(2) We find in another part of the valley another earnest worker, who is hewing out a cistern of wealth. Now what shall we say to this man ? It will not serve any good purpose to call him hard names. You cannot scold a man out of any sin, still
1 R. H. Hodgson, Glad Tidings' 15.
JEREMIAH ii. 13 11
less out of the sin of covetousness. Nor must we bluntly deny all that he has said in praise of wealth. In fact, he might have said a great deal more in its eulogy without exceeding the limits of truth. The power of wealth — that is, its just and legitimate power — is enormous, and is increasing day by day ; and there is no reason, except such as we find in the unsanctified and ill- regulated passions of men, why it should be ought else or less than an unmingled blessing. It is when we find men mistaking its functions and properties, and labouring to hew out of it a cistern of satisfaction, that we are constrained to remind them that such a cistern will hold no water.
T[ Far the most penetrating of all the influences that are impairing the moral and intellectual nerve of our generation remain still to be mentioned. The first of them is the immense increase of material prosperity, and the second is the immense decline in sincerity of spiritual interest. The evil wrought by the one fills up the measure of the evil wrought by the other. We have been, in spite of momentary declensions, on a flood-tide of high profits and a roaring trade, and there is nothing like a roaring trade for engendering latitudinarians. The effect of many possessions, especially if they be newly acquired, in slackening moral vigour, is a proverb. Our new wealth is hardly leavened by any tradition of public duty such as lingers among the English nobles, nor as yet by any common custom of devotion to public causes, such as seems to live and grow in the United States. Under such conditions, with new wealth come luxury and love of ease and that fatal readiness to believe that God has placed us in the best of possible worlds, which so lowers men's aims and unstrings their firmness of purpose. Pleasure saps high interests, and the weaken ing of high interests leaves more undisputed room for pleasure.1
^[ What was the danger of the possession of wealth in the eyes of Christ ? What makes it so hard for the rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God ? The danger and the difficulty both lie in the tendency of wealth to breed a spirit of self- satisfaction and contentment, a spirit which infects the soul with indifference, kills all high aspiration, deadens the sense of need, and even in human relationships leads to selfishness. Nor am I speaking now of great wealth, as we understand that phrase in the modern world. The collection of huge wealth into the hands of one individual was probably not known to Jesus, or even if it was known, it was no danger to the men to whom He spoke.
1 John Morley, On Compromise.
12 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS
And we should go very far astray in our interpretation of His words if we imagined that His warning as to the perils of riches applies only to millionaires. In truth, it applies to all who are living in circumstances of ease and comfort, and whose habits of life tend to deaden their sense of need. I believe we sum up the Christian attitude to wealth when we say that our Lord regarded it as a stewardship with which we are entrusted. Like all other gifts of life it is to be put to the largest and most fruitful use. It is not to be used merely as though it belonged to us ; we are to think of it as loaned to us by God, and therefore to be used according to His will and purpose. The talents are placed in our hands, but we are to remember who put them there and that the day will come when we must render account of the use we have made of them. Even the man to whom comparatively little has been given will be judged by his use of that little. " He that is faithful in little is faithful also in much." 1
How is the anxious soul of man befooled
In his desire, That thinks an hectic fever can be cooled
In flames of fire; Or hopes to rake full heaps of burnished gold
From nasty mire!
Whose gold is double with a careful hand,
His cares are double, The pleasure, honour, wealth of sea and land
Bring but a trouble; The world itself, and all the world's command,
Is but a bubble. The strong desires of man's insatiate breast
May stand possessed Of all that earth can give; but earth can give no rest.
The world's a seeming Paradise, but her own
And man's tormentor; Appearing fixed, yet but a rolling stone
Without a tenter; It is a vast circumference, where none
Can find a centre. Of more than earth, can earth make none possessed ;
And he that least Eegards this restless world, shall in this world find rest.
1 S. M. Berry, Graces of the Christian Character, 169.