THE RIGHT USE OF MONEY.-John Ruskin.

For notice of Mr. Ruskin, see p. 102.

You know the lesson that is given us under the form of a story about money. Money was given to the servants to make use of the unprofitable servant dug in the earth, and hid his Lord's money. Well, we, in our poetical and spiritual application of this, say, that of course money doesn't mean money, it means wit, it means intellect, it means influence in high quarters, it means everything in the world except itself. And do not you see what a pretty and pleasant come-off there is for most of us, in this spiritual application? Of course, if we had wit, we would use it for the good of our fellow-creatures. But we haven't wit. Of course, if we had influence with the bishops, we would use it for the good of the Church; but we haven't any influence with the bishops. Of course, if we had political power, we would use it for the good of the nation; but we have no political power; we have no talents entrusted to us of any sort or kind. It is true we have a little money, but the parable can't possibly mean anything so vulgar as money; our money's our own.

I believe, if you think seriously of this matter, you will feel that the first and most literal application is just as necessary a one as the other that the story does very specially mean what it says-plain money; and that the reason we don't at once believe it does so, is a sort of tacit idea that while thought, wit, and intellect, and all power of birth and position, are indeed given to us, and, therefore, to be laid out for the Giver, -our wealth has not been given to us; but we have worked for it, and have a right to spend it as we choose. I think you will find that is the real substance of our understanding in this matter. Beauty, we say, is given by God—it is a talent ; strength is given by God-it is a talent; position is given by God-it is a talent; but money is proper wages for our day's work-it is not a talent, it is a due. We may justly spend it on ourselves, if we have worked for it.

And there would be some shadow of excuse for this, were it not that the very power of making the money is itself only one of the applications of that intellect or strength which we confess to be talents. Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering, and more sagacious. Well, who made him more persevering or more

sagacious than others? That power of endurance, that quickness of apprehension, that calmness of judgment, which enable him to seize the opportunities that others lose, and persist in the lines of conduct in which others fail-are these not talents? —are they not, in the present state of the world, among the most distinguished and influential of mental gifts ? And is it not wonderful, that while we should be utterly ashamed to use a superiority of body, in order to thrust our weaker companions aside from some place of advantage, we unhesitatingly use our superiorities of mind to thrust them back from whatever good that strength of mind can attain. You would be indignant if you saw a strong man walk into a theatre or a lecture-room, and calmly choosing the best place, take his feeble neighbour by the shoulder, and turn him out of it into the back seats, or the street. You would be equally indignant if you saw a stout fellow thrust himself up to a table where some hungry children were being fed, and reach his arm over their heads and take their bread from them. But you are not the least indignant if, when a man has stoutness of thought and swiftness of capacity, and, instead of being long-armed only, has the much greater gift of being long-headed-you think it perfectly just that he should use his intellect to take the bread out of the mouths of all the other men in the town who are of the same trade with him; or use his breadth and sweep of sight to gather some branch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb, of which he is himself to be the central spider, making every thread vibrate with the points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the facets of his eyes. You see no injustice in this.

But there is injustice; and, let us trust, one of which honourable men will at no very distant period disdain to be guilty. In some degree, however, it is indeed not unjust; in some degree it is necessary and intended. It is assuredly just that idleness should be surpassed by energy; that the widest influence should be possessed by those who are best able to wield it; and that a wise man, at the end of his career, should be better off than a fool. But for that reason, is the fool to be wretched, utterly crushed down, and left in all the suffering which his conduct and capacity naturally inflict ?— Not so. What do you suppose fools were made for? That you might tread upon them, and starve them, and get the better of them in every possible way? By no means. They were made that wise people might take care of them.

That

is the true and plain fact concerning the relations of every strong and wise man to the world about him. He has his strength given him not that he may crush the weak, but that he may support and guide them. In his own household he is to be the guide and the support of his children; out of his household he is still to be the father, that is, the guide and support of the weak and the poor; not merely of the meritoriously weak and the innocently poor, but of the guiltily and punishably poor; of the men who ought to have known better of the poor who ought to be ashamed of themselves.

It is nothing to give pension and cottage to the widow who has lost her son; it is nothing to give food and medicine to the workman who has broken his arm, or the decrepit woman wasting in sickness. But it is something to use your time and strength to war with the waywardness and thoughtlessness of mankind; to keep the erring workman in your service till you have made him an unerring one; and to direct your fellow-merchant to the opportunity which his dullness would have lost. This is much; but it is yet more, when you have fully achieved the superiority which is due to you, and acquired the wealth which is the fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the responsibility of it, as it is the helm and guide of labour far and near. For you who have it in your hands, are in reality the pilots of the power and effort of the State. It is entrusted to you as an authority to be used for good or evil, just as completely as kingly authority was ever given to a prince, or military command to a captain. And, according to the quantity of it that you have in your hands, you are the arbiters of the will and work of England; and the whole issue, whether the work of the State shall suffice for the State or not, depends upon you. You may stretch out your sceptre over the heads of the English labourers, and say to them, as they stoop to its waving, "Subdue this obstacle that has baffled our fathers, put away this plague that consumes our children; water these dry places, plough these desert ones, carry this food to those who are in hunger; carry this light to those who are in darkness; carry this life to those who are in death;" or on the other side you may say to her labourers: "Here am I; this power is in my hand; come, build a mound here for me to be throned upon, high and wide; come, make crowns for my head, that men may see them shine from far away; come, weave tapestries for my feet, that I may tread softly on the silk and purple; come, dance before me, that I

may be gay; and sing sweetly to me, that I may slumber; so shall I live in joy, and die in honour." And better than such an honourable death, it were that the day had perished wherein we were born, and the night in which it was said there is a child conceived.

What

I trust, that in a little while, there will be few of our rich men who, through carelessness or covetousness, thus forfeit the glorious office which is intended for their hands. I said, just now, that wealth ill-used, was the net of the spider, entangling and destroying: but wealth well used, is as the net of the sacred fisher, who gathers souls of men out of the deep. A time will come-I do not think even now it is far from uswhen this golden net of the world's wealth will be spread abroad as the flaming meshes of morning cloud are over the sky; bearing with them the joy of light and the dew of the morning, as well as the summons to honourable and peaceful toil. less can we hope from your wealth than this, rich men of England, when once you feel fully how, by the strength of your possessions-not, observe, by the exhaustion, but by the administration of them and the power-you can direct the acts, -command the energies-inform the ignorance-prolong the existence, of the whole human race; and how, even of worldly wisdom, which man employs faithfully-it is true, not only that her ways are pleasantness, but that her paths are peace; and that, for all the children of men, as well as for those to whom she is given, Length of days are in her right hand, as in her left hand Riches and Honour ?

LIFE.-Dr. Cunningham Geikie.

Author of "Life, a Book for Young Men," &c.

BERNARD used to say that he could not look at the sun shining in his strength, or at the moon in her brightness, or at the white flock of stars, without thinking of that hour when he would weep that he should see their face no more, because the time had come when they must die, while he lived on, for The multitudinous waves rise and sink ceaselessly, for ever, over the illimitable waters that round our life; each wave itself an eternity! The life of one soul outruns the aggregate of the lives of all men from the beginning of time to the last trumpet; and time passes so quickly. It fades away

ever.

round us, moment by moment, like a dream, and reveals the changeless infinite beyond. Each instant is eternity till it comes, and the moment it is gone is eternity again. For what is our life but the thin spray of a broken wave dashed up from the deep to glitter for an instant in the light, and then fall back into the abyss? Or what is time itself but a thread of light in the infinite darkness before and after, with life for a mote, seen for a moment as it floats across it.

"Like as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower of May,
Or like the morning to the day,
Or like the sun or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had,
E'en such is man whose thread is spun
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.-
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies,

The gourd consumes,-and man-he dies!

Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearled dew of May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan,

E'en such is man; who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.-
The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dew ascended,
The hour is short, the span not long,

The swan's near death; man's life is done." *

lived as long as we have. an age; but the old man Yet we cannot bring our

It is hard to believe that we have The child thinks the old man's life looks back on it as a hand-breadth. selves to realise that it will soon be over. The moment given us is to last for ever. But it was the same with the generations that have lived before us. Yet where are the busy crowds that filled the world before we were born? They had their days filled with as many cares and occupations as ours have. Go back no farther than the beginning of this century. Where are our countrymen and countrywomen of that day? Their life was warm in them once. Some were caring for their young families then as some are now; some

* S. Wastell, 1502.