Letters

³ These remarks are intended to show that the youth of whom I speak used his kinship to the royal family, his abundant wealth, and the outward tokens of power, as helps to virtue. For, as the preacher says, “wisdom is a defence and money is a defence” also. We must not hastily conclude that this statement conflicts with that of the Lord: “verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven; and again 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 into the kingdom of heaven.” Were it so, the salvation of Zacchæus the publican, described in scripture as a man of great wealth, would contradict the Lord's declaration.

But that what is impossible with men is possible with God we are taught by the counsel of the apostle who thus writes to Timothy:— “charge them that are rich in this world that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy, that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute. willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on the true life.” We have learned how a camel can pass through a needle's eye, how an animal with a hump on its back, when it has laid down its packs, can take to itself the wings of a dove and rest in the branches of the tree which has grown from a grain of mustard seed. In Isaiah we read of camels, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah and Sheba, which carry gold and incense to the city of the Lord. On like typical camels the Ishmaelitish merchantmen bring down to the Egyptians perfume and incense and balm (of the kind that grows in Gilead good for the healing of wounds); and so fortunate are they that in the purchase and sale of Joseph they have for their merchandise the Saviour of the world. And Æsop's fable tells us of a mouse which after eating its fill can no longer creep out as before it crept in.