st men whose hearts were full to overflowing with the new
Christian graces of brotherhood and peace. For we must not imagine
that there was anything compulsory about this communism. It was
entirely voluntary, and was due to the eager desire on the part of the
wealthier members of the Church to do all that they could for their
poorer brethren. In this particular alone, we can at once see how
widely it differed from what is generally known as communism or
socialism in the present day. The spirit of much at any rate of our
present-day socialism--so the distinction has been cleverly drawn--is,
"What is thine, is mine": but the spirit of those early believers was
rather, "What is mine, is thine."

At the same time, we can readily understand that in a large and mixed
community like the early Church, all members would not think exactly
alike, and that while many, we may believe most, would cheerfully obey
this unwritten law of love, and share and share alike, others would
give in to it--if they did give in, for, let me again emphasise, there
was no compulsion upon any--more grudgingly and hesitatingly.

Of these two classes the writer of the Book of Acts presents us with
individual examples--of the former class, in the case of Joseph, or
Barnabas, a wealthy Cypriot, who "_having a field, sold it, and brought
the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet_" (Acts iv. 37)--of the
latter, in the case of Ananias with Sapphira his wife, whose melancholy
story is now before us.

That story is very familiar, and is often regarded simply as an
instance of the sinfulness of lying. And that undoubtedly it is; but
it warns us also against other equally dangerous and insidious errors,
as a little consideration will, I think, show. For what were Ananias's
motives in acting as he did? If we can discover them, we shall have
the key to the whole story.

And here, it seems to me, they must, in the first instance at any rate,
have been of a sufficiently _generous_ character. Ananias had seen
what was going on around him, and he had determined that he must not be
behindhand in this ministry of love. But--and now we get a little
deeper into his character--_ambition_ to stand well with his
fellow-members evidently mingled with the pure spirit of charity:
though we do not need to suppose that there was as yet any conscious
intention to deceive. Acting, then, on these somewhat mixed motives of
charity and ambition, Ananias determined to