commercial spirit?" Yet I
must say that you ought to spend time getting rich. You and I know
there are some things more valuable than money; of course, we do. Ah,
yes! By a heart made unspeakably sad by a grave on which the autumn
leaves now fall, I know there are some things higher and grander and
sublimer than money. Well does the man know, who has suffered, that
there are some things sweeter and holier and more sacred than gold.
Nevertheless, the man of common sense also knows that there is not any
one of those things that is not greatly enhanced by the use of money.
Money is power. Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but
fortunate the lover who has plenty of money. Money is power; money has
powers; and for a man to say, "I do not want money," is to say, "I do
not wish to do any good to my fellowmen." It is absurd thus to talk.
It is absurd to disconnect them. This is a wonderfully great life, and
you ought to spend your time getting money, because of the power there
is in money. And yet this religious prejudice is so great that some
people think it is a great honor to be one of God's poor. I am looking
in the faces of people who think just that way. I heard a man once
say in a prayer meeting that he was thankful that he was one of God's
poor, and then I silently wondered what his wife would say to that
speech, as she took in washing to support the man while he sat and
smoked on the veranda. I don't want to see any more of that kind of
God's poor. Now, when a man could have been rich just as well, and he
is now weak because he is poor, he has done some great wrong; he has
been untruthful to himself; he has been unkind to his fellowmen. We
ought to get rich if we can by honorable and Christian methods, and
these are the only methods that sweep us quickly toward the goal of
riches.

I remember, not many years ago a young theological student who came
into my office and said to me that he thought it was his duty to come
in and "labor with me." I asked him what had happened, and he said: "I
feel it is my duty to come in and speak to you, sir, and say that the
Holy Scriptures declare that money is the root of all evil." I asked
him where he found that saying, and he said he found it in the Bible.
I asked him whether he had made a new Bible, and he said, no, he had
not gotten a new Bible, that it was in the old Bible. "Well," I
said, "if it is in my Bible, I never saw it. Will you please get the
text-book and let m