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It made him insolent. "Thou art an hard

man,

reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: I was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth: there thou hast that is thine."

Some may say, the Saviour, by inserting this particular in his story, meant to intimate, that when himself shall return to take account with men, the faithless among his people will burst forth with blasphemies, with imputations on his dealings with mankind.

It is hardly conceivable. That in that dread scene-in sight of the glory of God-in view of the lake of fire-men will vent their blasphemies, who can imagine? Very possibly however, men in that awful day may feel as the faithless servant did-dogged, insolent, blasphemous-even though they may not dare to utter imputations upon God. For how is it now? Is there any period in a man's life, when his feeling towards God takes so nearly the shape of hostility, as when-the truth brought home to his soul-he opens his eyes to his ill desert and danger? Does not conviction unaccompanied by

conversion, commonly make a man more violent, more rampant, in his wickedness, than he was before? My brethren, there will be conviction unaccompanied by conversion, in the day of our Lord's reappearing. Conversion will be impossible: conviction will be forced upon the bosom by the whole scene. So that we may well believe that, in that day, the soul of the sinner, though it will see his sentence to be just, will not admit it to be so-his bosom will rankle with impotent but raging hate-if he do not curse God, it will be only because he dares not. There will be one hell within him, as well as another before him-his breast a battle ground of passions impotent as respects their object, but more potent than fiends to lacerate their subject.

Miserable was the lot of the parable servant. He was despoiled of his insolent pretence: "Thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not and gather where I have not strawed? Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then, at my coming, I should have received mine own with usury." The

unimproved talent was transferred to one of the diligent servants: the worthless fellow was thrust out of the mansion of his master, excluded from the brilliant hall prepared for the festivity, and left in the darkness outside to gnash his teeth in unavailing rage.

If it was only to give completeness or embellishment to his parable, that our Saviour represented the talent of the faithless servant as transferred to one of the others, we may not say this of the remaining circumstances-the fact that the worthless trustee was despoiled of his insolent pretence-the fact that he was cast into outer darkness. No. Every thing leads to the belief that when the judgment hour shall come, every pretext the impenitent man now urges-every plea he rests on-first one, and then another, of his refuges-will (alike to his own view, and to the view of his fellow beings) appear utterly void, altogether empty-whence perhaps it is said "many of them that sleep in the dust of the Earth, shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt." The vanity of their reliances, the emptiness of their pretexts,

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not less than the unveiling of their secret sins, will expose them to the derision of men and evil angels.

Equally express is all Scripture to the point that, in the day of Christ's reappearing, the faithless of the Church shall be separated from the faithful, separated from the Redeemer. They are to be punished with "everlasting destruction away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power." The New Jerusalem, the city where is to be no more curse, and in which runneth the pure river of the water of life, is the place where the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be, and where the Lamb's servants shall serve him-the place pictured in the text as the festive hall of the returned proprietor. We are expressly told, inside this New Jerusalem there shall "in nowise enter any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie."

In view of all this-with your eyes openchoose, fellow-men, your portion. Say, whether your lot shall be with the faithful servants, or with the faithless-whether in the inner light,

or in the outer darkness-whether in Christ's company, or in the company of outcast fiends. Choose to-day because to-morrow the Master may return. As a snare shall that day come upon all them that dwell on the earth.

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