nity to talents, and scope to goodness; go among the multitude, and see if you can drag from the oblivious heap God, some gift of Heaven, some child of whose mind can burst through the secrets of nature, and influence the destiny of man. This is the dignified, and religious use of riches, which, when they cherish boyish pride, and minister to selfish pleasure, shall verily doom their possessor to the flames of hell.-But he who knows wherefore God has given him great possessions, he shall die the death of Lazarus, without leading his life, and rest in the bosom of Abraham, though he never stretched forth his wounds to the dogs, nor gathered up the crumbs of the table for his food. The best mode of guarding against that indirect flattery, which is always paid to wealth, is to impress the mind with a thorough belief of the fact; and to guard, by increased inward humility, against the danger of corruption from without. The wealthy man, who attributes to himself great, or good qualities, from what he con ceives to be the opinion of the world, exposes himself to dangerous errors; on the most important of all subjects, this source of self-judgment is, for him, most effectually poisoned; he must receive such evidence with the utmost distrust, weigh every circumstance with caution, court animadversion, and friendly candour, and cherish the man, by whose polished justice his feelings are consulted, while his follies are repressed. For the pride which is contracted by the contemplation of little things, there is no better cure than the contemplation of great things. Let a rich man turn from his own pompous littleness, and think of Heaven, of eternity, and of salvation; let him think of all the nations that lie dead in the dust, waiting for the trumpet of God; he will smile at his own brief authority, and be as one lifted up to an high eminence, to whom the gorgeous palaces of the world are the specks, and atoms of the eye; the great laws of nature pursue their eternal course, and heed not the frail distinctions of this life; the fever spares not the rich, and the great; the tempest does not pass by them; they are racked by pain, they are wea kened by disease, they are broken by old age, they are agonised in death like other men, they moulder in the tomb, they differ only from other men in this, that God will call them to a more severe account, that they must come before him with deeds of Christian charity, and acts of righteousness, equal to all the opportunities, and blessings which they have enjoyed. Let the rich man, then, remember in the midst of his enjoyments, by what slight tenure those enjoyments are held. In addition to the common doubt which hangs over the life of all men, fresh perils lay hid in his pleasures, and the very objects for which he lives, may be the first to terminate his existence. "Remember thou art mortal," was said every day to a great king. So, after the same fashion, I would that a man of great possessions should frequently remember the end of all things, and the long home, and the sleeping place of a span in breadth; I would have him go from under the gilded dome, down to the place where they will gather him to the bones of his fathers; he should tread in the dust of the noble, and trample on the ashes of the proud; I would heap before him sights of woe, and images of death, and terror; I would break down his stateliness, and humble him before his Redeemer, and his judge: My voice should ever sound in his ears, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven. |
