^ You find Christ giving various counsels to varying people, and often jealously careful to avoid definite precept. Is He asked, for example, to divide a heritage ? He refuses ; and the best advice that He will offer is but a paraphrase of the tenth com- mandment which figures so strangely among the rest. Take heed, and beware of covetousness. If you complain that this is vague, I have failed to carry you along with me in my argument. For no definite precept can be more than an illustration, though its truth were resplendent like the sun, and it was announced from heaven by the voice of God. And life is so intricate and changing, that perhaps not twenty times, or perhaps not twice in the ages, shall we find that nice consent of circumstances to which alone it car apply.*
A False Estimate of Life.
1. Christ would warn His hearers against a false estimate of life. He told them that true life did not consist in anything external to man. Was the warning needed ? Who ever said that life consisted in wealth ? The saying of our Lord is a truism. But there are truisms and truisms. There are truisms which are admitted to be such in the conduct as well as by the speech of men. And there are truisms which are never questioned in con- versation, and which are rarely acted on. To insist on truisms of the former class is no doubt an impertinence ; to insist on truisms of this latter kind again and again, and even with importunity, is by no means superfluous ; and the saying of our Lord is un-
^ B, L. Stevenson, Lay Morals.
ST. LUKE XII. 15 259
doubtedly a truism of this description. The distinction which He draws between what a man has and what he is, is as obvious, when stated, as it is commonly overlooked. The saying that life consists not in what we have but in what we are, is as true as the practice of making life consist not in what we are but in what we have is common. Intellectually speaking, the world did not need these words of our Lord. Practically speaking, there is no one of His sayings which it could less dispense with.
2. We must not read the words of our Lord as if they meant, " A man's life consists in poverty." Jesus did not say that, and it is not true ; the degradations of poverty are often as great as the dangers of wealth. It is probably more difficult for a man to live " a man's life " in abject poverty than it is for him to do so amid the abundance of things. Money can do splendid service in providing the means for the cultivation of "a man's life." The pity is that so few who have it know how to compel it to do this. In the mere process of accumulation men are apt to forget the purpose of accumulation, and the hope of adding hundred to hundred, or of building more barns and larger, becomes a feverish instinct with no ulterior purpose whatever.
There is no evil in wealth itself, else our Lord had not spoken the parables of the Talents and the Pounds ; and had He intended His charge to the rich young man to be a universal rule, He would certainly have represented one of the worthy servants as having given his Lord's gift to the poor. But wealth becomes evil the moment it is made the end and aim of a man's life, for it binds him to that which is temporal and physical, and blinds him to his heavenly destiny — to the things that are spiritual and eternal. As a means, however, it has as much right to its place in human life as any other gift of God ; and within the kingdom which Jesus sought to found love would make its wise adminis- tration a blessing and a joy. To him for whom "it is more blessed to give than to receive " wealth must procure the greatest happiness, increasing, as it unquestionably does, his power to aid his fellows and to support all worthy causes.
II I said, just now, that wealth ill-used was as the net of the spider, entangling and destroying : but wealth well used is as the net of the sacred fisher who gathers souls of men out of the deep.
26o A MAN'S TRUE LIFE
A time will come — I do not think even now it is far from us — when this golden net of the world's wealth will be spread abroad as the flaming meshes of morning cloud are over the sky ; bearing with them the joy of light and the dew of the morning as well as the summons to honourable and peaceful toil. What less can we hope from your wealth than this, rich men of England, when once you feel fully how, by the strength of your possessions — not, observe, by the exhaustion, but by the administration of them and the power, — you can direct the acts — command the energies — inform the ignorance — prolong the existence, of the whole human race ? ^
3. But Jesus regarded wealth as quite a subordinate thing. Human law has sometimes placed property before human life. It is notorious that in our courts of justice to-day offences against the person are often much more leniently dealt with than offences against property. The judgment of Jesus, we are sure, would be very different there. In His view a man's life consisted not in his possessions ; these were the accidents of his life ; he had other and higher interests, and to these all His care was given. Let Him see a sick man, He was moved with compassion. Let Him see a little child, and His instinct was to take it up in His arms and bless it. Let Him see a multitude like shepherdless sheep, and He must be their Shepherd. The labours, the cares, the sorrows, the joys of men interest Him. But it is impossible to conceive of Jesus as being interested in money. " Shew me a penny," He once said, and He looked at it, not to reckon what it could purchase, but to see what it might teach. In regard even to the higher uses of money, even its most unquestionable uses as means towards food and raiment, He said, " Take no thought, labour not for these." It is certain that to Jesus money could never be worth fighting about, the loss or gain of it could never be a matter of great consequence, the decision of a question such as this could never seem worth His while. There can be little doubt that a great deal of the teaching of Jesus is diametrically opposed to the views which rule in the City and to the axioms and the aims of business life. We have come to attach vast importance, an altogether exaggerated importance, to the possession of wealth. In all the great centres of population there proceeds ceaselessly a twofold strife : there is the struggle of some for existence, a