“Alas, poor Dives! poor server of Mammon, whose vile god can pretend to deliver him no longer!  Or rather, for the blockish god never pretended anything—­it was the man’s own doing—­Alas for the Mammon-worshipper! he can no longer deceive himself in his riches.  And so even in hell he is something nobler than he was on earth; for he worships his riches no longer.  He cannot.  He curses them.

“Terrible things to say on Christmas Day!  But if Christmas Day teaches us anything, it teaches us to worship God and not Mammon; to worship spirit and not matter; to worship love and not power.

“Do I now hear any of my friends saying in their hearts:  Let the rich take that!  It does not apply to us.  We are poor enough?  Ah, my friends, I have known a light-hearted, liberal rich man lose his riches, and be liberal and light-hearted still.  I knew a rich lady once, in giving a large gift of money to a poor man, say apologetically, ’I hope it is no disgrace in me to be rich, as it is none in you to be poor.’  It is not the being rich that is wrong, but the serving of riches, instead of making them serve your neighbour and yourself—­your neighbour for this life, yourself for the everlasting habitations.  God knows it is hard for the rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven; but the rich man does sometimes enter in; for God hath made it possible.  And the greater the victory, when it is the rich man that overcometh the world.  It is easier for the poor man to enter into the kingdom, yet many of the poor have failed to enter in, and the greater is the disgrace of their defeat.  For the poor have more done for them, as far as outward things go, in the way of salvation than the rich, and have a beatitude all to themselves besides.  For in the making of this world as a school of salvation, the poor, as the necessary majority, have been more regarded than the rich.  Do not think, my poor friend, that God will let you off.  He lets nobody off.  You, too, must pay the uttermost farthing.  He loves you too well to let you serve Mammon a whit more than your rich neighbour.  ‘Serve Mammon!’ do you say?  ’How can I serve Mammon?  I have no Mammon to serve.’—­Would you like to have riches a moment sooner than God gives them?  Would you serve Mammon if you had him?—­’Who can tell?’ do you answer?  ’Leave those questions till I am tried.’  But is there no bitterness in the tone of that response?  Does it not mean, ’It will be a long time before I have a chance of trying that?’—­But I am not driven to such questions for the chance of convicting some of you of Mammon-worship.  Let us look to the text.  Read it again.

“’Ye cannot serve god and mammon.  Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life.’