“Friend, be not a slave.  Be wary.  Look not on the gold when it is yellow in thy purse.  Hoard not.  In God’s name, spend—­spend on.  Take heed how thou spendest, but take heed that thou spend.  Be thou as the sun in heaven; let thy gold be thy rays, thy angels of love and life and deliverance.  Be thou a candle of the Lord to spread His light through the world.  If hitherto, in any fashion of faithlessness, thou hast radiated darkness into the universe, humble thyself, and arise and shine.

“But if thou art poor, then look not on thy purse when it is empty.  He who desires more than God wills him to have, is also a servant of mammon, for he trusts in what God has made, and not in God Himself.  He who laments what God has taken from him, he is a servant of mammon.  He who for care can not pray, is a servant of mammon.  There are men in this town who love and trust their horses more than the God that made them and their horses too.  None the less confidently will they give judgment on the doctrine of God.  But the opinion of no man who does not render back his soul to the living God and live in Him, is, in religion, worth the splinter of a straw.  Friends, cast your idol into the furnace; melt your mammon down, coin him up, make God’s money of him, and send him coursing.  Make of him cups to carry the gift of God, the water of life, through the world—­in lovely justice to the oppressed, in healthful labor to them whom no man hath hired, in rest to the weary who have borne the burden and heat of the day, in joy to the heavy-hearted, in laughter to the dull-spirited.  Let them all be glad with reason, and merry without revel.  Ah! what gifts in music, in drama, in the tale, in the picture, in the spectacle, in books and models, in flowers and friendly feasting, what true gifts might not the mammon of unrighteousness, changed back into the money of God, give to men and women, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh!  How would you not spend your money for the Lord, if He needed it at your hand!  He does need it; for he that spends it upon the least of his fellows, spends it upon his Lord.  To hold fast upon God with one hand, and open wide the other to your neighbor—­that is religion; that is the law and the prophets, and the true way to all better things that are yet to come.—­Lord, defend us from Mammon.  Hold Thy temple against his foul invasion.  Purify our money with Thy air, and Thy sun, that it may be our slave, and Thou our Master.  Amen.”

The moment his sermon was ended, the curate always set himself to forget it.  This for three reasons:  first, he was so dissatisfied with it, that to think of it was painful—­and the more, that many things he might have said, and many better ways of saying what he had said, would constantly present themselves.  Second, it was useless to brood over what could not be bettered; and, third, it was hurtful, inasmuch as it prevented the growth of new, hopeful, invigorating thought, and took from his strength, and the quality of his following endeavor.  A man’s labors must pass like the sunrises and sunsets of the world.  The next thing, not the last, must be his care.  When he reached home, he would therefore use means to this end of diversion, and not unfrequently would write verses.  Here are those he wrote that afternoon.