Disguises of Covetousness.
By Rev. John Harris
IN the instance of a person who has attained to competence, covetousness often seeks to escape detection under the name of contentment. He fancies that he is completely vindicated from the charge of cupidity, by saying, "I am quite content with what I have." But so also was that minion of wealth whom our Lord introduces with the solemn warning, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness." His contentment is only covetousness reposing self-complacently from its toils, resting on its well-filled bags, and saying, "Soul, take thine ease." Let an agent of charity approach him with outstretched and imploring hand, and, as if touched by Ithuriel's spear, he will forthwith start into his proper character, and demonstrate that his contentment depends on his keeping his property entire; at least, that he is not content to give. And another, not only most confidently acquits himself of all suspicion of selfishness, but even appropriates the credit of being benevolent, on the ground of his natural sensibility. A spectacle of suffering harrows up his soul; and therefore "he passes by on the other side." An object of destitution afflicts his too delicate sympathies; and, therefore, he closes his door against it, saying, "Depart in peace, be thou warmed and filled;" and leaves it in its destitution to perish. And thus, by belonging to the school of Rousseau or of Sterne, he gives himself the credit of belonging to the school of Christ; by paying the tax of a sigh to wretchedness, he escapes the levy of a heavier tribute, and even purchases a character for the tenderest susceptibility. But sensibility is not benevolence; by wasting itself on trifles, it may render us slaves to selfishness, and unfit us for everything but self-commiseration. Covetousness will sometimes indulge itself under the pretense of preparing to retire from the cares and turmoil of active life. The propriety of an early retirement from business must depend, of course, on circumstances. But how often does the covetousness which wears this mask retain her slave in her service even to hoary hairs, putting him off from time to time with delusive promises of approaching emancipation. Or else, he retires to spend, in slothful and selfish privacy, that which he had accumulated by years of parsimony. Or else, by mingling readily in scenes of gaiety and amusement, he shows that his worldly aversion related, not to the world of pleasure, but only to the world of business. Instead of fixing his abode where his pecuniary resources and Christian activity might have rendered him an extensive blessing, he consults only his own gratification, establishes himself at a distance, it may be, from "the place of the altar," and, in a regular round of habitual indulgence, lives and dies an unfaithful steward, a sober sensualist, a curse rather than a blessing. Sometimes covetousness is heard enlarging complacently on the necessity, and even piety, of providing for children. And here, be it remembered, we are not considering what parental duty may dictate on this subject, but only what covetousness often does under its borrowed name. Many a parent gratifies his love for money, while pretending to love his children. The facility, too, with which he quotes certain passages of Scripture to defend the course he is pursuing, shows how acceptable to his numerous class an argument would be in favor of hoarding, since these few perverted sentences, which only seem to sanction it, are his favorite and most familiar texts. Of these, his chosen stronghold, perhaps, is the declaration of the apostle: "He that provides not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." The sacred writer, in giving directions relative to the maintenance of widows, distinguishes between such as the church should relieve, and such as should be supported by their own relatives. And concerning the latter he makes the statement in question. Whence it follows, first, that the provision contemplated by the apostle is not a laying up beforehand for future contingencies, but a present supply of present necessities, a simple maintenance of needy relatives from day to day. And, secondly, that, instead of countenancing parents in the accumulation of great fortunes for their children, he is speaking of the maintenance which children, if able, should afford to their aged and destitute parents. With the subject of providing for families, therefore, the text in question has nothing to do. Rightly interpreted, we see that it enjoins, not accumulating, but giving. How humiliating is the only explanation which can be given of the general perversion of this scripture, and of the pertinacity with which that perversion is retained. Let the Christian parent compare the merits of a useful education, and a qualification for business or a profession, with the merits of that state of so-called independence in which he is toiling to place his family; and let him call in the aid of Scripture and of prayer that he may conduct the comparison aright, and we will not fear for the result. Let him look around his neighborhood, and institute a comparison, if he can, between the apparent character and happiness of the six nearest individuals who have been left dependent, under God, on their own exertions for respectability and support, and the six who have been left independent of personal exertion, indeed, but pitifully dependent on wealth alone for happiness, and let him say which state is preferable for virtue and enjoyment. Let him say what is to be thought of the consistency of a Christian parent who, with our Lord's representation of the danger of riches ringing in his ears, goes on scheming and laboring to leave his children rich in the element of destruction, toiling to place them in a condition in which, he admits, it is all but impossible that they should be saved. Let him ask himself whether such an one be not acting over again, on a smaller scale, the part of the tempter, when he brought the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them to the Saviour's feet? Let him remember, not only that he is to leave his children behind him in a world where wealth is thought to be everything, but that he is to meet them again in a world where it will be nothing—where it will be remembered only in relation to the purposes to which it has been applied.—Mammon, by Rev. John Harris.