13. Watch therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh—This, the moral or practical lesson of the whole parable, needs no comment.

     Mt 25:14-30. PARABLE OF THE TALENTS.

     This parable, while closely resembling it, is yet a different one from that of THE POUNDS, in Lu 19:11-27; though CALVIN, OLSHAUSEN, MEYER, and others identify them—but not DE WETTE and NEANDER. For the difference between the two parables, see the opening remarks on that of The Pounds. While, as TRENCH observes with his usual felicity, "the virgins were represented as waiting for their Lord, we have the servants working for Him; there the inward spiritual life of the faithful was described; here his external activity. It is not, therefore, without good reason that they appear in their actual order—that of the Virgins first, and of the Talents following—since it is the sole condition of a profitable outward activity for the kingdom of God, that the life of God be diligently maintained within the heart."