Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/28

 of the flock, become cruel and unjust; yet sooner or later the voice of God will overtake evil-doers, and the words "give an account of thy stewardship," will cause deep reflection. This is signified by the steward saying within himself, "What shall I do?" He calls his lord's debtors, and after they have made a lip confession of being debtors in the large amount, he tells them to write down a less sum. Many from habit, will give up a lip acknowledgment of being debtors to the Lord in a large amount, and that they are sinners above all others, without ever having sat down to write their debts, or without feeling a single sin, or knowing they owed a single debt. Mere lip confession of sin or debts is no real acknowledgment, and hence the steward commanded each to write a less sum, because to write down, denotes spiritually, to inscribe upon the heart, and thus feel ourselves debtors, and to acknowledge only what we feel. The fifty measures of wheat which the steward commanded the debtors to write down, involve a full confession that there was in them a defect of gratitude for all the Divine mercies received— they were defective in their returns of good and truth—in the oil and wheat. It is better to acknowledge one sin from an inward conviction, than to confess a hundred where there is not a feeling of one. This, then, is the prudence of the steward in commanding each debtor to write down a less sum—to feel themselves debtors in the less, rather than a lip confession of the greater where nothing is felt or written down. And this is the true reason why the Lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely. We are all debtors to the Lord, and happy is the man who writes down his debts.