No passion can be a greater torment to those who are led by it, or more
frequently mistakes its aim, than insatiable covetousness. It makes
men blind to their present happiness, and conjures up ideal prospects
of increasing felicity, which often tempt its deluded votaries to
their ruin. Men who give themselves up to this propensity, know not
how to be contented with the constant and continued sufficiency with
which Providence may have blessed them: their minds are haunted with
the prospect of becoming rich, and their impatient craving tempers are
perpetually prompting them to try to obtain their object all at once.
They lose all present enjoyment in remotely contemplating the future;
and while they are shewing by their conduct how insensible they are
to the bounty of Providence, they are at the same time laying the
foundation of their own unhappiness.
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