Beware

Mark the conception which Moses formed of all advancing civilisation. How much we have that we have not done ourselves! We are born into a world that is already furnished with the library, with the altar, with the Bible. Men born into civilised countries have not to make their own roads. We are born into the possession of riches. The poorest man in the land is an inheritor of all but infinite wealth, in every department of civilisation. In the very act of complaining of his poverty he is acknowledging his resources. His poverty is only poverty because of its relation to other things which indicate the progress of the ages that went before. Young men come into fortunes they never worked for; we all come into possessions for which our fathers toiled. We could not assemble in God's house in peace and quietness today if the martyrs had not founded the Church upon their very blood. Men today enjoy the liberty for which other men paid their lives. Coming into a civilisation so ripe and rich, having everything made ready to our hands, the whole system of society telephoned so that we can communicate with distant friends and bring them within hearing, the table loaded with everything which a healthy appetite can desire — all these things constitute a temptation, if not rightly received. Moses drew the picture, and then said, "Beware." In the time of prosperity and fulness, "then beware lest thou forget," etc. Prosperity has its trials. Poverty may be a spiritual blessing. The impoverishment and punishment of the flesh may be religiously helpful. There are anxieties connected with wealth as well as with poverty. The high and the mighty amongst us have their pains and their difficulties, as well as the lowliest and weakest members of society. Ever let men hear this word of caution, "Beware." When the harvest is the best harvest that ever was grown in our fields, then "beware." When health is long-continued and the doctor an unknown stranger in the house, then "beware." When house is added to house and land to land, then "beware." Men have been ruined by prosperity.
(J. Parker, D. D.)

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