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there are few things in the world of greater importance. And so manifold are the bearings of money upon the lives and characters of mankind, that an insight which should search out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations would penetrate into almost every cranny of his nature. He who knows, like St. Paul, both how to spare and how to abound, has a great knowledge; for if we take account of all the virtues with which money is mixed up-honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought, self-sacrifice and of their correlative vices, it is a knowledge which goes near to cover the length and breadth of humanity; and a right measure and manner in getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and bequeathing would almost argue a perfect man."

We must not forget that, while some few abuse wealth, there are vastly more who know its appropriate use and worth. With such, money is the procurer of our common blessings. Money is then the universal talisman, the mainspring of our social system, the lever that moves the world. Some moderns, like Socrates (who wrote in praise of poverty on a table of solid gold), cynically speak against wealth. It is, however, the great motive agent in all departments of the social economy; helping on the civilisation of the world, and ministering not merely to the elegances, but also the essentials of life. Money represents labour. An eloquent writer* asks, "who can adequately describe the triumphs of labour, urged on by the potent spell of money? It has extorted the secrets of the universe, and trained its powers into myriads of forms of use and beauty. From the bosom of the old creation, it has developed anew the creation of industry and art. It has been its task and its glory to overcome obstacles. Mountains have been levelled, and valleys been exalted before it. It has broken the rocky soil into fertile glades; it has crowned the hill-tops with fruit and verdure, and bound around the very feet of ocean, ridges of golden corn. Up from the sunless and hoary deeps, up from the shapeless quarry, it drags its spotless marbles, and

* Rev. Mr. Chapin.

rears its palaces of pomp. It tears the stubborn metals from the bowels of the globe, and makes them ductile to its will. It marches steadily on over the swelling flood, and through the mountain clefts. It fans its way through the winds of ocean, tramples them in its course, surges and mingles them with flakes of fire. Civilisation follows in its paths. It achieves grander victories, it weaves more durable trophies, it holds wider sway than the conqueror. His name becomes tainted and his monuments crumble; but labour converts his red battlefields into gardens, and erects monuments significant of better things. It rides in a chariot driven by the wind. It writes with the lightning. It sits crowned as a queen in a thousand cities, and sends up its roar of triumph from a million wheels. It glistens in the fabric of the loom, it rings and sparkles from the steely hammer, it glories in shapes of beauty, it speaks in words of power, it makes the sinewy arm strong with liberty, the poor man's heart rich with content, crowns the swarthy and sweaty brow with honour, and dignity, and peace."

We have not mentioned a class who have been styled parvenu, such as have acquired wealth, and with it the vulgar passion for display. Such characters are to be found in all communities, but especially in those of recent formation. Unless culture and refinement accompany the possession of great wealth, the deformity is but the more obtrusive.

"Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow,
The rest is nought but leather and prunello."

A gentleman has been defined "a Christian in spirit that will take a polish." The rest are but plated goods, and, whatever their fashion, rub them as you may, the base metal will show itself still.

Whether in ermine or fustian, there is no disguising character: the refined may be seen in the latter, as palpably as the vulgar in the former:

"You may daub and bedizen the man as you will,

But the stamp of the vulgar remains on him still."

It is from this class that virtuous poverty has most to suffer.

These are they who "grind the faces of the poor," who, not withstanding the proverb that "poverty is no crime," yet treat a man without money as if he were without principle; who gauge the wit and worth of a man by his wearing-apparel and his wealth; who deem it absurd for a poor man to assert his possession of intelligence, learning, or, in fact, any endowment whatever. Goldsmith, referring to this depreciating influence of poverty, says-a poor man resembles a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures.

The want of money but deprives us of friends not worth the keeping; it cuts us out of society to which dress and equipage are the only introduction, and deprives us of a number of need, less luxuries and gilded fetters.

Swift," and can afford to

"I am rich enough," says Pope to give away a hundred pounds a year. I would not crawl upon the earth without doing a little good. I will enjoy the pleasure of what I give by giving it alive, and seeing another enjoy it. When I die I should be ashamed to leave enough for a monument, if a wanting friend was above ground." That speech of Pope is enough to immortalise him; independently of his philosophic verse.

That which was so diligently sought by the alchemists of old the contented man has discovered. Contentment is the true philosopher's stone which transmutes all it touches to gold; and the divine maxim that " a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," is itself a golden maxim.

"Why need I strive or sigh for wealth?

It is enough for me

That Heaven hath sent me strength and health,

A spirit glad and free;

Grateful these blessings to receive,

I sing my hymn at morn and eve."

Of all the artificial distinctions which obtain in civilised life, none are more absolute in their nature, or tyrannical in their

effects, than those which divide the poor from the rich. Difference of condition tends more to disturb the harmony of the social compact, and to annihilate the common sympathies of mankind, than anything else in the world. It not only often sunders the nearest and dearest ties of relationship, but also perverts the best feelings of our nature, and thus becomes the fruitful source of most of the social evils which afflict humanity. Few comparatively become possessed of great wealth, and fewer still of the affluent are found among the magnanimous almoners who delight to minister to the necessities, and mitigate the sufferings of the children of want. It is proverbial that the poor are the more generous, and that the acquisition of wealth has a direct tendency to make men selfish and parsimonious. As a general rule, the opulent become more and more the victims of a heartless insensibility to the claims of others in proportion as they indulge a lavish prodigality upon self. What outrage and wrong have been perpetrated by some of the minions of fortune, upon those whom it was their duty to befriend! "To be able to soften the calamities of mankind," said Melmoth, "and inspire gladness into a heart oppressed with want, is indeed the noblest privilege of fortune; but to exercise that privilege in all its generous refinements, is an instance of the most uncommon elegance, both of temper and understanding. In the ordinary dispensations of bounty, little address is required; but when it is to be applied to those of a superior rank and more elevated minds, there is as much charity discovered in the manner as in the measure of our benefactions. It is extremely mortifying to a well-formed spirit to see itself considered an object of compassion; and it is the part of improved humanity to honour this honest pride in our nature, and to relieve the necessities without offending the delicacy of the distressed."

Comparatively few homesteads are found exempt from some "poor relation." Indeed, it has become so proverbial, that the very name seems to inspire a feeling of the comic as well as the pathetic. A poor relation, according to Charles Lamb, is the most irrelevant thing in nature-a piece of impertinent corre

spondency—an odious approximation—a haunting conscience— a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity-an unwelcome remembrancer-a perpetually-recurring mortification—a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun than your pride-a drawback upon success-a rebuke to your rising a stain in your blood-a blot on your escutcheon -a rent in your garment-an apology to your friends-the one thing not needful-the hail in harvest-the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet. He is all this; and, more than all the rest, he is a severe test upon the claims of consanguinity; and often the only link that binds the poor neglected object to his "kith and kin," is the fear of the world's scorn and reprobation, which most men "well to do in the world" have not the hardihood to brave.

Touching "poor relations," we are reminded of the amusing instance of the sister of Sir George Rose, speaker of the House of Commons. Margaret Rose was proof against the meanness and insensibility of her brother, and bravely resented his inhumanity in the following manner. She hired a small cottage on the roadside, leading to the country mansion of Sir George, and placed over the door this intimation, for the especial benefit of the baronet's friends.

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The ingenious expedient had its effect upon the vanity and heartless selfishness of Sir George, who immediately sent word to her that if she would take down her sign he would give her an annuity for life. This offer, it is said, however, the highminded lady indignantly disdained to accept, preferring rather to punish the titled offender against humanity and decency, although at her own cost. This is but the type of a class still

extant.

The French, whose imaginative faculty is in advance even of the gravity of their matter-of-fact neighbours on the opposite

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