I have dealt at length with these fixed limitations, although we all
know of them or ought to. The ministers tell us about these things
Sunday after Sunday, or should, and yet we find men chasing the almighty
dollar until they fall exhausted into the grave. Dr. Talmage dealt with
this subject; he said that a man who wore himself out getting money that
he did not need, would finally drop dead, and that his pastor would
tell a group of sorrowing friends that, by a mysterious dispensation of
Providence, the good man had been cut off in his prime. Dr. Talmage said
that Providence had nothing to do with it, and that the minister ought
to tell the truth about it, and say that the man had been kicked to
death by the golden calf.
Some years ago I read a story by Tolstoy, and I did not notice until
I had completed it that the title of the story was, "What shall it
profit?" The great Russian graphically presented the very thought that
I have been trying to impress upon your minds. He told of a Russian who
had land hunger--who added farm to farm and land to land, but could
never get enough. After a while he heard of a place where land was
cheaper and he sold his land and went and bought more land. But he had
no more than settled there until he heard of another place among a
half-civilized people where land was cheaper still. He took a servant
and went into this distant country and hunted up the head man of the
tribe, who offered him all the land he could walk around in a day for a
thousand rubles--told him he could put the money down on any spot and
walk in any direction as far and as fast as he would, and that, if he
was back by sunset, he could have all the land he had encompassed during
the day. He put the money down upon the ground and started at sunrise to
get, at last, enough land. He started leisurely, but as he looked upon
the land it looked so good that he hurried a little--and then he hurried
more, and then he went faster still. Before he turned he had gone
further in that direction than he had intended, but he spurred himself
on and started on the second side. Before he turned again the sun had
crossed the meridian and he had two sides yet to cover. As the sun was
slowly sinking in the west he constantly accelerated his pace, alarmed
at last for fear he had undertaken too much and might lose it all. He
reached the starting point, however, just as the sun went down, but he
had overtaxed his strength and fell dead upon the spot. His servant dug
a grave for him; he only needed six-feet of ground then, the same that
others needed--the rest of the land was of no use to him. Thus Tolstoy
told the story of many a life--not the life of the very rich only, but
the story of every life in which the love of money is the controlling
force and in which the desire for gain shrivels the soul and leaves the
life a failure at last.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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