely they are to be ascribed to the Lord. One child is blessed with a robust and healthy body; another is possessed of a quick, vigorous, and fertile mind; another is favoured with warm affections, and a mild and amiable disposition; and another is surrounded from infancy by the happiest domestic influences, all conspiring to cast the character into the finest mould; and enjoying the advantages of a good education, that act on the heart like the genial breath of spring, drawing forth the buds of opening thought, and the blossoms of radiant hopes and affections. They were not consulted about what they should possess, or the circumstances in which they should be born and reared. Their advantages are not the reward of meritorious conduct in a prior state of existence. This is the first of them. Here they began to be. And God, who ushered them into this world, decked them in all the beauty with which they are adorned; and crowned them with all the gifts that distinguish them from others. They have no reason to be proud of one thing they have, but rather to be ashamed if they do not use their privileges well. All boasting is excluded; for they have no more reason to take credit to themselves, than the blushing rose has for not being a thorn, or the musical lark or nightingale for not being a chirping sparrow. All the glory is

due to the Lord. "For who maketh thee to differ

from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?"

The hand of the Lord is equally manifest in the gifts of grace. Both in the sphere of nature, and of grace, it is the doing of the Lord, and marvellous in our eyes. Bodily gifts, mental gifts, and spiritual gifts, are alike God's property. There is nothing good in a man, in regard to which the Lord may not say, "That is mine; I put it there, and it still belongs to me." In each case He is the Giver, and remains the Owner. The gifts of nature, however, do not grow, either by a spontaneous or artificial development, into the graces of the Spirit. The best cultivation will not produce this result. As the theory of development is false, which teaches that, in process of time, one species of animals may pass into a higher in the scale of being; God having fixed bounds which none can pass over, saying to each, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further;" so that doctrine is false, which teaches that the seeds of all goodness lie slumbering in the soil of the human heart, and only require culture to draw them forth, and make them flourish and bear fruit. The seed is not there, and needs to be cast into the furrows by the hand of the Divine Sower. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles"?" no more can you pluck the fruits of the Spirit from the corrupt

stock of nature. Natural gifts, when sanctified, become spiritual gifts; but a new creation is required to produce the change; and the Author of the first creation is the Author of the second. Saul the persecutor did not convert himself into Paul the saint. Nor did any influence emanate from his companions to originate and complete the marvellous change. The atmosphere in which he moved breathed slaughter. The letters he bore from the high priests goaded him to violence. Promises of promotion and honour flattered his pride, and fanned the flames of ambition. And yet the change came, like life from the dead. The courser was arrested at his highest speed. The lion became a lamb in the very act of springing upon his victim. Hatred was melted into love. A burning thirst for blood was turned into thirst for mercy. The emissary of Satan was transformed into a meek and docile child of God. Christ apprehended him; struck off his old fetters; bound him with the cords of love; and led him away without a struggle; to learn as a new man to use his gifts to the glory of God, who made and redeemed him. He was not free-born, but God made him a citizen of the New Jerusalem; endowed him with all his graces; and taught him to say, "By the grace of God I am what I am." As he shuddered and rent his garments at the proposal of the priest of Jupiter to offer sacrifice to him as a God at Lystra,

so would he have been horrified at the thought of taking the honour of this spiritual change to himself. He saw Christ's name in all the graces that beautified his soul. They were good things, but they were all the Lord's things. The King's seal was upon all his treasures. The light he walked in came from heaven. He was rich, but rich in grace; full, but filled with the fulness of God; strong, but strong in the Lord. He lived, but he said, "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

Let us glance at some of the Lord's goods, which, under the name of talents, He bestows upon mankind.

I. Mental Gifts.

Gifts of mind appear in various forms. Some men are distinguished by force of intellect, by clearness and vigour of understanding. They see their way through an intricate subject with astonishing ease. Everything they grasp with the hand of a giant. Their vision is wide in its range, and far-seeing in its calculations. While others are involved in difficulties, and lose themselves, like a child bewildered in a tangled forest, and “find no end, in wandering mazes lost;" with singular dexterity, as if guided by a superior instinct, they thread their way out of the labyrinth into the clearly defined path, where the sun sweetly shines. There is a quiet energy in their move

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