We need homes--we all need shelter and we need about the same amount. In fact, God was very democratic in the distribution of our needs, for He so created us that our needs are about the same. The range of expenditure for homes is probably wider than in the case of either food or clothing. We are interested in the home. I never pass a little house where two young people are starting out in life without a feeling of sympathetic interest in that home; I never pass a house where a room is being added without feeling interested, for I know the occupants have planned it, and looked forward to it and waited for it; I like to see a little house moved back and a larger house built, for I know it is the fulfillment of a dream. I have had some of these dreams myself, and I know how they lead us on and inspire us to larger effort and greater endeavour, and yet there is a limit to the amount one can wisely spend even for so good a thing as a home. If a man gets too big a house it becomes a burden to him, and many have had this experience. Not infrequently a young couple start out poor and struggle along in a little house, looking forward to the time when they can build a big house. After a while the time arrives and they build a big house, larger, possibly, than they intended to, and it nearly always costs more than they thought it would, and then they struggle along the rest of their lives looking back to the time when they lived in a little house. We speak of people being _independently rich_. That is a mistake; they are _dependency rich_. The richer a man is the more dependent he is--the more people he depends upon to help him collect his income, and the more people he depends upon to help him spend his income. Sometimes a couple will start out doing their own work--the wife doing the work inside the house and the man outside. But they prosper, and after a while they are able to afford help; they get a girl to help the wife inside and a man to help the husband outside; then they prosper more--and they get two girls to help inside and two men to help outside, then three girls inside and three men outside. Finally they have so many girls helping inside and so many men helping outside that they cannot leave the house--they have to stay at home and look after the establishment. This is not a new condition. One of the Latin poets complained of "the cares that hover about the fretted ceilings of the rich!" It was this condition that inspired Charles Wagner to write his little book entitled "The Simple Life," in which he entered an eloquent protest against the materialism which makes man the slave of his possessions; he presented an earnest plea for the raising of the spiritual above the purely physical. I repeat, that there is a limit to the amount a man can wisely spend upon a home. I need not remind you that the rich are tempted to spend money on the vices that destroy--money honestly earned may thus become a curse rather than a blessing.