CHAPTER VI THE BIBLE AND WEALTH The word "wealth" as used in this discussion does not mean simply great riches; it rather means those outer and visible means which have a certain purchasing power and which gain their value from that fact. The word is relative at best. A wealthy man of fifty years ago would by many be deemed a poor man now; while, in the individual estimate, one man's poverty would be another man's riches. We have all discovered, too, that persons may be tested by their attitude toward little as well as by their attitude toward much. The man who breaks down in his use of a thousand dollars is not likely to recover his conscience in his use of a million dollars. There is high authority for the belief that he that is faithful in a few things can be trusted with rulership over many things. This principle will apply to riches quite as well as to cities. We must necessarily take at large discount the vigorous attack that is made on great wealth by the man who is narrow and selfish in his use of moderate wealth. One ray of light falling into a dark dungeon will test a man's attitude toward light; and so the real personal attitude toward one coin may become the revelation of a human heart. All of us must live within the realm of material endeavor. Six days of the week are given by the average man in an effort to win worldly goods. If, as is generally supposed, Jesus went back from the temple scene in Jerusalem when he was twelve years of age and worked in the village carpenter shop until he was thirty, he spent eighteen years in a remunerative employment ere he entered upon the three years of public ministry. It is a mechanical conception again; but it is interesting to observe that the proportion of his years spent in his trade is the same six sevenths of the time that most men must spend in the effort to gain the necessaries or luxuries of life. One has only to stand on the streets of the city in the early morning and see the throngs as they move to their places of work to appreciate how large a part the wage motive plays in actual living. Each day many millions of men and women go down to the various marts in order that in the evening time they may come back from the struggle with increased gains. If the Bible takes an attitude toward the spirit that dominates work it must also take an attitude toward the spirit that dominates the object of work. It would be small use to have men made right toward toil if they were to be twisted in their relation to the proceeds of toil. We should expect, then, that the Bible would give some explicit teaching to individual men concerning the right attitude toward wealth; and when we turn to the Holy Book this expectation is fully met.