1. The Vow of Poverty. The monks of all countries held the possession of riches to be a barrier to high spiritual attainments. In view of the fact that an inordinate love of wealth has proved disastrous to many nations, and that it is extremely difficult for a rich man to escape the hardening, enervating and corrupting influences of affluence, the position of the monks on this question is easily understood. The Christian monks based their vow of poverty upon the Bible, and especially upon the teachings of Christ, who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor. He said to the rich young man, "Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor." In commissioning the disciples to preach the gospel He said: "Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses; nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes." In the discourse on counting the cost of discipleship, He said: "So therefore, whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." He promised rewards to "every one that left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands for my name's sake." "It is easier," He once said, "for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." He portrayed the pauper Lazarus as participating in the joys of heaven, while the rich Dives endured the torments of the lost. As reported in Luke, He said, "Blessed are ye poor." He Himself was without a place to lay His head, a houseless wanderer upon the earth. The apostle James cries to the men of wealth: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl, for your miseries that shall come upon you." John said: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Whatever these passages, and many others of like import, may signify, it is not at all strange that Christians, living in times when wealth was abused, and when critical Biblical scholarship was unknown, should have understood Christ to command a life of poverty as an indispensable condition of true holiness.