Can Honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?”
“WHO SHALL BE THE GREATEST?”
No. 2.
Men are ambitious of the esteem of those who are prominent in the eyes of the world on account of their wealth, their greatness, their learning.
How fond we are of the notice of the rich! How we strive to win their approbation! How we labor to gain their interest! How highly prized, how exaggerated, how boasted of, their slightest attentions. We will lick the very dust from the feet of wealth, and refuse to shake the honest hand of poverty. With what amazing sycophancy do we bow our heads at the footstool of him who has been mighty in battle, or great in the councils of the nation! And then the learned! How we out-Boswell Boswell himself, in picking up the crumbs which fall from their tables. In their august presence the world-worshipper prostrates himself in the dust of humility, and looks up to them for a smile with that air of servility with which the dog turns his face to the eye of his master for a crust of bread.
Men are Ambitious of Wealth.
The son of some poor cottager is charmed by the glitter and glare of riches. His father’s cottage soon becomes too small for his accommodation; the narrow confines of the little farm cramp too much his swelling expectations. He leaves the home of his childhood, the friends of his youth, and enters the busy, bustling marts of commerce. No stone, however heavy, is left unturned; no task is too burdensome, no difficulty too great, for the accomplishment of his heart’s desire. Toilsome labor, assiduous application, penurious economy, a heart steeled alike against the cries of want, the claims of his Maker, are called into requisition for the furtherance of this one mighty object. Visions of beautiful and boundless fields—of coffers overflowing with gold, of princely mansions, flit across his disordered imagination during the silent watches of the night. The more fuel he adds, the stronger the passion burns.
As the shipwrecked mariner, driven at the mercy of the winds and waves, seeks to quench his burning thirst by drinking the briny element which surrounds him, only to find that his thirst is increased rather than diminished, so does man find his desire for wealth increase with each successive gain. Soon his ledger becomes his Bible, his bank his sanctuary, his gold the god at whose shrine he bows morning, noon and night.—When he has reached the dregs of his existence, when his body is wasted by disease, weakened by age, when enfeebled Reason sits tottering on her throne, how bitter must be his thoughts when they revert to the hearts he has left all crushed and bleeding, to the homes all deserted and destroyed.—He then begins fully to realize the fact that he has been in the constant pursuit of an ever-receding ignis-fatuus, which dazzled only to destroy him. He has betrayed the noblest principles of the human heart for the sake of filthy lucre: like Judas, madly dashes the occasion of his misery to the ground, and frequently goes forth and hangs himself.