The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1885-12-31
Things Money Cannot Buy.

Some girls and boys have an idea
that money can do almost anything,
but this is a mistake. Money, it is
true, can do a great deal, but it cannot
do everything. I Can name you q
thousand things it cannot buy. 1t is
meant for good, and it is a good thing
to have, but all this depends on how it
is used. If used wrongly it is an injury
rather than benefit. Beyond all
doubt, however, there are many things
better than it is, and which it cannot
purchase, no matter how much we
may have of it.
If a man has not good education.
all his money will never buy it for him.
He can scarcely ever make up for his
early waste of opportunities. He may
say, as have heard of men saving:
Il would give all I have if only had
a good education and a well-trained
mind;' but he will say it in vain. His
money alone can't obtain it.
Neither will wealth itself give q man
or a woman good manners. Nothing,
next to good morals and good health, IS
OF more Importance than easy. graceful,
be seh-possessed manners. But they
can't be had for money.
A man who is what is called ''shod-
dy," who has not taste and correct
manners, will never buy them-though
he would, no doubt, like to. They are
not to be had in the market. They are
nowhere for sale. You might as we'll
try to buy sky or cloud or sunbeams.
Money can't purchase good con-
science. If poor man or boy or
girl-any one-has a clear conscience,
that gives off tone like sound bell
when touched by hammer, why.
bless you, he is vastly richer than the
millionaire who does not possess such
conscience. Good principles are bet
ter than gold. All the gold of Golcon-
dia couldn't buy them for a man who
hasn't them already.
Money is very much sought after,
and it can command a great deal of
comfort. But it IS very wrong and
very incorrect to speak of money as
the almighty dollar-that is, if we do
so in really serious way. The dollar
is not omnipotent. It is mighty. but
not almighty. There are thousands of
things which it cannot accomplish.
During the Revolutionary war a
British officer offered a large bride
to an American general. The general
looked him in the face and told him
that his royal master in England had
not enough money in all his kingdom
to pay him to do the mean thing he was
wanted to do.
And there have been, and are thou
sands of such men-men whom no
amount of money could buy. Money
is not almighty.
1t may fill our houses with fine pic
lures. but it cannot alone give US true
appreciation of them. 1t may take us
abroad to see foreign sights, but it can
not give us true taste about them
1t may buy an entrance into better So
ciety than we are used to, but can
never of itself purshase case of manner
and fine power of conversation, and all
those better things that come from
other and higher sources than a pock-
etbook.
Thousands and thousands of glorious
things are beyond the reach of the
hand of gold. And the beauty of it is
that if riches should take to themselves
wings and fly away, why all these bet
ter things, as they do not come from
wealth. do not disappear with it.
There is, then, market, and a wide
one, in which money has no recognized
value-the market of intellectual,
spiritual and other high and holy
things.