WE may think of this day with tender interest as our Lord's last quiet day upon earth. He seems to have spent it in retirement with His disciples, probably among the groves of that Mount which He loved so well; not yet invaded by the foot of treachery and violence, but lying sweet and calm and beautiful with the tender tints of spring. Here He told His friends of the terrible fate which was even then threatening that temple, to whose beauty and strength they had so lately directed His attention, and of that still more awful event, also inevitable, but the date whereof was still hidden in the councils of God. At this time, too, He spoke the parables of the wise and foolish virgins, and of the talents, and gave the description of the last Judgment contained in the same chapter. It is on one feature of the narration in this chapter that I would dwell for a few minutes. The most startling and significant thing about them all has always seemed to me this: that in every case the persons condemned were so condemned not for what they did, but for what they did not do. The foolish virgins made no bad use of their lamps. They did not willfully waste their oil for their own pleasure. They simply neglected to provide it when they might have done so. When the time came that the lamps were needed they hastened to supply the deficiency, but it was then too late. They that were ready had gone in to the marriage, and the door was shut. So it was with the slothful servant with his one talent. He made no ill use of it. We do not hear that he drank or gambled. He was slothful—perhaps cowardly as well. So he hid his Lord's money, and was judged accordingly. The man with one talent is perhaps specially exposed to this temptation. He can do but little in comparison to others, and so he will do nothing. But if his sentence was so severe, what shall be that of him who, having ten talents given him to serve his master withal, lets them lie unimproved, or uses them for his own and others' destruction. Again, in the story of judgment, with which the chapter concludes, those who were sent away to the place prepared, not for them, but for the devil and his angels, were condemned, not because they had ill-treated or robbed any one, but because having the opportunity to succor the Lord in the persons of His poor, they had not done so. Do not these stories contain an awful warning? How many say, if not openly, yet to themselves, "At least, if I do no good, I do no great harm." But, let us not be deceived. The not doing good is of itself a sin, and as a sin it will surely be visited. _THURSDAY BEFORE EASTER._ _THE TRAITOR._