32 QUAKER ASPECTS OF TRUTH 



that Our Lord left out the closing words of the sentence, 

 ** the day of vengeance of our God/' That was no part 

 of His Mission ♦ 



I believe that most scholars agree that in Luke 

 we have the original version of the Beatitudes, and these 

 breathe the very spirit of social revolution : ** Blessed 

 are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom ; Blessed are ye 

 that hunger for ye shall be filled ; Blessed are ye that 

 weep now for ye shall laugh '' ; and they are accompanied 

 by corresponding woes, carefully omitted by the more 

 cautious and ecclesiastical writer of Matthew : ** Woe unto 

 you Rich, for ye have received your consolation ; Woe 

 unto you that are full now, for ye shall hunger ; Woe 

 unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep/' 

 Not that material possessions are wrong in themselves ; 

 but material possessions are only '* wealth,'' in any true 

 sense of the word, so long as they enable us to live fuller 

 lives, widening our interests and deepening our 

 sympathies* But a point is soon reached when material 

 possessions tend to narrow our lives by limiting the range 

 of our interests and our sympathies ♦ Then they become, 

 not wealth, but *' illth/' This point is well illustrated in 

 the story of the Rich Fool ; and, better still perhaps, in 

 the still more terrible story of Dives and La2;arus, It did 

 not need a great war to convince Jesus of the evils of 

 commercial greed and selfishness. His clear spiritual in- 

 sight revealed to Him the soul destroying influence of 

 money, Christ's antagonism to riches was not due to 

 blind prejudice ; nor was it due to asceticism* He was even 

 less ascetic than were His enemies, who accused Him of 

 being '' a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber/' He must 

 have been the most congenial of companions ; the life and 

 soul of every social gathering He attended* Far from 

 undervaluing material things, it is evident that He 

 enjoyed them to the full* The enjoyment of material 

 things is perfectly legitimate, so long as it tends to increase 



