170 PERILS. — WEALTH. 



corporations, which so often controls legislation, is mon- 

 eyed influence. 



2. Again, by reason of our enormous wealth and its 

 rapid increase, we are threatened with a gross material- 

 ism. The English epithet applied by Matthew Arnold to 

 Chicago, " too beastly prosperous/' has a subtile mean- 

 ing, which perhaps was not intended by the distin- 

 guished visitor. Material growth may be so much more 

 vigorous than the moral and intellectual •as to have a 

 distinctly brutalizing tendency. Life becomes sensuous ; 

 that is deemed real which can be seen and handled, 

 weighed and transported; and that only has value 

 which can be appraised in dollars and ceiJts. Wealth 

 was intended to minister to life, to enlarge it ; when life 

 becomes only a ministry to enlarge wealth, there is mani- 

 fest perversion and degradation. We may say of it as 

 Young said of life — "An end deplorable! A means di- 

 vine ! " Says Mr. Whipple : ^ " there is danger that 



the nation's worship of labors whose worth is measured 

 by money will give a sordid character to its mightiest 

 exertions of power, eliminate heroism from its motives, 

 destroy all taste for lofty speculation, and all love for 

 ideal beauty, and inflame individuals with a devouring 

 self-seeking, corrupting the very core of the national 

 life." We have undoubtedly developed a larger propor- 

 tion of men of whom the above is a faithful picture than 

 any other Christian nation ; men to whom Agassiz's re- 

 mark, " I am offered five hundred dollars a night to lec- 

 ture, but I decline all invitations, for I have no time to 

 make money," is simply incomprehensible; it dazes 

 them. 



There is a "balance of power" to be preserved in 

 the United States as well as in Europe. Our safety 



New York City alone "received money for their alleged services or as bribers 

 in the election during the recent campaign. . . . And this sum has no reference 

 to the vast amounts placed in the hands of individuals with the oj^en and 

 avojwd purpose of buying votes. ... I have compared these figui'es with 

 many practical politicians, and they all agree that they are conservative." 

 1 Character and Characteristic Men, p. 142. 



