We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and
destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as
moonshine, compared with the education of the heart." (3)
Still less has wealth any necessary connection with elevation of
character. On the contrary, it is much more frequently the cause
of its corruption and degradation. Wealth and corruption, luxury
and vice, have very close affinities to each other. Wealth, in
the hands of men of weak purpose, of deficient self-control, or of
ill-regulated passions, is only a temptation and a snare--the
source, it may be, of infinite mischief to themselves, and often
to others.
On the contrary, a condition of comparative poverty is compatible
with character in its highest form. A man may possess only his
industry, his frugality, his integrity, and yet stand high in the
rank of true manhood. The advice which Burns's father gave him
was the best:
"He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing,
For without an honest manly heart no man was worth regarding."
One of the purest and noblest characters the writer ever knew was
a labouring man in a northern county, who brought up his family
respectably on an income never amounting to more than ten
shillings a week. Though possessed of only the rudiments of
common education, obtained at an ordinary parish school, he was a
man full of wisdom and thoughtfulness.
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