The rich young ruler came to Jesus and faced his test; the demand that he should sell all and give to the poor simply put his heart on trial; it set before him the great choices; it decided as to the things which he held first. To him the possession of things was more than the possibilities of using them in service; before the great test he fell. It is just as easy and often fully as dangerous to set your heart on the gold you haven't got as it is to fall into the snare of the miser. Everything depends on the place you give to riches in your life. One man seeks them as a prize to be won and enjoyed for his own gratification, his own glory and fame; another seeks them only as larger avenues to usefulness, and to him riches come as tools, as servants, as possibilities of making his life count for more. Some men die with their houses full of tools unused; they have made the fatal mistake of setting their hearts on the tools instead of on the work. Others come to their accounting possessing as many tools, but all of them shining from hard use, and counting as their treasures not the tools but the things produced, the good accomplished. Wealth is for work and the work is for the making of the man. They enter the kingdom who are kingly, whether they learned the royal lesson and acquired the heavenly character through the school of poverty or that of riches. RELIGION AND BUSINESS The question, can a man be a Christian and succeed in business, though old, is still asked every day. There are yet a great many who regard religion and business as conflicting pursuits, and they attempt a compromise by the clear-cut division of time into business hours and church time. Others are answering this question in the negative. "Look at me," they say. "I have always been pious and honest, and therefore I have failed to make money or achieve success; religion does not pay." If the question means, can a man take out his backbone and succeed in business, there need be no hesitancy as to the answer. If becoming a Christian means the elimination of all virility from the character, the substitution of soft soap and sawder for strength and diligence, religion cannot be regarded as a help in business. There are too many people who think that sloth is a sign of spirituality and that you cannot be a saint unless you have softening of the brain. But it is simply whether you can keep your whole life, in the market or out, up to the level of a certain ideal, whether you can be honest, true, fair-minded, unselfish, merciful, and kind and at the same time do the work and meet the exigencies of modern commercial and industrial strife. It is whether you can measure steadily towards heaven's ideal while mastering earth's daily duties.