The Latter-day Saints Temple at Cardston, Canada

Improvement Era Vol. XXIII. JANUARY, 1920. No. 3.

The Camel and the Eye of the Needle By Professor N. L. Nelson, of the Brighton Young University

The problem of wealth has been in the world ever since the fall of man. It formed the chief cause of the perdition of Cain, and it rarely fails to blight and dwarf the soul, even where it does not kill. To illustrate: "Good Master," said a seeker after salvation, "what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" * * * To which the Savior replied: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments," and he proceeded to enumerate them, ending with, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "All these," replied the young man, "I have kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?" Observe that we have here a very exemplary church member, but he is not yet in the kingdom of God. His consecration is purely external, — it has not touched the heart. Consequently the inner light has not been kindled; he is quickened, but only by a portion of the terrestrial glory: his light is a reflected light, and his works are therefore mechanical works. What stands in the way of his receiving a celestial quickening; of his coming into that spiritual oneness with the universe, which we call entering the kingdom of God? Listen to what Jesus said to him: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me." The thing that held his spirit down was wealth. Was he glad to have his spiritual malady laid bare, and the way of spiritual health pointed out? No more than you or I should have been. "When the young man heard that saying," so runs the record, "he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions."

188 IMPROVEMENT ERA

Observing which, Jesus commented: "Verily, I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matt. 19:16-24.) "Who then can be saved?" asked his disciples, who were "exceedingly amazed." They evidently perceived, as you and I must, that this bar to the kingdom does not depend upon the amount of the riches, but rather on the kind of grip that riches have upon the soul. Ninety per cent of us are millionaires at heart; and therefore subject to the millionaire's handicap, even though our bank accounts be so small that the family auto is yet in the dream stage. The fact, therefore, that riches serve to shut out from the kingdom, is no evidence at all that poverty is a passport. This is how Jesus reassured his disciples: "With men this [i. a rich man's entering the kingdom] is impossible; but e.,

with God, all things are possible." Whence we conclude that riches are not in themselves a bar to eternal life: that were God living the earth-life, he could successfully do both, be a — rich man and also enter the kingdom; i. e., win out in the domain of the natural world, and also be daily guided by the — Holy Ghost which is the meaning of winning out in the spiritual world. To the extent, therefore, that man can be guided by the mind and will of God, to that extent he also can succeed in acquiring both forms of riches. Let us, then, enter reverently upon the question of how a man may win riches and at the same time not forfeit eternal life.

Our first question concerns the nature of the acquisitive faculty. It is surely not a sinful faculty. On the contrary, it is — among the foremost of our fighting powers the one addressed by the Lord, more than any other, when he said: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it." To realize — — how much progress even of the spiritual kind depends upon the wealth-gaining faculty, we have only to look at the manana people of Mexico and the tropics. Whoever lacks ambition in the material world, are usually drifters and floaters also in the moral world; for the acquisitive power is really the faculty of winning out over difficulties, plus the storing of what we win, to the end that man shall have power in his hands to do what his soul may determine upon. It is not therefore in the getting side of wealth — save as this is narrowed from the conquest of nature in general to the narrow — money channel alone that we must look for the blighting and numbing effect which prevents the soul from entering the king- dom of God. This effect must therefore lie in the storing and