The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1886-08-26

WHAT Is WEALTH.

money. Money has no settled value.
In one place, among certain condi-
ditions, you can get tor a mere trife
what you cannot buy with thousand
pounds somewhere else. What will
purchase pure air and clear sky in
the heart of London in November !?
Millionaires cry out for them in vain.
Yet some poor woman, say in Shet-
land, who never sees money, but ex-
changes her knitting work for her
tritie of tea and cloth, can get the
bracing wind and the bright sky for
nothing. We all know how serious
ly this consideration should enter in
! to our estimate of the real improv-
ment to be looked for in any change
OF our place or prospects. What bet
ter off are we in going somewhere to
earn double wages if all the commod-
tiles of life there cost three times as
much as where you are now? Peo-
pie rush Oft to capital cities to 'bet-
ter" themselves, by earning a few
shillings more per week or lew
hundreds more per year as the case
may be. They generally find that
the things they must have absorb all
the apparent surplus, while many
things which they had before, and
ought to have, they have to resign
altogether.
Wealth does not consist of possess
sion of any kind. Take an illustra-
ton: A man is wrecked on desert
island; the ship runs aground and
he finds himself the owner of bags of
of bullion and precious stones, of
rare and rich fabrics. But he can
get no fresh water. Presently he
dies of thirst-a poorer man than the
beggar who wins humble meal by
sweeping a doorstep or wedding a
garden. Indeed there is no poverty
so terrible as the possession of every
thing except what We want. The
Persian poet Sadi has story on this
point. He says:
Il saw an Arab sitting in circle
of jewelers. of Bosrah, and relating
as follows: Once on time, having
missed my way in the desert and
having no provisions left, / gave. my
self up for lost, when | happened to
find bag full of pearls. l shall
never forget the relish and delight
that | felt on supposing it to be a
bag of fried wheat, nor the bitter
ness and despair suffered on dis
covering that the bag contained
pearls. ;"
Still less does wealth consist in
mere accumulation, we really do not
have what we do not use. A miser
had store of buried gold, over
which he used secretly to gloat. A
thief stole it away, and a wise man
strove to comfort the miser by per-
suading him to bury some oyster
shells in its place, and to visit them
and chuckle over them, as he had
done with the gold.
Now let us turn to what wealth is
in the higher sense. Wealth is the
satisfaction of those needs of human
life which, if unsatisfed, check is
harmonious development. No man
can be wealthy until he finds out the
limits of his needs, for "Want is
growing giant whom the coat of Have
was never large enough to cover"
So we cannot find out what wealth is
until we find out what these needs
are.
Our bodily needs are pure air,
good water, sunshine, wholesome
food, sufficient clothing and shelter,
labor and rest. Our mental needs
are the education Of the senses, some
leisure and some intellectual nour-
ishment, either from society or from
books. Our spiritual needs are love
and duty.