ll His followers in subsequent
years, and that such literal obedience is practicable, reasonable and
conducive to the highest well-being of society. Secondly, it has been
said that Jesus was a gentle and honest visionary, who erroneously
believed that the possession of riches rendered religious progress
impossible, but that strict compliance with His commands would be
destructive of civilization. Laveleye declares that "if Christianity
were taught and understood conformably to the spirit of its Founder, the
existing social organism could not last a day." Thirdly, neither of
these views seems to do justice to the spirit of Christ, for they fail
to give proper recognition to many other injunctions of the Master and
to many significant incidents in his public ministry. Exhaustive
treatment of this subject is, of course, impossible here. Briefly it may
be remarked, that Jesus looked upon wealth as tending oftentimes to
foster an unsocial spirit. Rich men are liable to become enemies of the
brotherhood Jesus sought to establish, by reason of their covetousness
and contracted sympathies. The rich man is in danger of erecting false
standards of manhood, of ignoring the highest interests of the soul by
an undue emphasis on the material. Wealth, in itself, is not an evil,
but it is only a good when it is used to advance the real welfare of
humanity. Jesus was not intent upon teaching economics. His purpose was
to develop the man. It was the moral value and spiritual influence of
material things that concerned him. Professor Shailer Mathews admirably
states the true attitude of Jesus towards rich men: "Jesus was a friend
neither of the working man nor the rich man as such. He calls the poor
man to sacrifice as well as the rich man. He was the Son of Man, not the
son of a class of men. But His denunciation is unsparing of those men
who make wealth at the expense of souls; who find in capital no
incentive to further fraternity; who endeavor so to use wealth as to
make themselves independent of social obligations, and to grow fat with
that which should be shared with society;--for those men who are gaining
the world but are letting their neighbors fall among thieves and Lazarus
rot among their dogs."

Jesus was therefore not a foe to rich men as such, but to that
antisocial, abnormal regard for wealth and its procurements, which leads
to the creation of class distinctions and impedes the full and free
development of our common human