to the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven." The Church has
always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.

And when the next verse was written the Church must have been nearly
dead-broke. "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God." Did you ever know a wealthy disciple to unload on
account of that verse?

And then comes another verse, which I believe is an interpolation: "And
every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or father
or mother, or wife or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall
receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." Christ
never said it. Never. "Whosoever shall forsake father and mother."
Why He said to this man who asked him "What shall I do to inherit
eternal life?" among other things, He said "Honor thy father and thy
mother." And we turn over the page and He says: "If you will desert
your father and your mother you shall have everlasting life." It won't
do. If you desert your wife and your little children, or your
lands--the idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife and
children. Think of that! I do not accept the terms. I will never
desert the one I love for the promise of any God.

It is far more important that we shall love our wives than that we
shall love God. And I will tell you why you cannot help Him. You can
help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It
is far more important that you love your children than that you love
Jesus Christ.--And why? If He is God you cannot help Him, but you can
plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from
the cradle until you die in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day,
it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The
holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And
the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which
gather father and mother and children.

There was a time when people believed that infamy. There was a time
when they did desert fathers; and mothers, and wives and children. St.
Augustine says to the devotee: "Fly to the desert, and though your wife
put her arms around your neck, tear her hands away; she is a temptation
of the devil. Though your father and mother throw their bodies athwart
your threshold, step over them; and though your c