Things Money Won't Buy by Dr. Madison C. Peters

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 12, 1910

Things Money Won't Buy

By Dr. Madison C. Peters

How many homes there are where poverty's pinch has never been felt, where sickness has never paid a visit, and yet where a skeleton, more grim than death, haunts the hearth, and an ache sharper than consumption's tooth gnaws at the heart. In many a palace there are sneers where there should be smiles, and the press of business and social duties makes short answers necessary where there should be loving-kindness.

You can not build your happiness upon mere social position. Many women are unhappy because their homes are not so fine as they would like them to be, and think if only by some stroke of what is called “good luck” they could live in a finer house and move in what is called “higher society,” they would be completely happy.

What a mistake! It takes more than palaces to bring happiness. Any one familiar with the stories of marital miseries as reported in the daily divorce proceedings of our country can readily believe what is a fact, that in many a palatial mansion there have been more scalding tears shed than rolled down the cheeks of Josephine.

If the sobs of unhappy womanhood could break through the twenty-thousand-dollar tapestried walls, those sobs would come along like the simoon of the desert. You can hear in the rustling of the silks over the ten-thousand-dollar rugs the hiss of adders that follow in their wake.

Have you not, as you have looked up at some of the great houses of your more prosperous neighbors, wished that you could live there, and imagined how happy you would be? And yet, perhaps, at that very moment, within those houses, there may have been the wringing of hands that made the bones crack.

I have now in mind a young woman who was happy in her father's plain house. She married into what the world calls “a fine family,” moved in a brilliant sphere, and all her girl friends envied her upon her grand prospects. The home she left was humble but happy. Her father and mother daily, upon bended knees, invoked God's blessing. The Sabbath light flooded the room with the peace of heaven. In the great residence revelry reigned, and God was dethroned. The orange blossoms of the marriage feast lost their fragrance, and the night of discontent soon cast its shadow. Unkindness changed all the splendid trappings into a hollow mockery.

This is the story of many a woman who sought her happiness in social life and worldly splendor. No matter how much money you have, it will only bring

you nearer to some wealthier neighbor's sneer. No matter how fine things you have, there are others who have them finer, and the woman who marries for money only will find that her life will be one of gilded misery, and her old age will be like a crag on the bleak side of a desert mountain, where cold moon-beams sometimes glitter, but no sunshine ever falls, no flowers bloom, no birds sing, but wild storms howl, and hoarse thunders roar. And through the sweeping storm shall be heard God's stern voice: “Your riches are corrupted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver are cankered, and the rust of them shall be a swift witness against you and eat your flesh as it were fire.”—Dr. Madison C. Peters.