abuse of money immeasurably transcends its use; but such cases as have been quoted embody both encouragement and a rebuke. They encourage, because their number is slowly increasing; they rebuke, because by contrast, they proclaim how many embezzle, or misappropriate what rightfully belongs to the Sovereign Lord of all, and what, if employed in faith, would lead the world onward to a new and a brighter day. One certain method of speeding on the improvement, is for Christians to ascertain their true position as stewards, and uprightly to act in that character to ask of their Lord, What wouldst thou have me to do with what is Thine not mine? and resolutely to do according to the answer. Never will the world be shamed out of its worldliness, while so many thousands in the Church are not ashamed to copy the world's example, and hoard even to the last and the uttermost.

202

THE MISER'S POLE STAR.

CHAPTER X.

EXAMPLES IN GIVING THE WRONG.

“The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful."-ISA. xxxii. 5.

Avarice exemplified-The Miser-Rembrandt-John Elwes-Prodigality

exemplified-The Spendthrift-William Beckford-Covetousness rife even in the Church-Fraud, and its results-Exportation.

It is possible to employ poison in such a way as to render it conducive to health; it cures instead of killing. In like manner, some have learned, as we have already seen, the sacred alchemy of transmuting money into the means of promoting the highest good. We are now to turn, however, from the generous to the niggardly and lucre-loving, or from those who find their centre in God, to those who seek it in the creature-who fear not God neither regard man in disposing of their riches-all is wild prodigality upon the one hand, or tenacious grasping upon the other.

There have been men who set their hearts upon an ideal sum, and who pressed forward to acquire it, with the energy of all their power. The glittering heap, as the pole-star of their souls, was constantly in view, to stimulate their ardour, or check every movement of

THE GOAL REACHED-WHAT NEXT?

203

generosity. A hundred thousand pounds formed the golden goal of one such man, and he amassed at length all that his early manhood had coveted. He then retired to enjoy it, but palsy laid its arrest upon him, and dotage and decay speedily followed. While he gazed upon his gourd it withered, so that his hoards did little more for him than purchase a shroud, and over such men, a believer must lament with "the devotion of silence and tears." As there is a peculiar disease which causes men to transpose the names of things-night is morning-light is darkness, and the reverse; that disease, morally, reigns among the victims of greed.

Another devotee to wealth had amassed £200,000 by habits so penurious and base, that we might blush even to name them. But when he died, his heaped-up hoards were speedily scattered to the winds by his heirs, and that man's epitaph might have "said to every one that he was a fool." And surely of all spectacles, that is one of the saddest-an aged man thus grasping his riches like one infatuated, or dying wretched like the Hindu. devotee under the wheels of his idol car. For that old man, the attractions which God has thrown around earth are gone there is neither beauty to the eye, nor music to the ear, and the Scriptures are more than fulfilled in him-not merely does "he that is greedy of gain trouble his own house;" he is a burden and a weariness to himself, as well as to all about him.

But we may gather illustrations of the power of this passion in every field of human pursuit. The fine Arts are commonly supposed to expand, refine, and elevate the

204

THE ARTS-REMBRANDT.

soul of man, and it would not be easy even to epitomize the sentiments on that point which are commonplaced among the superficial. In spite of a grossness which is revolting, apparent in the lives of many artists, men still suppose that Art, by itself, can elevate, purify, and humanize. What, then, has it accomplished? Rembrandt stands at the head of a school of painters, which he himself created. The grandeur and the pathos, the simplicity and the power of some of his compositions, as well as his perfect colouring, are known to all; and did that pre-eminence liberalise, elevate, and refine his spirit? Nay, we know that he was coarse even to rudeness, and at the very time that his paintings were awakening joy in many whose sensibility was exquisite, he was himself unsubdued by the beauties which his pencil evoked. But it is more to our purpose to observe that Rembrandt was a grovelling, grasping miser. If he did not accumulate money merely for its own sake, he did so greedily for his own gratification. The expedients to which he resorted to secure what he loved so well were often degrading, and, as often happens, his passion proved his ruin. He amassed with great painstaking what melted all away at last, so that the great Dutch painter, with all his powers, and all his treasures, ranks among the poor indeed. "He amassed a large fortune;" "but his habits were low, and his avarice in

satiable, so that he lived like a beggar, and descended to the meanest tricks to increase his hoard."-It is not by heaps of riches-it is not by the surface-dressing which the Arts impart-it is not by any mortal device

THE PRINCE OF MISERS.

205

that man's fevered soul can reach the equilibrium of rest. It rests only in God.

But a glance at the life of the prince of misers, John Elwes, or Meggot, will embody all that need be said upon this subject. It is enough to make one hide his head, ashamed of his kind, to notice how the noblest powers of man are vitiated, degraded, or almost interred by the love of money. The judgment is warped. Reason becomes the dupe of a transparent sophistry-as if wealth were happiness. The affections are deadened, and the conscience, supreme though its office be, is seared or dethroned. Never was this more fully realised than in the case of Elwes. He inherited the sum of £250,000 from his uncle, and had nearly as much of his own, prior to that bequest. Now, with half a million thus at command, that man might have proved a blessing to thousands-he might have acted like a well or a stream in the desert, diffusing gladness around him. Souls might have been rescued by his means from the second death; and the history of man, which is written so often in blood, might have been by some shades or degrees less dark. But instead of that, Elwes hoarded and amassed, disowning the Great Proprietor, and practically adoring no god but gold. He verified, in short, an hundred texts, and among others this, "He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver."

For, when God was set aside, could half a million sterling make Elwes happy? On the contrary, he was so degraded by his idolatry as to adopt the most shameless means to acquire one of our smallest coins. Like