But what a man is will depend on what he does with the things he has or may have. Let him once set the possession of things as his loftiest ideal, let this avarice of things enter the heart and speedily the love of the good will leave. To that god all honour, all truth loving, all gentleness and humanity are sacrificed. When possession becomes life's ruling passion it doesn't take long for principle to be forgotten. The danger to-day is not that our people will fail in the world's contests because they lack either money, mind, or muscle. We are in little danger from illiteracy or from business incompetency; but we are in danger from moral paralysis, due to undue pressure on the money nerve. We have talked before the youth in the home and amongst ourselves on the street as though the only thing worth living for was money, as though they alone were great who had it and they only to be despised who had it not. The danger is neither in our market, our commerce, nor our laws; the danger is in our own hearts. No matter how world-potent our merchandise, how marvellous our mechanical and material powers, how brilliant our business strategy, all will not avail to silence the voice, "Thou fool, this night thy soul is required of thee." Then whose shall these things be? We need, not fewer things, not the return to an age of poverty or dreary destitution; we need more power over things; to let the man, so long buried beneath the money and the lands and houses, come to the top; to set ourselves over our things; to make them serve us, minister to our lives and our purposes in living. There must be an elevation of standards, the institution of new valuations, clearer, nobler conceptions of what living means. Boys and girls must be taught from the beginning that life is more than self-serving, more than fame or glory; it is the service of humanity. A passion for humanity will cure the passion for gold, will teach the true value of life as something that only the infinite can estimate and will give to the heart those true riches that do not tarnish and that cannot be stolen. II Invisible Allies _More Than a Fighting Chance_ _The Unseen Hand_ _The One in the Midst_ _Logic may illumine, but love leads._ _The religion that produces no sunshine is all moonshine._ _Imaginary evils have more than imaginary effects._ _He who lays out each day with prayer leaves it with praise._ _Light from above is for the path below._ _Singing of heaven gives no certainty of singing in heaven._ _It is better to have your bank in heaven than your heaven in a bank._ _The burdens of earth demand that our hearts be nourished with the bread of heaven._ _There are too many hungry for love for any ever to talk of suffering from loneliness._ _The man who lives with God does not have to advertise the fact._ II MOKE THAN A FIGHTING CHANCE