which we have found in its possession. From without are jealousies and envies in various forms, with their accompanying sneers, slanders, and impugnings of motive; also the incessant applications from cranks and loafers, as well as from the worthy, for donations, the prying curiosity of the public and reporters into the minutiae of private life, the ill-disguised expectancy of heartless heirs, the dangerous though unreasonable enmity of the ignorant rabble, the settled attitude of the shopkeeper and the employee for plunder, and the perilous conspicuity in time of public disorder. From within are the daily cares of managing the large estate, involving examination of investments, the testing of character in subordinates, the watching of markets, the intricacies of bargains and covenants, and the personal drudgery of details. Then there is the constant conviction, unless the conscience is seared, that this style of life is not what the human soul was made for, that it utterly fails to answer the great end of being, that it is an entanglement in magnificent trifles, and a waste of time and talents. Then again there is the fear of losses, anxiety with regard to speculations, absorption in thought marring social intercourse with its pleasures and benefits, and the foreboding that the riches will one day all be gone. To these evils, experienced consciously and painfully by the man of great wealth, is to be added an evil, to which, alas! he is indifferent, but which is, perhaps, in the end the greatest evil of all. He is lifted up out of all sympathy with his fellow man. He cannot understand the wants of the poor, nor can he, through such an experience as the many have, and the sympathy thus created, have his soul expand and strengthen. The benefit of the common humanity is largely lost to him, and he does not grow, but shrivels. Surely this is not the road to happiness, and the eagerness for wealth on the part of men is a fearful mistaking of the way.

We have considered the possession of riches in its best form. We have not used as a factor in the case what is found so generally in man, the readiness to use wealth wickedly to minister to base passions, to injure personal enemies, to make corners and control markets, to purchase votes in legislatures, and to pervert judgment. We purposely omitted to use this in our argument,

for we wished to speak of riches in their necessary sequences, and not in what the evil heart of man puts into them. We might have added, however, in this list of necessary sequences, the exceptions are so few, that the wealth is piled up by the father for the ruin of the children, who, free from all incentive to work, give themselves up to selfish enjoyments that destroy both body and soul.

We have not overdrawn our description. The observation of any thoughtful mind corroborates all that we have said, and yet my neighbor and half the world will not believe it, but they will rush on headlong for the golden goal. It is very evident that if we could persuade men of the truth of what we have said, the haste to be rich would cease. But we expect no such Utopian result. Folly is immortal. We do hope, however, to open the eyes of a few thoughtful ones, who are not fully possessed by the craze, and whose minds have some appreciation of what is truly noble and satisfying. It is to such we address our argument.

The making of money is a most becoming business, if the object be to support in comfort one's self and family. It would be also a most becoming business, if the object were to give away the money to those that need it, but not one in ten millions ever followed such a plan. Many think they are doing something of this sort when they are only intending to give out of their swelling profits for the benefit of the needy; but this is only a conscience drug, that the personal profits may be sought the more eagerly. The object is not to help the needy. That is a side affair. But there are many sensible men who limit their desire of money-making to the comfortable and reasonable support of self and family. This principle is totally different from that of desiring wealth. It involves none of the dangers which we have enumerated above. On the contrary, it is a healthy principle, promoting industry, regularity, social improvement, and public utility. It commands respect and does not excite envy. It helps mutual dependence and does not produce selfish isolation. It conforms to the divine law of labor, and hence sweetens the hours of rest. The aids to happiness, therefore, in this form of money-making, are unspeakably greater than in the race for

wealth or in the actual possession of riches. The men who are found in this class are (other things being equal) the happiest men on earth. Their contentment is a daily enjoyment, and not deferred to the end of a hot race, only then to turn out a deception. Of course they, like all men, will have their disappoint ments, but our comparison now is only between them and the slaves of Mammon. It is in this comparison that we confidently assert the towering superiority of the bread-winner to the wealth-seeker or wealth-possessor. We have spoken of the disadvantages of the wealth-possessor. The wealth-seeker has others, but, while different from those of the wealth-possessor, they are equally harmful to himself and to society. He is not as yet exposed to the catalogue of woes which we have enumer ated, which, like an enemy's battery, are opened for the millionaire; but a more disguised, yet no less destructive, evil is connected with his progress.

What is the inevitable result to himself? His eye cannot be taken off the distant goal, or he will lose his bearings and inevitably fail, for the distance of the goal multiplies the conditions and sequences that enter into the race. Hence his whole being must be absorbed in the one thing. Mental improvement and social culture must be denied. In such a process the mind must necessarily shrink, and the disposition become blunted. The man dwarfs as the money-maker grows. The healthy enjoyment of intellectual exercise, the increase of general knowledge, the pleasures of observation in nature and art, the genial fellowship of enlightened men, and the mellowness of attrition with the world's varieties, are all impossible when the gold-hunt is entered on. The germs of broadness, benevolence, and sympathy, which were in the soul at the start, are all smothered, for, if allowed to grow, they would seriously interfere with the arrival at El Dorado. It is for this reason that a man, as he gains riches, becomes close and miserly. He has constructed a fortress of selfishness in which he is impregnable. The few conspicuous exceptions to this rule by no means invalidate it. That some men have successfully resisted this law of tendency is to their honor, but still the law remains. Even with regard to the exceptions, we are wont to judge too liberally. The man of

twenty millions gives a hundred thousand to a college, and the newspapers blazon his generosity, and yet when the man with a hundred thousand gives five hundred dollars (the same proportion) to any object of worth, no newspaper ever thinks of sounding his praise. The latter gift is, indeed, far the larger, because the man of a hundred thousand needs all his income to live with the ordinary comforts of life, while the man of twenty millions has nearly a million of surplus every year. Moreover, this millionaire's gift, besides being a mere drop spilling over his brimming bucket, is very often pressed out of him by the machinery of events. In itself it is no proof of public spirit or human sympathies. With all this caution about indiscriminate praise, we cheerfully acknowledge that there are men of great wealth and men who are making great wealth, who are likewise men of great hearts. But again we say that this does not in the least mar our argument.

Another evil in the gold-hunt is that which is produced on the community. We have seen how it shrivels the man who hunts. Now let us see how it harms the public. The healthiest form of human society is where the many are equally independent in their management of their affairs, where professions and trades are represented by individual thinking minds, and where those engaged in any one branch of industry stand on a level with one another. This condition of things promotes invention, activity, interest, manliness, and good citizenship. Now, the gold-hunt system is directly antagonistic to all this. It seeks to destroy the many independent tradesmen, and to make them servants in a gigantic monopoly. The happy homes of freemen become the pinched quarters of serfs. The lords of trade have their hundreds and thousands of humble subordinates, over whom they rule, often with a rod of iron. They may be turned away from work and wages at any moment, from any whim of the selfish employer. Hence, through fear of this they lose their manhood, and dare not assert even a decision of their conscience. There is no more melancholy sight to my eyes than that which I so often see nowadays, the former happy possessor of a shop or store, who has lived comfortably and with the true nobility of a citizen, and whose family has felt the dignity of the

home, now made a clerk and drudge in a huge establishment, that by its relentless use of millions has undermined and overthrown all the independent stores of a large district, while his family are thrust into the unsavory communism of a tenement house, and lose all the delicate refinements of a quiet home. It is easy to say that this is but the natural law of trade. So to devour men is the natural law of tigers. But this truth will not reconcile us to the process. If we are to stop men from stealing directly, we can stop them from stealing indirectly. If natural law works evil to the community, we are to make statute law, which will act as supernatural law, and control the offensive principle. Unless we wish our old social equality destroyed and a system of practical serfdom to take its place, we must put a limit to the acts of greed, and so preserve the independence of our citizens. If the liberties of the multitude are to be guarded, the liberty of one man to buy up all the land or all the dry goods in the market must be checked. Capital must be circum scribed, except under special circumstances, when special conditions should be made for the protection of the community. The story of such accumulation of money power as that of the Standard Oil Trust is the story of an enslaved community, and the premonition of a future oligarchy as odious as that of Rome, which ruined the empire.

And this brings us to another evil wrought on the public by the haste to be rich. It evidently leads to crooked dealing. In so exciting a chase an advantage is not to be missed because of a little question of right and wrong. A lie here, a cheat there, these are the every-day occurrences by which to get around the neighbor or the custom-house or the stockholder. A bribe well placed is a stroke of genius. Employees are trained in deception and the community is morally corrupted. Legislatures, whom we trust for our laws, become the paid servants of the gold-hunters, and justice is polluted in our courts. The madness that possesses the man who is chasing after wealth knows no bounds. His moral code is completely set aside in the sphere of his money-making. Principles that he would count most important in a theory of morals, are wholly inoperative in his financial career. He slaughters widows and orphans with his fiscal