must go, we are anxious that it shall do the most good possible-and as the offered almoners of our bounty come and go, we hesitate, thinking that the best opportunity for charitable investment is not yet. Sudden disease or old age surprises us amid these wary deliberations, and as the best disposition of a vexed question, we bequeath our hoarded gains to our heirs, hoping they will be wiser.

Whatever be the cause of this hoarding, it is, in almost every respect, an evil. Nothing so much stands in the way of the right use of wealth; so fosters avarice in the parent, and vice in the child; so mars personal happiness and usefulness; so palsies the energies of our churches-as this toiling to save money for another generation. Both the Revelation and the Providence of God are at war with the practice.

Solomon is very clearly committed against it; for he had no pleasure in all his labors, for the thought that he should leave his wealth to the man who should come after him, not knowing whether he would be a wise man or a fool. His apprehensions in this respect were not groundless, for bistory teaches us that Rehoboam was one of the weakest and most foolish of Jewish kings. To this result, doubtless, his inherited wealth very largely contributed. With a fortune and a kingdom ready to his hands, with no great public work, like the temple, to enlist his energies, and puffed up with ancestral pride, what marvel that his folly and insolence lost him the ten tribes? The experiment of making fortunes for children from that day to this has rarely been attended with better success. Must there not be something radically wrong in a practice resulting, so generally, in disaster and ruin?

The text suggests the

FOLLY OF ACCUMULATING FORTUNES FOR CHILDREN.

And here I would premise that the bare fact of leaving property to children or other heirs is not declared an evil. Whether it be such or not will depend on circumstances. If a child were insane, idiotic, or in any way disabled, it would be palpably wrong in a parent, having the means, to make no provision for his wants. Doubtless, it is also right and proper to furnish a child with the means of prosecuting some business for a livelihood. A certain amount of capital is as necessary in most kinds of business, as tools are for the mechanic. The expediency, or the moral right even, of leaving children more than this, is questionable. At any rate, to leave them so much as shall put them beyond the necessity of self-exertion-"a fortune," as it is called-is wrong. It is an evil to children, to parents, to society.

I. It takes from children the expectation and the purpose to succeed in life by their own efforts. This is the general tendency of expectations of fortune. It is admitted that there are those who, either blessed with rare mental endowments, or a happy moral training, resist this tendency, and rise superior to the corrupting influences with which they are surrounded. But the exceeding rareness of such cases only sets the real tendency of expectations of wealth in a stronger light. The heir of fortune will naturally make his anticipated wealth the hope and reliance of his life. And difficult will it be to induce him to devote his attention and his energies to any useful occupation. The spur of necessity will be wanting. If under parental guidance he be put to some mechanical employment, to

trade, or to study, his feelings will seldom be enlisted in his occupation. He is assured that his fortune is made, and whether industrious or not, he is secure of the comforts and luxuries of life. What matters it to him, whether he masters the science of his business or not? He does not expect to live by it. In academic life, his studies are a painful drudgery. His greatest mental efforts consist in framing cunning devices, to cheat his teachers of respectable recitations. If parental pride covet professional reputation for the heir, and he be sent to the appropriate schools of training, he avails himself of the larger license accorded to his riper years in these institutions. He is more reckless of study, because he can be so without censure. He attends the ordinary routine of lectures, and possibly receives the customary diploma out of deference to his social standing, and is published to the world, on the catalogue, as a graduated master of divinity, medicine, or law. If he attempt professional practice, as he may, to save himself from the mortification of failure, he finds it altogether a different matter from professional study. The public have not the same pecuniary interest in submitting to a sham, that teachers and lecturers have. An enlightened community will not be likely to entrust its morals, health, or property, to the guardianship of men who have no proper qualifications for their professions. Wealth cannot command success in these callings. The heir usually makes but a professional blank, and feigned bronchitis or some other friendly disease early comes in to relieve him from duties, for which he has neither affection nor qualifications. He retires to elegant leisure, and ceases to be known except as the courted heir of fortune, the prodigal spendthrift, the bankrupt, or the drunkard. This is the ordinary history of the sons of affluence.

And the philosophy of such facts is almost as obvious as the facts themselves. Those strong incentives to exertion, which Providence designed should act upon every youth and help mould his character, are wanting. There has been a rude interference with God's plan of making virtuous and manly characters, and what wonder if the result be failure and disappointment? Full-grown men-men who leave their mark upon the community and the age in which they live-are only moulded under the expectation and the firm purpose to succeed in life by their own efforts.

II. The practice under consideration deprives children of the education and discipline of self-reliance. In regard to the great objects of life, they have neither faith nor works; they not only do not expect to succeed by their own efforts, but they are deficient in that practical training which commands success. The purpose of the parents to make them independent of labor, vitiates all their efforts at practical training, just as the expectations of the children vitiate their efforts at self-improvement. In either case, the thing aimed at is but half done. Parents may take the most correct views of the education and discipline their children need, and yet fail of attaining the ends they know to be so desirable. They may have correct theories about the vanity of wealth, and the reverses of fortune, and see that some other reliance is indispensable. They may dream of letters or trade for their sons, or of domestic service, good housewifery, teaching, or artistic skill for their daughters. Yet the time and patience to make them truly accomplished in any of these callings, will always be wanting. Much may be attempted in the way of mastering the vulgar minutiae of the occupations by which people get their bread, but little will ac

tually be done. There will be a smattering of almost everything-a mastery of nothing. Great excellence in any of those callings by which men live, is not to be looked for among the heirs of fortune. The thought is ever present to the minds of the parents, that their children will not need these callings; and as a man thinketh, so is he in his parental training, as in every thing else. His expectations for his children will give character to the influence he exerts upon them. Men are not wont to make much provision for mere contingencies. Daughters, expected to shine in the parlor, will hardly become well versed in the mysteries of house-keeping, upon the remote possibility that these may hereafter be available. Sons that are only expected to spend fortunes, will rarely know much of the drudgery of business, or of that close application to it which ensures success. There is no substitute for necessity in the training of youth, and God never designed there should be. Nothing but the stern fact that a man must work in some reputable calling, will make him prepare to work. Put this before the mind of an intelligent youth, and it will operate like a charm which genius can never supply. It will give him a firmness of nerve, and a skill in execution, that will distance all amateur rivals.

III. The folly we are discussing educates children in the radical error, that they are not to do service in the world, but are to be served. This is the tendency of their expectations, and do what you may to remove it, the impression remains still. This error is radical wherever it exists, and will vitiate any character, however interesting or amiable by nature. It is at war with all the arrangements of God's providence, quite as much as with the provisions of his grace. In the natural world, every thing ministers to the welfare of the whole, from the meanest insect, to the largest animal-from the smallest atom, to the mightiest globe. To make children an exception to this universal law is not only to separate them from their kind, but to sever the ties which bind them to all of God's works. That bond of sympathy with their fellows, and with the external world, which is essential to the development of their characters, is broken. You can no more grow a plant without light and heat, than you can rear a symmetrical character without sympathy with humanity, and with nature. Let a child come up to maturity with the idea that he is to do no service, and fill no sphere of usefulness, and call him by what pleasing name you will, he is a monster of selfishness. In his view, all things exist for his service. A view that runs so athwart the arrangements of Providence, must necessarily render him miserable. God has made us to find our happiness, not in passive pleasures, but in ministering to others. Hence the highest luxury of the soul consists in deeds of self-forgetting benevolence. Kind words, kind acts to make others happy, kindle in our own he arts a glow of satisfaction which the selfish soul never knows. What wretchedness then, awaits the petted and effeminate nursling of affluence! Neither man nor nature will do his bidding, and minister at all times to his selfishness. But,

IV. Hoarding property for heirs brings evil to parents, as well as to children.

Scarce anything beside fastens upon them so strongly the chains of avarice. The man who determines to be the executor of his own estate, finds a safeguard against the encroachments of this vice of old

age. However prosperous he may be, he will always be disbursing and contriving to dispose of his accumulations. The large outlays, demanded by the support and education of a family, will naturally seek other channels when these ends are accomplished, and children are doing business for themselves. But where a father determines to make not only his own fortune, but the fortunes of his children also, there is nothing to withstand the sway of avarice. Were he planning only for his own wants, his present experience might furnish him with some definite limits to his accumulations. But where he is toiling to provide for others, he has no such standard. His ambition for his children's future display naturally grows with his accumulations. If he has the means of supporting them all in his own style of living, he covets for them something a little better. Marriage is among the contingencies that may introduce them into different, perhaps higher circles, where social standing can only be maintained by greater display, and increased expense. Avarice finds a congenial soil in a heart filled with such aspirations and plans for another generation. It steals upon its victim, under circumstances so plausible, as to prevent ali alarm. It has the sanction of social usage-for where is the man that does not leave his estate to his children? It comes, too, under the guise of our strongest instincts, and confidently claims piety for its counsellor. He flatters himself, that it is but parental affection "providing for its own." Thus the deluded father hoards his accumulating treasures, blind to everything, but the pecuniary fortunes of his children.

The practice we are considering, not unfrequently mars the peace and happiness of the old age of affluence. In their eagerness for wealth, parents are prone to overlook other and more important provisions for their declining years; for large estates and ample means of enjoyment do not satisfy the cravings of the soul. Wealth will disappoint its votaries, just as they rely upon it. Passions inflamed by the long indulgence of a life of ease, are not the most comfortable companions to soothe the weariness and peevishness of age. But if wealth has not corrupted their own hearts, it may have practiced its deceptions upon the minds of their offspring. The prospects of fortune, for which they have educated their children, have not necessarily imbued their hearts with filial tenderness and respect. The selfishness that has been so carefully nursed in youth, is not likely, at maturity, to prove a ministering angel to the decrepitude and helplessness of age. Gratitude for estates in anticipation is not among the most common virtues of mankind. But if the rich escape personal perils, and so far make investments in the characters of their children, that they prove kind and affectionate, still they have no safeguard against unworthy alliances in life. Society has always been infested with fortune hunters, and always will be, so long as pecuniary fortunes are to be won by marriage; and of all the curses that track the pathway of the rich, these unquestionably are among the greatest. The true fortune-hunter has the keen scent of the blood-hound, and gold is the life blood he pants for. He has the subtilty of the serpent as well as his venom. is well versed in the study of human nature, and can assume any character he pleases, to worm his way into the sympathies and homes of the rich. Without character himself, he can put on that of another man as easily as his garment. He can flatter delicately or grossly, according to the taste of his victim. He can suit his every whim and humor with the utmost exactness, until his purpose is accomplished. And the heart most

He

interested in his addresses has no alchemy by which she can detect his hypocrisy, no standard by which she can measure the baseness and villany for which she has given her affections. Little does the fond father know for what accomplished scoundrel he is laying up his treasures. The destiny of the possessions of the rich is one of the most instructive pages of history. Would it were often read and pondered by those most interested in its lessons. How often is the princely marriage portion of a daughter squandered in the lifetime of her father, by a dissipated and spendthrift husband! How often does the grave kindly hide him from alliances more bitter than death! The rich cannot shape the destiny of the treasures they leave to their loved ones. They are more likely to prove a curse than a blessing to their heirs, and to spread for their own old age a couch of thorns.

V. Society suffers from this evil, as in consequence of it, it is deprived, in a great measure, of the active services of the children of the rich. These have as good capacities as others, and generally much better opportunities for their improvement. They might fill stations of usefulness as well as others; and with the capital they have for business and benevolent enterprize, they might accomplish far more good. But what has the heir of fortune to do with business? He loathes it. His fortune is made. And what cares he for usefulness? The world was made for his use, and he acknowledges no reciprocity of service. If the anticipated estate work its legitimate result upon his mind, his services are lost to society, and he comes nearer "creation's blank," than any thing in the

universe beside.

And not only are they lost to society, but they usually corrupt a large class of their associates. Youth who have no expectations of wealth by inheritance, easily imbibe the hearty contempt of labor, the pride, the swaggering air, and the vices of the sons of the rich. Their fortunes are not indeed made, but they expect to make them by other devices than industry. Some turn flatterers and parasites. Others set up as specimens of genius, and maintain a precarious existence by their wits. Whilst others still turn fortune-hunters, and with successful hypocrisy, revel in the wealth designed for another's support. Thus is a large amount of talent and usefulness destroyed by this evil.

VI. This evil prevents united effort among the rich for the industrial welfare of the community in which they live. The man who makes family aggrandizement the object of his highest ambition, has no thought to bestow on matters of public interest. He does not wish to be encumbered with any of those enterprises which helps his neighbor as well as himself. Possibly he might miss the main chance, and his sympathies be drawn from the ruling purpose of life. It is a matter of indifference to him, whether his capital be invested at the poles or the tropics, if it only yield him the largest profits. But the man who suspects the wisdom of making the fortune of the generation that comes after him, will at least have the time and the opportunity to do something for the fortunes of his own generation. He will make sure of the happiness, which comes from the encouragement of home industry. As he is to be the executor of his own estate, he will see to it that his capital makes the community in which he lives more wise and happy, more thriving and prosperous.