The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-02-03

swapping in order to see possessions grow
by exchange, and here not only the head
loses it's equilibrium often, but conscience
loses its place altogether, and men do
| strange things. The line which separates
between that which is your very own and
| that which is another's is SO obscured as
to give no hindrance to the carrying out
of wrong desires, and thieves slip into
| honest mems places unobserved, and the
wreckage is upon the unthinking too soon
for human effort to stay the disaster.
It is exactly the New Testament picture,
! in the twentieth century time, so far as
/ the wrong of transactions is concerned.
apprehend that the teaching of our Lord
lay just here in the exposition He gives
of the unjust stewards act. If the man
had put down oil and wheat and taken up
oil and wheat the difficulties of his situa-
ton would have been little removed; his
miseres would only have been postponed,
and postponement philosophically consid-
cred, aids very little in the carrying OF a
real burden. The certainty of an earthly
tabernacle is what the revised version is
trying to stamp the mans act to mean,
and certainly he may be accounted wise
who succeeds in directing the affairs of
life in such fashion as in the end to se-
cure all that is absolutely needful for
| earthly existence. In this sense, friend
ship which brings a home in the hearts
of men is, after all, a safer investment
than bonds well secured or mortgages
clearly drawn These may fail sooner than
inheritance in the affections.
man bereft of power to meet the de-
mands of the future is better protected
when he has used the opportunities of the
past in the securing of the good will and
munficenee of those able to carry him,
when he can no longer carry himself, than
the man who has been laying down
! values in silver and gold and taking
them up in such larger values as to freeze
the blood and turn against him the hearts
of all human kind when the lower values
cannot minister to the higher needs. Plen-
ty of men there are in the world who
claim to be nothing more than children
of the world, who are every day so in
tent upon exchange that they are unmnd-
full of wants that sooner or later are felt
by all.
This then stands out with sufficient
clearance, that for the life that now is,
he who changes mud into brick and
Drawn into money. and brain into
thought, with view of securing the
| best for the existence in the tabernacle
of flesh, is wiser than he who simply
handles things and uses powers to see
them grow, not into something different,
but simply in bulk Here the man who
can make money becomes a miser, and
the merchant the trader. Interest. affec-
| ton, effort, terminate in the coin.
-Mindedness.
II. now, we take the other half of
the application which our Lord made on
| this teaching, it will possibly bring
heaven and earth nearer together than
many of us imagine them to be. There
is a kind of heavenly -mindedness, so call
| ed. which has very little of heaven in 1t.
Men bring themselves to think that life
| is all secular on one side and religious
on another side. While, when the mean
ing of existence is kept in mind, one
| is of necessity forced to preceive that
| there must be lat least, an overlapping
OF the temporal with the eternal. Time
| is but the marking of the sequence of
events, and the habits we form in doing
things, at least, give US the compass as to
our tendencies. If our Lord made en-
| phatic anything, he at least made men to
understand that they themselves and
what they had were very necessary to
the carrying out of Gods purposes for
| the lettering of the race.
There is more religion in the right
using of money than there is in say
ing prayers wrongly, and consecrated
| common sense makes a much firmer
| foundation for the walls of Zion than
piety that dissipates itself in pietsm.
The question, therefore, is, What are
YOU doing with yourselves and the
things you have?" That is. when you
consider that, good or bad, it is not long
before every stewardship is to be taken
away.
| 1t seems to me that if there is one
| thing more than another that is impress
| ing itself upon those who have had
! the opportunity to observe the influence
of mammon on character, and those who
havsf had the chance OF gathering large
possessions it is that the great danger
| to soul interests is the awful gravity
| that clings to earthly holdings, and if
l mistake not, he who speaks seriously
! to his countryman in America in this
particular is not speaking to vain
! end
The Scramble to Get.
The love of possessions is as old as
the race; the scramble to get has always
! been widespread and furious; society has
! always h A its rich and it's poor; our
age is not the only one that has bowed
to gold 1t was Juvenile who said, mo
! temples have yet been erected to the
goddess of money, but her majesty is
| the most sacred of ALL
| Carlisle says, 1.-THE hell of these days
| is the infinite terror of not making
| money" There are mutterings In the
skies and the wise imagine that they
| presage the storm. There are voices of
battle. and famine" said Ruskin,
Through all the earth which must be
| heard some day whoever keeps silent"
Professor Sumner said. THE real issue