[A WORD ON RICH FOLKS.]
We have never quite understood why among preachers and moralists there should be such a sweeping denunciation of riches. The rich man is called all that is bad. The poor man—no matter that he had been a spendthrift—is prescriptively an ill-used saint, for whom not enough can be done. The older notions on the subject perhaps originated in the fact that riches were too frequently accumulated by robbery and oppression; which is not unlikely, for until this day in certain eastern countries, of which Turkey is a luminous example, riches are usually a result of some sort of extortion, if not actual violence. And if so, we need not wonder that the poor were reckoned among the oppressed and specially worthy of compassion.
However the ancient opinions regarding riches originated, it is surely full time that new and more rational views were entertained, or at least professed, on the subject. In Western Europe, men do not now go about plundering and oppressing by armed force, as in the days of old. The poorest are protected by the law. As a general rule, riches are accumulated by a course of patient industry, and the reputedly wealthy are among the most careful in setting the example of doing good. Of course our mixed state of society is not without instances of wealth being realised by jobbery, by fraudulent exploits among speculators. But these are exceptions which a wise man does not fasten upon, except to point the moral, that ill-gotten riches seldom last long, and that their possessors are anything but respected. Why then persist in holding up the wealthy to reprobation? The truth is, the cry is little better than a sham. The very preachers who talk reproachfully and warningly of riches, seldom fail to be as zealous in the pursuit of riches as their neighbours. And in this no one can rationally blame them. Every man within his proper calling is entitled as a matter of duty to himself and those dependent on him to use all legitimate means for bettering his condition, and, if possible, increasing in wealth. It is indeed only by the prudential exercise of these privileges that society is held together and advanced in civilisation. It is very pleasant to see honest poverty decently struggling with circumstances, and maintaining a good character amidst adversity; but we deny altogether that poverty alone is synonymous with virtue, and to be held up as meritorious. Without riches even comparatively small, little good can be done. Wealth—meaning by that a surplus of gains beyond what are required for daily subsistence—is obviously the source of universal comfort. Money is above all things potential. It hires labour, gives the employment which so many stand in need of. It sets up manufactories, organises railways, puts ships on the ocean, pays for machinery, builds and improves towns, schools, and churches, encourages learning, enlarges processes of husbandry with a view to ever-increasing demands for food. The most skilful and willing workman, when placed in a country without money wherewith to employ him, is as helpless in the attempt to realise the wages of labour as the merest savage. In short, it is clear that before work can be given, there must in some measure be an accumulation of capital, or in plain language savings, in the hands of a part of the community.
Such being the case, how absurd does it seem to disparage money, as if it were something sinful and dangerous. As well disparage man-power, horse-power, steam-power, or any other power. As a force, money is neither hurtful nor beneficial, neither bad nor good in itself. All depends on the way in which it is used or directed. Gunpowder can blast a quarry and bring forth stones with which a hospital may be built; but the same gunpowder in the hands of the Russians or Turks can blow thousands of men into eternity in a single day. A rich man, if he be unselfish, has in his wealth the power of making his fellow-creatures less coarse, less depraved, and as a consequence, less miserable. From the vantage-ground of high position he can fight a chivalrous battle for the afflicted and him that hath no helper. His good example will have far more effect than that of a poorer man. His influence, if directed to good and merciful objects, is as powerful for good as that of the selfish rich man is for the reverse. 'Nobody should be rich,' said Goethe, 'but those who understand it.' But when a man owns gracefully and usefully, what good may he not do in the way of opening a path for others, and giving them access to whatever civilising agencies he may himself possess! Therefore we can understand how both religion and philanthropy may treat with respect and even with reverence the motto, 'Put money in thy purse.' May we not even say that it is the desire to 'get on' and to become rich that prevents our sinking into barbarism?
'There is always a reason in the man,' says Emerson, 'for his good or bad fortune, and so in making money.' This rule is not without exceptions, for now and then people do become rich by lucky or even by dishonest 'hits;' nevertheless money is in the main representative. Shew me a man who has made fifty thousand pounds, and I will shew you in that man an equivalent of energy, attention to detail, trustworthiness, punctuality, professional knowledge, good address, common-sense, and other marketable qualities. The farmer respects his yellow sovereign not unnaturally, for it declares with all the solemnity of a sealed and stamped document that for a certain length of time he rose at six o'clock each morning to oversee his labourers, that he patiently waited upon seasonable weather, that he understood buying and selling. To the medical man, his fee serves as a medal to indicate that he was brave enough to face small-pox and other infectious diseases, and his self-respect is fostered thereby. The barrister's brief is marked with the price of his legal knowledge, of his eloquence, or of his brave endurance during a period of hope-deferred brieflessness.
But besides its usefulness and its being the representative of sterling qualities, the golden smile of Dame Fortune is to be sought for the invaluable privilege of being independent, or at least being out of the horrid incumbrance of indebtedness. A man in debt is so far a slave; while it is comparatively easy for one possessed of ten thousand per annum to be true to his word, to be a man of honour, to have the courage of his opinions. When a man or woman is driven to the wall, the chances of goodness surviving self-respect and the loss of public esteem are frightfully diminished. But while striving to escape from the physical suffering and the mental and moral disadvantages that attend the lot of poverty, we should admit to ourselves the fact, that there are hardly less disadvantages and temptations ready to make us miserable, if we are not on our guard after attaining to a reasonable amount of wealth.
In a meeting assembled to make arrangements for Mr Moody's last preaching campaign in London, one of the speakers expressed his hope that Mr Moody would 'do something for the miserable poor of London.' 'I shall try and do so,' was the preacher's reply; 'and I hope also to be able to do something for the miserable rich.' 'The miserable rich!' Some would think the expression almost a contradiction in terms, but it is not; for the rich, while possessing the means, as we have already said, of doing vast good, have nevertheless many things to render them unhappy.
Great wealth is a heavy burden; the life of a rich peer being described as 'made like the life of an attorney by the extent of his affairs.' Even their most cherished means of enjoyment may become the possibilities of vexation to the rich. Some may think it is a fine thing to be a landlord, but there is hardly any position more irksome. There is no end of trouble with tenants. The same thing with servants. People who have many servants are sometimes worse served than those who have only one; for what is every one's business is nobody's, and each individual servant is ready with the answer: 'Oh, that is not in my department,' when asked to do anything. The more valuable is your horse, the greater is your anxiety about his knees. It is proverbially difficult for a lady to be 'mistress of herself though china fall;' but if the sound of broken delf rise from the kitchen, 'Another plate' is her indifferent remark. The fact is, every new possession becomes an additional something to be looked after, and adds almost as much to our anxiety as it does to our comfort. There is sound philosophy in the answer a king is related to have given to one of his stable-boys, when meeting him one morning he asked him: 'Well, boy, what do you do? What do they pay you?' 'I help in the stable,' replied the lad; 'but I have nothing except victuals and clothes.' 'Be content,' replied the king; 'I have no more.'
Occasionally there cast up in our social circle rich folks in an unhappy state of cynicism. They are at a loss what to do with their money. In making their will they demonstrate all sorts of whimsicalities, passing over any recognition of their oldest and most deserving friends, and leaving their means in some odd fashion which everybody laughs at. In such instances it is curious to note the anguish they experience in being asked to assist in charitable contributions. In Dr Guthrie's Autobiography there is a good illustration of this unhappy state of cynicism into which the rich are prone to fall. There he relates how, in a winter of extraordinary severity, he made an appeal to a lady who had succeeded to a prodigious fortune, on behalf of the starving poor of his parish. In doing so he had no very sanguine hope of success. On being ushered into her room, she turned round, and shewing her thin spare figure, and a face that looked as if it had been cut out of mahogany, grinned and said: 'I am sorry to see ye. What do you want? I suppose you are here seeking siller?' 'The very thing I have come for,' was the Doctor's frank reply. Her next remark demonstrated how little power her riches had of conferring happiness; and with all her wealth of flatterers, what a poor, lonely, desolate, miserable creature this possessor of more than a million sterling was. 'Ah!' she said, 'there is nobody comes to see me or seek me; but it's money, the money they are after.' We are glad to be able to relate that this miserably rich old lady gave to Dr Guthrie fifty pounds for the poor—an act which we hope shed a gleam of sunshine into her dark life.
It comes pretty much to this, that with riches there are sundry drawbacks, and that rich people are sometimes as much to be pitied as envied. All know the sharp penalties exacted by nature from those whose only business in life is the pursuit of merely personal gratifications. Wealth gives importance and satisfaction only in proportion to its being administered to a useful purpose. Unhappily, as has been said, there are miserable rich; but their misery is due to themselves. They have failed to see the vast capacities for doing good with which they have been charged. A wealthy person who spends the bulk of his time in the cruelties of pigeon-shooting, or in some other 'sport' connected with the coarse, wholesale destruction of innocent creatures, can be called neither a great nor a good man. At best, we can estimate him as an accomplished gamekeeper.