Clement justifies the institution of private property. He justifies, on the highest ethical and philosophical principles, the possession by Christians of even the most enormous wealth. His apologetic is not an original one. He borrows it bodily from Plato. Indeed he quotes Plato verbatim, invocation to Pan and the other heathen gods included.[31] The originality lies in applying this Platonic doctrine to the exposition of Christian scripture. Clement's method is strictly that of Biblical exegesis. In the well known sermon or essay on: "Who is the Rich Man that shall be saved" he takes up practically all of the scriptural passages which seem opposed to the institutions of private property and explains them in so modern a spirit that the whole sermon might be delivered today in any ordinary Church and would be readily accepted as sound and reliable doctrine. His thesis is that wealth or poverty are matters in themselves indifferent. That riches are not to be bodily gotten rid of, but are to be wisely conserved and treated as a stewardship intrusted to the owner by God. That charity to the poor should be in proportion to one's wealth and that a right use of wealth will secure salvation to the upright Christian even though he possesses great riches all his life and leaves them to his heirs. The wealth that is dangerous to the soul is not physical possessions, but spiritual qualities of greed and avarice. His views can be best expressed by himself. We give two characteristic passages from the sermon above referred to.[32] "Rich men that shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom, is to be apprehended in a scholarly way, not awkwardly, or rustically, or carnally. For if the expression is used thus, salvation does not depend upon external things, whether they be many or few, small or great, or illustrious or obscure or esteemed or disesteemed; but on the virtue of the soul, on faith and hope and love and brotherliness, and knowledge, and meekness and humility and truth the reward of which is salvation." "Sell thy possessions. What is this? He does not, as some off hand conceive, bid him throw away the substance he possesses and abandon his property; but he bids him banish from his soul his notions about wealth, his excitement and morbid feeling about it, the anxieties, which are the thorns of existence which choke the seed of life. And what peculiar thing is it that the new creature, the Son of God intimates and teaches? It is not the outward act which others have done, but something else indicated by it, greater, more godlike, more perfect, the stripping off of the passions from the soul itself and from the disposition, and the cutting up by the roots and casting out of what is alien to the mind." "One, after ridding himself of the burden of wealth, may none the less have still the lust and desire for money innate and living; and may have abandoned the use of it, but being at once destitute of and desiring