_According to the Spiritual Code, riches elevate or degrade according
to the virtue displayed in their acquisition and employment._
908. The great object of the more prudent and calculating portion of
mankind, is to provide for that old age which they all hope to attain,
or, if it be not reached, to provide the means for themselves or
families which may insure a comfortable if not luxurious support, in
case sickness or mutilation should deprive them of the power of making
money, or competency to earn wages.
909. But how precarious and fleeting are any such worldly advantages,
when compared with those of an eternal home, where every thing
desirable may be had without causing a drop of sweat to fall from the
brow! Let the description of the higher spheres be compared with any
earthly paradise, which, besides inferiority in every attribute which
can render it attractive, is open to all the ills of mental and bodily
suffering to which flesh is heir. If there be any objection to the
consequences of a due appreciation of the bliss which we may expect
in the spirit world, it would seem to be founded on its tendency so
to enfeeble our interest in this world, as to deter the human efforts
on which this sphere is, under God’s laws, mainly dependent for
improvement. But then, as a matter of principle, in order to merit
elevation in the spirit world, exertion may be induced in this; and
exertion _thus_ originating, can never be perverted to the perpetuation
of those wrongs now so often forming the steps to human aggrandizement.
The subjugation, the pillage, and extirpation of mankind, will never be
induced by considerations founded on the desire to accumulate treasure
in heaven.
910. There is hardly in respect to any subject, more error than in the
estimate made of persons who strive to acquire wealth. The question
lies not in the zeal with which it may be sought, but in the object
for which it is desired. Although the maxim that the end justifies the
means, be immoral when extended so far as to palliate any dereliction
of the cardinal virtues, does it not hold good so long as the means
employed are consistent with these virtues? Is it not charitable
honestly to seek the pecuniary means of being charitable? Is it not
liberal to seek the means wherewith to be liberal? Hospitable, to seek
the means to support hospitality? Is it not the duty of each man to
promote the welfare of his wife and children, by seeking the means
wherewith to house, clothe, and feed them, and, moreover, to educate
them intellectually as well as morally? Since, when destitute of
education, a man is little above a brute, surely it must be meritorious
to seek the means of educational improvement, both for ourselves and
for those by whom we are surrounded; but more especially for those who
are so dependent on us, that it can only through us be attained.
911. That part of the Lord’s prayer which deprecates temptation, is
perhaps of pre-eminent importance; since where there is one man who
goes through the world honestly by resisting temptation, there are
hundreds who preserve their honesty by avoiding temptation: by so
providing pecuniary means in due time, as not to be placed between the
alternative of starving, begging, cheating, or stealing.
912. In our republic it will be found that while the acquisition of
wealth enables one individual to raise his family by educational
superiority, the offspring of another, by the loss of fortune, sink
into the mass of illiterate labourers; so that there is a perpetual
undulation by the educational influence of money. Though public schools
may extend the advantages of education to the poor, yet _want_ drives
the educated youth to loathsome drudgery, made more painful by the
enlargement of his views resulting from education.
913. To the consequence of hereditary noblemen hereditary wealth is
essential, having vastly more influence than titles. In those countries
where titles exist without associated wealth, they have scarcely any
weight. However incompetent money may be to give importance to an
_uneducated_ commoner, a cotton-spinner, by educating his son and
giving him his fortune, may prepare him to sway an empire; when, had
his father been a pauper, the premier might have lived among those so
eloquently described by Shakspeare’s Henry the Fourth, as upon “uneasy
pallets stretching them.” How different from those perfumed chambers
and canopies of costly state, to which this spinner’s boy was actually
enabled to climb through the education and position resulting from
paternal affluence!
914. Civilization elevates those who have the advantages of education,
and who are either professionally employed in intellectual pursuits, or
have leisure to cultivate science and literature from taste. But the
same division of human labour and enterprise which gives intellectual
pursuits to a few as a profession, gives to the mass occupations
inconsistent with the cultivation of their intellectual powers. Those
who are engaged in the humblest species of industry, living from
hand to mouth, have little or no time to spare from that which their
necessities imperatively require; and the bodily fatigue incurred
during working hours, makes repose from all exertion the primary object.
915. But the situation of the poor, ignorant, and uneducated labourer
in civilized society, is rendered worse than that of an equally
ignorant and uneducated barbarian, by contrast with _his_ educated
neighbours. The lowest savage has as much scholastic education as
his chief, while the civilized labourer may be in the rear of an
educated child of five years of age. Thus the _absolute_ evil is made
_relatively_ still greater. When any man reflects on these facts, can
he be otherwise than anxious for those means which are necessary to put
his offspring upon a par in learning with those of others in the same
community?
916. Early in life, it is manifest to every one who does not enjoy
pecuniary affluence, that any species of indulgence which he may desire
requires money for its attainment. Even the command of leisure for any
enjoyment requires money, since, if obliged to work to earn his bread,
a man may not have leisure for any other object.
917. Among the most rational motives for the pursuit of wealth is the
love of independence. “Thy spirit, Independence, let me share—lord of
the lion heart and eagle eye!” In this sentiment every noble soul must
participate. How many have had, like the apothecary in Shakspeare’s
tragedy, to allow their poverty to rule, instead of honest will! How
many have been induced to “_earn their daily bread by their daily
shame_!”
918. Prudent, thoughtful, honest men, who do not choose to live
houseless, without clothes, nor upon the sweat of other men’s brows,
turn from the paths of amusement, of sensual enjoyment, from the love
of literature or science, or from the observation and investigation
of nature’s beauties and miracles, in order to get, _through wealth_,
the power, and honest right to indulge. But while pursuing this great
object, in the first instance only as the means of attaining other
objects, good or bad, they grow old in the chase; their passions
burn out, while avarice originates as it were from their ashes, not,
phœnix-like, to replace _one_ parental being, but a horrid monster,
having nothing in common with a plurality of progenitors, but the
selfish, ardent love of money, unmitigated by any redeeming aspiration.
A being so actuated—or, in other words, _a miser_—would certainly find
it as difficult to reach a higher sphere in the spirit world, as it
were for a camel to get through the needle’s eye.
919. As swine accumulate fat to bequeath to those to whom they leave
their carcasses, so the avaricious accumulate wealth, to hoard until it
can no longer be retained. They die with an immense amount of negative
sin; since all their omissions to do good, which is within their power,
is carried to their debit in the spirit world. Their poverty in the
spirit world will be proportioned to their ill-used wealth in this
temporal abode.
920. When this is well brought home to mankind, there will be less
avarice, and fewer of those crimes which arise from selfish cupidity,
or ambition.