which God delights-that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself."

Sand has written a beautiful apostrophe to Poverty—“ the good goddess Poverty :" we cite a sentence or two:

'They have chained the good goddess-they have beaten her and persecuted her; but they cannot debase her. She has taken refuge in the souls of poets, of peasants, of artists, of martyrs, and of saints. Many children has she had, and many a divine secret has she taught them. She does all the greatest and most beautiful things that are done in the world; it is she who cultivates the fields, and prunes the trees-who drives the herds to pasture, singing the while all sweet songs-who sees the day break, and catches the sun's first smile. It is she who inspires the poet, and makes eloquent the guitar, the violin and the flute; who instructs the dextrous artisan, and teaches him to hew stone, to carve marble, to fashion gold and silver, copper and iron. It is she who supplies oil for the lamp, who reaps the harvest fields, kneads bread for us, weaves our garments, in summer and winter, and who maintains and feeds the world. It is she who nurses us in infancy, succors us in sorrow and sickness, and attends us to the silent sleeping-place of death. Thou art all gentleness, all patience, all strength and all compassion. It is thou who dost reunite all thy children in a holy love, givest them charity, faith, hope, O, goddess of Poverty !"

Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his desires and enjoyments. Of riches, as of everything else, the hope is more than the enjoyment; while we consider them as the means to be used at some future time for

* Fenton.

the attainment of felicity, ardor after them secures us from weariness of ourselves; but no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life. We are poor only when we want necessaries; it is custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

Good old Izaak Walton has something to say on this subject, too good to be omitted. Here it is :—

"I have a rich neighbor that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, more money that he may still get more. He is still drudging, saying what Solomon says: "The diligent hand maketh rich.' And it is true, indeed; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said by a man of great observation, 'that there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them.' And yet heaven deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful. Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound in riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even where others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she seems to play, is at the same time spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself. And this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares to keep what they have already got. Let us, therefore, be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience."

La Bruyère wisely remarks, "Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, honor, quiet, and conscience, to obtain them. It is to pay so dear for them that the bargain is a loss."

The classic page furnishes examples of a noble contempt of wealth, and a virtuous preference of poverty over venality and lust of riches. These, however, are rather exceptions to the rule which sustains the converse of the proposition; and before turning to the bright side, let us briefly refer to one or two instances of the baneful effects of avarice on the human heart.

The inordinate desire of wealth has been the occasion of more mischief and misery in the world than anything else. Some of the direst evils with which the world has ever been afflicted, have emanated from this source. No sooner had Columbus solved the problem of the Western Continent, than the accursed lust of gold began to fire the sordid hearts of his successors. Every species of perfidy, cruelty, and inhumanity, towards the aborigines was practised against them, in order to extort from them their treasures. These mercenary wretches, forcing the natives of Hispaniola so mercilessly to delve and toil for the much coveted ore, that they actually reduced their numbers, within less than half a century, from two millions to about one hundred and fifty. The conquest of Mexico, by Cortez and his followers, impelled by the same insatiable passion, was accompanied with horrors, atrocities, and slaughters, more dreadful and revolting than almost any recorded in the annals of our race. To prepare the way for enjoying the plunder they had in view, the unoffending Indians were butchered by thousands; while carnage and every species of heartless cruelty marked their progress of spoliation. In the siege of Mexico, no less than a hundred thousand of the natives were sacrificed; and, as if to add to the effrontery and depravity of the act, it was perpetrated under the standard of the cross, and with the invocation of the God of armies to aid the conquests. The like atrocities characterized the expedition of Pizarro for the conquest of Peru. Under perfidious professions of amity, they captured the Inca, butchering some four thousand of his unresisting attendants. The unfortunate empe

ror, vainly hoping to regain his freedom, offered them as many vessels of gold as would fill an apartment twenty-four feet long, sixteen wide, and eight high; and after having dispatched messengers to collect the promised treasures, he had fulfilled his engagement, when they vilely broke truce, and burnt their wretched victim. What a fearful catalogue of crime might be cited from the history of religion-Pagan, Papal, and even Christian. The baneful effects of avarice, whether displayed in individual conduct, or among communities of men, are the same. We must content ourselves with referring briefly to a few instances of the former,. as illustrative of the force of this debasing evil.

In the year 1790, died at Paris, literally of want, the wellknown banker-Ostervald. This miserable victim of this disease, a few days prior to his death, resisted the importunities of his attendant to purchase some meat for the purpose of making a little soup for him. "True, I should like the soup," he said, “but I have no appetite for the meat; what is to become of that? it will be a sad waste." This poor wretch died possessed of £125,000 sterling. Another desperate case was that of Elwes, whose diet and dress were alike of the most revolting kind, and whose property was estimated at £800,000 sterling. Among other characteristic incidents related of him, it is said that on the approach of that dread summons which was to divorce him from his cherished gold, he exclaimed, "I will keep my money-nobody shall rob me of my property." We meet with the name of Daniel Dancer, whose miserly propensities were indulged to such a degree, that on one occasion, when, at the urgent solicitation of a friend, he ventured to give a shilling to a Jew for an old hat-"better as new "-to the astonishment of his friend, the next day he actually retailed it for eighteen pence. He was in the habit of carrying a snuffbox about with him, not for the purpose of regaling his olfactory organ, but for what does the reader suppose? to collect pinches of the aromatic dust from his snuff-taking friends; and

when the box was filled, he would barter its contents for a farthing rushlight! He performed his ablutions at a neighboring pool, drying himself in the sun, to save the extravagant indulgence of a towel. Other eccentricities are chronicled of this remarkable "case"-such as lying in bed during the cold weather to save the cost of fuel, and eating garbage to save the charges for food yet this poor mendicant had property to the extent of upwards of £3,000 per annum. There was a Russian merchant-never mind his name, it is too barbarously burdened with consonants to spell or pronounce-who was so prodigiously wealthy, that on one occasion he loaned the empress Catherine the Second a million of rubles, although he lived in the most deplorable state of indigence, privation, and wretchedness. He buried his money in casks in his cellar, and was so great a miser that he seemed almost to thrive upon his very passion. He had his troubles, however, for reposing his trust for the security of his possessions upon the fierceness and fidelity of his favorite dog, his bulwark of safety failed him. The dog very perversely died, and his master was driven to the disagreeable alternative of officiating in the place of the deceased functionary, by imitating the canine service-going his rounds every evening and barking as well as any human dog could be expected to do.

M. Vandille, of Paris, was one of the most remarkable instances on record of immense wealth being combined with extreme penuriousness; he lodged as high up as the roof would admit, as certain poor poets are said to do, and lived on stale bread and diluted milk; notwithstanding he possessed great property in the public funds. Chancellor Hardwicke, when worth £800,000, set the same miserly value on a shilling as when he possessed but £100; and the great Duke of Marlborough, when near the close of life, was in the habit of exhibiting singular meanness to save a sixpence, although his property was over a million and a half sterling. The cases we have adduced are extreme instances of the influence of avarice;