apply his despotism to men, women, or children is a tyrant or a fool. I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. Infinite wisdom and love made us what we are and formed the round and shining sphere on which we are placed. Revolving in it and with it, like the stars in their celestial courses, we shall move without collision or friction, each fulfilling his appointed work, "forever singing as we shine, 'The hand that made us is divine.'" But when we get discontented and rebellious and fractious, those who are short curtailing the tall, and children impatient of the restraint of childhood, women trying to be men, and men seeking to be the greatest and unwilling to bide their time, when they that serve strive to be independent of their duties, and the poor quarrel with God and their race because they were not born in wealth and cradled in gold, then come discontent and conflict and misery and despair. Rebellion is in it. Hell begins with war against the order of God in

nature.

We are not all cast in the same mould. Some are wise and some are otherwise. One man has ten talents, another five, and the most have only one. But they with one, if faithful in its use, are the most useful. Unknown to fame, silent workers, building strong the walls of Church and State, they are the great middle class, on whom the commonwealth, civil and sacred, reposes in security and peace. We cannot all be alike. But it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We might be more and better than we are. And we never shall be satisfied till we awake in the likeness of God.

"IS THE OLD GENTLEMAN DEAD?" *

WHILE at Saratoga last week I heard of the death of a friend and made a short journey to attend the funeral. The gentleman in whose family the death had occurred is my kinsman, and he resides on the bank of the Hudson River, some miles from the railroad station. On reaching the station I took a hackney-coach and was driven to the house. It is a large mansion, with pillars and piazza in front, in the midst of lawn and shade-trees, with a circular carriage-path from the road to the door. The gentleman has resided in it some forty years or more, is well on in life, and well known to all the country-side.

As we approached the mansion the coachman noticed crape on the door-a sign that death was in the house. As he opened the carriage-door he asked me anxiously, “Is the old gentleman dead?" I told him no-that it was another member of the family. He said, "I was afraid it was the old gentleman; he is a good man; everybody loves him."

Such a tribute from such a source was exceedingly pleasant, rendered so heartily to one whom I had known from childhood. I was glad to know that he was held in such general esteem that a hack-driver was pained by the thought that perhaps he was dead, and was ready to bear such testimony to his worth.

He is a man of wealth, and one of the class of men-not an overcrowded class-who have learned the true use of money, and having learned, delight to practise it. Surrounded with all the appliances for his own comfort, living in perfect simplicity amidst the abundance with which God has favored him, he does not live for himself. That is the secret of his success in securing the esteem of his fellow

*This was the last "Irenæus Letter" ever prepared by Dr. Prime, and was written within two weeks of his decease, which occurred July 18, 1885.

men. A good name is said to be better than riches, and it is certainly a great thing to have both. There is no man more generally ill-spoken of in the community than he who has great wealth and no disposition to make a good use of it. All around us, as I stay with this friend, are the evidences of good that he is doing with the money that he might call his own, but which he prefers to use as a steward intrusted with it for the benefit of others. Hospitals, churches, colleges, individuals, public improvements, private charities, are a few of the many recipients of his bounty. Without ostentation and unsolicited, he seeks and finds those objects which his own good judgment assures him are the most likely to be worthy of his assistance, and permanently useful.

And right there is the true end of life. Usefulness is to be sought, aimed at, and worked for; happiness is to come of itself in the pursuit of usefulness. The mistake the most persons make is in studying to be happy. They should let that care for itself. It is not a state of mind to be cultivated, but to be enjoyed in the midst of duty done. To a rational, virtuous mind wealth does not bring enjoyment if it is employed merely in the gratification of the senses. Misery may be the result of such living. But in the judicious use of wealth for the good of others, the true man finds that comfort and glow of soul which the few, the favored few, can alone afford to buy.

One of the most fearful signs of our times is the rapid spread of socialism, or communism, in the minds of the poor. Bad men who are not poor use the miserable doctrine to get the favor of the masses, who are easily persuaded that they are wronged when others have more money than they. Equality would not last a week if it were once decreed; but the cry is popular, and the spirit of it is revolution and anarchy. And the rich must be made to understand and to feel that they promote this spirit if they continue to hoard great possessions, and use them only for their own selfish enjoyments. Envy, discontent, hatred, and robbery, with all evil, are begotten by the pride and folly of the rich, who imagine that wealth makes them better than the poor. Out

of this discontent come the curses of modern socialism. Laws cannot cure the evil. All the schemes of philanthropy to regulate the price of labor or the price of food are vain and deceptive. There is no remedy except in the prevalence of that spirit which springs up in the heart of the man who learns that he is not his own, that his wealth is not his own, that he ought to love his neighbor as himself, and that there is a high and holy sense in which he is bound to be his brother's keeper. We may not reason in favor of the safety of this system of inequality from the fact that in aristocratic countries ages have passed away in peace while the rich have been immensely rich and the poor most miserably poor. For the spread of ideas has wrought a tremendous change in the minds of men, and new theories of rights and property and obligation have been diffused by conversation, lectures, and the press. This change has been felt by legislators, who are governed by it in law-making. Personal rights are invaded. by the sovereign power. Courts are dominated by the unseen influence of the new philosophy. Rich men should bear in mind that they hold their property at the will of the lawmaking power, and legislatures are often controlled by the

commune.

One example, like that of the "old gentleman" whom the driver of my carriage was ready to praise and to mourn, does more to moderate and guide the public sentiment of a county and community than lectures and newspapers. Everybody loves him," said the humble citizen who opened the door for me; and it was his goodness which won their love. They did not envy and hate him because he was rich, increased in goods, and had need of nothing. They rejoiced the rather that he had a handsome mansion with all the comforts that wealth can furnish, because he has sympathies with those who have not the good things of this life in great abundance, and delights in sharing his substance with them. Therefore, the conclusion to which we shall come in our consideration of the irrepressible conflict between the rich and the poor, between capital and labor, is that the only practicable solution lies in the application of the gospel law of love. When

this becomes the rule of life, a millennium of peace, righteousness, contentment, and consequent happiness will begin its blessed reign.

This was the natural current of my thoughts as I crossed the Hudson at the going-down of the sun, and in the early evening returned to my lodgings at "Garden View," by the wells of Saratoga.