That teaching must, also, be judged by the attitude of Jesus toward men. The well-to-do were in his band of disciples. The father of John and James had servants; and when Jesus died on the Cross John had evidently a comfortable home to which the mother of Jesus was taken. Nicodemus was rich. Yet in his conversation with him Christ is not represented as making a demand that the ruler of the Jews should give up his wealth. The demand was far more comprehensive. Zaccheus was rich. But in the table conversation with the publican there is no call to voluntary poverty. Joseph of Arimathea was rich. Still he appears to have been numbered with the disciples and to have had the honor of providing the sepulcher for the body of Christ. All this would make it certain that some of our Lord's teaching was directed toward an individual danger and so was not meant for a universal application. The fact that Peter said to Simon Magus, "Thy money perish with thee," does not warrant us in repeating the same words to every man who possesses some wealth. The rebuke was evoked by a personal and peculiar attitude. If the teaching of Jesus, as he dealt with rich men, varied in a marked degree, it is only reasonable to suppose that he was fitting his message to the individual subject. The fallacy of the universal has not yet departed from our treatment of the words of Christ. But even when we take the whole of Jesus's teaching rather than any fraction thereof, and after we have given full consideration to the personal element in his method, there is still a sobering remainder with which we must deal. The attempt to make the parable of Dives and Lazarus a straight contrast between the final fate of a rich man and that of a poor man cannot succeed. Lazarus was not sent to heaven because he was poor. He was not given a place in Abraham's bosom on the ground of his poverty of circumstances, but on the ground of his wealth of character. Any other conclusion is abhorrent to the moral sense. Should poverty admit to heaven, some of the most unmitigated rascals are sure to meet the conditions of entrance. Nor was Dives sent to hell because he was rich. The contrast in earthly conditions of which Abraham reminds him cannot fairly be taken to mean that the reward of poverty is heaven and the penalty of wealth is hell. The meaning is that earthly plenty and earthly want cannot prevent the rounding out of God's purposes. Condition will inevitably come to correspond with real character. Should any rich man be minded to plead with himself that his wealth was, in itself, any evidence that its owner was entitled to special privileges in the next world corresponding to his special privileges in this world, this parable would meet him with its needed corrective.