Paul, but"--with the quick tears of deepest
emotion filling her dark eyes--"I have never been able in my thinking of
it, _to get past Jesus yet_." Even so it will be, no doubt, with all of
us.

But this word of Jesus' own suggests that as you go in you will find some
one coming eagerly up with outstretched hands and such a glad face to meet
you. And he will say, "Oh! I have been looking forward so eagerly to
meeting you; welcome." And you will say, "Well, this is very kind of you.
But, pardon me, I can't just recall your face. Where was it I knew you? in
New York?"

And he will say, with a flush of earnest feeling, "Oh, no! I never saw New
York. And I never saw you before. My home was over in the heart of China.
Our lives were very miserable there. There was a great tugging at my heart
that nothing seemed ever to ease. But one day a stranger came into our
village, with some little books, and as we gathered about him he talked
to us about _Jesus_, and you can never know how that story of Jesus came
to me, and how much it meant. My whole life was changed, and my home and
our village were changed. And since coming up here I have learned that it
was _through you_ that that man came, and I want to thank you. Next to
Jesus I think you're the best friend I have."

And you will be thinking, "I'm so glad I gave that money. I had to pinch
quite a bit, but that's nothing compared to the joy of this." And as that
is flashing swiftly through your thought, here is somebody else eagerly
pressing up, with the same word of welcome, and a face with such a glad
light the sight of which is alone quite enough to even up any sacrifice.
And you will say maybe, "And where did I meet you? are you from China,
too?"

No, this one is from a western frontier settlement where the home
missionary had gone, and now this one elbowing by her with the same
lightened face is from the mountain section of the South. And so they come
eagerly up from many places where you have never been in person but where
you have gone potentially through your money. That is what Jesus means.
Make to yourselves friends by means of money which the unrighteous world
reckons riches, that when it fails they may welcome you eagerly into the
homeland. Exchange your gold into lives.

Spirit Alchemy.

There is a divine alchemy whereby money may be transmuted into redeemed,
purified, uplifted lives. There is another alchemy whereby men, made of
finest gold in the image