families, their common duties, till they cause misery to those around
them, and shame to themselves. Often, too, they are tempted to be
actually dishonest, to fancy that the means sanctify the end; that it is
lawful to do evil that good may come; and so, in order to carry out some
fine scheme of theirs, to say false things, or do mean or cruel things,
not for their own interest, but, as they fancy, for the cause of God: as
if God, and God's cause, could ever be helped by the devil and his works.
And so they cast a scandal on religion, and give the enemies of the Lord
reason to blaspheme. So it was, it seems, in our Lord's time--so it has
been too often since. The children of light--those who ought to be of
most use to their own generation--are sometimes of least use to it,
through their own weaknesses and follies. They will not remember that he
that is not faithful in that which is least, in the every-day concerns of
life, is not likely to be faithful in that which is greatest; that if
they will not be faithful in the unrighteous mammon--that is, if they
cannot resist the temptations to meanness and unfairness which come with
all money transactions, God will not commit to them the true riches--the
power of making their fellow creatures wiser, happier, better. If they
will not be faithful in that which is another man's--in plain English, if
they will not pay their debts honestly, who will give them that which is
their own--the inspiration of God's indwelling Spirit? Would to God all
high religious professors would recollect that, and be just and honest,
before they pretend to higher graces and counsels of perfection.

This lesson, then, I think our Lord means to teach us. I do not say it
is the only lesson in the parable; God forbid. But I think that our
Lord's own words show us that this IS one lesson. That, however pious we
are, however enlightened we are, however useful we wish to be; in one
word, however much we are, or fancy ourselves to be, children of light,
our first duty as Christian men is the duty which lies nearest us--that