GOLD VERSUS IDEALS 



dence, his studies, and his industry. If he seeks to 

 better his income it is by such methods as hurt neither 

 his conscience nor his constitution. He hath friends 

 and acquaintances of his own rank; he receives good 

 offers from them and he returns the same. As he hath 

 his occupations, he hath his diversions also; and par- 

 takes of the simple, frugal, obvious, innocent, and 

 cheerful amusements of life. By a sudden turn of things 

 he grows great, in the church or in the state. Now his 

 fortune is made, and he says to himself, 'The days of 

 scarcity are past, the days of plenty are come, and 

 happiness is come along with them.' Mistaken man! 

 It is no such thing. He nevermore enjoys one happy 

 day compared with those which once shone upon him. 

 He discards his old companions, or treats them with 

 proud, distant, or cold civility. Friendship, free and 

 open conversation, rational enquiry, sincerity, content- 

 ment, and the plain and unadulterated pleasures of life 

 are no more; they departed from him along with his 

 poverty. New connections, desires, new cares, take 

 place, and engross so much of his time and of his 

 thoughts, that he neither improves his heart nor his 

 understanding. He lives ambitious and restless and 

 dies RICH." 



That the case thus detailed by Jortin is drawn from 

 life, no one will question. Most of us could point sim- 

 ilar illustrations from our experience of this later gener- 

 ation. The moral of such a life points itself, and the 

 contemplation of such a denouement might well serve 

 as a warning. But before we are led to consider its 



