And this answer comes to all of us—­the answer which the prophet gave to the hesitating king as he stood balancing the hundred talents against the duty of the hour:  “The Lord is able to give thee much more than this.”  Better to win thy great battle and lose the talents, than keep the money and lose thyself and everything in the impending struggle.  God is not so poor that He cannot pay His servants as ample wages as they ever get from other masters.  It is not the same kind of pay, but it is always, in the long-run, larger and better.  No man ever does the right thing at God’s command, without receiving eventually sufficient wages for it—­joy even in this life.  Whatever immediate losses he may incur, there will be more than compensating gains.  The man who lives an upright, conscientious, pure and kindly life, wronging no one, showing justice and mercy to all, is always the happier man; richer in all his thoughts and emotions, richer in friendships and affections, richer in peace of mind, in abiding satisfactions, richer in hopes.  He has within him a well-spring of joy which never ceases to flow.  Righteousness is not a losing business:  it has the best part in this life, and in that which is to come.

Whatever you resign at Christ’s call:  whatever His service costs you in the way of sacrifice:  however much you must give up in the shape of pleasure, ease, and agreeable habits—­there will be more given to you in return.  When Christ asked the disciples to leave all things and follow Him, He said nothing about the rewards—­not just then.  He told them to take up their cross and come after Him; that was all.  He spoke often to them about the pains they would have to endure, the scorn they would meet with, the tribulation they would have to pass through.  When he called the last of the apostles, Paul, He even said, and it was the only promise He gave, “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts ix. 16).  No talk of rewards and gains at first.  He knew the men.  He knew their eagerness to do what was right and to obey the voice of God.  Men who have the right spirit, men with some fire of enthusiasm, do not need crowns held before them to draw them into the true and noble way.  They are almost glad to think that crosses and self-sacrifices await them in that way.  Christ spoke no words at the beginning about gains and rewards.  Come, because I want you, and God asks you, and it is your duty:  but afterwards, when they had obeyed His call, He talked to them often about the gains.  They had begun to understand them then.  There is no man who hath left anything for My sake, who shall not receive a hundredfold in this present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting.