discontent and murmuring; it implies a claim to which God never listens.  But if we mean, “Hast thou only one kind of blessing, my father?  If thou hast blest others in one way, I murmur not nor complain:  but out of thine infinite store, give me also such a blessing as may be convenient for me;” then God hears the prayer, then he gives the blessing, and gives it so richly, and makes it bear so evidently the mark of his love, that they who were last are become first; if others have health, and we have sickness, yet the spirit of patience and cheerful submission which God gives with it is so great a blessing, and makes us so certainly happy, that the strongest and healthiest of our friends have often far more reason to wish to change places with us, than we with them.

Let us now take inequality in powers of mind.  And here, undoubtedly, the difference is apt to be a trial.  Not that, probably, it excites discontent or murmuring against God; nor jealousy against those whose faculties are better than our own:  the trial is of another kind; we are tempted to make our inferiority an excuse for neglect; because we cannot do so much nor so easily as others, we do far less than we might do.  But the parable shows us plainly, that if one talent only has been given us, while others have ten, yet that the one, no less than the ten, must be made to yield its increase.  Here is the feeling expressed so earnestly by the woman entreating Christ to heal her daughter.  “The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.”  Small as may be the portion of power given us, when compared with the plenty vouchsafed to others, still it is capable of nourishing us if we make use of it; still it shows that we too have our blessing.  And if using it with thankfulness, if doing our very best with it, knowing that “a man is accepted according to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not,” we labour humbly and diligently; then, not only does the talent itself become increased, so that our Lord, when he comes to reckon with us, may receive his own with usury:  but a blessing of another kind is added to our labours, again, as in the former case, making those who were last to become first.  For if there be one thing on earth which is truly admirable, it is to see God’s wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when they have been honestly, humbly, and zealously cultivated.  From how many pains are they delivered, to which great natural talents are continually exposed; irritation, jealousy, a morbid and nervous activity, bearing fruits not of peace, but of gall!  With what blessings are they crowned, to which, the most powerful natural understanding is a stranger! the love of truth gratified, without the fear that truth will demand the sacrifice of personal vanity; the line of duty clearly discerned, because those mists of passion and selfishness which obscure it so often from the view of the keenest natural perception, have been dispersed by the spirit of humility and love; imperfect knowledge patiently endured, because whatever knowledge is enjoyed is known to be God’s gift, and what he gives, or what he withholds, is alike welcome.  This is the blessing of those who having had inferior natural powers, have so laboured to improve them according to God’s will, that on all there has been grafted, as it were, some better power of grace, to yield a fruit most precious both for earth and heaven.