n,’ and never be lavish nor stingy” (John Ploughman’s Talk, 152).
10. “How many are they who have made a god of their wealth.”
“How many are they who have made a god of their wealth, and in hasting after riches have been drowned by the weight of their worldly substance” (MTP 15:318).
11. “That which costs us most we value most.”
“Recollect, the more trouble it costs you to bring a soul to Christ the greater will be your reward. In your own conscience you will feel a sweet recompense when you will in after days be able to say, ‘I travailed in birth for that soul.’ You will love it all the more because of the anguish of your spirit during its birth. I am sure it is so: that which costs us most we value most” (MTP 24:199).
12. “Whatever else we barter, let us never try to turn a penny by religion.”
“Better die than sell your soul to the highest bidder. Better be shut up in the workhouse than fatten upon hypocrisy. Whatever else we barter, let us never try to turn a penny by religion” (John Ploughman’s Pictures, 147).
13. “All that we possess here below is God’s property.”
“Moreover, our earthly comforts were never given to us to be held for ever by a covenant of salt. They are always loans, and never gifts. All that we possess here below is God’s property; he has only loaned it out to us, and what he lends he has a right to take back again” (MTP 23:391).
14. “A golden coffin will be a poor compensation for a damned soul.”
“Wealth, yes, if you must have it, though you shall find it an empty thing if you set your heart upon it. Prosperity in this world, earn it if you can do so fairly, but ‘what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ A golden coffin will be a poor compensation for a damned soul. To be cast away from God’s presence, can that misery be assuaged by mountains of treasure?” (MTP 17:425)
15. “Many people will always be poor because they never give to the cause of God.”
“Many people will always be poor because they never give to the cause of God. . . . The Lord will allow no service to remain unrecompensed; and work done for the poor and needy shall win its wage, not of debt, but of grace” (MTP 31:84).
16. “To get, we must give.”
“Let us learn then, from the analogy of nature, the great lesson, that to get, we must give; that to accumulate, we must scatter; that to make ourselves happy, we must make others happy” (MTP 11: 230).
17. “The cheerful giver is marching to the music of the spheres.”
“There is nothing in this world but lives by giving, except a covetous man, and such a man is a piece of grit in the machinery; he is out of gear with the universe. . . . But the cheerful giver is marching to the music of the spheres. He is in order with God’s great natural laws, and God therefore loveth him, since he sees his own work in him” (MTP 14:571).
18. “Our gifts are not to be measured by the amount we contribute, but by the surplus kept in our own hand.”
“Our gifts are not to be measured by the amount we contribute, but by the surplus kept in our own hand. The two mites of the widow were, in Christ’s eyes, worth more than all the other money cast into the treasury” (MTP 37:625).
19. “A good wife and health are a man’s best wealth.”
“A thrifty house-wife is better than a great income. A good wife and health are a man’s best wealth. Bless their hearts, what should we do without them?” (John Ploughman’s Talk, 152)