more human we become, the more Christlike, the less are we the slaves of physical conditions and necessities.
It is not the purpose and end of Christ's religion to make men rich and comfortable; it is its purpose and end to lift them to worlds where riches and comfort cease to have value or meaning. They who turn from the things the vulgar crave, and seek the source of true life in spheres to which the senses do not lead, alone know the infinite sweetness and joy there is in serving Him. They must learn to be cruel to themselves, to withstand even their lawful desires, if they would drink the living waters of the fountain of peace and bliss. Not by intellectual processes can He be discovered, but by leading a life which none but the modest and mild, the lowly-minded and pure-hearted, can live. If we would have the higher, we must renounce the lower. Heroic abnegations are required of those who would enter on the perfect way. It is not enough that they be humble and obedient and free from greed; they must also be wholly chaste.
There is something more worthy of the soul than the pursuit of wealth, and there is a higher calling than marriage, sacrament though it be. As there is in man an immoderate desire for riches, there is also in him an insatiate craving for pleasure. Mountains of gold could not satisfy his greed, and a world filled with things that minister to the senses could not hush the clamor of his unruly appetites. The more ample and varied his possessions become, the stronger and more uncontrollable grows his longing for enjoyment. He tunnels the mountains; he spans the oceans; he flies on vaporous wings; he harnesses the lightning to carry him and his words to the ends of the earth; he takes possession of the products of every zone and of every kind of skill. All things become for him the materials for the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life. And still he hungers and thirsts for new sensations. He becomes the slave and victim of low desire. The passions, which are meant for life and joy, are perverted to the service of misery and death. Their reek rises to darken the mind, to harden the heart and to paralyze the will. Love is driven from its celestial home and cast into the soil and mire of the animal
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