Uncle Simon's Queer Reply.
WHAT a funny old man Uncle Simon was! I remember asking him, one day, as I pointed to a house lately built and occupied by a stranger, whether its owner was rich. "Well, that is as you look at it," was his answer. "As I look at it! How absurd!" I said to myself; "as if my looking at it would make the man rich or poor!" On another occasion, I inquired, "Uncle Simon, do you think we are going to have a pleasant day?" We children were going to have a picnic, across the lake, on a lovely little island, and, of course, we were anxious for fine weather. "Well, that'll be as you look at it," was the reply, with a twinkle in his gray eye. "The same old answer!" I said to myself. How very foolish I was to ask him! I might have known I should get no satisfaction." That was about all I thought of the matter at that time; but I have since learned the meaning of Uncle Simon's words. Mr. Smith, about whose wealth I had been curious, I afterward learned, was the owner of a large tract of valuable land, a whole block of fine houses in the city, and had plenty of bank and railroad stocks. Almost anybody but Uncle Simon would have promptly answered "yes," when I asked if he was rich. But, as I also afterward discovered, he had a sullen, morose disposition, and was so selfish that he kept all of his money for himself and his children. He was never known to give anything in charity, even when urged to do so. Instead of enjoying, by a proper use, the wealth God had given him, he hoarded it, and made himself miserable by coveting still more. If he made fifty thousand dollars in one year, he grumbled because it was not one hundred thousand. If he had made the desired hundred thousand, he would still have sighed because it was not a million. When any pleasant event occurred, he could not enjoy it because something else, which he would have preferred, had not happened instead. With the ideas of wealth I then had, if I had known of Mr. Smith's possessions, I should have thought him a rich man; but as I now view the matter, he was a very poor man. Uncle Simon's reply to my question about the weather, meant that even if it rained, and we were disappointed in our picnic, the day might be pleasant, provided we viewed the disappointment in the right way, and tried to enjoy whatever kind of sky God sent; and that it might be very unpleasant, even if the sun shone, and we had our party, if we did not enjoy and improve it in the right manner. And Uncle Simon was right! Things are as we look at them—dark or bright—and men are rich, not according to the lands and stocks they possess, nor poor according to their privations and penury, but in proportion as they receive either with grateful, submissive, and obedient hearts, the wealth or poverty which God in his wisdom and love. apportions to each. A poet expressed this truth when he wrote, "The source of outward good lies deep within." There are poor rich men like Mr. Smith, and there are rich poor ones, who lack what the world calls wealth, but "Who, having nothing, yet have all;" for they possess the incorruptible wealth of religion. As the Bible expresses it, they "are rich toward God." Uncle Simon's reply was not so very queer, after all.