RICHES

Man must be thrifty in order to be generous. Thrift does not end with itself, but extends its benefits to others. It founds hospitals, endows charities, establishes colleges and extends educational influences.

The duty of helping the helpless is one that speaks trumpet-tongued; but especially to those who profess love to God and goodwill to men. Its a duty that belongs to men as individuals, and as members of the social body.

And ironically, It is not necessary that men should be rich to help others.
Nothing is so much overestimated as the power of money. Some people have an idolatrous worship of money. The Greeks had their Golden Jupiter. The lowest human nature loves money, possessions and asks the silly questions - What is he worth? If you say there is a thoroughly good, benevolent, virtuous man! no body will even notice. But if you say "There is a man worth a million of money!" he will be stared at till out of sight.

Men go on toiling and moiling, eager to be richer; desperately struggling as if against poverty, at the same time that they are surrounded by abundance. They scrape and scrape and add penny to penny, and sometimes do shabby things in order to make a little more profit; though they may have accumulated far more than they can actually enjoy. And still they go on worrying, themselves incessantly in the endeavor to grasp at an additional increase of superfluity.

Perhaps such men have not enjoyed the advantage of education in early life. They have no taste for books. They have nothing to think of but money, and what will make of money. They have no faith, but in riches. They keep their children under restriction, and bring them up with a servile education.

At length an accumulation of wealth comes into the hands of children. They have before been restricted i their expenses; and they now become lavish. They have been educated in no better taste. They spend extravagantly. They will not be drudges in their business as their fathers were. They will spend so fast and so much that by the time the 3rd generation comes up there is no wealth left.

English proverb says - Twice clogs, once boots. The first generation wore clogs and accumulated wealth, his rich son wore boots and spent it all, and thus the third generation took up clogs again.

What a miserable end.

A man that makes nothing but money is a poor man.