Jesus' parable of the talents has furnished many a lesson to multitudes of men and women who have been seeking to conform their lives to the demands of Christianity. This parable with its simple story of the one who gave to his servants a varied distribution of talents,—to one five, to another two, and to yet another one,—and then left them, coming back at a later day and asking an account of their stewardship—all this is very familiar to every student of the Bible. It is also remembered that the servant who had received five talents brought five more; he to whom two had been given brought an added two; but the one talent had gained nothing.
While Christians have endeavored to utilize the valuable instruction which Jesus gave to all his followers for all time in this parable, they have generally given more attention to the five talents and their abundant multiplication than to the two or the one. Reaching out as mankind does for the largest possible gain, and being apt to reckon such gain in bulk or numbers, it has often overlooked the fact that perfection is not necessarily associated only with what men call large or great, but may be as positively evidenced in what may appear to them at first sight to be small and insignificant. The two talents and the one were as equally perfect gifts as were the five, and each was equally capable of use and increase.
Paul tells us "there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." It would therefore appear that the number of talents intrusted to each at a given time is not of so much importance as is the use that is made of them. It is perfection that God requires; and the perfect utilization of even one idea of Truth and Love will bring as perfect a result in degree as does the perfect use of many. Each talent bestowed by God, good, carries with it perfection of nature and expression, and all are completely and equally under God's law of divine and perfect unfoldment.
