A victim to the sordid lust of gold, his mercenary spirit is susceptible of no generous impulse or sentiment, worthy of an immortal being-every thought and desire being absorbed in his insatiate cravings after riches. In the words of Dr. Dick, who presents the miser's portrait in all his hideous deformity, "all the avenues to true enjoyment are interrupted, and closely shut up by the cold hand of avarice. He denies himself those sensitive comforts with which Providence has so richly replenished the earth, and has placed within his reach; and even almost starves himself in the midst of plenty. As he approaches the close of his career, and descends to the grave, whither his coveted wealth cannot follow him, his passion for gold acquires an increased intensity, and he clings to his useless but ardently cherished treasures with a fearfully tenacious grasp." The prodigal "spends his substance in riotous living," in the delusive attempt to secure present enjoyment; and the distribution of his money is at least a benefit to society; but the covetous man is alike injurious to himself and all around him This passion is not only detestable in its nature, and destructive of every virtue, it is also a disease like that of intemperance, that seldom, if ever, admits of cure. "Other passions have their holidays," says an old writer, "but avarice never suffers its votaries to rest.”

O, cursed love of gold! when for thy sake

The fool throws up his interest in both worlds

'Joshua," said Ambrose, "could stop the course of the sun, but all his power could not stop the course of avarice. The sun stood still, but avarice went on; Joshua obtained a victory when the sun stood still; but when avarice was at work Joshua was defeated." We have other recorded facts in sacred story illustrative of the crime of cupidity. Achan's covetous humor made him steal that wedge of gold which served “to cleave his soul from God:" it made Judas betray Christ; and Absalom to attempt to pluck the crown from his father's head.

To a reflecting mind it may well cause surprise that the world at large set such paramount value upon the acquisition of wealth To what voluntary inflictions, sufferings and life-toils, will not men submit for its attainment? Vast wealth brings with it increase of cares, and with multiplied resources we find usually ever-growing wants to be supplied. What material difference is it to us, provided we inhale the perfume of the fragrant flowers, whether they belong to our neighbor or ourself or whether the fair estate be the property of and called after the name of another, so we are refreshed with the vision? We share a community of interest in this respect, in all the fair and beautiful things of earth.

"For nature's care, to all her children just,
With richer treasures and an ampler state

Endows at large whatever happy man will deign to use them.
His the city's pomp, the rural houors his-

Whate'er adorns the princely dome, the column, and the arch,
The breathing marble, and the sculptured gold—

Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,

His tuneful breast enjoys."

The beautiful soliloquy of Jeremy Taylor will occur to the reader; he exclaims

"I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators and they have taken all from me. What now? Let me look about me. They have left the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me; and I can discourse; and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance and my cheerful spirits, and a good conscience; they have still left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the gospel, and my religion, and my hope of heaven, and my charity for them too. And still I sleep, and I digest, and eat, and drink; I read and meditate; I can walk in my neighbor's pleasant fields, and see the varieties of natural beauty, and delight in all that in

which God delights-that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself."

"O, blissful poverty!

Nature, too partial to thy lot assigns

Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace."*

Sand has written a beautiful apostrophe to Poverty-" the good goddess Poverty:" we cite a sentence or two:

"They have chained the good goddess-they have beaten. her and persecuted her; but they cannot debase her. She has taken refuge in the souls of poets, of peasants, of artists, of martyrs, and of saints. Many children has she had, and many a divine secret has she taught them. She does all the greatest and most beautiful things that are done in the world; it is she who cultivates the fields, and prunes the trees-who drives the herds to pasture, singing the while all sweet songs-who sees the day break, and catches the sun's first smile. It is she who inspires the poet, and makes eloquent the guitar, the violin and the flute; who instructs the dextrous artisan, and teaches him to hew stone, to carve marble, to fashion gold and silver, copper and iron. It is she who supplies oil for the lamp, who reaps the harvest fields, kneads bread for us, weaves our garments, in summer and winter, and who maintains and feeds the world. It is she who nurses us in infancy, succors us in sorrow and sickness, and attends us to the silent sleeping-place of death. Thou art all gentleness, all patience, all strength and all compassion. It is thou who dost reunite all thy children in a holy love, givest them charity, faith, hope, O, goddess of Poverty !"

Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his desires and enjoyments. Of riches, as of everything else, the hope is more than the enjoyment; while we consider them as the means to be used at some future time for

*Fenton.

the attainment of felicity, ardor after them secures us from weariness of ourselves; but no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life. We are poor only when we want necessaries ; it is custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

Good old Izaak Walton has something to say on this subject, too good to be omitted. Here it is :

"I I have a rich neighbor that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, more money that he may still get more. He is still drudging, saying what Solomon says: "The diligent hand maketh rich.' And it is true, indeed; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said by a man of great observation, 'that there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them.' And yet heaven deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful. Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound in riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even where others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she seems to play, is at the same time spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself. And this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares to keep what they have already got.

Let us, therefore, be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience."

La Bruyère wisely remarks, "Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, honor, quiet, and conscience, to obtain them. It is to pay so dear for them that the bargain is a loss."

The classic page furnishes examples of a noble contempt of wealth, and a virtuous preference of poverty over venality and lust of riches. These, however, are rather exceptions to the rule which sustains the converse of the proposition; and before turning to the bright side, let us briefly refer to one or two instances of the baneful effects of avarice on the human heart.

The inordinate desire of wealth has been the occasion of more mischief and misery in the world than anything else. Some of the direst evils with which the world has ever been afflicted, have emanated from this source. No sooner had Columbus solved the problem of the Western Continent, than the accursed lust of gold began to fire the sordid hearts of his successors. Every species of perfidy, cruelty, and inhumanity, towards the aborigines was practised against them, in order to extort from them their treasures. These mercenary wretches, forcing the natives of Hispaniola so mercilessly to delve and toil for the much coveted ore, that they actually reduced their numbers, within less than half a century, from two millions to about one hundred and fifty. The conquest of Mexico, by Cortez and his followers, impelled by the same insatiable passion, was accompanied with horrors, atrocities, and slaughters, more dreadful and revolting than almost any recorded in the annals of our race. To prepare the way for enjoying the plunder they had in view, the unoffending Indians were butchered by thousands; while carnage and every species of heartless cruelty marked their progress of spoliation. In the siege of Mexico, no less than a hundred thousand of the natives were sacrificed; and, as if to add to the effrontery and depravity of the act, it was perpetrated under the standard of the cross, and with the invocation of the God of armies to aid the conquests. The like atrocities characterized the expedition of Pizarro for the conquest of Peru. Under perfidious professions of amity, they captured the Inca, butchering some four thousand of his unresisting attendants. The unfortunate empe