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value which he had not before. He is also apt to presume upon himself, and to imagine that his merits and address will be sufficient to extricate him out of all difficulties; and when he finds that there are occasions in which a few pounds would do him more service than all his virtues and endowments, this will naturally" enforce powerfully upon him the expediency of pecuniary resources.

During the former part of life, pleasure being the great object of pursuit, it is in order to obtain it that money is eagerly sought, and as eagerly squandered. Avarice shows itself not often in this season; and when it does, it is only in a mind base and groveling, and from which nothing great or excellent, even in the order of this world, is to be expected.

The ardour of passion in youth is commonly succeeded by the ambition of consequence in middle age. When a man is arrived at this period, and as from an eminence looks around upon the world, and beholds some, though endowed with every virtue: and talent, abandoned to obscurity

golden key in their hand open themselves a to way to offices of trust or power; must he not be tempted to imagine that money answereth all things; that it can both give lustre to merit where it is; and amply supply its place where it is wanting? Further: As a man's consequence is generally proportioned to his appearance in the world, wealth, which can always command external splendour, possesses irresistible attractions in the eyes of those who have no force of intrinsic worth to make them considerable. To such, in gazing upon it, all that it can purchase rises up as in vision; manors, lordships, stately houses, sumptuous equipages, with a long train of needy dependents and flattering admirers. Hence it cannot fail to become an object of eager pursuit to minds vain and ambitious, and undisciplined in the school of wisdom. Avarice is properly the vice of age. In the first part of life, as we have already observed, money is sought chiefly for pleasure, and in the next for consequence; but, in the last stage, it is sought for its own

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value which he had not before. He is also apt to presume upon himself, and to imagine that his merits and address will be sufficient to extricate him out of all difficulties; and when he finds that there are occasions in which a few pounds would do him more service than all his virtues and endowments, this will naturally enforce powerfully upon him the expediency of pecuniary resources.

During the former part of life, pleasure being the great object of pursuit, it is in order to obtain it that money is eagerly sought, and as eagerly squandered. Avarice shows itself not often in this season; and when it does, it is only in a mind base and groveling, and from which nothing great or excellent, even in the order of this world, is to be expected.

The ardour of passion in youth is commonly succeeded by the ambition of consequence in middle age. When a man is arrived at this period, and as from an eminence looks around upon the world, and beholds some, though endowed with every virtue: and talent, abandoned to obscurity destitute both of talents and virtue, wi golden key in their hand open themselves a fray to offices of trust or power; must he not be tempted to imagine that money an* stvereth all things; that it can both give lustre to merit where it is; and amply supply its place where it is wanting? .

Further: As a man's consequence is generally proportioned to his appearance in the world, wealth, which can always command external splendour, possesses irresistible attractions in the eyes of those who have no force of intrinsic worth to make them considerable. To such, in gazing tipon it, "all that it can purchase rises up as in vision; manors, lordships, stately houses, sumptuous equipages, with a long train of needy dependents and flattering admirers. Hence it cannot fail to become an object of eager pursuit to minds vain and ambitious, and undisciplined in the school of wisdom.

Avarice is properly the vice of age. In the first part of life, as we have already observed, money is sought chiefly for pleasure, and in the next for consequence; but, in the last stage, it is sought for its own sake. Avarice is the dead sea into which all the other passions disembogue. When a man has lost all relish for the enjoyments of sense, when his heart is become dead to the feelings of tenderness and friendship, when he has conceived a general distrust of mankind, and all his worldly prospects are closed; unless some supernatural light open to him a view into a better world, what remains for him but to cling closely to his wealth, to hug this idol in the dark, and to say unto gold, thou art my hope, and to fine gold, thou art my confidence!

This I take to be a just sketch of human nature in general; for there are doubtless many individual exceptions. All young men are not equally addicted to pleasure; some lean more to ambition; and we may now and then encounter, what seems most out of nature, a young griping miser. So in middle life, though this is eminently the season of ambition, it is not unfrequently either wasted by pleasure, or consumed by avarice. And we are sometimes shocked with a lewd, or ambitious, or thriftless old

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