Much, however, as Christ has to say concerning the noble uses to which wealth may be put, it is not here, as every reader of the Gospels must feel, that the full emphasis of His words comes. It is when He goes on to speak of the perils of the rich, and of our wrong estimates of the worth of wealth, that His solemn warnings pierce to the quick. Christ did not live, nor does He call us to live, in an unreal world, though perhaps there are few subjects concerning which more unreal words have been spoken than this. The power of wealth is great, the power of consecrated wealth is incalculably great; and this the New Testament freely recognizes; but wealth is _not_ the great, necessary, all-sufficing thing that ninety-nine out of a hundred of us believe it to be. And when we put it first, and make it the standard by which all things else are to be judged, Christ tells us plainly that we are falling into a temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts; we are piercing ourselves through with many sorrows. For once at least, then, let us try to look at money with His eyes and to weigh it in His balances. Christ was Himself a poor man. His mother was what to-day we should call a working-man's wife, and probably also the mother of a large family. When, as an infant, Jesus was presented in the Temple, the offering which His parents brought was that which the law prescribed in the case of the poor: "a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons." When He came to manhood, and entered on His public ministry, He had no home He could call His own. In His Father's house, He said, were many mansions; but on earth He had not where to lay His head. Women ministered unto Him of their substance. We never read that He had any money at all. When once He wanted to use a coin as an illustration, He borrowed it; when, at another time, He needed one with which to pay a tax, He wrought a miracle in order to procure it. As He was dying, the soldiers, we are told, parted His garments among them--that was all there was to divide. When He was dead, men buried Him in another's tomb. More literally true than perhaps we always realize was the apostle's saying, "He became poor."