Gold and silver.
Gold and silver are here referred to as precious things that have become worthless in the confusion consequent on the sack of Jerusalem. Inasmuch as they are usually regarded as of great value and guarded with especial care, kept in purses and safe places, to throw them in the streets is to reverse the normal treatment of them.
I. THE VALUE OF GOLD AND SILVER IS NOT STABLE. Financially, this fact is recognized in the Money Market, but it goes further than men of business generally admit. The precious metals have a certain utility and beauty of their own; but there are circumstances under which they become mere incumbrances; e.g. on hoard a sinking ship, in a besieged city, on a desert island, in great sickness, at death. They are chiefly valued as money, i.e. as a medium of exchange. But when there is nothing to exchange them for, their money value is lost. This must be the case in a state of social insecurity, when no one can depend upon holding his property from one day to another. Then the purchasing power of money will fall, even though there be plenty of articles for sale, because the purchase of goods may be nullified by the loss of them. In a famine at first the rich man may buy dear food which the poor man can not afford to get; but when all the food is exhausted, he cannot feed on his gold and silver. In times of great sorrow the value of gold and silver falls almost to nil. It will not supply the vacant place of the dead, nor will it heal the smart of unkindness or ingratitude. He is poor indeed whose wealth consists in nothing better than gold and silver. The worship of Mammon is a miserable idolatry, certain to be most fatal to the most devoted worshipper—and, alas! how many such our money loving age produces! What Wordsworth wrote of the plutocracy of his day is little less true now.
"The wealthiest man among us is the best:
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry: and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more:
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws."
II. THERE ARE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LEAD TO THE ABANDONMENT OF GOLD AND SILVER.
1. Necessity. "All that a man hath will he give for his life." The drowning man will drop his money bags rather than be dragged down to death with them. Yet there are men who behave as slaves to their money, consenting to a slow death of exhaustion from devotion to business rather than preserve health and life at the cost of pecuniary loss.
2. Folly. Extravagant people "cast their silver in the streets." Money spent in sin is worse than lost; it is invested in funds from which the dividends will be pain and death.
3. Charity. There are the poor of the streets, and the rich and well clad man who sees his brethren shivering and hungry has a good call to cast his silver in the streets—not, indeed, for a loose scramble in which the most worthless will seize most, not in indiscriminate charity which breeds idle paupers and neglects modest poverty, but in wise and thoughtful alleviation of misery. The young man whom Jesus loved was bidden to sell all and give to the poor (Matthew 19:21). St. Francis of Assissi and many another did so. Those who do not practise this "counsel of perfection" should see the duty of making real sacrifices for their brethren as for Christ (Matthew 25:40).
4. Consecration. Men may cast aside their care of wealth, and even let the proceeds lie in neglect while they devote themselves to a higher ministry; or they may bring their wealth and lay it at the feet of Christ, to be spent on his work in the streets of earth.