Riches got by deceit, cheat no man so much as the getter. Riches bought with guile, God will pay for with vengeance. Riches got by fraud, are dug out of one's own heart, and destroy the mine. Unjust riches curse the owner in getting, in keeping, in transmitting.
How many threadbare souls are to be found under silken cloaks and gowns!
Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God's word? Yea, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health, or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, wisdom? Yet men toil for them day and night, and take no rest. Therefore our Lord God commonly gives riches to foolish people to whom He gives nothing else.
The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil.
It is not the fact that a man has riches which keeps him from the kingdom of heaven, but the fact that riches have him.
RIGHTS.
Almost two thousand years ago there was One here on this earth who lived the grandest life that ever has been lived yet, a life that every thinking man, with deeper or shallower meaning has agreed to call Divine. I read little respecting His rights or of His claims of rights; but I have read a great deal respecting His duties. Every act He did He called a duty.
