y_ of thyself and thy gain, though art a
servant of mammon. The eager looks of those that would get money, the
troubled looks of those who have lost it, worst of all the gloating
looks of them that have it, these are sure signs of the service of
mammon. If in the church thou sayest to the rich man, 'Sit here in a
good place,' and to the poor man, 'Stand there,' thou art a
mammon-server. If thou favorest the company of those whom men call
well-to-do, when they are only well-to-eat, well-to-drink, or
well-to-show, and declinest that of the simple and the meek, then in thy
deepest consciousness know that thou servest mammon, not God. If thy
hope of well-being in time to come, rests upon thy houses, or lands, or
business, or money in store, and not upon the living God, be thou
friendly and kind with the overflowings of thy possessions, or a churl
whom no man loves, thou art equally a server of mammon. If the loss of
thy goods would take from thee the joy of thy life; if it would tear thy
heart that the men thou hadst feasted should hold forth to thee the two
fingers instead of the whole hand; nay, if thy thought of to-morrow
makes thee quail before the duty of to-day, if thou broodest over the
evil that is not come, and turnest from the God who is with thee in the
life of the hour, thou servest mammon; he holds thee in his chain; thou
art his ape, whom he leads about the world for the mockery of his
fellow-devils. If with thy word, yea, even with thy judgment, thou
confessest that God is the only good, yet livest as if He had sent thee
into the world to make thyself rich before thou die; if it will add one
feeblest pang to the pains of thy death, to think that thou must leave
thy fair house, thy ancestral trees, thy horses, thy shop, thy books,
behind thee, then art thou a servant of mammon, and far truer to thy
master than he will prove to thee. Ah, slave! the moment the breath is
out of the body, lo, he has already deserted thee! and of all in which
thou didst rejoice, all that gave thee such power over thy fellows,
there is not left so much as a spike of thistle-down for the wind to
waft from thy sight. For all thou hast had, there is nothing to show.
Where is the friendship in which thou mightst have invested thy money,
in place of burying it in the maw of mammon? Troops of the dead might
now be coming to greet thee with love and service, hadst thou made thee
friends with thy money; but, alas! to thee it was not money, bu