We may be measured by our own measurements. In sermons and orations we assure ourselves that we are a great people because we have here so many acres, so many millions of bushels of corn and of wheat, so high wages, so vast financial resources. We are living in the glut of things and setting these things as the end of living.
All this does not mean that prosperity is wrong; it does not mean that misery or poverty is a virtue. The danger is not in our many acres, our high wages, our millions of money; the danger is that these are the ends instead of the means; that we are existing for our living; that we make the man the tool of his money instead of the money being the making of the man.
Every man has in his breast the keys to his own heaven. If he will he may find the riches of character; he may enter into the paradise of a mind at peace; he may taste of the divine joys of serving his fellows; he may, in thought, commune with all the good and great; he may hear the morning stars sing together.
The eternal crown of glory is the crown of character. The streets paved with gold are the fair, clear ways of virtue. The harps of whose music we never weary are the strings of sympathy and love and pain; these make the heavenly harmony. The angels are in the faces we learn to love. These make heaven when we see them in the light of the presence of eternal love.
XVI
Truth and Life
Religion of a Practical Mind The Head and the Heart New Truths for New Days
A life is an empty lamp without the oil of love.
The only way to have happiness as a permanent guest is to keep your door open to the helpless.
Self shrinks the soul.