SOME DANGERS FROM WEALTH.
A NOTED German philosopher said that every fine dinner his friends had invited him to had injured his digestion and consumed an amount of vital energy that would have been sufficient for the production of an entire page of good writing. Each of these dinners, he said, had blunted his brain and incapacitated him for high thinking and good literary work. One cluster of grapes, one slice of bread, and a glass of milk twice a day afforded him all the nourishment he desired. This was a remarkable example of plain living and high thinking. In choosing an occupation it is of the greatest importance to choose that which will leave one free to develop his higher nature, to live as full and complete a life as possible. Considered from the standpoint of the welfare of the race, or from that of nature itself, scarcely anything could be more unkind or cruel than to place a youth, with all his budding possibilities depending for their development upon the stimulus which the consciousness of necessity gives, in the midst of great wealth and luxury. Few things are so paralyzing to the average ambition, so detrimental to the cultivation of the faculties, as a consciousness of being placed beyond the need of struggle. On the other hand nothing else so develops the powers of youth, so stimulates the unfolding of possibilities, as the consciousness of being entirely dependent upon one's own exertions. Many a man lives in a palace surrounded by all that luxurious wealth can purchase, while his soul grovels in the mire. Many a millionaire frescoes the ceilings of his sumptuous home with the richest figures that the masters can devise, but the ceiling of his mind is frescoed with hideous and demoralizing pictures. His home is filled with beauty, but his heart is black and murky with the images of a diseased imagination.