ut his
idol knows no decay, and may continue to bless his children through
the generations. This quality of riches makes them a greater source of
blessing than the sun or any other object of idolatrous worship. This
leads to unlimited self-denial and sacrifice to gain and retain
property. The devotees subordinate their own ease and physical
comfort, their own intellectual development, to secure it, they will
themselves shrivel in body and soul; like other idolaters they will
even yield the highest interests of their children, when this idol
demands their sacrifice.

6. It destroys spirituality. Property is matter and not spirit. With
the thought and heart and effort directed to a material thing, the
spirit is neglected. The heathen Greek artist directed his whole
attention to the material part of man. The symmetry of the human
physical form was his study. The perfect man was the most
symmetrically developed specimen of physical form. His thought of man
was matter. The Christian directs his thought to the spirit, his mind
and heart, his noble purposes, and all the qualities of true manhood.
The material part is subordinated to the spiritual.

The tendency now is to appreciate a man for what he has rather than
for what he is, to ignore both symmetry of form and the graces of the
noble character, and to worship what he holds in his hands. The truly
spiritual loves true manhood and is indifferent to the possessions.

If a noble soul is found in a Lazarus, the true child of Abraham will
take him to his bosom. A perverted manhood will receive no favor
though clothed and surrounded with all material splendor.

It destroys spirituality, too, because it holds the mind to a material
thing as the source of all good. The spiritual man rises to the true
source of our blessings, the author of all temporal good, from whose
hand every living thing is fed.

This, as all idolatry, leads to a breaking away from the restraints of
the moral law. The devotion to the material leads, logically and
practically, to a neglect of the restraints of the spiritual, and a
preponderance of subserviency to the material. Practices that will
promote the material are indulged though the moral law may be broken.
The material is not held subject to the needs of the higher nature,
nor subject to the promotion of the kingdom of God, but man's noblest
gifts and the worship of God are all made, if possible, to minister to
the material interests.

To brea