MR. VANDERBILT’S STATEMENT.
By S.
What Is Shown by the Admission of Its Truthfulness.
MR. W. K. VANDERBILT’S recent statement in regard to the handicap of wealth from which his ambition had suffered, has received considerable attention in both the religious and the secular press. All have admitted his statement to be true that wealth is a serious handicap to the achievement of any marked success. But there is a principle involved in the statement, and likewise in the admission of its truth by these influential journals, which has an important bearing upon the tendencies of the present times. Mr. Vanderbilt says that the possession of great wealth left him “nothing to strive for, and no ambition to gain.” Why?—Evidently because the possession of great wealth is regarded as the only thing worth striving for. Possessing great wealth already, that object has been achieved, and there is nothing left which is worthy of his ambition. Commenting on this statement, the Epworth Herald says: “the millionaire is right. Many others ‘have realized the same thing, tho not many have ‘been candid enough to say so.’” But really, is it true that “the millionaire is right”? If he is, then the only thing worth striving for is wealth; the only object worthy of ambition is the amassing of a fortune. The “many others” who “have realized the ‘same thing’” are those whose ambitions have centered in the amassing of wealth. Is it true that the possession of wealth leaves nothing to strive for, no ambition to gain?—It is true only with those whose god is Gold and the carnal pleasure which gold can give. It is not true with the Christian—it can not be true. The true follower of Christ knows that there is something to strive for, even if he had inherited a9great fortune. He would strive to use that fortune in bringing relief to the helpless and hungry, comfort to the comfortless, protection to the oppressed, covering to the destitute, light and knowledge to the blind and ignorant, and the knowledge of the Gospel to those who know it not. The amelioration of man’s physical sufferings and the making of provision for supplying his spiritual needs are certainly objects worth striving for. Pitiable indeed is the condition of that man or woman who sees nothing in life worth striving for except the accumulation of wealth. Such an ambition is an empty bubble, and the life dominated by such an ambition will perish and go out as the bubble does. It is gaudy in the gas light or in the sunlight, but touch the quivering tissue, and it is gone forever. There is something worth striving for even by those who have inherited fortunes. The inheritance of wealth will not affect a true Christian’s object in life. That object is the same whether the Christian is the son of a millionaire or the son of a rag-picker; and that object is as far above the sordid accumulation of wealth as Christ’s mission and work are higher than the work of Judas Iscariot. Paul said: “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3: 13,14. There is something which is worth striving for,—“the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” That is a prize, a calling, with which the accumulation of wealth can not be compared. The difference between the value of a ruby and a road-side pebble is infinitely less than the difference between that prize and the prize of wealth. We do irreparable wrong when we teach that by inheriting wealth, or anything else that we may inherit, there is nothing left in life worthy of our attention and effort. God has permitted men to accumulate wealth, and to bequeath it to their children, and He will hold them severally responsible for the way in which they use it. But let them remember, and let all men know, that the accumulation of wealth is not the only object in life. Rather, it is liable to be the concentration of selfishness, than which no object is less noble. The possession of great wealth does not leave any true man, much less a Christian, without an object worthy of his endeavor. Getting wealth is not the greatest thing in the world, nor one of the great things; but “the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” is. If you are rich, thank the Lord that He has permitted you to be the steward, the custodian of a trust for the relief of human suffering; if you are poor, thank God that He has shown you something that is higher and deeper and grander than the accumulation or possession of great wealth. But in the admission made by both the religious and the secular press that “the millionaire is right,” we see how nearly the whole world now is looking upon the getting of wealth. The tendency of the times now is to look upon the piling of millions upon millions as evidence of success in life. The worship of Gold is sweeping the earth as God said it would do in the last days, and these admissions of the press are but another evidence that we are in the time when wealth would rule the minds of men. Speaking to those whose lives were devoted to the getting of wealth, the Lord says, “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” Jas. 5: 3. The Revised Version puts it “in the last days.” We are in the days of the heaping of treasure, and those days are the last days. While the millionaire is wrong in his statement, the many statements made concerning it show the attitude of the world toward the heaping of treasure. It is this attitude that makes the heaping possible, and the heaping itself is a sign of the times.