A Thirst for More by Isaac Herr

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 14, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 19.

A Thirst for More.

By Isaac Herr

MANY a young farmer's wife has gone with rosy cheek and light heart into the small, uncarpeted cabin of a rented farm, contented and happy because it was the best her husband could give, and she was confident that his strong arm and willing heart would be able, in the golden years to come, to win a comfortable and pretty home for her. Together they have toiled and waited for the slow returns of harvest after harvest, hopeful and satisfied because they saw the prosperity of thrift and industry steadily settling upon them. By and by they had a farm of their own; but still the young wife had ample cause to regret the scantiness of home comforts. If she hinted now and then of the old promises of betterment in this respect, she was silenced with the assurance that when the mortgage should be paid off and the farm cleared of debt she should have no stint of comfortable and elegant things. But, alas! when the mortgage was paid off there was something else. The old barn was but a poor, tumble-down affair, and a new one was an indispensable necessity. The thrifty young farmer was proud of his fine cattle and horses, and could not bear to have them exposed to the keen winter winds. So the old house, small and rickety, was made to do yet a little while; the ample barn was built, and the poor wife waited.

The time came when they were no longer young. Lines of care and trouble marked the wife's face, and children played about her knee. But she was waiting still. There were so many avenues for money-making, open to him, that the enterprising farmer could not see that his home was scant and lacking. If he was rich in lands and cattle, how could he be poor in any other respect? To him who was out early and late, buying and selling, sowing, tending, and gathering, home was not what it was to her who seldom crossed its threshold into the busy world beyond. Yet he meant to be kind to his wife. He loved her as much as he had time and thought to love. Was she not as rich as he, the joint and equal owner in all he possessed? He worked, and bargained, and schemed less for himself than for his wife and children.

So he thought, but he was mistaken. He worked, in truth, from an insane thirst for more—more cattle, more horses, more lands. He was mad with the mania for possession. His farm was never broad enough, his rolling acres never stretched far enough away. His love of ownership had almost choked out that other and better love, which filled his breast at the marriage altar, and followed him with his young wife into the rude cottage where, after all, their best and truest wedded life had been spent. What wonder that the weary wife sighed as she recalled those days when the golden bow of promise bent lovingly over them. Of course she was proud of her husband's success, of his good name, his influence among men, and the honorable position he occupied. But with all this there was something wanting, there was a scantiness of home love and enjoyment. Then, too, the mother saw her sons and daughters growing up into manhood and womanhood and lacking something which she vaguely but vainly longed to supply,—something more of grace and culture, which her mother's heart told her would be better for them than lands and cattle.

It is not the farmer alone, nor he, perhaps, more than men in other vocations, who allows the thirst for possession to choke down the finer feelings and rarer enjoyments of refinement and beauty. The lawyer does it; the merchant, the business man. It is a sad mistake to become thus absorbed in mere money-getting. It is well to work, but it is neither wise nor well to slave. What is the good of possession if the things possessed are not enjoyed?

It is commendable for the young to look forward to and strive for a competency which

shall open to them avenues of enjoyment now closed by comparative poverty; but let them beware of the money-getting mania. If now and then some new comfort or beauty is not cheerfully added to the home to increase its attractiveness; if all the promises made to the young wife are easily forgotten or more easily broken; if each succeeding year serves but to increase the hoard in the strong box,—then let the man stop and seriously ask himself whether, for a few more acres or a few more dollars, he ought to have foregone all those mental and spiritual delicacies of life which form so large a part of our happiness, and to have left his children only wealth, without that culture of mind and heart which are essential to the right use and enjoyment of it.—Isaac Herr, in Christian Union.