June 8

Blessed ts that servant whom his Lord when He cometh, shall find ‘so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that He will make him ruler over all that He hath. — Luke xii. 43, 44.

The temptdtion for any one who is much occupied with the
June 8.

hope of some great change and betterment in the near future

is to be restless and unable to settle down to his work, and to yield

to distaste of the humdrum duties of every day. If some man that kept

a little chandler’s shop in a back street was expecting to be made a

king to-morrow, he would not be likely to look after his poor trade

with great diligence. So we find in the Apostle Paul’s second letter —

that to the Thessalonians — that he had to encounter, as well as he

could, the tendency of hope to make men restless, and to insist upon

the thought — which is the same lesson as is taught us by this passage —

that if a man hoped, then he had with quietness to work and eat his

own bread, and not be shaken in mind.

*’ Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall

find so doing.” It may seem humble work to serve out hunches of

bread and pots of black broth to the family of slaves, when the steward is

expecting the coming of the master of the house, and every nerve is

tingling with anticipation. But it is steadying work, and it is blessed work.

It is better that a man should be found doing the homeliest duty as

the outcome of his great expectations of the coming of his Master, than

that he should be fidgetting and restless and looking only at that thought

till it unfits him for his common tasks. Who was it who, sitting playing

a game of chess, and being addressed by »ome scandalised disciple with

the question, *’ WTiat would you do if Jesus Christ came, and you were

playing your game?” answered, “I would finish it”? The best way for

a steward to be ready for the Master, and to show that he is watching,

is that he should be “found so doing” the humble tasks of his stewardship.

The two women that were squatting on either side of the millstone, and

helping each other to whirl the handle round in that night, were in the right

place, and the one that was taken had no cause to regret that she was not

more religiously employed. The watchful servant should be a working

servant.