behind. You have paid the hundred talents to the wrong master. Why
should you go on paying because you have done it once? Let God's mercy
cover and forgive that. And now pay your vows and give your lives to
Him henceforth.



II.

We are held back from the right thing by the fear of the loss which it
will involve.


We say with poor, frightened Amaziah, But what about the hundred
talents? They will be clean gone if I obey the voice of God. The
hundred talents take many forms, but the principle is always the same.
We shall lose a little in the way of business, if we make up our minds
to be scrupulously honest, and to speak the simple truth. We shall
forfeit a little of our present popularity, if we take the course which
conscience dictates. We shall have to forego and neglect certain
things, and suffer loss, if we undertake Christian work. We shall have
to give up many an easy hour, many a light and frivolous hour, many an
open and secret sin, sweeter to us than honey, if we confess the Lord
Christ, and take up the burden of discipleship. The hundred talents
block the way, and rather than let them go, we let God go, and
sacrifice all the sanctities, and all the precious and immortal things.

And this answer comes to all of us--the answer which the prophet gave
to the hesitating king as he stood balancing the hundred talents
against the duty of the hour: "_The Lord is able to give thee much more