soft
mantles over lawns and roofs in the city, and only in the streets was
its white purity turned by the traffic of man into vileness. On a
sharp, clear morning Hubert Gray walked through the cutting air toward
his office, and meditated thus:

"What am I doing? What is the occupation that employs so much of my
waking time and the powers that God has given me? 'Diligent in
business,' the Scripture says. Yes, I am certainly that, but what is
it all for? I am trading in iron, as my father has done, and laying up
treasure on earth. That is something--the laying up treasure on
earth--that the Lord Jesus said not to do. But did He really mean it?
Nobody takes it very literally, I suppose.

"'Sell that ye have and give alms.' That is what I read this morning.
'Make for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the
heavens that faileth not.'

"How much does it mean? We cannot always press the words of the Lord
to their utmost literal meaning. I suppose He used language a great
deal as we do, to be taken at its face value, and not screwed and
pressed and tortured into literal exactness until all the spirit is
taken out of it? But these words sound very bald and unequivocal. I
wish I knew what they meant. Would I act on them if I did? There's
the rub. It is undoubtedly hard for a man with money to look at the
matter disinterestedly. And Jesus said, 'How hardly shall they that
have riches enter into the kingdom of God!'

"But if a man wishes to know how to interpret these words, I suppose he
may consider other words of the Lord and their evident interpretation
and find a rule. For instance, He said, 'Labor not for the meat which
perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.' He
evidently did not literally mean not to labor for daily bread, for that
is something we are told to do. 'Work with your hands, that ye
may . . . have need of nothing,' it says. And, 'If any will not work,
neither let him eat'; and again, 'That with quietness they work, and
eat their own bread.' So that is clear enough. Apparently what He
meant was to emphasize the supreme need of the other kind of food--'the
meat that endures unto everlasting life.' The one pales into such
insignificance--into nothingness!--compared with the other, that He
puts His hand over it--He puts it out of sight completely, and says,
'Look at this! This is the supreme thing, the one thing needful!'"

Hubert grew enthusiast