SERMON II. LITTLE FAITHFULNESSES. LUKE xvi. 10. "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much : and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." You have just been listening, my brethren, to the parable of the Unjust Steward, of which these words form the sequel. Into the difficulties of that parable it is not now my purpose to enter; but surely they have been greatly exaggerated. The master of the steward approved of his dexterity, not of his fraudulence; he praised him, not because he had done wisely, oopŵs, but prudently, opovíμws. The parable is but another illustration of the warning, "Be ye prudent, opovipoì, as serpents, yet harmless as doves." If, in the thirst for power-if, in the greed of gain-the children of this generation can show tact and zeal, imitate those qualities in a better cause, win the treasures of heaven with that toil wherewith they heap up for themselves the wealth of earth, And, in doing this, neglect nothing;-underrate no virtue because you esteem it trivial-commit no wrong because you hold it small. There is a duty and a glory in little faithfulnesses. There is a peril and a shame in little sins. You will see that there are two parts of the text, and we might dwell with profit upon either. "He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." What a world of warning lies in those words! The little foxes that spoil the vines-the little canker that slays the oak the little leak which ever gains upon the vessel till it sinks-the little fissure in the mountainside, out of which the lava pours-the little rift within the lute that, slowly widening, makes the music mute— what are all these, in their ruinous influence, but a fit emblem of the sinfulness of little sins? how do they illustrate that old proverb that the mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's wing! Yes, my brethren, small injustices are but the wet and slippery steppingstones down into deeper waters. He who is unjust in a penny now may be so in thousands of pounds hereafter. He who is not perfectly honest in trifles now, may, if unchecked, develop, in later life, a character radically untrustworthy - fundamentally unsound. Therefore, my brethren, let us be in all our dealings transparent as the day; let us all proudly and kindly encourage each other to shun and to scorn, in all our doings, the faintest spot of suspicion and dishonour; let us, if it occurs, put our foot firmly upon it as we would upon a spark where a magazine was near, knowing with what a monotonous and fatal echo the records of men's lives sigh back their confirmation to that solemn warning, "He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." But, my brethren, though it may often be our duty to dwell on topics such as these though, as we were wisely warned last Sunday, it is a dangerous and timid optimism which is afraid to call sin sin, or to ignore the shame and the sorrow wherewith God has burnt a mark upon its brow, yet it is always a happier and more hopeful thing to dwell upon the other side-on obedience rather than on transgression on the high happiness which ministers to virtue rather than on the retribution which dogs the heels of vice. Let us, then, this morning, passing by the sombre conclusion of the text, touch lightly-for more than this is impossible— upon its happy prophecy: let us take for our brief meditation the glory and the blessing of little faithful nesses. 1. Little faithfulnesses: it is all the more necessary for us to contemplate them, because it is not these in general which men venerate or admire. We praise the high-the splendid-the heroic: we dwell on the great deeds-on the glorious sacrifices. When you read how the lady of the house of Douglas thrust her own arm through the bolt grooves of the door and let the murderers break it while her king had time to hide; or how the pilot of Lake Erie stood undaunted upon the burning deck, and, reckless of the intense agony, steered the crew safe to the jetty, and then fell dead among the crackling flames; or how the Russian serf, to save his master and his master's children, sprang out from the sledge among the wolves that howled after them through the winter snow; or, once more, how, amid the raging storm, the young girl sat with her father at the oar to save the shipwrecked sailors from the shrouds of the shattered wreck-whose soul is so leaden that it does not thrill with admiration at deeds like these? But think you, my brethren, that these brave men and women sprang, as it were, full-sized into their heroic stature? Nay; but, like the gorgeous blossom of the aloe, elaborated through long years of silent and unnoticed growth, so these deeds were but the bright consummate flower borne by lives of quiet, faithful, unrecorded service; and no one, be sure, has ever greatly done or gloriously dared who has not been familiar with the grand unselfishness of little duties; who has not offered to God-more precious than the temple altars smoking with hecatombs of spotless lambs -the daily sacrifice of a contrite heart-the daily discipline of a chastened life. You would be like these? Well, it is a great ambition. But if you would not be false to it, show now, in little things, of what stuff your hearts are made, and you will not then be unprepared if God should ever require of you the hero's courage or the martyr's faith. Fourteen years ago, when England had been agonised by the horrors and massacres of the great Indian mutiny, then the daring genius and inflexible will of one great soldier carried a handful of troops across flooded rivers and burning plains. He was an old man, for the fire of life may die away in the white ashes of a mean career, but it glows to the last in the generous and the true, and he died in the effort before he knew of the honours heaped upon him by grateful England, though not before he brightest jewel in England's crown. Havelock the opportunity for showing to the moral greatness which was in him did not come till he was sixty-two; but do you think that, in God's sight, that pure and unselfish life would have been one whit less beautiful if the opportunity had never come? Had Henry Havelock died a poor struggling officer, unknown beyond the limits of his own regiment, think you that in the angel-registers the record would have been less bright? Or may it not rather be that, in those biographies which are written only in God's Book of Life-the quiet patience of one who had been but a neglected lieutenant till the age of forty-three-the unmurmuring simplicity with which, on the very morning of victory, he resigned the chief command had saved the To Sir Henry all the world that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in By which the daily bread was earned ; Yes, the insignificance of our worldly rank affects in nowise our membership of the spiritual aristocracy. The thing really important is, not the trust committed to us, but the loyalty wherewith we fulfil it. All of us may be, in St. Paul's high language, fellow-labourers with God; and he who is that, be he slave or angel, can be nothing better or greater. The mountains cease to be colossal, the ocean tides lose their majesty, if you see what an atom our earth is in the starry space. Even so turn the telescope of faith to heaven, and see how at once earth's grandeurs dwindle into nothingness, and Heaven's least interests dilate into eternal breadth. Yes, to be a faithful Christian is greater in God's sight than to be a triumphant statesman or a victorious emperor. "God's heroes may be the world's helots." "God's prophets, best or worst, are we-there is no last or first." M. S. 1 R. Browning. C |