[Sidenote: The test of profitableness.] A question like this may now arise in your minds: How shall we know whether or not our service is sufficient and adequate? Another parable of the Lord's will help us find the answer to the question. "Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him. Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow (believe) not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." [Sidenote: The application to the day's work.] In any position in life, there are certain duties which we are required to do. The cash-boy in the department store, the elevator boy, the clerk behind the counter, the stenographer in the manager's office, the bookkeeper, the what not, has each one a specified kind of work to do. But if each one does only that which he is required to do, no more, he is in a sense an unprofitable servant. He can lay claim to no special consideration, no special reward. But if one of them does more than merely what is required of him; if he comes early and stays late; if he plans and toils to make the business more attractive, more efficient; if he promotes business, then is he indeed a profitable servant. When we enter into {249} the employ of others, it is our duty to do faithfully all that is required of us; it is our privilege to give extra service, to make ourselves thoroughly useful and wholly efficient, to merit special consideration. [Sidenote: The application to Church service.] So is it also in the Church of Jesus Christ. There are many things we are required as members to do. It is our duty--and a duty full of pleasure it should be--to attend the regular services of the Church, to partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to magnify one's calling in the priesthood, to give offerings cheerfully to help the poor, to pay tithing, and so forth. But if we do these things only, the duties required by virtue of membership, we do only the things commanded us to do. We may count ourselves unprofitable servants. To become profitable servants, we should look after the thousand and one other opportunities that lie about us. It is our privilege to perform extra service. [Sidenote: An Exclamation against mere formal performance of duty.] One day when Jesus was apparently wrought up by the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees, He exclaimed against them thus: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."