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There is, perhaps, no position more painful for a good and kind master to be placed in, no duty so painful for him to fulfil, as the being compelled to discharge a servant for misbehaviour, whatever the nature of the offence may be. There is something sad, and almost solemn, as the hour of departure draws nigh in which the servant is about to quit the threshold of the home where he has, it may be, served for years. At such a moment sins of omission and commission can scarcely fail to rise up in memory's glass slowly and upbraidingly before the downcast mind. It is then the obstinacy within relents, the hardness melts, the pride of the heart is abased, when it is too late. How apparent, then, is the folly of disobedience. Then is seen how useless were all those promises of amendment drowned in the opium of forgetfulness, or strangled in the birth by the complicated influences of procrastination. At such an hour, too, the value of the place he is leaving rises up before the mind's eye in a way never experienced before. As the foot is lingering for the last time on the step of the master's door, the comforts of a quiet and peaceful.home are then contrasted with the cold and forlorn aspect of things without. Now if this be the case in regard to the affairs of this world, how much more forcibly does it apply to the next scene of existence? Here we must imagine no longer an earthly, but a heavenly Master, about to dismiss, not a servant merely that fills his or her respective place in a common household, but a man considered as a rational and accountable being.

(R. Jones, B. A. .)

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KJV: For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

WEB: "For it is like a man, going into another country, who called his own servants, and entrusted his goods to them.