Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/794

778 he examine and pronounce upon all those social questions with which his teachings are concerned. His question is always not " Is this thing good in itself?" but "Does it make toward the realization of the divine brotherhood ? " Thus he looked at marriage and said that some men for the sake of the kingdom of heaven would remain celibate. Thus he looked at wealth. For, like marriage, wealth concerns not the individual alone but society as well.

IV.

Wealth must be used for the establishment of that ideal social order whose life is that of brothers — the kingdom of God. This is the only possible interpretation which can be placed upon that otherwise extraordinary parable of the unjust steward. As he by trickiness, not to say dishonesty, had won for himself friends, so is it possible in a nobler way for men so to use wealth as to bind others closer to themselves. This is one of the tests of character, this making of friends by money. For if a man be unfaithful in the affairs of business, Jesus regards him as liable to be unfaithful in matters of greater importance. The rich man suffering in torments had a thought of his brothers too late, and his wealth had made no friends. He had served mammon, but not God. So, too, Jesus condemned the rich fool who, after he had accumulated wealth, planned to use it selfishly for his own enjoyment. In the genuine epicurean call to his soul, "Thou hast much goods laid up for thyself; eat, drink, and be merry," this man published his determination to avoid all the possibilities of benefiting society wealth put in his hands. Wealth is therefore a desirable good only so far as it is a means to the highest development of the individual — that is, only so long as it renders him more capable of fulfilling Jesus' ideal of fraternity.