Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1850-05-02
Avarice.

whose sole object is to accumulate the wealth
OF this world. to hoard it in Golfers and strong
boxes from which profigate and dissipated
heirs Will scatter it, perhaps with curses upon
the cleaners name, is, of all beings, certainly
the most to be pitied. DIR. Johnson properly
characterized the lust of gold as "thc last cor
ruption of degenerate nature" Pollok, in
his Course of Time" portrays the character of
the misor in the following lines =
I'LL guided wretch
Thou mightst have seen him at the midnight
hour,
When good men slept, and, in light winged
dreams
Assembled up to God,-in wasteful hall,
With vigilance and fasting worn to skin
And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags
And holding strange communion with his gold
And as his thievish fancy seem'd to hear
The nishtman's foot approach, starting, alarmed
And in his old, decrepit, withered hand,
That palsy shook, graspins the yellow earth
To make it sure.
VI all that sold eternity Ter time,
None bargained on so easy terms with death -
In the following quotation from an old vol
umc, there is also much truth -
"The miser lives alone, abhorred by all
Like disease, but cannot be so 'scaped,
But, nkerhke, eats thro' the poor mems
hearts
That live about him never has commune
With any but to ruin them his house
Inhospitable as the wilderness,
And never looked upon him but with curse.
He boards in secret places of the earth,
Not only bags of treasure, but his corn,
Whose every grain he prizes 'bove life,
And never prays at all but for dear years"
The vice of avarice is by no means a COM
mon one. Seldom, indeed, in these days, do
we behold miser, and notwithstanding an oc-
casional few withdraw from social enjoyInents,
and surround themselves with the insuperabIe
barriers of selfshncss and prohibited inter
course, the general and bitter detestation in
which this vice is held by society, renders their
occurrence .'few and far between" In the
GRAVE" by Blair, we find the following
graphic delineation of the final exit of the
wretch who debases the image of his Maker,
and perverts ali the more enrolling instincts
of an intelligent nature, by making the ''yel-
low earth his god.
80 cursed love of gold; when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds
In no case IS the formative, we had almost
said the creative power of habit, more potently
and st1kinsly illustrated than in that of the
miser In youth the elements OF this repul-
sive character are never discoverable, except in
embryo. Differences there doubtless are in
venie miser. Elwees. one of the most sordid
men, probably, that ever lived, was in his
younger days, profigate and a spendthrift.-
He had exhausted his resources, and was not
arrested in his career of folly and disgrace, TILL
at certain point in his course, he encountered
that most formidable obstacle and most elo-
quent preacher-an empty purse. In fit of
rcmorse, he resolved to retrieve his fallen for
tunes but, instead of devoting his awakened
energies to the benefit of his fellow men, he
illustrated the weakness of human nature, by
forsakins one extreme, to plunge still more
deeply into the opposite one.
In the case Of the late DR.. Parkman, we may
notice how far the constant and habitual pur-
suit Of gain will pervert the nobest principles,
as well as its dread result. Though afiuent,
and placed by his great and increasing wealth.
ut terly beyond the possibility of want-with
the means of securing every qualification,
every enjoyment, within the power of millions
to procure, the lus, of gain had become so strong
and controlling in its influence, that he hest
tated not to pursue poor creditor with the
ferocious eagerness of blood hound seeming
his forest prey, and to an extent, which in the
mind of the worried creditor, placed him be-
yond all claims to sympathy. and drew down
upon his self devoted head, the doom of
dreadful death.