CHAPTER VIII.

Estimate of his Character, and Lessons

of his Life.

Thou happy soul, and can it be,

That these

Are all that must remain of thee?

WORDSWORTH.

Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not.
But to fine issues.

Spirits are not finely touched

SHAKSPEARE.

Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

1 TIMOTHY iv. 12.

ESTIMATE OF HIS CHARACTER, ETC.

145

Ir is a trite remark that God's distribution of gifts is not uniform and equal.

But he has arranged

it so that every one shall have a capacity for serving Him-some more, some less. And His will clearly is, that all such gifts and opportunities shall be used for personal progress, and for the good of others, and in both of those directions for the glory of His great name. The main question for each of us is that of fidelity to trust. The parable of the talents shows that there is an obligation in every case to make use of gifts,-a greater obligation (you may say) in the case of the man who has one talent alone. As for the example of unfaithfulness being that of the man who had one talent, instead of the man who had five, we are not to suppose the Lord to teach that the unfaithful (generally speaking) are those who have been least endowed. What he means to say is, not, that if you have only one talent, you will be unfaithful, but that, if you have even one talent, you will be condemned for unfaithfulness unless you use it. If the man with five talents had been unfaithful, it might

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have been supposed that the essence of the guilt lay in the largeness of the loss. But the amount of capital bestowed has nothing to do with the matter; the question of faithfulness is everything, and he who has least is bound to serve the Lord with what he has. Nay, more bound, in a sense, than the other. At least, the man

who is tempted to plead exemption from duty on the ground of small attainments, is here reminded that the proportionate element has nothing to do with the case. The Lord expects every man to do his duty, to ply his task, to let the light shine forth.

"Good and faithful servant!" Who can miss the lesson here? The spring of goodness is grace, and the full use of gifts bestowed is characteristic only of those who have been renewed in the spirit of their mind. Gracious obedience is bound up with faith. Tell a graceless man to work for Christ, and he may try, but he will do it grudgingly and as a slave. Tell a blood-bought man to work for Christ, and the sense of his indebtedness will carry him into the hardest labour, the severest toil.

Mr. Deans was not a man of commanding abilities. He had a fair measure of talent, and if his early school training had been more thorough, and of a higher style, and if he had not been retarded by a feeble frame, he would have risen to a position of greater prominence and usefulness than he was ever likely to attain. But such talents as he had were faithfully employed; he had many tokens of the Divine approbation while on earth; and in the day of

final reckoning he will receive the precious welcome,— "Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

About the time that tidings reached us of the manner of his death, an eminent missionary of the English Presbyterian Church, the Rev. William C. Burns, went to his rest. This led to those two men being associated in my mind. While musing on the parable above referred to, I was struck with the fact that the servant entrusted with five talents, and the servant entrusted with two, were equally faithful, and equally approved of, and when I took occasion to speak from the pulpit of William Burns and William Deans, I took the liberty of alluding to both in the same discourse: of the one, as very largely endowed with gifts and graces, and called to labour for more than thirty years in the high places of the field—of the other, as cast in a smaller mould, labouring in a humbler sphere, and cut off in the morning of his days, but both of them faithful and true, and on that ground already welcomed to glory, and destined to public acknowledgment on the great day. I may be allowed to give here my summary of comparison and contrast.

William Burns and William Deans! How different, and yet how much alike! To say nothing of their birth and boyhood, they were variously endowed. Mr. Burns possessed a masculine intellect, and strong reasoning