In founding his ideal life upon contentment with small means, Channing
pleads for simplicity and the return to "plain living and high thinking."
He would fain double the soul's leisure by halving its wants.
Looking out upon his age, he beheld young men crazed with a mania for
money. He saw them refusing to cross the college threshold, closing the
book, neglecting conversation, despising friendship, postponing marriage,
that they might increase their goods. Yet he remembered that earth's most
gifted children have been content with small means, achieving their
greatest triumphs midst comparative poverty.