ad and absorb the riches of "Hamlet."

"Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough
to cover." "A man may as soon fill a chest with grace, or a vessel
with virtue," says Phillips Brooks, "as a heart with wealth."

Shall we seek happiness through the sense of taste or of touch? Shall
we idolize our stomachs and our backs? Have we no higher missions, no
nobler destinies? Shall we "disgrace the fair day by a pusillanimous
preference of our bread to our freedom"?

What does your money say to you: what message does it bring to you?
Does it say to you, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die"?
Does it bring a message of comfort, of education, of culture, of
travel, of books, of an opportunity to help your fellow-men or is the
message "More land, more thousands and millions"? What message does it
bring you? Clothes for the naked, bread for the starving, schools for
the ignorant, hospitals for the sick, asylums for the orphans, or of
more for yourself and none for others? Is it a message of generosity
or of meanness, breadth or narrowness? Does it speak to you of
character? Does it mean a broader manhood, a larger aim, a nobler
ambition, or does it cry, "More, more, more"?

Are you an animal loaded with ingots, or a man filled with a purpose?
He is rich whose mind is rich, whose thought enriches the intellect of
the world.

A sailor on a sinking vessel in the Caribbean Sea eagerly filled his
pockets with Spanish dollars from a barrel on board while his
companions, about to leave in the only boat, begged him to seek safety
with them. But he could not leave the bright metal which he had so
longed for and idolized, and when the vessel went down he was prevented
by his very riches from reaching shore.

"Who is the richest of men?" asked Socrates. "He who is content with
the least, for contentment is nature's riches."

In More's "Utopia" gold was despised. Criminals were forced to wear
heavy chains of it, and to have rings of it in their ears; it was put
to the vilest uses to keep up the scorn of it. Bad characters were
compelled to wear gold head-bands. Diamonds and pearls were used to
decorate infants, so that the youth would discard and despise them.

"Ah, if the rich were as rich as the poor fancy riches!" exclaims
Emerson.

In excavating Pompeii a skeleton was found with the fingers clenched
round a quantity of gold. A man of business in the town of Hull,
England, when