e nineteenth chapter, we hear Zacchaeus, into whose
home and heart Christ had entered, resolving on the threshold of his new
life that henceforth the half of his goods he would give to the poor,
and that where he had wrongfully exacted aught of any man he would
restore four-fold. It is indeed a remarkable fact, the full significance
of which few Christians have yet realized, that, as John Ruskin says,
the subject which we might have expected a Divine Teacher would have
been content to leave to others is the very one He singles out on which
to speak parables for all men's memory.[49]

II

The question is sometimes asked how the teaching of Jesus concerning
money is related to that strange product of civilization, the modern
millionaire. The present writer, at least, cannot hold with those who
think that Christ was a communist, or that He regarded the possession of
wealth as in itself a sin. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to
sympathize with the feeling that the accumulation of huge fortunes in
the hands of individuals is not according to the will of Christ. Mr.
Andrew Carnegie is reported to have said that a man who dies a
millionaire dies disgraced; and few persons who take their New Testament
seriously will be disposed to contradict him. But, inasmuch as all
millionaires are not prepared like Mr. Carnegie to save themselves from
disgrace, the question is beginning to arise in the minds of many,
whether society itself should not come to the rescue--its own and the
rich man's. No man, it may be pretty confidently affirmed, can possibly
_earn_ a million; he may obtain it, he may obtain it by methods which
are not technically unjust, but he has not earned it. Be a man's powers
what they may, it is impossible that his share of the wealth which he
has helped to create can be fairly represented by a sum so vast. If he
receives it, others may reasonably complain that there is something
wrong in the principle of distribution. And unless, both by a larger
justice to his employees, and by generous benefactions to the public, he
do something to correct the defects in his title, he must not be
surprised if some who feel themselves disinherited are driven to ask
ominous and inconvenient questions.

This, however, is a matter which it is impossible now to discuss
further. Turning again to Christ's sayings about money, we may summarize
them in this fashion: Christ says nothing about the making of money, He
says much about th