Like all the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind, Jesus realized a profound danger to the better self in the pursuit of wealth. Whoever....

Like all the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind, Jesus realized a profound danger to the better self in the pursuit of wealth. Whoever.... will watch the development of a soul that has bent its energies to the task of
becoming rich, can see how perilous the process is to the finer sense of justice, to the instinct of mercy and kindness and equality, and to the singleness of devotion to higher ends; in short, to all the higher humanity in us. It is a simple fact: "Ye cannot serve God and mammon;" each requires the best of a man.'' The cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches" — note that quality of deceitfulness — will choke the good seed like rank weeds which appropriate soil and sunshine for their own growth.^ When a man lays up treasure, his heart almost inevitably is with his treasure. Then gradually the inner light in him is darkened ; the eye of his conscience is filmed and blurred.^ Wealth is apt to grow stronger than the man who owns it. It owns him and he loses his moral and spiritual freedom. The