Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/70

 by our Lord? What our aim ought to have been, must be determined by a more particular appeal to Holy Scripture.

And first:—What is the true nature of property? Let us hear the words of our Lord. "A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return; and he called his ten servants, and delivered unto them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.—And it came to pass that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be brought unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading ." It need not be said, that although worldly property is not exclusively represented here, it is certainly one of those talents which we are thus to hold for a while, not as our own or given to us by God, as we are wont to say, but as His still, and only entrusted to our care and stewardship for a while, as part of our moral trial and discipline, to show whether we will be faithful to our trust or not. So that property ought not to be accounted a gift of God in the common sense of the word, but rather a species of office, with which some of His servants are put in charge, as others are entrusted with the ministry of the word, and others with political or sovereign