Chapter XXIV

The Mission of Money.

ALMOST everyone wishes to make money. Any one who can do so to his heart's content and in perfect safety if he has the right motive and never loses that motive in making it; if he always keeps money-making subordinate to character-making; if he uses it after he makes it as a trust committed to him as a steward.

Money is the representative of wealth, a circulating medium which serves as a standard of values for measuring wealth and a convenient medium for the exchange of articles that constitute wealth. By wealth we mean all those materials of earth which may be measured by or sold for money- the soil itself; the fruits of the soil, called forth or used by the skill and labor of man, like timber and cereals and vegetables and fruits; the minerals beneath the soil, articles manufactured from them, houses, machinery and all that the inventive and transforming skill of man can produce from the raw materials. While there is a distinction between money and wealth, the former is often popularly used for the latter, and may sometimes be so used in this discussion.

By the term wealth, we do not mean any large amount of wealth, as when we speak of a wealthy man, but we mean any amount of material values, however large, however small. It is the same material, whether one possesses much of it or only a little, there being only a difference of quantity and not of quality. It has the same kind of moral value, the same mission, and puts its possessor under the same kind of obligations.

A world full of wealth, partly in its raw materials and partly in its matured products, surrounds all men, Christian and non-Christian. As it was made by God, it was evidently designed by Him to perform some good part in the development and the destiny of mankind. Life has been described as the action of a living thing on its environment. Wealth is one element in the environment of [177] man, and there has been action and reaction going on all the time between the two, and as a result there has been growth, whether for better or for worse. All the progress of mankind has been in part produced by this tremendous power, and all the moral downfalls among nations have been promoted by it. It has an important effect on every man that lives.

It is exerting more than its usual influence today, especially in our own land, "where wealth accumulates, " though we are hardly yet prepared to say "and where men decay." We have discovered, and are still discovering, so much of nature's hidden wealth; we have invented so much machinery to turn the raw materials of wealth, both that which is found in the rich veins of the earth and that which is held in solution in the fertile soil, into the finished product; we are accumulating wealth, both national and personal, so rapidly; we are using so many of our human powers in securing it and are so vitally affected in all those powers by the pursuit and use of it; we find in it, after it is secured, such a powerful agent in accomplishing any human purpose, whether good or evil, that we are compelled to conclude it has a divinely appointed mission in connection with the elevation and progress of man, and we are compelled to ask what our great Teacher and Master has to say about it– what He wants us to think about it, how He wants us to secure it and what He wants us to do with the amount we may gain, whether little or much.

The wealth of the United States in 1860 was estimated at $16,160,000,000; in 1880, $43,642,000,000 ; in 1890, $65,000,000,000; in 1900, about $100,000,000,000. In 1860 there were a few millionaires; now the multi-millionaire is a commonplace, while the billionaire seems an imminent possibility, and he is likely to be a member of an orthodox church, there being several promising candidates at the present time for that unique distinction. Add to these facts, that all of us would like to have wealth, whether our motives are selfish or unselfish, that all of us are trying to acquire more or less of it, whether our efforts are always honest or not and that all of us are doing good or harm with what we have.

It must needs be that Jesus would say much about it and that [178] the apostles who were inspired to expand and expound His teachings would give clear and explicit instructions on the subject. A mere quotation of the passages in the New Testament on that subject, without comment, would make a fair-sized pamphlet.

WHAT IS WEALTH GOOD FOR ?

The primary purpose of wealth is to afford us food and raiment and shelter, with such other conveniences as may be found important in any stage of our civilization. Its ultimate purpose is threefold, to enrich the soul of him who secures it, to secure higher blessings for others and to provide future blessings for its possessor in the glorious world awaiting him. Such is the teaching of Jesus and His apostles. Its ultimate is more important than its primary purpose. All seem to know and appreciate the latter, while it requires a higher revelation of the truth and an earnest search for it before the former is fully known, much less appreciated.

We possess wealth in order to enrich our characters, and it may do that in at least three ways. In the first place, in the mere process of acquiring it, whether in small or large quantities, another process goes on underneath-namely, the acquiring of character. The external process in the making of money; the internal process in the making of manhood. That is why men live and labor; that is why there are various callings in life. God erected all right callings, though the devil seems to have originated a few, and God has two purposes in them. His primary purpose is that we may secure the means of subsistence and comfort; His ultimate purpose is that we may make men out of ourselves and others. The accumulation of character goes with the accumulation of wealth. The former is what God aims at. Some men never do more than try to gain wealth; they never succeed. But they grow great characters, and sometimes that is done best by trying to succeed in gaining wealth and failing. The effort is the thing needed. They succeed in gaining the higher end, the making of manhood, while seeming to fail in the primary end, and yet the effort and the failure are the conditions of the higher success. Let two men with the same talents, capital and opportunity spend twenty years in business and accumulate the same amount of money; one of them [179] may do it in such a way as to undergo a degeneration of character, and have nothing but the money at the end, no manhood at all, and when he must drop the gold from his hand he has no worth to take into God's presence. The other may do it in such a way as to grow with every effort into divine nobleness, and when he comes to die the amount of money is nothing compared with the amount of manhood he takes into the other world. The purpose we have, the motives we feel, the spirit we show, determine the character we are to be. The making of character is the aim of it all.

WEALTH TRANSFORMED INTO PERSONALITY.

In the next place, one may use it on himself in such a way as to transform it into character and all noble experience as he converts it into education and books and pictures and music and all the other things that gratify and enlarge his higher nature. One dollar paid for a book may enrich one with values that can never be expressed in terms of money. Men gladly paid ten dollars to hear Jenny Lind sing, and that music entered into their life to make it musical. Even the money one must spend in clothes and food and shelter may be spent with a view of equipping himself for nobler living, and what he puts back into his business may have in view the higher interests of his soul. Thus one may have such vivid sense of the higher purposes of money, such unselfish desire to accomplish those purposes, such acute sense of his responsibility in making and using it that he will be enriching his soul. That lifts the most prosaic to the level action of the moral and the sublime. It charges the daily duties of going to market, buying clothes, building houses and working at One's business with infinite gravity, since all this may be done in such a way as to enrich or impoverish us for an eternity.

And again, one may use it on others who need it so as to enrich himself. The needy are so numerous with needs so urgent that no one can be ignorant of their existence or fail to hear their cry of distress. We hear their plea for food, education and salvation.

The hungry, the ignorant and the lost are numerous. Food and clothes for the body, truth for the mind and salvation for the whole [180] being we must give. The contention just at this point is that one may use his money to enrich his own character by investing discreetly and lovingly in some or all of these classes of the needy.

The reasons lie right on the surface. It expresses the human sympathy that we have and that expression increases the volume of it and makes it still more acute and pure. And sympathy is the very greatest and most desirable of the human powers. It is a form of self-giving and that is the very essence of Christ's spirit. That self-giving was practiced by Him till it became self-sacrifice. We grow like Him in character not only in thus using the money on others, but in acquiring it with the purpose of so using it. To this we are enjoined by Paul– "let him that stole, steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need."

To the young minister, Timothy, Paul wrote: "Charge them that are rich in this present world that they be rich in good works." (1 Tim. 6: 17, 18.) Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and He draws the repulsive picture of the man "that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." (Luke 12: 13-21.) He must have referred to the higher spiritual reward when He said: " Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over shall they give into your bosom." (Luke 6: 38.) We are brought into contact with the source of that reward because we are doing just what Jesus did– "see that ye abound in this grace also (giving) for ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor," thereby giving up much and giving Himself. "To do good and to communicate (give) forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." (Heb. 13: 16.) Norman's rule of life was this: "I will engage in business that I may serve God in it, and with the expectation of getting to give. The result was growth in grace and increased spirituality. It is said of him, 'he rose toward Heaven like the lark of the morning.'"

WEALTH AS A MEANS OF HELPING OTHERS.

Secondly, we possess wealth in order to secure higher blessings for our fellow men. [181] This is done in several ways. It is done in the process of getting wealth. He who produces wheat and vegetables and cattle and sheep and hogs for men to eat; he who makes clothes and shoes and hats for men to wear; he who builds houses and roads and bridges and streets and street railroads for the comfort and convenience of men– in short, he who makes money by doing anything in the world that will promote the comfort and convenience, the health and happiness, of mankind, is adding to the higher wealth of the world. He does this in the process of money-making. He may be thinking more about the money he is getting out of his business than about the good he is doing while making the money; he may not be thinking of the latter at all; he may be making a considerable contribution to the higher wealth of the world without being. aware of it. That higher element, however, is just as worthy of thought as the money which he makes and far more worthy. He cannot ignore the gain he is getting out of it, but if that is all he is aware of doing he fails to understand his own actions and to discover the most important element in his own achievements. What he puts into the world is of more importance, to him and to the world, than what he makes out of it. God surely takes more interest in that; mankind at large think it more important; the man who does it can come to enjoy it more.

To make it concrete, here is a man who manufactures shoes and finds at the end of the year that he has cleared $10,000, but he finds he has done something else– he has protected the feet of thousands of men, women and children from frost and snow and ice and thorns and stones. Here is a man who prepares meats– the Armours, for instance– and he has not only made a certain amount of money but he has given a certain amount of pleasure and strength to thousands of human beings. Here is a street car line that makes each year a given sum, but it has served the convenience of the public and rendered an important ministry to them. Now, the contention is that the money gain resulting from these business enterprises is not so important and interesting in the sight of God or man as the higher good that is done, and that therefore the man who makes money, whether in large or small quantities, can come [182] to take more interest in the good he is giving than in the gain he is getting. It will not lessen his ability to make money, but on the contrary he will put a finer quality of thought into it and will get a finer pleasure out of it.

Mr. Ernest R. Crosby has some important words about this matter.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PERSONAL ELEMENT FROM BUSINESS.

"The business world has become so one-sided in its preoccupation with mere questions of gain that its highest ideal, to-day, is to get something for nothing. The man who can 'make' a million or two 'on the street' in a day, without rendering any service to mankind, is considered preeminently a 'successful man.' As no man can get something without earning it, unless some one else earns it without getting it, the result is that the main occupation of the business world now is to get away other people's earnings from them. This is done in a thousand ways– by watering stock so that dividends are paid on nothing, by speculation of all kinds (which is, of course, gambling, and nothing else), by protective tariffs, by municipal franchises, by patent rights, and by land monopoly in the growing cities, in railways and terminal facilities, in mining lands, and other similar things. Upon such privileges all the trusts and combines are built. They effect enormous savings in advertising, in plants, and in the number of employees, and then go on charging the prices fixed under the old expensive competitive conditions, or else actually raise them. The ideal of service is thus completely lost in the ideal of annexing the earnings of others, and that which might be a noble, unselfish devotion to the interests of the human race becomes an inordinate desire to squeeze all that can be got out of it. If a man once accepts this monstrous ideal of getting something for nothing, the ideal of the brigand and the footpad, his nature is already so perverted that he has few scruples as to the methods he will take in realizing it.

"The only remedy for this state of affairs is the adoption of a new ideal in the business world. Our main object in life must be to be useful– and we must try, not to get ahead of others, but rather [183] to do our work as well as we can. Professors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, artists, authors, start out in life, for the most part, with the intention of doing something which they regard as useful, and not with the main object of making money. Is there any reason in nature, why a business man, a merchant, a banker, a financier, should not have the same motive? Why should the business man be the only one who flies the pirate flag? I do not believe there is any reason for it. Columbia College is a great moneyed institution which does a large work of education. Its management requires labor, skill, and executive ability of a high order. Many able and energetic men are getting their living out of it, but no one is getting rich, no one draws a dividend from it, and its one object, recognized by all, is to be useful to the community. Is there any reason why the street railway companies should not be run upon the same principle? I fail to see any. Education is a business quite as important as the transportation of passengers, and it requires as much brains. Columbia University might have its stockholders drawing their seven per cent on millions of watered stock, it might be managed from Wall street, and its advantages might be cornered and its securities gambled with on the Stock Exchange. If such a state of affairs is undesirable in the case of the one institution, why is it not in the case of the other? Our business men pride themselves on being in the van of civilization, on leading the march of mankind. As a matter of fact, they are hopelessly behind the age, which is already in other departments following the ideal of usefulness."

A PECULIAR CALLING.

There is one calling in life divinely erected on that principle, and one of its subordinate purposes seems to be to illustrate that principle. It does not allow any man who pursues it to take much interest in the money values he receives, but compels him to take more interest in the higher values which he gives. It compels him, first of all, to enter the calling with the understanding that, with the same talents and culture, he might make from twice to twenty times as much in some one of the callings devoted to the business [184] of money getting. Further, it is of such a nature that if he gets to thinking too much about the money he gets, it lessens his efficiency in that calling and therefore his ability to make money. His moneymaking power depends in part on his preferring, sincerely, to do good, rather than make money. Of course the calling of the ministry is alluded to.

We see this principle at work in that calling, and if it works in one, it can work in any. That is one reason why God ordained it to be so, with the ministry. He wants to give all men an example to show that the principle is working everywhere.

Moreover, God is training His people in the very highest sense of honor through their relations to the ministry. He compels them to deal rightly with this calling, not from the ordinary sentiments of self-interest that prevail in marts of trade, but from a lofty sense of right that would scorn to do less than justice to a calling which is, in the main, dependent upon their sense of right rather than upon their selfish interests. God is thus, through one calling, illustrating the principle and compelling people to act on it in their treatment of that calling. His purpose is to get all men to act on the same principle in their own callings, till, the world over, men will be taking more pleasure in the higher values they give than in the money values they gain. That is a practicable, a sensible, a religious, a humane, a Christlike principle.

We also benefit our fellow men by our wealth in using it directly for their good.

MONEY A MEANS OF GIVING JOY.

The money thus our own must undergo conversion. There is a principle in nature called the law of conversion of energy, by which natural power passes from the lower to the higher forms, as heat, light, electricity. Money is a power, and it is designed to undergo conversion into holy emotions, lofty ambitions and aspirations, and noble endeavors. Every cent one has is capable of such conversion, and therefore fails of doing God's purpose, unless it is so converted. Put money into books, and it is transformed into truth; put it into music and it becomes lofty emotion; put it into [185] houses of worship, and it becomes aspiration and praise and noblest truth expressed in terms of life; put it into our orphans' homes, and it becomes joy and hope in motherless hearts and wholeness in broken lives; put it into schools, and it becomes heart and will and intellect for the sacred duties of life. Its hidden values are thus found and coined into life, and yet the store is undiminished.

One may well aspire to have wealth for such a purpose– "let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need." Mr. Andrew Carnegie said at the annual meeting of the Railroad Y. M. C. A. in New York: "The best of wealth is not what it does for its owner, but what it enables him to do for others. And let me tell you there is nothing in money beyond having a competence; nothing but the satisfaction of being able to help others."

Thirdly: We possess wealth in order to provide for ourselves a glorious future in heaven.

Our Savior taught that with striking distinctness in two parables. Money cannot buy heaven, but the heavenly minded man may start influences, with his money, that will lead souls thither, thereby enriching heaven; may so benefit people that, going on before, they will be ready to welcome him with enthusiastic gratitude; may do so nearly as Christ did, when on earth, and may so please God, with the way he views and uses his wealth, that he will receive unqualified approbation.

Money, of itself, cannot buy friends, but the man who has the true spirit of a friend may so use it as to awaken the love and gratitude and admiration of his friends. Money, of itself, cannot bind up broken hearts, but the loving heart may bring its healing sympathy through the ministry that money enables it to render.

In one parable, that of the "shrewd steward," a bad man, with a bad motive, so uses his influence in financial matters as to place other debtors of his employer under obligations to him, because he told them how to play a trick on the employer and get out of paying the full debt. He did this so that they would take care of him when he should be thrown out of work. He was so farsighted and shrewd that his employer admired him for just that, [186] though of course he could not have confidence in the shrewd fellow any more. Then Jesus taught that the disciples could so use their money as to benefit in a good way their fellow men and those fellow men would be waiting for them in heaven to welcome them with joy into" the everlasting habitation." The other parable told of a man who had great wealth and failed to use it in helping the needy, although a very needy man, Lazarus, was almost under his very nose, but he lived entirely for himself. The result was that when he died he not only had no welcome awaiting him from Lazarus, but could not be where Lazarus was and was compelled to suffer the sorrows of one who failed to use his money for his own higher nature or for the good of men. Thus do we lay up our treasures in heaven, or fail to do so. Thus we can see the great possibilities of wealth as a means of enriching one's character, spreading blessedness and happiness and enriching heaven itself.

DANGERS OF WEALTH.

Some urgent facts there are that compel us to take the right view and make the right use of money. There is danger that in acquiring wealth we may do violence to our moral natures and injure our higher interests. If avarice is the inspiration of our efforts for wealth it blights the soul. One may seek it for love of the prominence it will give him; another, for the luxuries it will enable him to purchase or the ignoble ease it may bring him the rest of his days; another, for the power it will give him in influencing people; another, for the mere pleasure of owning it, so that he can gloat over it, like the miser, who hugs his gold to his heartless bosom, while he lives and dies like a pauper– all of them ignorant of, or indifferent to, the higher mission of wealth. In such a case wealth simply ministers to one element or another of selfishness– avarice or pride or sensuality.

When such a spirit is in a person, he will use almost any means to obtain wealth. He will give up health, honor, home, native land, cut himself off from human sympathy and bring down on himself the contempt of man and the curse of God; he will rob, steal, murder and lie. In view of the facts that all of us desire money; that [187] it has a great fascination for us and we can easily be deceived as to our motives for desiring it; that after we acquire it, we can lose the pure motives with which we sought it, the warnings of the scriptures are of the highest importance. Hear Paul say to Timothy: "They that desire to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil; which some, reaching after, have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Charge them that are rich in this present world that they be not high-minded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy."

THE TEMPTATION TO DECEIVE.

There is also danger that we will wrong others, by deceiving, defrauding, oppressing them. Employers and employees and both the parties to a business transaction of any kind are subject to this peril. Those who work for others, Paul charges to serve "not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God." Those who have the power to defraud the poor may be tempted to do it, and there are many delicate and resistless ways in which they can do it that the Apostle James speaks to many in our present generation when he says "weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be a testimony against you and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your treasures in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out: and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth and taken your pleasures; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter." (Jas. 5: 1-5.)

A man who for forty-five years had employed many men, when asked how many could be trusted to do good work when not watched, replied, "About one in five." And many employers can [188] be counted on to use more of their employe's [sic] time than they have paid for or are entitled to, which is the double sin of overworking them, thereby impairing their ability for the future, and taking their money, for time is their money, their only capital. Such treatment shows that such employers are ignorant of, indifferent to, the true mission of wealth.

Here are thousands of men in a business whose success depends on injuring others– debauching the men with whom they have transactions, taking bread and meat from hungry mouths and breaking gentle hearts. That is the liquor business, and money is the object. Here is the gambler, whose success is another's failure, a violation of the golden rule and the deeper laws of life, a most unchivalrous and diabolical method of gain– but it is all for gain. Here is business going on every Sabbath day, though it violates an institution that is a structural necessity in human life, and though it deprives many others of their higher rights of rest and worship– all for money. Here are poor fallen creatures, sinking still deeper into their moral filth and dragging down many men with them– all for money. There is not a single form of evil, which is not in some way promoted by the love of money, whereas, there is not a form of good that may not be promoted by it, if we love Christ and mankind better than money.

Only one who is in right relations with God and with man and has the right view of wealth and the right motive in acquiring and using it, can keep from being injured by it, in some one, or more, of the ways that have been indicated. Its lower mission is to be entirely subordinated to its higher.

There is the fact of God's ownership.

He owns us and he owns all wealth by creation. He owns us by purchase with the precious blood of Christ. He owns us by our choice and acceptance of him. Owning us and our time and the raw materials of wealth, he must own all that can be produced out of that wealth, just as the man who owned slaves and soil and tools with which they worked also owned the product of their labors. "Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth." "Every man also to whom God hath [189] given riches and wealth and hath given him the power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God. "Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God."

Moreover, our ability to acquire has been largely increased by our recognition of His ownership of ourselves and our possessions. When we acquire it and use it with a view to pleasing Him, it develops energy, economy, foresight, skill, intelligence, honesty; and these are the qualities that win more wealth.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF WEALTH.

There is a sweeping principle, too, that all power makes one a debtor to his fellow man to the extent of that power, whether it be native or acquired. If one can speak well and the people need his public services, they have a right to it. If one has the power of music and can serve with it, we feel defrauded of our rights when we cannot have that music. If one has learned some truth he must give it to the world, even though the world kill him for telling it. Jesus came to the world with the secret and the power of salvation, and He says, "Ought not the Christ to have suffered?" And He said, "I am among you as he that serves. " And His foremost disciple, Paul, said: "I am a debtor to Jews and Greeks." Money is a power, and the amount one has indicates the measure of his obligation to serve. Every dollar one gains run him one dollar in debt. It establishes new relationships, and that means responsibility. Living luxuriously is not paying the debt; it is but evading the law that a man is responsible to God and society for the full use of all the powers of service at his command. Then as we are to serve Christ with it, He is near by to receive it, in the hand of the orphan, the deserving poor, and the youth ambitious to learn. He has His many representatives to receive it, and He declares that as we do it to them we do it to Him! God's way of converting all of our money into higher values is to show us how to use a certain portion of our incomes in benevolence. That establishes the principle of His ownership and makes the use of all the rest sacred, whether it is used to continue and enlarge our business or in ministering to our [190] own physical, mental or spiritual needs. As trustees we are to ask how He wishes us to use it and the misuse of it is dishonest use of trust funds. God is not a mendicant seeking charity, but a Master seeking to find honesty in His servants.

Such use of wealth is the normal expression of the Christian life, since self-giving is the character of Christ and the mark of the disciple. That establishes discipleship to Christ. The more we give of ourselves, and our possessions, the more we are Christ-like.

Such use of wealth appeals to every good motive, the high and the highest. The benefits received from God prompt us to do His will in this matter. The benefits received from others prompt us to bestow similar benefits by the use of our money. The joy of doing it is a reward to be sought. The example of others who consecrate their wealth to God stimulates us to do the same. The personal affection we bear our friends and Christ's friends stir us to do them good. The rewards that God promises, both here and hereafter, fascinate us.

THE DIVINE PLAN.

God's arrangements are clearly made for us. He gives the talent for money, furnishing a new motive and making its mission sacred. He allows our gain to go to our self-support and into our business in order that it may bring more money into use in the higher ministry to others. He allows us to use it in carrying forward His kingdom. He demands that some part of all our gains shall be given to the people and the cause that need them. The law of giving is simple. As taught by Paul (1 Cor. 16: 1) it is threefold– every one to give; every one to do it regularly; every one to do it according to his own ability.

It is rather strange that the last thing in which, Christian people come to recognize God's ownership and their stewardship is in the matter of money. We allow Him to assert His right to everything else before that. But when we accept His truth about that, we find our highest happiness and greatest usefulness. It is also strange that, though we recognize His right to dictate to us what we shall do with our money while we live, we usually ignore His claim to what [191] we leave behind. We have an Elder Brother whom we have no more right to disinherit than any other member of the family. He and His cause must be remembered in our wills, whether we leave our thousands or hundreds or tens. May the time come when we shall all feel that a Christian dies disgraced, who does not give the Elder Brother a share in what he leaves behind him. In a generation, all the great causes that now languish would be provided for, if we recognized Christ's claim on the estates we leave behind us.

Ministers are not the only people who are to devote all their power to evangelizing the world. Laymen, whose callings enable them to gather wealth are charged with that high mission. We are waiting in these days of great wealth for a layman's movement that will organize our wealth into a great missionary combination. Some wealthy laymen in the East could start it, organize a company with a capital stock of a half billion dollars into which our wealthy men will go, superintend the work of missions, send Christian ministers, colporters [sic], physicians, lay preachers and women workers, by the thousand, and employ native workers, till every heathen nation could be evangelized in a generation. Why not?

We must transfer the emphasis of our interest from the amount of money we make to the amount of good we do in the making of it; from the making of the money itself to the making of the man by means of making the money; from the money thus made, as a material possession, to the higher products into which it can be made to pass in the sphere of the moral, intellectual and spiritual. Thus we may so accumulate wealth as to be ever contributing to the general good and increasing the store of character both in ourselves and others; may so use it as to be ever converting it into truth and hope and love and sympathy. Thus will we avoid all the perils in securing and using it; thus will we make it the needed power in advancing peace and purity and morality over the world; thus will we be assembling in heaven an ever-increasing throng of those whom we have benefited [sic], who will meet us and greet us and welcome us into the eternal tabernacles.

Edited December 6, 2003, cpl