other fifty. Now suppose that the steward had been cheating and
oppressing these men, as was common enough in those days with stewards,
and has been common enough since; suppose that he had been charging them
more than they really owed, and, it may be, putting the surplus into his
own pocket, and so wasting his master's goods--that the one really owed
only eighty measures of oil, and the other really owed only fifty of
wheat; what could be more simple, or more truly wise either, when he was
found out, than to do this--to go round to the debtors and confess: I
have been overcharging you; you do not owe what I have demanded of you;
take your bill and write four-score, for that is what you really owe?

This is but a guess on my part. But all other explanations are only
guesses likewise, because we do not know how business was transacted in
those days and in that country. We do not know whether these debtors
were tenants, paying rent in kind, or traders to whom goods had been
advanced, or what they were. We do not know whether the steward was
agent of the estate, or house steward, or what he was. But this we do
know--that to mend one act of villainy by committing a fresh one, is not
wisdom, but foolishness; and we may be sure that our Lord would never
have held up the unjust steward as an example to us, or quoted his
master's opinion of him, if all he did was to commit fraud on fraud, and
make bad worse, thereby risking his own more utter ruin. And this view
of the parable surely agrees with our Lord's own lesson, which He draws
from it. "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon
of righteousness." But what does that mean? Wise men have been puzzled
by that text as much as by the parable; but surely our Lord Himself
explains it in the verses which follow: "He that is faithful in that
which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in that
which is least, is unjust also in much." He that is FAITHFUL. The
unjust steward was commended for acting wisely. Now, it seems the way to