View source for Cursed with Blessings.

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<p><em>"Cursed with blessings."</em> I closed the page, and leaned back in reflection.<br><br>
"Here is another paradox," said I. "Cursed with blessings! It is simply a contradiction in terms. What does the writer mean?"<br><br>
I turned to the page again, and read on. "There is such a thing as being cursed with blessings, so that the earthly good a man seeks, shall become the greatest evil that can be visited upon him."<br><br>
Some gleams of light passed into my mind. Thought and memory went to work; and soon around the proposition, gathered a host of illustrating incidents. I remembered the case of a man who, in early and middle life, always, in family prayer, brought in the petition, "Increase our basket and store." And the worldly good things he so much desired, came; came in rich abundance. He added house to house, until his rents flowed back upon him, a princely income. But, his <em>selfish heart </em>made all his earthly blessings a curse. Like the <em>miser</em>, his <em>life </em>was in his <em>possessions</em>; and when anything threatened these, trouble of spirit arose. The dread of loss by fire, haunted him like a murderer's conscience. He insured; but felt only half protected by insurance, for there were dishonest companies, flaws in contracts, quibbles in the law. He had suffered one loss in this way. It was not serious, but enough to break his faith in Insurance as a reliable protection against fire. And so, every stroke of the alarm bell, by night or by day, gave a shock to his nerves, and sent a pang of fear to his heart. Sweet, refreshing sleep, became a stranger to his pillow. The spirit of dread was forever by his side, a fearful vision.<br><br>
Then came a morbid dread of <em>poverty</em>; and, after a time, his day-dreams and fitful night-visions began to be of pauperism and the almshouse. At sixty he was insane, from this cause, and died, in the <em>hallucination of abject poverty</em>, leaving a hundred thousand dollars of property, which passed to heirs, who made the blessing a curse also, as he had done, but in another way. In five years from his death, his two sons realized their father's fears, and now fill paupers' graves.<br><br>
"Cursed with blessings! Even so!" I said, as memory closed the page on which this history was recorded. "Like the <em>manna </em>which the children of Israel gathered in the wilderness, life's blessings must be used today — if <em>hoarded selfishly</em>, they will not keep."<br><br>
Another illustration memory gave. I knew a man who set his heart upon wealth, as a means of <em>comfort in old age</em>. "I am willing to work now," he used to say, "while I am young and vigorous; though business is distasteful to me. I love ease and freedom, and for the sake of gaining them, I toil on in early manhood."<br><br>
And while he toiled on, he was comparatively happy. I can remember him as one of the most cheerful men in my circle of acquaintance. But competence rewarded his labor before yet his sun of life had swept beyond the zenith, and his "basket and store" were full. His toil crowned him with blessings. And so he <em>retired </em>from the busy world, to enjoy these good things which had come to him in return for useful industry. Alas for my friend! He had no taste for books, no love of art, no fondness for country life, or pleasant gardening. His mind had been educated only in one direction. He was a man of business, and that alone. And so, he had nothing to do but to <em>sit down and enjoy himself</em>. How impossible that was, he discovered in less than a month. During the first and second seasons he tried Cape May, Saratoga, Newport, and a trip down the Lakes and the St. Lawrence. But he did not really enjoy himself. How could he? There is no enjoyment for a man living without a purpose. Mere killing time is only a slow, soul-killing operation, and is always accompanied by unhappiness.<br><br>
Ten years ago it was when my friend retired from business, to enjoy his fortune. His cup of blessing was full, and he has been holding it to his lips ever since, trying to find sweetness in the draught; but, judging from the expression of his face, the tone of his voice, and the character of his remarks, I think the wine in his cup must be dashed with<em>unusual bitterness</em>. His blessing has become a curse.<br><br>
Another received a moderate fortune from a distant relative. He happened to be heir-at-law, and the relative dying without a will, he came most unexpectedly into possession of about thirty-five thousand dollars in cash. He was a clerk, with a salary of one thousand dollars a year, living frugally with his wife and two children in a small, rented house. Few men enjoyed life with a keener zest than this young man. But the fortune proved his ruin. The <em>clerkship </em>was at once given up for a business venture; the hired house — for a handsome purchased dwelling; walking — for drives in an elegant carriage; social tea companies — for elegant parties. His course was brilliant but brief. The blessing was made a curse. Soured, dissatisfied, maddened by a sudden fall from the height up to which he had soared — way down into the valley of abject poverty, he lost self-respect and self-control. Alcohol made the ruin complete. His pale widow sits toiling now, early and late, striving to keep the <em>wolf of hunger </em>from her door.<br><br>
Shall we go on, varying these illustrations of the text? They may be taken from every condition in life, and from all of its wide relations. There is not a reader who cannot supply his quota, and set them even in stronger light than we have done. And there is not a reader who may not, with the writer, find in his own past history almost unnumbered instances, in which he has turned his good things into evil; his blessing into cursing. We all do it, when we let affection rest in mere natural and sensual things, instead of making these things ministers of the <em>soul's higher life</em>. Worldly possessions are blessings, if acquired as a means to useful ends; but they curse us, when we make them our chief good.<br>
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