Rabbis interpret this statute as follows: The estate is divided into a number of parts greater by one than the number of heirs. Of these parts the firstborn receives two, and the other heirs one each. It is evident that in such division the dispute arose which Jesus is asked to arbitrate.

Edersheim believes that the petitioner here mentioned was moved by avarice to ask an unjust thing, and he applies the Lord's severe rebuke of avarice to the same man. This is not clear from the text. It may well be that the Lord cautions his disciples against meddling in secular business, wherein the desire of getting this world's goods is the great motive. Or it may be that in the quarrel of these two brothers he shows them one of the evils of avarice. The Lord came to teach man the truth and the way to life. It was unfitting that he should descend to exercise the office of an arbiter in the world of Mammon. The man was too solicitous for the goods of this world. It was the Lord of Heaven that was there before him, and he should have asked something better than the mere adjustment of a temporal inheritance. The man represents the feverish eagerness of our race to lose no part of this world that it can have, and its moral inertia in seeking the kingdom of Heaven. The disciples needed this precedent of Jesus to keep their hands clean of worldly affairs. St. Paul is in line with his divine Master when he writes to Timothy: "No soldier in service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life."-II. Tim., II. 4. The pages of history tell the great evils that have arisen from the non-observance of this precedent.

With great emphasis the Lord warns his followers against covetousness, and he assigns as the reason of his warning that "man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”

Man's food and raiment are not furnished by nature except in return for labor. The instinct of self-preservation moves a man to gather from nature the necessities of life. This is just and holy, but the evil originates when man reaches beyond and enslaves his soul to the sordid task of accumulating this world's goods. It is folly, but it is very universal folly. When a man would free himself from this evil tendency, he must go

against his own natural leaning, and also against the great tendency of society, for society is a corporate follower of Mammon.

The Lord's meaning in the above quoted sentence is that a man's life is not in proportion to what he possesses. If abundance of possessions meant abundance of life, then the instinctive love of life would logically manifest itself in getting possessions. But it is not so; wealth will procure a man sweeter food, finer raiment, a grander house, and great pomp and pageantry, but there it stops: it can not purchase length of days, or exemption from disease.

The Lord illustrates this point by a parable. This rich man is a representative of a very large class of men of our times. They may not say the same words that are here placed in this man's mouth, and some of the details are different, but their main line of thought and conduct is identical with that here described by the Lord. They are forever reaching out for more, and vainly anticipating a long enjoyment of their possessions. The great thought of the world is for possessions, and for pleasure. Men know that they must die, but the thought of death is an unpleasant thought, and it is quickly put aside; the thought of possessing riches is a pleasant thought and it is ever present. And the consequence is that men live just as though they would never die. And yet many things round about us announce the shortness of human life. We plant an orchard, and the reflection comes to us: These trees will be here after we are in the grave. We purchase an article of domestic economy, and we say: This will last me during my lifetime. We go forth upon the highway, and we journey but a little way till we see the clustering mounds and the white tombstones of the dead. Memories steal into our minds of those whom we have known, but who are now dead. trees of the forests have stood there while generations and generations of us have passed away. Death, inevitable death, is around us, and before us; and no man knows how far our little line stretches out. Blessed the man who can say, when the dread summons comes: I have lived for this hour. And bitter is that hour to the man who has garnered up his heart in his possessions. The thought that these possessions will pass

The

to one's heirs is rarely a comforting thought. Full oft the dying man can foresee the selfish complacency with which these heirs will seize upon these goods. The terrible thought of leaving all that the soul has ever desired chills the blood, and blanches the cheek. It is like separating a man from himself. The man struggles to live, but no man can make terms with death; a few gasps, and all is over. The energies of a life have been wasted; and the being that could have become rich with God stands alone and unfurnished before its God on the threshold of a life that knows no ending. There is no remedy then. The day's work is ended, and the wages must be paid.

The service of Mammon is an unreasoning folly. No man will attempt to justify it by logical reasons. Human experience testifies that the paths of glory lead but to the grave. But men do not stop to reason on the issue. They rush on with the mad rush of the world. They reason of other things; they weigh carefully temporal interests, but the world of the soul remains unexplored. Possessions never satisfy. The barns are never large enough. Riches whet the appetite to long for more. Before wealth came perhaps the man judged that with a competency he would be content; but as possessions came to him they stimulated him to desire more. What he possessed seemed small; he must outstrip others; he must strive that his income keep pace with his ever-growing greed. Standing in the very shadow of death he gives his thought to projects for increasing those things which in a few brief days he must leave forever. If we saw a man exercising the same fatuity in regard to things of great moment in the temporal order which we commit in regard to eternal goods, we should straightway pronounce him a fool. We can see everybody's folly but our The deeds of a man's life are his only true monument. The pyramids are dismantled, their burial chambers are empty. The sphinx is defaced and crumbling. The Colossi of Memnon are ruined reminders of a false hope of immortality. The mighty fragments of the statues of Rameses strew the delta of the Nile. The monuments of Babylon are lonely mounds, the dens of jackals and ravens. The palaces of Persia are dug out of the earth in small fragments. Greece and Rome lie in ruins. The men of these ages worked for the things of time,

own.

and time has eaten up their works. life is imperishable, deeds of virtue.

Only one thing in man's
The hermit of the desert

sits enthroned in the kingdom of Heaven, and is honored by all the court of Heaven; while the proud ruler who slew him for an incestuous paramour is abhorred by all men. By our deeds we are all carving our monuments. Some are working for time; others for eternity. No matter how great the achievements of those who bestow their lives upon temporal things, they must perish in time. All is vanity and the waste of life except the deeds that God approves for eternity.

The message of Jesus is clear, but men turn aside from it to form gigantic trusts, mergers, pools and corporations, as though man were a Colossus who owned the world, and who were to remain here always. There is reflected on all sides that hard, cold pride of wealth, and the absence of Christian humility and supernaturalism. The power of the world is certainly growing alarming in proportion, and is stifling the spiritual in man. Everything is being done to protect man's present life, to render it immune from disease, and to preserve it, and little is being done for the soul. Even religion is made pleasant and entertaining, and lying prophets announce that which will please this matérialistic age.