ination: the wind,
blowing from the south, beats on her left side. She wanders from her
course and is shipwrecked. Whence these opposite results? Was the first
ship saved because she met a north wind, and the second lost because she
fell in with a wind from the south? Nay, verily: but because the one so
received the wind, from whatever point of the compass it might blow, as
to be impelled by it onward in her course: and the other, instead of
wisely employing every wind to help her forward, allowed herself to
drift before the wind that happened to blow.

Mammon, the world--ah, is it not adverse to the interests of our souls?
What then? Believer, adversary though it be, you may make it your
friend. A skilful seaman, when once fairly out to sea, can make a wind
from the west carry him westward! he can make the wind that blows right
in his face bear him onward to the very point from which it blows. When
he arrives at home, he is able to say the wind from the west impelled me
westward, and led me into my desired haven.

Thus if we were skilful, and watchful, and earnest, we might make the
unrighteous mammon our friend; we might so turn our side to each of its
tortuous impulses, that willing or unwilling, conscious or unconscious,
it should from day to day drive us nearer home.

The parable is in this peculiar, that in the moral lesson which the
Master enforces at the close, he retains and employs the phraseology of
the story. "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness," &c. The meaning is by the context made plain, and the
reader may translate the metaphor as he proceeds. The steward, while he
remained in his place, so handled the property in his power as to secure
for himself a home when he should be removed from his place: in like
manner let men so use material possessions while they live on earth,
that these very possessions shall be found to have helped them toward
their eternal rest. When a man's ways please God, he maketh even his
enemies to be at peace with him. These things that are enemies, and that
overcome many, you may make your friends; you may turn to them such a
side, that every time they strike they shall press you nearer rest, and
at their last stroke impel you through the narrow entrance into the joy
of your Lord.

XXVI.

THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS.

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine
linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a