To be near unto God - pagina 16

mov^ed with compassion for this 'gilded slavery he called the people that flocked to hear him, from money back to God. This sharp antithesis alone should inspire us to resist the tyranny of money. When we are truly servants of God, money will be a servant to us. When, on the other hand, we seek protection in our own strength from the baneful influence of

money, and from its strong temptation, we meet with dismal failure. Deeming that we are our own master, we find that the power of money lords it over us. Jesus therefore puts the two kinds of riches in contrast with each other: riches in money and riches in. God. Not that one excludes the other. If we are rich in God, it is nothing against us to be rich in worldly goods. For then we will be well aware of the fact that we are but stewards of the Almighty, and money will serv^e both us and God. If we are rich in God and poor in earthly possessions, we will be satisfied and happy with the higher riches of the soul. But if a man is poor in God, worldly wealth is but vain and hollow mockery. Material riohes and sensual pleasures do not ennoble and refine the soul. Moreover at death they fall away, if not before, and leave the soul empty and shorn. It is harder still to be both poor in God and in worldly goods. This provides nothing for the enlargement of life; nothing to sustain and hold one up. It brings bitter discontent alone, which feeds upon the vitals and robs existence, heavily freighted with carping care, of its latest possible charm. To understand what constitutes riches in God, imagine for a moment that all your earthly riches had taken wings, and that bereft of all you had.

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