“The preacher sat down, and the audience cheered.  Then before the President of the Assembly could go on, a man rose in the body of the house and asked if he might say a word.

“Mr. Strong said he might if he would be brief.  The man then proceeded to give a list of people, who, he said, were becoming criminals because they couldn’t get work.  After he had spoken a minute Rev. Mr. Strong asked him to come to the point and show what bearing his facts had on the subject of the evening.  The man seemed to become confused, and finally his friends or the people near him pulled him down, and the President of the Trades Assembly resumed the discussion, closing with the statement that never in the history of the country had there been so much money in the banks and so little of it in the pockets of the people; and when that was a fact something was wrong; and it was for the men who owned the money to right that wrong, for it lay in their power, not with the poor man.

“He was followed by a very clear and intensely interesting talk by Rev. Mr. Strong on the Christian teaching concerning the wealth of the world.  Several times he was interrupted by applause, once with hisses, several times with questions.  He was hissed when he spoke of the great selfishness of labor unions and trades organizations in their attempts to dictate to other men in the matter of work.  With this one exception, in which the reverend gentleman spoke with his usual frankness, the audience cheered his presentation of the subject, and was evidently in perfect sympathy with his views.  Short extracts from his talk will show the drift of his entire belief on this subject: 

“’Every dollar that a man has should be spent to the glory of God.

“’The teaching of Christianity about wealth is the same as about anything else; it all belongs to God, and should be used by the man as God would use it in the man’s place.

“’It is a great mistake which many people make, church-members among the rest, that the money they get is their own to do with as they please.  Men have no right to use anything as they please unless God pleases so too.

“’The accumulation of vast sums of money by individuals or classes of men has always been a bad thing for society.  A few very rich men and a great number of very poor men is what gave the world the French Revolution and the guillotine.

“’There are certain conditions true of society at certain times when it is the Christian duty of the rich to use every cent they possess to relieve the need of society.  Such a condition faces us to-day.

“’The foolish and unnecessary expenditures of society on its trivial pleasures at a time when men and women are out of work and children are crying for food is a cruel and unchristian waste of opportunity.

“’If Christ were here to-day I believe he would tell the rich men of Milton that every cent they have belongs to Almighty God, and they are only trustees of his property.