So far the parable illustrates God's mercy to man; what remains is a sad picture of man's too frequent unmercifulness to his brother, and the just punishment of his cruelty visited upon the delinquent. Here are five points worthy of our attention; which, duly considered, may serve to impress upon our minds the duty of fraternal forgiveness. First, we have the two creditors, with their respective claims. The king represents God in his relation to man; the first servant represents man in his relation to mankind. God has his supreme claims, as creator and sovereign lord, upon the love, worship and obedience of the whole human race; while man has his subordinate claims, as an equal and a brother, upon the justice, the kindness, the sympathy and the charity of all other men--sometimes, as patron and official superior, upon the reverence, submission and loyal service of a particular part of them. Then, we have the two debtors, with the different amounts of debt. Both are servants, holding a like relation to the king. Both are in arrears, the one to the king, the other to his fellow-servant. Ought not a common bond and a common condition to produce in them mutual kindness and sympathy? But how great the disparity of their debts! ten thousand talents, and a hundred pence--the latter less than a millionth part of the former--if the gold talent is intended, less than a hundred millionth. Surely if the king could forgive the greater, it were a small matter with his servant to forgive the less. In comparison of our sins against God, what are our brother's sins against us? "As the small dust of the balance, lighter than vanity itself." Next, we have the two arrests, with the opposite methods of their making. Calmly and kindly, in his accustomed way, worthy of his royal dignity, and just as he treated others, the king calls his servant to account. This proceeding was to be expected, and involves neither harshness nor severity. But when the man is found so culpably in arrears with nothing to pay--a case which could not happen without great dishonesty and wickedness--the king orders, as he has legal right to do, the sale of the culprit, with his family and effects, to satisfy some small part of the royal claim against him. Now mark the very different conduct of the criminal. No sooner is he released than he goes out--not staying a moment to express his gratitude or admire the mercy shown him--finds the man who owes him fifteen dollars: and, with a violence unprovoked and inexcusable, lays hands on him, takes him by the throat, and exclaims, "Pay me that thou owest!" Could there be a more unlovely contrast to the conduct of the king? Such is the difference between God's dealing with guilty men and man's dealing with his delinquent brother; the former all mildness and forbearance, the latter all harshness and severity.