t there are ways of living,
forms of conduct, which are predatory and destructive of life, and
other ways that tend to make life increase and abound. When Jesus
contrasts His own conduct, as one who gives life and gives it
abundantly, with the thieves and robbers who kill and destroy, we must
interpret the conduct of those whom He describes as destructive of
life--as tending to the diminution of life. Indeed, it is a very deep
and awful truth that all our social action tends in one or other of
these directions. Life, in its proper relation, is the one supreme and
central good; the life of the body is the supreme good of the body;
the life of the spirit is the supreme good of the spirit. And you can
rightly estimate any act or habit or tendency of human conduct only by
determining whether it increases and invigorates the life of men, body
and spirit, or whether it reduces or diminishes their life. Good men
are adding to the life of those with whom they have to do; evil men
are debilitating and depleting the life of those with whom they have
to do.

Even in our economic relations the final effect of all our conduct
upon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life.
The wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for the
wage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon life
of the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems of
industry are good in proportion as they enlarge and invigorate the
life of the whole population; evil in proportion as they lessen and
weaken its life. So all industrial and national policies are to be
judged by the amount of life which they produce and maintain--life of
the body and of the spirit. Those strong words of John Ruskin are the
everlasting truth:

"There is no wealth but life--life including all its powers of love,
of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes
the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is
richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the
utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by
means of his possessions, over the lives of others,"

We have here, as you see, the Christian conception--the very word of
the Prince of Life, of Him who came that we might have life, and that
we might have it abundantly. And when His kingdom has come, this will
be the end for which wealth is sought and used in every nation.

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