“Thus the base miser starves amid his store,
Thus the base miser starves amid his store
“Thus the base miser starves amid his store, Broods over his gold, and griping still at more, Sits sadly pining, and believes he’s poor.”
Nothing is more clear to any one who chooses to observe it, than that riches are not the chief good at whose advent sorrow flies, and in whose presence joy perennial springs. Full often wealth cozens the owner. Dainties are spread on his table, but his appetite fails, minstrels wait his bidding, but his ears are deaf to all the strains of music; holidays he may have as many as he pleases, but for him recreation has lost all its charms. Or he is young, fortune has come to him by inheritance, and he makes pleasure his pursuit until sport becomes more irksome than work, and dissipation worse than drudgery. You know how riches make themselves wings; like the bird that roosted on the tree, they fly away. In sickness and despondency these ample means that once seemed to whisper, “Soul, take your ease,” prove themselves to be poor comforters. In death they even tend to make the pang of separation more acute, because there is the more to leave, the more to lose.
We may well say, if we have wealth, “My God, do not put me with these husks; let me never make a god of the silver and the gold, the goods and the chattels, the estates and investments, which in your providence you have given me. I beseech you, bless me indeed. As for these worldly possessions, they will be my bane unless I have your grace with them.” And if you have not wealth, and perhaps the most of you will never have it, say, “My Father, you have denied me this outward and seeming good, enrich me with your love, give me the gold of your favor, bless me indeed; then allot to others whatever you will, you shall divide my portion, my soul shall wait your daily will; do bless me indeed, and I shall be content.”
Another transient blessing which our poor humanity fondly covets and eagerly pursues is fame. In this respect we would sincerely be more honorable than our brethren, and outstrip all our competitors. It seems natural to us all to wish to make a name, and gain some note in the circle we move in at any rate, and we wish to make that circle wider if we can. But here, as of riches, it is indisputable that the greatest fame does not bring with it any equal measure of gratification. Men, in seeking after notoriety or honor, have a degree of pleasure in the search which they do not always possess when they have gained their object. Some of the most famous men have also been the most wretched of the human race. If you have honor and fame, accept it; but let this prayer go up, “My God, you bless me indeed, for what profit were it, if my name were in a thousand mouths, if you should spue it out of your mouth? What matter, though my name were written on marble, if it were not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life? These blessings are only apparent blessings, windy blessings, blessings that mock me. Give me your blessing: then the honor which comes of you will make me blessed indeed.”
If you happen to have lived in obscurity, and have never entered the lists for honors among your fellow-men, be content to run well your own course and fulfill truly your own vocation. To lack fame is not the most grievous of ills; it is worse to have it like the snow, that whitens the ground in the morning, and disappears in the heat of the day. What does it matter to a dead man that men are talking of him? Get the blessing indeed.
There is another temporal blessing which wise men desire, and legitimately may wish for rather than the other two; the blessing of health. Can we ever prize it sufficiently? To trifle with such a boon is the madness of folly. The highest eulogiums that can be passed on health would not be extravagant. He that has a healthy body is infinitely more blessed than he who is sickly, whatever his estates may be. Yet if I have health, my bones well set, and my muscles well strung, if I scarcely know an ache or pain, but can rise in the morning, and with elastic step go forth to labor, and cast myself upon my couch at night, and sleep the sleep of the happy, yet, oh let me not glory in my strength! In a moment it may fail me. A few short weeks may reduce the strong man to a skeleton. Consumption may set in, the cheek may pale with the shadow of death.