17G PERILS. — WEALTH. 



lion. Nineteen men of every twenty (and the twentietl; 

 is either an invahd or a home missionary) will tell yon 

 that they went there for the express purjoose of making 

 money. Where land is being rapidly taken, and real 

 estate of all sorts is rapidly appreciating in value, men 

 make every possible present endeavor with reference to 

 the future. Under such conditions the race after wealth 

 becomes peculiarly eager. The gambling spirit which 

 always prevails in mining regions exerts a wide influ- 

 ence, even in agricultural states. Farmers often rent 

 land, put their entire capital into a great acreage, and 

 stake everything on a single crop. The sudden wealth 

 often realized in the mines stimulates the general haste 

 to be rich. And where riches are almost the sole object 

 of endeavor, their possession gives greater power. In 

 the Eocky Mountains a man may be to-day a caterer or 

 bar-tender, fit for that and nothing more; to morrow, 

 without any good wit of his own, a millionaire; next 

 day, because " Mammon wins his way where seraphs 

 might despair,-' a lieutenant-governor or United States 

 senator. The demoralizing atmosphere of the New 

 West is seen in the fact that there are everywhere 

 church-members who seem to have left their religion 

 behind when thej^ crossed the Missouri. Many men who 

 lived reputable Christian lives in the East are there 

 swept into the great maelstrom of worldliness. 



^s a comment on our gross materialism here in the 

 United States, and especially in the far West, I will 

 quote a short passage from the note book of the musi- 

 cian, Gottschalk. Being ill for three days in a town in 

 Nevada, and finding himself utterly deserted, he gives 

 vent to his feelings in these words: "I defj^ your find- 

 ing, in the whole of Europe, a village whei'e an artist of 

 reputation would find himself as isolated as I have 

 been here. If, in place of playing the piano, of having 

 composed two or three hundred pieces, of having given 

 seven or eight thousand concerts, of having given to 

 the poor one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, of 

 having been knighted twice, I had sold successfully for 



