The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-04-04 00:00:00

THE INCONSISTENCIES OP • AVARICE.

It is a striking illustration of the insidious nature of
avarice, that not one rich man in a hundred, perhaps not
one in a thousand, is disposed to stop hoarding. The
point of acquisition which constitutes "wealth" is pushed
along as men approach it ; so that the amount of property
which, at setting out in business, supplied their definition
of " opulence," and at which they meant to forbear fur-
ther accumulation, comes, in time, to dwindle into a paltry
A eompetence," with which " no one ought to be satisfied."
simple change4in the definition keeps conscience quiet,
and allows the beguiling process to go on. The more
they get, the more they want. And even when an estate
has swelled to colossal proportions, the idea of arresting
its growth, or of giving away a generous part of the
revenue it yields, is almost as painful as that of losing a
child. Singularly enough, this morbid tenacity of income
prevails where there is a distinct purpose of making a
posthumous appropriation of large sums to charitable
ages The will is already drawn up to this effect, and
duly signed and sealed ; but the testator, entranced by
the mysterious power of gold, cannot summon the resolu-
tion to become
his own eTecuto.r. He has seen many a
will broken, and many an inheritance alienated from its
• and he knows this may happen in his
proper destination ; . it may not happen ." and
own case also. But, again:
he will run the hazard. If it were. not
•for the spell which
.
is upon him, the pleasure of applying
l his bounty and wit-
nessing the benigt! effects of a ~would outweigh the sordid
satisfaction he derives from seeing
dust growing larger and larger. But
the heapof
hallucinationgold-
dust
be thrown off ; the glittering treasure will assert
its mastery against any rival power, except.
guilthetiuniversal
conqueror. Or, he is, possibly,
sole aim toof any prospective benefactions. His
one who is
"pro-
vide for his own ;" to go on turning revenue into capital
as long as life lasts, that when his eyes are closed in death,
his mammoth estate ma descend to his heirs unimpled

Where are the estates of the leading Philadelphia, New
York, and Boston merchants, who died half a century
ago ? Gathir up the fragments, if you can find them, in
the hands of their children and grandchildren ; and see
what there is to show for all the planning, and toiling-
and saving, those fortunes cost ! You have but to look
arowo Am- own city, to see even conternnoraneous patri-

monies melting away like a March snow, almost before
the mansions once tenant"' by their frugal owners have
put off their crape. Whether this•parental munificence is
commonly requited with a corresponding gratitude, and
men are held in filial honour in proportion to the ingots
they leave, and the time and pains they have taken to
fabricate them, each one must decide for himself. But if
it entered at all into the aims of these parties to establish
a reputation which their fellow-citizens, or even their own
descendants, should cherish as a sacred legacy, a very brief
return to the scenes of their former toils, would probably
satisfy some of them, that they had sadly mistaken the
means. for compassing their end. There are men who
have judged more wisely. The grave has lately closed
upon one of this class in an Eastern city. A venerable
and successful merchant, he had for many years before
his death left off accumulating, and made it his inflexible
rule to give away the whole of his large surplus income.
Now he was endowing a college professorship ; now found-
ing an academy ; now bestowing a princely benefaction
upon some judicious charity ; and now another upon some
noble religious enterprise. One of his favourite methods
of doing good was to purchase, and put in circulation,
hundreds of copies, or perhaps whole editions, of any use-
ful book which happened to commend itself to his taste
and judgment. And after his death, a memorandum
among his papers was found to contain the names of a
large number of village pastors, whose scanty stipends he
had been in the habit of increasing from year to year.
These are but hints and samples of his life : but they may
suffice to show that he was not a man to be forgotten. It
is something for a private citizen so to live that when he
dies the whole community to which he belonged, and other
distant communities vying with them, shall take up his
name and breathe a blessing upon it. It is for yourselves,
under Providence, to decide (I speak especially to the
wealthy among you), whether your memories shall be
thus embalmed, or handed over to a speedy oblivion. And
in making this observation, I am far from commending it
to you as a becoming object of your ambition, to purchase
a posthumous fame by your charities, I have in view
simply the ordinance of heaven, that "the righteous shall
be held in everlasting remembrance." "The memory of
the just" (and this epithet includes the idea of benevo-
lence) "is blessed." Whether you take the case of a se-
cluded female, who employs her leisure hours, like Dorcas,
in making coats and garments for the poor, or the faithful
missionary who wears himself out in distributing the bread
of life along the lanes and alleys of a city, or the paternal
landlord, who, like the "Man of Ross," puts the impress
of his kindness upon all the homes of his neighbourhood,
and associates his name with every measure which can
augment the common comfort, or the generous capitalist
whose benefactions are a sure reliance to the great reli-
gious charities of his age—it is alike the ordering of Pro-
vidence, that their memories shall be blessed. You may
not aim at this result. Your humility may shrink from
the thought of having your names repeated from one to
another, even by friendly and grateful lips. But you can-
not well avoid this, if you are faithful to your trust, and
employ your property, or a reasonable portion of it, in
doing good. Sooner or later, many will " rise up and call
you blessed." It is meet that it should be so. And the
marvel is, that you do not all perceive how superior in
dignity and worth, in honour and influence, is a scheme
of life regulated by these principles, to one which looks
only or mainly, to indefinite accumulation.

The length to which our extracts have extended,
although they have exhausted the space at our
command, have not by any means exhibited
the extent and value of the advice and information
conveyed in the pages of the volume, which will
be found an admirable family and counting-house
manual. It deserves and will repay an attentive
and frequent perusal.

The London Quarterly Review, No. 111. London:
Partridge, Oakey, and Co.

The third number of this periodical sustains the
character we recognised in its first and second
publications. It contains well-written articles on
a variety of stbjeCts, all of which are treated with
an apparent candour and ingenuousness. Its lite-
rary status, as well as its literary standard, may
not reach those so readily achieved and so nobly
maintained by the polished literary and political
giant whose patronymic it to some extent assumes ;
but it is a valuable addition to the high-class
periodicals of the day. In the present number we
have an interesting paper onMadagascar,founded on
the papers of the London Missionary Society, in
which we have a succinct and spirited review of
life and manners as they are to be met with in that
island, to which a new interest has lately been
added by the passing of it into the hands of a
native sovereign who is an avowed Christian, thus
affording ground of lively hope to those who rejoice
in the spread of Scripture truth and Christian civi-
lization. The fourth paper is devoted to a brief
but spirited sketch of the rise, progress, and pre-
sent condition of Mormonism, in which the immo-
ralities, blasphemies, and gross delusions of the
Mormon imposture are delineated with skill, and
exposed with effect. After narrating the singular
and rapid increase in the number of adherents to
this impious and demoralising iniquity—demon-
strating its disgusting polygamy—its disregard of
moral obligations, and its fanatical delusions—the
writer says :--