"_To one He gave five talents and to another two and to another one, to every one according to his proper ability._" He knows His servants, and He knows exactly the strength and capability of each. He measures each burden before imposing it and calculates each sum before giving it. This servant can manage five, this one two, this can only manage one. It is no disgrace to have only one talent, the ability of the servants is the Master's affair, not the servants'. They cannot turn to Him and say: "Why hast Thou made me thus?" (Rom. IX. 20). He makes each one according to His own Will and endows him according to His Will too. What the servant has to remember is that he is responsible for all that is entrusted to him, that he _can_ trade with it and that it is not too much for him, it is "according to his proper ability," and that though his Master will never try to reap where He has not sown, He _will_ expect to reap where He _has_ sown, He will expect a harvest from each talent. POINT II. THE TRADERS. "_He that had received the five talents went his way and traded with the same and gained other five._" He lost no time, he loved his Master and he loved the "goods" because they belonged to his Master and because they had been lent by Him. The whole of their value lay in the fact that they were the Master's; he felt responsible, he must not only take care of them but put them to the best account, and so he set to work at once to trade with them, and he did well, for he gained _cent per cent_! "_And in like manner he that had received the two gained other two._" There was no jealousy, no thinking the Master partial or that He had underrated his powers in only giving him _two_ talents. He loved and trusted his Master; the two talents were very precious because they were His and because He had chosen them out with such love and care, giving the servant just what he could manage, no more and no less. He went and traded and did as well as the first, _cent per cent_. Thus the good servants, that is those who love, who have said, I _will_ not go out free, are always trading for their Master. They say to themselves: This talent, this time, this opportunity, this health, this strength belongs to my Master not to me, I must use it for Him. They forget sometimes; the Master is so long away and they act as if the goods were their own, and even trade with them for their own profit, using their talents to attract people to themselves rather than to their Master! But as they really love Him and want to "trade" for Him only, they see the dishonesty of their trading and they do their best by acts of reparation to restore to Him His own. When He comes back, He will not expect perfection but _effort_. Some, He says, will gain "a hundred fold" but for our consolation and encouragement He adds: "some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold" (St. Matt. XIII. 8).