VICE OF ACCUMULATION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 25, 1877

VICE OF ACCUMULATION.

Of the ambition to accumulate to unwieldy proportions the riches of the earth, the eminent Bishop Mant thus speaks: “There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man's affections centre in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold of the heart, it shuts out all other considerations but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginnings of covetousness, for you know not where it will end.”