But if, on the other hand, it come into a man's possession accompanied by a pure unselfish motive that _controls_, it comes the nearest to omnipotence of anything we handle. Gold of itself seems to have the puckering quality of a green persimmon. The green fruit will contract the mouth to its smallest proportions. And unmellowed gold acts in the same way upon the mouth of the pocket. This is true of all gold and of all pockets. There are no exceptions. The only possible way of effecting a change is to let a stronger power come in and counteract the contracting power. Gold has the greatest contracting power of any earthly substance. Its only sufficient counteractant is God. God has the greatest expanding power known to angels or men. Gold contracts. God expands. If God be the dominating motive power in a man's life, then does gold come the nearest to omnipotence of any tangible thing. It takes on the quality of Him who breathes upon it. Jesus' Law for the Use of Money. Jesus gives us the simple law for the right use of money. It is in that sixteenth chapter of Luke. He is talking about the dishonest overseer of a wealthy man's estate. His dishonest practices have been discovered, and he is required to make a final settlement preliminary to his being discharged. He has evidently been living extravagantly, for the loss of position threatens him with beggary. Distressed to know what to do he hits upon a farther extension of his dishonest practices, and uses the position he is about to lose to buy up friends for his coming days of want. As he tells the story Jesus adds this comment: "for the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of light." Practically they go on the supposition that the present generation is the only one. For the short space of years making up their own generation they are wiser than the sons of light. But for the long space of all coming generations they are the rankest fools. That is included by contrast in Jesus' words. The man who in his use of money thinks only or chiefly of the years making up his own present life is--a fool. The man who takes into his reckoning not only the present generation, but all coming generations, in disposing of his money is the shrewd financier. Then occurs the sentence[17] that contains a wonderfully simple statement for the keen, wise use of gold. The old version runs like this: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations." The revised version, both English and American, reads this way: "Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness that when _it_ shall fail they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles."