Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

for while they exhaust all their ingenuity in devising fresh ways of spending what they have not toiled for, they get precious little joy-to say nothing of happiness -out of it. When we read of, and blush for, the costly stupidity of a freak-dinner costing an incredible amount per head, does anyone imagine that the host or any of his guests gets as much pleasure from such a desperate attempt to tickle their jaded palates as any workingclass family sitting down to the meal the father has laboured for and the mother has prepared? The fact is that what comes to us for nothing brings us no thrill of life, and it is not surprising that those seeming favourites of fortune who evade the law which commands us to earn the right to live by service and sacrifice, should not find life particularly worth living.

And the things which people barter in exchange for money-what bad bargains they make! The coarsened dispositions, the stains upon their consciences, the sense of mean actions meanly done, great oppor tunities unworthily slighted, ignoble compromises readily entered into-what a depressing tale it makes, and would we in cold blood be prepared to pay the same price? If you have read that wise and witty book, The Comments of Bagshot," you will remember how this very topic crops up, and how Bagshot triumphantly demonstrates that quite average persons will not buy prosperity at the cost of selfrespect. How would it be, he asks, if things were so arranged that the heir to a property had also to take over the character, disposition and appearance of the testator? Pardon a longish quotation :

[ocr errors]

"Supposing X.," he said, naming a notorious millionaire,

"

"" left you the whole of his millions on condition that you took his cruel chin and snub nose and rascally disposition, would you accept them ? The answer was a more emphatic than polite negative. "Which means," pursued Bagshot quietly, "that you would not for all his money change places with him. But let us take a less acute case not involving present company. Would my charming niece, Molly, who is sadly impecunious, and greatly desires to marry a most deserving but wholly unendowed young officer, take her Aunt Sarah's thousand a year if she had also to assume her honoured countenance and evangelical disposition? ... Swiftly we judged, and declared that Molly would go penniless all her days, scrub floors, sweep crossings, and die at the last in a workhouse rather than take up that forbidding heritage. Bagshot pursued the theme with a wealth of illustration. Was there any painter, poet, musician worth his salt who would exchange his talents for the endowed Philistinism of Mr. T. ? (The initial concealed an extremely undesirable personality.) The offer would scarcely tempt even a starving journalist.

"

And so, in short, they came to the unanimous conclusion that almost everybody is quite convinced that no money can possibly compensate for the loss of beauty, health, happiness, good temper, and that all that really mattered in life was inaccessible to the money motive.

Wealth, we agreed, can command all the worst things, but hardly any of the best. It has blemished and tarnished many a name-it is quite powerless to cleanse one that is blemished; it has inflamed and incited men's hearts to the lowest deeds-it has never inspired an act of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of generous passion, for acts so inspired would at once lose their heroic, or generous, or unselfish quality. It can instigate treason-it cannot encourage loyalty, for a loyalty needing such encouragement would not be worthy the

name. All the money in the world will not purchase a heart at peace with itself and God; all the money in the Bank of England would fail to create a fine thought, or to kindle a high ambition, or to add to the world's treasures of immortal song, or music, or painting. Great pictures fetch "fancy prices," for the simple reason that there is literally no cash standard to determine their value. A thinker of world-wide reputation like Professor Eucken, of Jena, after a lifetime's strenuous devotion to the deepest problems, is awarded the Nobel prize, and we are delighted; but would the chance of winning that very handsome award-a fortune of some £8,000-have produced Eucken's works?

No, no; the world's finest achievements owe their existence to some other stimulus, they have not been executed for material emoluments, but in response to some other and more heavenly call, which they who heard it dared not disobey. And the greatest motive power of all-religion, and especially the religion of the Cross-could never have originated in a money atmosphere, has won its victories through the instrumentality of those whose eyes were fixed upon some brighter radiance than that of gold, and has ever found its staunchest votaries among men and women who found the true values of life elsewhere than in its cash values. Let us neither despise nor over-estimate possessions, seek them as a means, but not as an end of living, administer them as a trust from God, shun the dangers with which too frequently they are fraught, and pray for the advent of that better time when neither want nor waste will be known, but humanity itself be the great ossessor of all the earth's resources. In the mean

time, what wiser petition than that of the old writer in the Book of Proverbs: "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me: lest I be full and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord?" To which we may link on the Saviour's words, who admonished us to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, to cultivate a filial spirit, gentle hearts, trustfulness, obedience, love-possessions incorruptible; for where our treasure is, there will our hearts, there will our home, be also.

VI

THE MEDICINE OF MIRTH

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones."-PRov. xvii. 22.

In thinking of the subject on which I am to speak to you this morning, a reminiscence came suddenly into my mind, which perhaps will form the best introduction. All the day long our mule-drawn carriage had been taking us uphill, from a little above the level of the Lake of Geneva, until the grey Hospice of the St. Bernard came into sight. We had started on a hot August morning, and the temperature had grown oppressive; then, suddenly, a perceptible drop-a keen and searching air-announced that we had crossed the snow-line. Scantier and scantier became the vegetation until it disappeared altogether, colder and colder the air, and at last we moved in mid-August among the eternal snow and ice, so that we were very glad to reach our destination. What a life the monks on the St. Bernard live, with ten months' unbroken winter, exposed to appalling rigors of climate, while even in their wintry summer the surface of the little lake near the monastery was frozen; a life full of privations, hardship, unremitting duties, which none can endure for more than nine or ten years, after which

« VorigeDoorgaan »