The unfaithful slave came and said: "Lord I have carefully kept all that thou gavest me. I knew that thou wast an exacting master, taking what did not belong to you and gathering what others sow."
The master says: "Now stop right there and I will judge you by your own excuse out of your own mouth. You say you knew me to be exacting and dishonest, taking more than belonged to me. Now, knowing this, why did you not serve me by giving my money to the bank, and then at my coming you could have brought me my money with my unjust gain and that would have pleased a hard man like me, without effort on your part. You are only giving this as an excuse for your own unfaithfulness. You are a wicked slave."
The master admits that he would be a hard man, if he reaped what another sowed, or took up what belonged to another, but assuming that this was his character, even this could have been met without trouble to the slave through the bank. This is a clear recognition of usury as unjust gain.
Exchangers were little more than the pawn-brokers of today and a bank was a pawn-shop where pledges were stored. The money loaned upon any pawn was much less than its full value. The increase of the loan soon made it more than the value of the pledge which was then forfeited, and the pawn was sold by the broker.
These parables are here dwelt upon, for they are so frequently misunderstood and misapplied. In a large volume on "Banking," the writer found the words of the master quoted, "Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required my own with usury." And they were quoted as a solemn direction of the divine Master to deposit money in the bank.
To quote from these parables in the defense of usury is as flagrant a perversion of the truth as the famous quotation to prove that Paul encouraged theft. "Let him that stole, steal."
The lessons of these parables are in entire harmony with the law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets and Nehemiah. In these parables the usurer is presented as a hard man, exacting that which he has not earned and to which he has no right.
The teachings of the Master did not permit what had been forbidden in all the ages.