Money is good; for money stands for capital; for money’s worth; for houses, land, food, clothes, all that man can make; and they stand for labour, employment, wages; and they stand for human beings, for the bodily life of man.  Without wealth, where should we be now?  If God had not given to man the power of producing wealth, where should we be now?  Not here.  Four-fifths of us would not have been alive at all.  Instead of eight hundred people in this parish, all more or less well off, there would be, perhaps, one hundred—­perhaps far less, living miserably on game and roots.  Instead of thirty millions of civilized people in Great Britain, there would be perhaps some two or three millions of savages.  Money, I say, stands for the lives of human beings.  Therefore money is good; an ordinance and a gift of God; as it is written, ’It is God that giveth the power to get wealth.’  But, like every other good gift of God, we may use it as a blessing; or we may misuse it, and make it a snare and a curse to our own souls.  If we let into our hearts selfishness and falsehood; if we lose faith in God, and fancy that God’s laws are not well-made enough to prosper us, but that we must break them if we want to prosper; then we turn God’s good gift into an idol and a snare; into the unrighteous Mammon.

It is not the quantity of money we have to deal with which is the snare, it is our own lusts and covetousness which are the snares.  It is just as easy to sell our souls for five pounds as for five thousand.  It is just as easy to be mean and tricky about paying little debts of a shilling or two, as it is about whole estates.  I do not see that rich people are at all more unjust about money than poor ones; and if any say:  Yes, but the poor are tempted more than the rich; I answer, then look at those who are neither poor nor rich; who have enough to live on decently, and are not tempted as the poor are, to steal, or tempted as the rich are, to luxury and extravagance.  Are they more honest than either rich or poor?  Not a whit.  All depends on the man’s heart.  If his heart be selfish and mean, he will be dishonest as a poor man, as a middle-class man, as a great lord.  If his heart be faithful and true, he will be honest, whether he lives in a cottage or in a palace.  Any man can do justly, and love mercy, if his heart be right with God.  I have seen day-labourers who had a hard struggle to live at all, keep out of debt, and out of shame, and live in a noble poverty, rich in the sight of God, because their hearts were rich in goodness.  I have seen tradesmen and farmers, among all the temptations of business, keep their honour as bright as any gentleman’s—­brighter than too many gentlemen’s, because they had learnt to fear God and work righteousness.  I have seen great merchants and manufacturers, because that they were their brothers’ keepers, spread not only employment, but comfort, education, and religion, among the hundreds of workmen whom God had put into their charge.  I have seen great landowners live truly royal lives, doing with all their might the good which their hand found to do; and, after the likeness of their heavenly Father, causing their sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and their rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.  Yes; in every station of life, thy dealings will be right with men, if thy heart be right with God.