WEDNESDAY.
The Faithful and Wise Steward.
I. " Who, thinkest thou, is the faithful and wise steward!" (Luke xii. 42.) Christ finds few of this character, and therefore He speaks in the style of wonder. He requires of His servants that they be faithful, prudent, charitable to others, and persevering in good works, in order that when the hour of death comes He may find them "so doing." Examine how you conduct yourself as His steward, and whether you engage yourself in the cause of God with fidelity and perseverance, or whether you seek in it your own interest and satisfaction rather than the glory of God; whether you perform your actions with proper deliberation and circumspection; whether you attempt to render your means and talents conducive to the benefit of others; and finally, whether you persevere in doing good.
II. The wicked servant says to himself, " My Lord is long a coming." And therefore he imagines, that he has a long time to live; he acts like the unwise man in the Gospel, who said, " I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years." (Luke xii. 19.) He injures and insults his fellow servants, " he shall begin to strike the men-servants and the maidservants." He surrenders himself to sensuality, for he begins " to eat and to drink and be drunk." Resolve to avoid all these vices, and recollect that they draw their existence from the persuasion of enjoying a long life and a forgetfulness of our last end.
III. The reward and punishment of these different servants. Of the former it is said, " Blessed is that servant; he will place him over all that he possessed!." But the fate
