There are in this world too many dollars “piled up,” and on the surface we see but the brightness of one.  Were these all spread out, what a wide field of radiant beauty would greet our vision!  Instead of being a useless encumbrance, a care, a constant source of perplexity to one man, this wealth would make every man comfortable and happy.  It would perform its legitimate work, were it not chained by avarice,—­that canker-worm that destroys the fairest portions of our social system.

And there is a joy in doing good, and in dispensing the bounties with which we are blest, that hath no equal in the household of man.  To know that we have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, wiped away one tear, bathed in the sunlight of hope one desponding spirit, gives to us a happiness that hoarded wealth, though broad as earth and high as heaven, cannot impart.

This is the true wealth.  This the wealth that rust cannot corrupt.  There is no other real wealth in the universe.  Gold and silver, houses and lands, are not wealth to the longing, aspiring soul of man.  The joy of the spirit, which is the reward of a good deed, comes a gift from God, a treasure worthy of being garnered into the storehouse of an immortal being.

There was one spot on earth where joy reigned.  It was not in marble palace; but in a low cot, beneath a roof of thatch.

There was an indwelling sense of duty done; a feeling somewhat akin to that which we might suppose angels to feel, when a poor, earth-wearied traveller is relieved by them.

That was a subject fit for a Raphael’s pencil, as she, of form and feature more angelic than human, sat beside that cottage door, and her mild blue eye gazed steadfastly up to heaven, and the light of the moon disclosed to mortal view her calm and beautiful features.

Two hours previous, over a sick and languishing child a mother bowed with maternal fondness.  She pressed her lips to his chilled forehead, and wiped the cold sweat from his aching brow.

“Be patient, my child,” said she; “God will provide.”  And why did she bid him “be patient”?  None could have been more so; for through the long hours of that long summer day he had lain there, suffered and endured all; yet not one sigh had arisen from his breast, not one complaint had passed his parched lips.

“I know it,” said he.  And the mother kissed him again, and again said,

“God will provide.”

Mother and son! the one sick, the other crushed down with poverty and sorrow.  Yet in this her hour of adversity her trust in the God of her fathers wavered not; she firmly relied on Him for support, whom she had never found forgetful of her.  The widow and the fatherless were in that low tenement, and above was the God who had promised to protect them.

Again she whispered in the lad’s ear, “God will provide.”

The light of that day’s sun had not rested upon food in that dwelling.  Heavily the hours passed by.  Each seemed longer than that which had preceded it.