Now, suppose that these debtors were the very men whom he had been cheating. Suppose that he had been overcharging these debtors; and now, in his need, had found out that honesty was the best policy, and charged them what they really owed him. They were, probably, tenants under his lord, paying their rents in kind, as was often the custom in the East. One rented an olive garden, and paid for it so many measures of oil; another rented corn-land, and paid so many measures of meal. Now suppose that the steward, as he easily might, had been setting these poor men's rents too high, and taking the surplus himself. That while he had been charging one tenant a hundred, he had been paying to his lord only fifty, and so forth. What does he do, then, in his need? He does justice to his lord's debtors. He tells them what their debts really are. He sets their accounts right. Instead of charging the first man a hundred, he charges him fifty; instead of charging the second a hundred, he charges him eighty; and he does not, as far as we are told, conceal this conduct from his lord. He rights them as far as he can now. So he shews that he honestly repents. He has found out that honesty is the best policy; that the way to make true friends is to deal justly by them; and, if he cannot restore what he has taken from them already (for I suppose he had spent it), at least to confess his sin to them, and to set the matter right for the time to come. This, I think, is what our Lord bids us do, if we have wronged any man, and fouled our hands with the unrighteous mammon, that is, with ill-gotten wealth. And I think so all the more from the verses which come after. For, when he has said, 'Make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,' he goes on in the very next verse to say, 'He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is much. If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?' Now, surely, this must have something to do with what goes before. And, if it has, what can it mean but this--that the way to make friends out of the mammon of unrighteousness, is to be faithful in it, just in it, honest in it? But some one may say, If mammon be unrighteous, how can a man be righteous and upright in dealing with it? If money be a bad thing in itself, how can a man meddle with it with clean hands?