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Talks With an Old Friend of God 215Then I drew for him as complete a picture as I could of all theuseful things a learned man, a doctor, or anyone devoting hislife to the service of mankind could accomplish. I spoke withsuch eloquence that he became quite enthusiastic and repeatedlyexpressed his approval: “That’s right, my boy, God bless you, it’sgreat the way you can understand these things!” When I finished,though, he still didn’t seem quite convinced. “That’s all very well,”he said, dragging out his words and sighing deeply, “but howmany people are there who’d stick to their duties without goingastray? A man may not look upon money as his god, but moneycan easily become a kind of half-god and is so often a mightytemptation. And then there are other temptations: women andvanity and envy. So a man may forget the great cause and try tosatisfy all these little cravings. But when he’s alone in the wild, it’sdifferent, for there he can harden himself and be ready for anysacrifice. Besides, my dear boy, what is there in man’s world?” hesaid with intense feeling. “Isn’t it just a dream? It’s as if men weretrying to sow by spreading sand on rocky ground; only whenthe yellow sand sprouts will that dream of theirs come true. Wehave a saying like that in our part of the country. What Christsaid was, ‘Go and give all you have to the poor and become theservant of all men,’ for if you do you’ll become a thousand timesricher because your happiness won’t be made just of good food,rich clothes, satisfied vanity, and appeased envy; instead, it willbe built on love, love multiplied by love without end. And thenyou will gain not just riches, not just hundreds of thousands or amillion, but it will be the whole world that you will gain! Todaywe amass material things without ever satisfying our greed, andthen we madly squander all we have amassed. But a day will comewhen there will be no orphans, no beggars; everyone will be likeone of my own family, everyone will be my brother, and that is