Without wealth, where should we be now? If
God had not given to man the power of producing wealth, where should
we be now? Not here. Four-fifths of us would not have been alive
at all. Instead of eight hundred people in this parish, all more or
less well off, there would be, perhaps, one hundred--perhaps far
less, living miserably on game and roots. Instead of thirty
millions of civilized people in Great Britain, there would be
perhaps some two or three millions of savages. Money, I say, stands
for the lives of human beings. Therefore money is good; an
ordinance and a gift of God; as it is written, 'It is God that
giveth the power to get wealth.' But, like every other good gift of
God, we may use it as a blessing; or we may misuse it, and make it a
snare and a curse to our own souls. If we let into our hearts
selfishness and falsehood; if we lose faith in God, and fancy that
God's laws are not well-made enough to prosper us, but that we must
break them if we want to prosper; then we turn God's good gift into
an idol and a snare; into the unrighteous Mammon.
It is not the quantity of money we have to deal with which is the
snare, it is our own lusts and covetousness which are the snares.
It is just as easy to sell our souls for five pounds as for five
thousand.
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