But every reasonable man knows what advantages money, and nothing but money, will obtain, not only for a man himself but for his children; and answers me—­If I wish to rise in life, if I wish my children to rise in life, how can I do it, without making money?

God forbid that I should check an honourable ambition, and a desire to rise in life.  We all ought to rise in life, and to rise far higher than most of us are likely to rise.  But I ask you to consider very seriously what you mean by rising in life.

Do you mean by rising in life, merely becoming a richer man; living in a larger house, eating, drinking, clothing, better; having more servants, carriages, plate?  Is that to be the highest triumph of all your labours?  Is that your notion of rising in life?  If it is, you are not singular in your notion.  There are thousands who call themselves civilized and Christians, and yet have no higher notion of what man’s highest good may be.  But do you mean by rising in life, simply becoming a nobler, because a better man?  For if you mean that latter, I seriously advise you to hearken to what the Creator and Governor of all heaven and earth, Jesus Christ our Lord, has told you on that matter, when He said—­“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Seek ye first the kingdom of God.  Alas! this money-making generation talks a great deal about religion and saving their souls, being quite indifferent to the serious question—­whether their souls are worth saving or not:  but as for the kingdom of God, of which our Lord and His Apostles speak so often, they have forgotten altogether what it is.  They talk too, a great deal, about the righteousness of Christ:  but they have forgotten also what the righteousness of Christ, which is also the righteousness of God, is like.

The kingdom of God; the government of God; the laws and rules by which Christ, King of kings, and King, too, of every nation and man on earth, whether they know it or not, governs mankind, that is what you have to seek, because it is there already.  You are in Christ’s kingdom.  If you wish to prosper in it, find out what its laws are.  That will be true wisdom.  For in keeping the commandments of God, and in obeying His laws; in that alone is life; life for body and soul; life for time and for eternity.

And the righteousness of God, which is the righteousness of Christ;—­find out what that is, and pray to Christ to give it to you; for so alone will you be what a man should be, created after God in righteousness and true holiness, and renewed into the image and likeness of God.  You will find plenty of persons now, as in all times, who will tell you that you need not do that; that all you need, for this world or the world to come, is some righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; calling that—­oh shame that such a glorious and eternal truth should be so caricatured