ned his fortune in a dishonest way. All other charges are
removed, that the weight lying all on one point may more effectually
imprint the intended lesson. To have represented him as dishonest or
drunken, would have blunted the weapon's edge. Here is an affluent
citizen, on whose fair fame the breath of scandal can affix no blot. He
had a large portion in this world, and did not seek--did not desire any
other. He spent his wealth in pleasing himself, and did not lay it out
in serving God or helping man. It is not of essential importance whether
such a man miserably hoard his money, or voluptuously spend it in feasts
and fine clothing. Some men take more pleasure in wealth accumulated,
and others more in wealth as the means of obtaining luxuries. These are
two branches from one root; the difference is superficial and
accidental: the essence of the evil is the same in both--a life of
self-pleasing--"without God in the world."

By a transition, purposely made very abrupt, we learn next that a
beggar named Lazarus[95] was laid at this rich man's gate, full of
sores. Whether the position was chosen by the man himself, or by his
friends for him, the motive is obvious--it was expected that where so
much was expended, perhaps also wasted, some crumbs might come the
beggar's way.

[95] The name of the poor man is given, while the rich man is left
nameless. Generally, Christ's kingdom is not of this world, and, in
particular, it does not imitate this world's kingdoms in throwing
the common people into anonymous heaps, and recording the names of
only the great. I saw in an extension of the parish churchyard the
graves of the two hundred men who perished in the pit accident at
Hartley a few years ago. They were grouped in families of two,
three, four, or five, and these family groups were arranged in
extended rows; but all were nameless. Near them slept the dust of
the hereditary owners of the soil under monumental marble, loaded
with statuary and inscriptions. Subjects of Christ's kingdom, "it
shall not be so among you." Nor is the law which obtains in the
heavenly the direct reverse of that which obtains in the earthly
kingdom; it is not the poor, but the "poor in spirit," to whom the
kingdom of heaven belongs. The names that are recorded in the Lamb's
book of life are neither those who have nor those who lack this
world's wealth, but those who are poor in spirit and rich in grace.

"The dogs