Luke xvi. 1-8.  And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.  And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.  Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship:  I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.  I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.  So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?  And he said, An hundred measures of oil.  And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.  Then said he to another, And how much owest thou?  And he said, An hundred measures of wheat.  And he said unto him, Take thy bill and write fourscore.  And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely:  for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

This parable has always been considered a difficult one to understand.  Fathers and Divines, in all ages, have tried to explain it in different ways; and have never, it seems to me, been satisfied with their own explanations.  They have always felt it strange, that our Lord should seem to hold up, as an example to us, this steward who, having been found out in one villainy, escapes, (so it seems, from the common explanation) by committing a second.  They have not been able to see either, how we are really to copy the steward.  Our Lord says, that we are to copy him by making ourselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness:  but how?  By giving away a few alms, or a great many?  Does any rational man seriously believe, that if his Mammon was unrighteous, that is, if his wealth were ill-gotten, he would save his soul, and be received into eternal life, for giving away part of it, or even the whole of it?

No doubt, there always have been men who will try.  Men who, having cheated their neighbours all their lives, have tried to cheat the Devil at last, by some such plan as the unjust steward’s, but that plan has never been looked on as either a very honourable or a very hopeful one.  I think, that if I had been an usurer or a grinder of the poor all my life, I should not save my soul by founding almshouses with my money when I died, or even ten years before I died.  It might be all that I was able to do:  but would it justify me in the sight of God?  That which saves a soul alive is repentance; and of repentance there are three parts, contrition, confession, and satisfaction—­in plain English, making the wrong right, and giving each man back, as far as one can, what one has taken from him.  To each man, I say; for I have no right to rob one man and then give to another.  I ought to give back again to