The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-21


 permanent impress for good upon his age, or he may use his money so evil- ly as to retard civilization and lose his own soul" She spoke of the chief danger from wealth being often to the possessor of it--of how the rich man himself is frequently the man whose nature Is most exposed to corruption because vulgarity ostentation, envy. ambition. self-conceit, and material standards of happiness are so often the attendants of the god Mammon.
 She showed that the improper use or money is hurtful to the individual, to society, and even to the age In which we live; for as each age pro duces what that age demands 1T the productions of any age are material and commonplace 1t is because the tastes and demands of that age were low and sordid.
 Mrs. Haley said that the lure of gold had led this age to develop astonish- ing commercial sagacity, to put enor- nous energy into the making of ma- chimes, to count it's captains of indus try by the thousands, to make an army of millionairies, to erect great build ings and lavish money upon material comforts, but that it was questionable whether this age had developed men tai vision and spiritual insight. wheth- CT 1t had inspired any prophets. made any poets, sought for the Ideal, or put the same amount of energy into the making of men that 1t has into the making of money. "As we have many shining examples" said she, "of great wealth associated with great virtue as well s great power the indictment of all wealth without discrimination Is folly Even the Biblical teaching about money is often misunderstood, for nowhere do we find the wholesale condemnation of riches which some people read into Holy Writ. We find condemnation not of riches but of those who put their trust in riches and de- pend upon riches for their happiness. Christ distinctly teaches that the peril to the Christian life comes from the lust for money, not from the possession of it-that the right or wrong of 1t lies not in the wealth itself, but the spirit behind the wealth.
 Just where is the dividing line be- tween proper and an improper de- sire to accumulate, just where hon. orable industry ends and the avarici- ous piling up of treasure begins, no one can take 1t upon himself to say. The spirit, however. that impels man to delve eagerly and long for the gold that Is used solely to supply material comforts and worldly pleasures, the spirit that impels a man to sacrifice any of the nobler aims of life in, or der to turn a competence into wealth too great to be spent, this Is the spirit that we must combat and conquer.
 And we will do 1t.
 America Is still by virtue of it's Puritan tradition and its natural in clination moral land where lusts are controlled by training. by public opinion, or by compulsion. and the time is sure to come when the lust of ac quisition will be curbed or throttled. The time will come when our American people will realize that there is some thing wrong in an economic system that permits a man to make S1,000,000 without doing stroke of work; that there is something wrong in the make up of a people who judge man by the money he has made; and that there is something wrong in the press of country that holds up the rich as worthy of public notice simply because they are rich. And even those who have fallen most completely under the spell of fortune bunting will no long CT be blind to the fact that when