stamped document that for a certain length of time he rose at six o'clock each morning to oversee his labourers, that he patiently waited upon seasonable weather, that he understood buying and selling. To the medical man, his fee serves as a medal to indicate that he was brave enough to face small-pox and other infectious diseases, and his self-respect is fostered thereby. The barrister's brief is marked with the price of his legal knowledge, of his eloquence, or of his brave endurance during a period of hope-deferred brieflessness.

But besides its usefulness and its being the representative of sterling qualities, the golden smile of Dame Fortune is to be sought for the invaluable privilege of being independent, or at least being out of the horrid incumbrance of indebtedness. A man in debt is so far a slave; while it is comparatively easy for one possessed of ten thousand per annum to be true to his word, to be a man of honour, to have the courage of his opinions. When a man or woman is driven to the wall, the chances of goodness surviving self-respect and the loss of public esteem are frightfully diminished. But while striving to escape from the physical suffering and the mental and moral disadvantages that attend the lot of poverty, we should admit to ourselves the fact, that there are hardly less disadvantages and temptations ready to make us miserable, if we are not on our guard after attaining to a reasonable amount of wealth.

In a meeting assembled to make arrangements for Mr Moody's last preaching campaign in London, one of the speakers expressed his hope that Mr Moody would 'do something for the miserable poor of London.' 'I shall try and do so,' was the preacher's reply; 'and I hope also to be able to do something for the miserable rich.' 'The miserable rich!' Some would think the expression almost a contradiction in terms, but it is not; for the rich, while possessing the means, as we have already said, of doing vast good, have nevertheless many things to render them unhappy.

Great wealth is a heavy burden; the life of a rich peer being described as 'made like the life of an attorney by the extent of his affairs.' Even their most cherished means of enjoyment may become the possibilities of vexation to the rich. Some may think it is a fine thing to be a landlord, but there is hardly any position more irksome. There is no end of trouble with tenants. The same thing with servants. People who have many servants are sometimes worse served than those who have only one; for what is every one's business is nobody's, and each individual servant is ready with the answer: 'Oh, that is not in my department,' when asked to do anything. The more valuable is your horse, the greater is your anxiety about his knees. It is proverbially difficult for a lady to be 'mistress of herself though china fall;' but if the sound of broken delf rise from the kitchen, 'Another plate' is her indifferent remark. The fact is, every new possession becomes an additional something to be looked after, and adds almost as much to our anxiety as it does to our comfort. There is sound philosophy in the answer a king is related to have given to one of his stable-boys, when meeting him one morning he asked him: 'Well, boy, what do you do? What do they pay you?' 'I help in the stable,' replied the lad; 'but I have nothing except victuals and clothes.' 'Be content,' replied the king; 'I have no more.'

Occasionally there cast up in our social circle rich folks in an unhappy state of cynicism. They are at a loss what to do with their money. In making their will they demonstrate all sorts of whimsicalities, passing over any recognition of their oldest and most deserving friends, and leaving their means in some odd fashion which everybody laughs at. In such instances it is curious to note the anguish they experience in being asked to assist in charitable contributions. In Dr Guthrie's Autobiography there is a good illustration of this unhappy state of cynicism into which the rich are prone to fall. There he relates how, in a winter of extraordinary severity, he made an appeal to a lady who had succeeded to a prodigious fortune, on behalf of the starving poor of his parish. In doing so he had no very sanguine hope of success. On being ushered into her room, she turned round, and shewing her thin spare figure, and a face that looked as if it had been cut out of mahogany, grinned and said: 'I am sorry to see ye. What do you want? I suppose you are here seeking siller?' 'The very thing I have come for,' was the Doctor's frank reply. Her next remark demonstrated how little power her riches had of conferring happiness; and with all her wealth of flatterers, what a poor, lonely, desolate, miserable creature this possessor of more than a million sterling was. 'Ah!' she said, 'there is nobody comes to see me or seek me; but it's money, the money they are after.' We are glad to be able to relate that this miserably rich old lady gave to Dr Guthrie fifty pounds for the poor—an act which we hope shed a gleam of sunshine into her dark life.

It comes pretty much to this, that with riches there are sundry drawbacks, and that rich people are sometimes as much to be pitied as envied. All know the sharp penalties exacted by nature from those whose only business in life is the pursuit of merely personal gratifications. Wealth gives importance and satisfaction only in proportion to its being administered to a useful purpose. Unhappily, as has been said, there are miserable rich; but their misery is due to themselves. They have failed to see the vast capacities for doing good with which they have been charged. A wealthy person who spends the bulk of his time in the cruelties of pigeon-shooting, or in some other 'sport' connected with the coarse, wholesale destruction of innocent creatures, can be called neither a great nor a good man. At best, we can estimate him as an accomplished gamekeeper.

Luckily, and influenced by the wide expansion of modern ideas, the rich, in the main, rise above paltry gratifications. There is obviously an immense outgrowth in the generous distribution of wealth. In innumerable cases, the rich have a difficulty in determining how to expend their money in a way that will prove beneficial. The question, 'To whom or to what cause shall I contribute money?' must be a very anxious one to conscientious men of wealth. 'How are we to measure,' we may suppose rich men to ask, 'the relative utility of charities? And then political economists are down upon us if by mistake we help those who might have helped themselves. It is easy to talk against our extravagance; tell us rather how to spend our money as becomes Christians;' that is to say, for the greatest good of the greatest number. The fact is, riches must now be considered by all good men as a distinct profession, with responsibilities no less onerous than those of other professions. And this very difficult business ought to be learned by studying social science, and otherwise with as much care as the professions of divinity, law, and medicine are learned. Were the rich in this way to accept and prepare themselves for the duties of their high calling, no one would grumble, because in the nature of things money tends continually to fall into the hands of a few large capitalists.

The value of riches, then, depends on the use that is made of them. No doubt, as hinted at, they are often abused by the thoughtless, the dissolute. But look at the many grand results of properly employed wealth! Consider what is daily being effected in our own country alone by the beneficence of wealthy individuals. What number of charities supported, what churches built, what schools set on foot, what vast enterprises of a useful kind entered into for the general benefit of society. On these considerations, what a farce is that silly declamation against the possession of riches, in which certain orders of persons are indiscreetly pleased to indulge!

FROM DAWN