thereof?" (i Cor. ix. 7.) Hence Almighty God expects fruit from you. He goes into a foreign country and seems to be absent from you, because He wishes you to exercise your own free will. But woe to that vine which does not produce fruit during His apparent absence!
III. God often sends to you His servants, viz., preachers, superiors, and others, to put you in mind of your duty. He sends also His only begotten Son by interior inspirations and the example of His life and passion. Take care, therefore, that you do not, like the wicked husbandmen in the gospel, contemn God's officers, or murder His Son again by sin, lest the kingdom of God be taken from you and given to another, " that shall render Him the fruit in due season." (Matt. xxi. 41.)
FRIDAY.
The Wicked Steward.
I. " There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods." (Luke xvi. 1.) God is designated under this certain rich man; for " the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." (Ps. xxiii. 1.) You are the steward to whom God has intrusted many goods, both of soul and body, natural and supernatural. His object was that you might use these goods well; but, by your mismanagement and mis administration, you have deserved to be accused before your employer of having " wasted his goods." What a disgrace it is to misemploy the treasures of God, and to become a bankrupt to heaven!
II. The rich man said to his steward, " Give an account of thy stewardship." When God calls you from this world, you will be obliged to render a strict and
