Page:On Science, its Divine Origin, Operation, Use and End.pdf/27

Rh general welfare. This truth is awfully illustrated and confirmed by the sentence denounced on the unprofitable servant in the Gospel, where it is said—“ Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him that hath ten talents.” (Matt. xxv. ‘28.) For the unprofitable servant is he who hides his Lord’s talent in the earth of his own selfishness, instead of regarding it as the appointed instrument of promoting the benefit of his fellow-crea tures and adding to the stock of general happiness.

The politician, therefore, who wraps up his political science in the napkin of his own selfish purposes, when he ought rather to devote it to his country's service; the philosopher, who studies the mysteries of nature to indulge his own vanity more than to enrich the world with philosophical discovery; the scholar, who prides himself in the pedantry of learning, and is unconcerned about its benefits to society; the theologian, who speculates on abstruse articles of faith with greater ardour and scrupulousness than he maintains the laws of charity and the universal extension of its heavenly influence;—all these are alike unwise; because, by the selfish misapplication of their respective sciences, they draw down upon their own heads the thunder of the tremendous sentence—“Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him that hath ten talents.”

Woe, then, to the man, whosoever he be, who regards science (that valuable gift of heaven) as bestowed for the gratification of his own pride, avarice, or ambition, saying thus, with Pharaoh of old—“My river is mine own,