The parables disclose with what pleasure and tolerance he surveyed the broad scene
of human activity: the merchant seeking pearls; the farmer sowing his fields; the real - estate man trying to buy a
piece of land
in which he had secret reason to believe a treasure lay buried; the dishonest secretary, who had been given notice, making friends against the evil day among his employer's debtors by reducing their obligations; the five young women sleeping with lamps burning while the bridegroom tarried and unable to attend the marriage because their sisters who had had foresight enough to bring additional oil refused to lend them any; the rich man whose guests for dinner all made excuses; the man comfortably
in bed with his children who gets up at midnight to help his importunate neighbor only because he despairs
of getting rid
of him otherwise; the king who is out to capture a city; the man who built his house upon the sand and lost it
in the first storm
of wind and rain; the queer employer who pays all
of his men the same wage whether they have worked the whole day or a single hour; the great lord who going to a distant land entrusts his
property to his three servants and judges them by the success
of their investments when he returns; the shepherd whose sheep falls into a ditch; the woman with ten
pieces of silver who, losing one, lights the candle and sweeps diligently till she finds it, and makes the finding
of it the occasion
of a celebration
in which all
of her neighbors are invited to
share — and how long such a list might be!
Except
in rare cases, such as where a party proves that they have an equitable or trust ownership interest
in a particular
piece of property, there is no
sharing in the value
of assets or
in the debts or liabilities incurred by a party after V - Day.