Picture-Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1930)

30 A LI. is not gold that glitters, but how we love the glitter, unci how bitterly we need the gold! Young and old, we seek money, and how can it be otherwise? We long to see tangible evidences of success. We listen unwillingly to admonitions about mora! and spiritual values, about beauty and ideals, about love, if the satisfaction they offer is supposed to disregard material such ss. After all. what is this success but the reaction of the world to what we have to give it? Oh, T know all about those intangible, divine sparks that exist between beauty and admiration, between inspiration and devotion, between service and gratitude. But how shall admiration and devotion and gratitude prove, in a tangible, concrete way, their desire to reciprocate, except by transforming the incense they burn before the donors of these lovely gifts into the cruder element of gold? \\ hat do all who receive have, in some tiny degree at least, if not gold? What can one give that has actually cost him effort to give, if not gold? Money is transmuted, by a more subtle alchemy than we dream of, into a spiritual gold. A life for a life, in a noble sense, a drop of the sweat of my brow, of the blood in my veins, in return for yours ! This is the law of true relationships, for nothing can grow out of nothing, or he accepted for nothing. The man horn rich and who learns nothing of earning is more pitiable than can be imagined. What he gives costs him nothing, and what he receives in return is equally worthless. The sower must plant the seed if be wishes the crop to grow. Spoilers are despised, and of them the people say, "That kind of monev won't do them any good." But the man despoiled is mocked. So the earning of wealth is spirituallv justified, for bow can one imagine the vibration of infinite harmony, positiveness and achievement to express itself perfectly while it still permits material negation0 But this wealth must be based on universal understanding and the desire for universal good, or it will be a curse instead of a blessing. It is said that the love of money is the root of all evil. It is indeed. To love money for its own sake is to subordinate the spirit to the outer expression, and when that takes place the outer expression is utterly deformed. Wealth that brings love and satisfaction and freedom was never sought for its own sake, but was the result of a life expressing itself fully and freely from every point of view. Remember that wealth is a very, very elastic, comparative term. If beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, wealth lies in the size of a man's purse. Fill it. and he is rich. Xo human or celestial being could promise Ugh to the man whose demands grow out of all proportion to his circumstances and his needs. In him the love of» money is horn, to grow up into a poisonous, death-dealing plant. Do not look forward to millions or half millions, if money is indicated in the letters of your name, unless yon are on speaking terms with more than a Few thousand! Nol that you may not really get it, many a penniless boy or girl has done just that. Tke Mastery In this fascinating new department will be found examples of its influence on the lives of B? M onica But no name can indicate the actual extent of such a material thing as wealth, but only its general degree and kind. The spirit of a man's activity permeates every breath that he breathes, and this every vibration of every cell in his body, every tone of his voice, every decision be makes, every stroke of his pen. Thus the nature of his success is very evident in numbers. Of the names of four great financiers, taken at random, three show in the complete number for birth and name together the number Eight, which, when so placed, is the sign of great business success. The first John Jacob Astor reveals in his name that be attained wealth by his wonderful intelligence, activity, and intuition, most of all the latter, for the number Seven of intuition or hunch is his on the material side of life. He snapped up opportunities, because he saw them and understood them more quickly than did others, and also because he was not afraid to make a lightninglike decision based on a deep, even if unexplained, conviction of being right. The elder J. Pierpont Morgan came into riches through his great creative ability and effort. Nothing came his way without an unusual struggle on his part. But he had also the kind of constructive power, quite apart from the creative ability, that made him able to build sky-shaking towers out of ruins left by others, out of his own ruins, too. Andrew Carnegie became one of the world's richest men by physical and intellectual force comhined. by an overwhelming spirit of domination that let nothing remain standing in bis path. These readings deal with the chief elements of success in these men, and do not take into consideration their other qualities. Least of all is it here a question of the methods they used or the happiness they attained. Numbers can express wealth as the result of many different kinds of activity. It may be the product of pure business transactions, as in the lives of the men described above, or the outer expression of an inward capacity, such as art, or the result of a full, well-rounded life come into its material own. Or it may appear as a gift straight from heaven, although heaven does, to be sure, use some convenient intermediary such as a deceased uncle, or a wonderful break in getting a new job, or other such source apparently independent of one's own vibrations. ( ',i ■tinned on page 98 •