7.  Seventh Day.

Faithfulness.

   “Faithful over a few things.”—­Matt. xxv. 21, 23.

The servant who had only two talents to trade with, but traded faithfully with them, had just the same glorious words spoken to him as the servant who had five talents:  “Well done, good and faithful servant:  thou hast been faithful over a few things ... enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”  Think what it would be to hear the Lord Jesus saying that to you, really to you!  Oh how sweet! how blessed! how you would listen to that gracious voice saying those wonderfully gracious words to you!

But could He say them to you?  Are you “faithful over a few things”?  He has given every one, even the youngest, a few things to be faithful over, and so He has to you.  Your “few things” may be very few, and very small things, but He expects you to be faithful over them.

What is being faithful over them?  It means doing the very best you can with them; doing as much for Jesus as you can with your money, even if you have very little; doing as much for Him as you can with your time; doing whatever duties He gives you as well as ever you can,—­your lessons, your work, the little things that you are bidden or asked to do every day, the little things that you have promised or undertaken to do for others.  It means doing all these just the same whether others see you or know about it or not.

You sigh over all this; you recollect many things in which you have not been quite faithful; you know you do not deserve for Him to call you “good and faithful servant.”  But come at once to your gracious Lord, and ask Him to forgive all the unfaithfulness, and to make you faithful to-day.  And then, even if it is only a matter of a French verb or a Latin noun, you will find it a help to recollect, “Faithful over a few things!”

    “Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love
      Fit us for perfect rest above;
    And help us, this and every day,
      To live more nearly as we pray.”

8.  Eighth Day.

“On mine Account.”

   “Put that on mine account.”—­Philem. 18.

When St. Paul asked Philemon, in a most beautiful letter, to take back Onesimus, who had run away from him, he said, “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on my account.”  Onesimus had been a bad servant to Philemon; and being willing to come back and do better, would not pay for what he had wronged him in before, and would not pay his old debts.  And he evidently had nothing himself to pay them with.  But St. Paul offered to pay all, so that Onesimus might be received, “not now as a servant,” but as a “brother beloved.”

This is an exquisite picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ does.  He not only intercedes for us with Him from whom we have departed, and against whom we have sinned; but, knowing to the full how much we have wronged God, and how much we owe Him, He says, “Put that on mine account.”