v The Parable of the Pounds. 69 



be a general and deeply -seated feeling, that the 

 highest justice demands equality. In Our Lord's 

 parable of the Pounds, 1 when the servant who had 

 done nothing for his master with the pound which 

 had been entrusted to him, was condemned in the 

 words, "Take away from him the pound, and give it 

 unto him that hath the ten pounds," those that 

 heard it remonstrated, saying, "Lord, he hath ten 

 pounds." It does not matter whether we under- 

 stand this as said by the fellow -servants in the 

 parable, or by the hearers of the parable ; in either 

 case, it represents current opinion ; and Christ, in 

 reply, contradicted it by repeating the maxim, 

 "Unto every one that hath shall be given; but 

 from him that hath not, even that which he hath 

 shall be taken away from him." Yet this, in the 

 case of the "unprofitable servant" who had made 

 no use of the pound committed to his charge, was 

 the most evident justice ; and the stern saying that 

 " From him who hath not, shall be taken away even 

 that which he hath " may, in its application to the 

 moral and spiritual world, be thus paraphrased, 

 " From him who has neglected or misused the means 

 of good offered to him, the means themselves shall 

 be taken away." 2 And the other form of the saying, 

 " From him who hath not, shall be taken away even 



1 Luke xix. 12, 26. 



2 See the Rev. Henry Latham's Pastor Pastorum, or the 

 Schooling of the Apostles by Our Lord (Deighton, Bell, and Co., 

 1890), pp. 312, 316. I hope this work is attaining the position 

 which it deserves, as a classic of Biblical study. 



