e manger to the grave is among
the poorest of the poor. He belonged to the great class of the
disinherited. If the greatest thing on earth sprang from poverty such
as this, then surely Christmas pours the contempt of heaven upon Mammon.

II

We have only to look at him with eyes cleansed by gazing at the Child
in the manger and we realise how tawdry a god this Mammon is. What can
he do for us? Nothing of any worth. He has never minted a coinage
which can buy the inspiration of a noble thought, which can purchase
love for the starved heart, or can endow a man with the vision and the
faculty divine. One has but to consider a moment and he will realise
the poverty-stricken condition of Mammon's devotees. They can command
speed on earth or in the air; they can fly a hundred miles an hour; but
what is the good when at the end of the hundred miles they are as at
the beginning--sated, restless, and dissatisfied? They can command no
speed by which they can escape from themselves. And it is vain to wing
a flight upwards through the air if heaven be empty overhead; vain to
alight five hundred miles away if on earth there be no temple, no holy
day, no shrine at which to worship. 'You own the land,' said the poor
painter to the new-rich who boasted his land: 'you own the land but I
own the landscape.' The great gift is to own the landscape. And no
money ever bought that. The only thing Mammon can do is to secure
food, shelter, and clothes. It can also secure freedom from work--but
that is a freedom shared with the tramp. Life is greater far than
livelihood; and the worshippers of Mammon lose the very essence and the
end of life in a vain pursuit of the means of living.

That is the witness raised by Christmas as it calls the nations to
realise the true greatness of man. To a generation that has made life
a hectic rush after money and pleasure, Christmas testifies that to
estimate any man by the money he owns is to blaspheme against the Child
laid in the manger. The wealth of Croesus makes him but the prey of
the conqueror, and the dust of centuries has buried the pomp and glory
of emperors. But this Child, cradled in poverty, reigns from
generation to generation. The voice of an Alexander or a Napoleon
would to-day cause no heart to beat quicker; but millions would die for
Him. And that because He alone revealed to men the things that are
unpurchasable, the riches that are unseen. He alone made men realise