All the wealth we can give to Love's service is most useful and welcome; but the retention of any for miserly pride, or vain ostentation, or indolent uselessness for ourselves or our children, fills the heart so full of self that Love can find there no room. Not that giving away all one has is essential or desirable; but that every dollar one gives, spends, keeps, invests, or controls be held subject to the orders of Love.
Wealth is not so essential to the Christian as it was to Epicurus and Aristotle, for God can be glorified and man can be served with very little furniture of fortune; and therefore the Christian is able, in whatsoever material state he is, therewith to be content. On the other hand, the Christian cares more for money than either the Stoic or Plato; for there are ranges in God's universe of beauty, truth, and goodness which cannot be æsthetically appreciated and artistically and scientifically appropriated without large expenditure of labour and the wealth by which labour is supported; and there are wide spheres of business enterprise and social service essential to human welfare which only the rich man or nation can effectively promote. Divine and human service is possible in poverty; it is more effective and at the same time more difficult in wealth. The Christian rich and the Christian poor serve the same Lord, and have the same Spirit; but the accomplishment of the Christian rich man can be so much greater than that of the Christian widow with her mite, that the Christian who is strong enough to stand it is in duty bound to treat money as a talent which in all just ways he ought to multiply. On the contrary, the moment it begins to make him less sympathetic, less generous, less thankful, less responsible, he must give it away as the only alternative to the loss of his soul, the deterioration of his personality.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also."
Toward science and art, business and politics, the application of the Christian Spirit is different from anything we have met before. The Christian will not shirk these things, like the Epicurean and the Stoic; because they are ways of serving that truth, beauty, welfare, and order which are included in the Father's will for all His human children. In all these things we are co-workers with God for the good of man. Diligence and enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice in one or more of these directions is the imperative duty, the inestimable privilege of every one who would be a grateful and obedient son of God, a helpful and efficient brother to his fellow-men.
Yet in all his devotion to science or art, in all the energy with which he gives himself to business or politics, the Christian can never forget that God is greater than any one of these points at which we come in contact with Him; and that, when we have done our utmost in one or another of these lines, we are still comparatively unprofitable servants in His vast household. As God is more than the thing at which we work, so the Christian, through relation to Him, is always more than his work. He never lets his personality become absorbed and evaporated in the work he does; but ever renews his personal life at the fountain which is behind the special work he undertakes to do. Thus the true Christian is never without some useful social work to do; and he never lets himself get lost in doing it. To keep this balance of energy in the task and elevation above it, which enables one to take success without elation and bear failure without depression, is perhaps the crowning achievement of practical Christianity.
"The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
He who heartily loves and serves others will trust Love in God and his fellows to take proper care of himself. One who really loves others will take reasonable care not to be a burden to them, and to the world, and will avail himself of the insurance company, the savings bank, and the bond market as the devices of a complex modern society to distribute losses and conserve gains to the common advantage of all. Love does not make the individual or his family a parasite on the economy and industry of society. Love makes a man bear his own permanent burden as a preliminary to being of much use and no harm to his family, his friends, and his community. Such prudent provision of the means of Love's independence and service is consistent with entire absence of worry about one's personal fortunes. The essential question which Love, and Jesus as the Lord and Master of Love, puts to a man is not "How much money have you?" but "What use do you intend to make of whatever you have, be that little or much?" If that aim is selfish, and the money is either saved or spent in sordid, worried selfishness, that low aim makes the money a curse. If held subject to whatever drafts Love may make upon it,—whether gifts to the poor, or support of good causes, or employment of honest workmen, or development of industrial enterprises, be the form Love's drafts take,—then all wealth so held is a blessing to the world and an honour to its owner, a glory to God and a service to man.
"Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."
Though material means sought as ends are fatal to Love, Love's ends kept in view insure needed means. To worry about to-morrow is to fail in devotion to the tasks of to-day, and so spoil both days. To do our best work to-day is to gain power for to-morrow. Competition complicates, but does not render insoluble, the problem of making all that we have and all that we do express Love to all whom our action affects. To be sure, there are city slums, uninsured accidents and sickness, unsanitary tenements, unjust conditions of labour, where even the service of Love does not bring to the worker appropriate means and rewards; but it is because Love has not quite kept pace at these points with swift-moving modern conditions. But public spirit, political progress, economic reform, are more sensitive to these violations of its laws than ever before, and eagerly bent on finding and applying the remedy,—more Love of all for each, and each for all.
"But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."