"TRAGEDY has often dogged the footsteps of the world's financial wizards. A pistol shot, a dose of poison, or even a jump from an airplane has rung down the curtain on the lives of these human meteors."
So wrote a newspaper correspondent. He might well call millionaires " human meteors." A few strenuous years, and they are gone. The owner of fabulous wealth, and every penny of it is left behind. The admiration and wonder of the world, they are soon forgotten. " So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God ' (Luke 12. 21), are the words of the great Lover of souls, the Son of God.
Ivor Kreuger, the Swedish match king, once held securities worth £113,000,000. Yet a year later, finding himself in financial difficulties he endeavored to raise a few thousands, was refused, and shot himself dead in his Paris flat in March, 1932. His suicide was described as an " international catastrophe."
Whitaker Wright was buried in a grave costing £3. He had lived in a princely mansion, entertained royalty, juggled with millions, yet died by his own hand in a court of law, where he was being tried for issuing fraudulent balance sheets. Spite of the vigilance of warders, he swallowed in court a deadly dose of cyanide of potassium, and thus took his exit from this world.
George Eastman, the head of the firm Eastman Kodak of world-wide fame, gave away £15,000,000, yet shot himself in his magnificent home in Rochester, New York State, in March, 1932. He was seventy-seven years old.
Alfred Lowenstein, the Belgian millionaire, was for years a mystery man. Everything he did was mysterious and dramatic. Flying over the English Channel, he leaped from his own airplane, and found a watery grave-his last act as mysterious and dramatic as any portion of his life had been.
" Jimmie " White, as he was familiarly called, rose from nothing to be a multi-millionaire, was the host of royalty, called proud peers of the realm by their pet names, owned race-horses, was a theatrical magnate. The coroner's inquest on his death gave the verdict, " Death from chloroform poisoning, self-administered when insane"-the result of his last plunge in shares facing him with ruin.
Sir John Norton Griffiths, one of the world's greatest engineers, blew up the Roumanian oilfields during the first great war, rather than let them fall into the hands of the enemy. He put a bullet through his head in a surf boat off the casino of San Stefano at Alexandria in 1930.
How true are the words of our Lord, " What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul " (Mark 8. 36, 37).
Are not these examples, which could be easily multiplied, beacons to warn voyagers to eternity. Are you " rich toward God? " All else is of practically no account compared to that.
How can we be " rich toward God? " The only way is to accept the gift that He offers. Surely in the examples we have adduced we have illustrated the text of Scripture, " The wages of sin is death." but, thank God, the verse does not stop there. It goes on to say, " But the Gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord " (Ram. 6. 23).
How comforting to know that when this life is over, the life to come, eternal life, is ours, life procured by the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, a gift, the gift of God, that we can do nothing to merit, but which the hand of faith accepts.
Reader, are you " rich toward God? " To answer this question in the affirmative should be your greatest concern. This is the one great question that should be answered by each one. How rich, indeed, when we can say our sins are forgiven our souls are saved, that eternal life is our inalienable possession. Here are verses from God's word that make the matter plain:
" The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin " (1 John 1. 7).
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved " (Acts 16. 31).
" He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life " (John 3. 36).
To be without forgiveness, salvation and divine life is terrible to contemplate. See that they are yours, the free gift of a gracious God.