Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-03
Love and Money.

The charge made against money by
the apostle, the preacher said, was an
accident Of the recklessness of the times,
Pursuit cfproperty vas even more I'M
scrupuIous than at the present time.
Wars were carried on for pillage, and the
most conspicuous civil administrators
made forcible levies Of money on their
provinces. The expression that love of
money is bad passion is full Of mean
ing, and whoever will study deeply the
habits Of the period must conclude that
the accused hunger" was the cause
of unmeasured wrong as done by nations
and individuals. While bordering on
the intense utterance OF ST. Paul, along
comes One. broader and loftier, who says,
"Son, go work In My vineyard but, as
work involves pay or property, it must
be that there is love of money that is
not the root of evil, but is the root of all
good, and that it may be the root of all
evil or of all good. In the struggle for
existence, which is the basis of labor,
man wins more than existence, for he
gradually ennobles his being. Money
is one of the earliest and most universal
and most powerful motives. Money is
general name for wants. It is thus
the earliest motive of action, for man
coming into this world wants a dinner
before ne wants q literature or relig
ion. he longs for clothes and shelter
before he has any aspiration for music
or pictures. The money which
will purchase the food and
clothing and shelter is thus the
earliest and most universal of motives,
and thus becomes pioneer to lead men
out Of barbarism into the light of learn
ing and refinement. Before man was
noble enough to be movedby patriotism,
or by a thirst for knowledge, or by
piety, or by taste for the beautiful, he
began to be affected by money, and to be
walked out of his sleep by considera-
ton of the things it would buy. The
rapid occupation and civilization of this
continent are due as much to the love
Of money as to any other single passion
of the heart. The Daniel Boones Of
American history should be granted only
a page of honor, for in some sense they
were pioneers of religion and culture, but
man whose love of property was quite
well satisfied with coat and cap made
OF skins and with a trusty rifle cannot
make wilderness glad or bloom. The
passion for gold, which founded Lead
vile OR a Denver, or San Francisco, Or
Chicago, is ten Thousand times more
powerful for good than are the rifles Of
the Boones in the depths of the forest.
Would that we could now measure this
impulse and learn how long it should
influence the individual career! The
trade winds of the sea blow according to
fixed laws, and the mariner in the South
ern oceans knows what months of the
year will bring him favorable or reverse
gales but we know not definitely how
long this breeze of gain should watt
upon the sea that myster ious wanderer,
the human heart. All is obscure and
indefinite. This is most certain, that
the love of accommodating property fol-
lows many too long, and offers ruin in
stead Of salvation. As the ambition
which is implanted in the mind to urge
it onward along lawful paths may pass
beyond its bounds and make an invader
of peaceful states devastating General,
SO this passion for material things may
take possession of the whole soul and
life of man, and crush him as the SER
penis crushed the LAGOON, the priest
of Latin fable.-ReU. D0vid Suing.