244 MOJ^EY AND THE KINGDOM. 



should be remembered that, for home missionary work, 

 one dollar now is worth ten dollars fifteen years later. 

 This saying has become proverbial among the Home 

 Missionaries of the West. 



Money, like corn, has a two-fold power — that of min- 

 istering to want and that of reproduction. If there were 

 a famine in the land, no matter how sore it might be, it 

 would be folly to grind up all the seed-corn for food. 

 But, on the other hand, suppose, in the midst of the 

 famine, after feeding their families and doling out a hand- 

 ful in charity, the farmers put all the increase back into 

 the ground, and do it year after year, while the world is 

 starving. That would be something worse than foolish. 

 It would be criminal. Yet that is what multitudes of 

 men are doing. Instead of applying the power in money 

 to the end for which it was entrusted to them, they use it 

 almost wholly to accumulate more power. A miller 

 might as well spend his life building his dam high and 

 higher, and never turn the water to his wheel. Bishop 

 Butler said to his secretary : " I should be ashamed of 

 myself, if I could leave ten thousand pounds behind me." 

 Many professed Christians die disgracefully and " wick- 

 edl}- rich. '* The shame and sin, however, lie not in the 

 fact that the power was gathered, but that it was un- 

 wielded. 



It is the duty of some men to make a great deal of 

 money. Grod has given to them the money-making 

 talent ; and it is as wrong to bury that talent as to bury 

 a talent for preaching. It is every man's duty to wield 

 the widest possible power for righteousness: and the 

 power in money must be gained before it can be used. 

 But let a man beware I This power in money is some- 

 thing awful. It is more dangerous than dynamite. The 

 victims of "saint-seducing gold" are numberless. If a 

 Christian grows rich, it should be with fear and trem- 

 bling, lest the " deceitf ulness of riches" undo him; for 

 Christ spoke of the salvation of a rich man as something 

 miraculous (Luke xviii. 24-^/7). 



Let no man deceive himself by saying: "I will give 



