Some people have an idolatrous worship of money.  The Israelites had their golden Calf; the Greeks had their golden Jupiter.  Old Bounderby valued the man who was worth a “hundred thousand pounds.”  Others do the same.  The lowest human nature loves money, possessions, value.  “What is he worth?” “What is his income?” are the usual questions.  If you say, “There is a thoroughly good, benevolent, virtuous man!” nobody will notice him.  But if you say, “There is a man worth a million of money,” he will be stared at till out of sight.  A crowd of people used to collect at Hyde Park Corner to see a rich man pass.  “Here comes old Crockie!” and the crowd would separate to allow him to pass, amidst whispers of admiration.  It was old Crockford, who made a large fortune by keeping a gambling-house.

“The very sound of millions,” says Mrs. Gore,[1] “tickles the ear of an Englishman!  He loves it so much, indeed, that it all but reconciles him to the National Debt; and when applied to private proprietorship, it secures deference for lowness of mind, birth, habits, and pursuits....  Ambition and money-love, if they tend to ennoble a country, reduce to insignificance the human particles of which the nation is composed.  In their pursuit of riches, the English are gradually losing sight of higher characteristics; ... our pursuit of railway bubbles and every other frantic speculation of the hour, affords sufficient evidence of the craving after capital superseding every better aspiration, whether for this world or the next.”

[Footnote 1:  Introduction to “Men of Capital.”]

The love of gold threatens to drive everything before it.  The pursuit of money has become the settled custom of the country.  Many are so absorbed by it, that every other kind of well-being is either lost sight of, or altogether undervalued.  And then the lovers of money think to recover their moral tone by bestowing charity!  Mountains of gold weigh heavily upon the heart and soul.  The man who can withstand the weight of riches, and still be diligent, industrious, and strong in mind and heart, must be made of strong stuff.  For, people who are rich, are almost invariably disposed to be idle, luxurious, and self-indulgent.

“If money,” said the Rev. Mr. Griffiths, Rector of Merthyr, “did not make men forget men, one-half of the evil that is in the world would never occur.  If masters drew nearer to the men, and men were permitted to draw nearer their masters, we should not be passing through this fiery ordeal.  Let them do something to win the men out of the public-houses; let them spare more of their enormous gains to build places of amusement and recreation for the people; let them provide better houses to live in, better conveniences for decency, better streets; and if all these things are done we shall have neither lock-outs nor strikes.  We hear with pomp and triumph of the millions and millions that have been dug out of this old Welsh land of ours, but we hear nothing—­and