Talents were handed out by the man traveling to a far country, so that in his prolonged absence his servants might trade with the same, and that on his return he might receive his own with usury. To one servant was given five talents, to another, two, to a third, one. See the earnestness and zeal of the two, who had respectively five talents and two talents. Year in and year out they traded industriously in view of their Lord's return. How sadly different was the conduct of the one to whom the one talent had been entrusted. See him digging in his garden, behold him burying the precious talent out of sight. What cared he for his lord! What value did he put on the one talent entrusted to him! Surely this is not symbolical of a true believer, but of a mere professor. And what was his end? One that will never be the experience of a true believer—outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth.