And as with individuals so with nations; there is no greatness of possession in holding that which involves the deprivation of others, the diminution of their freedom, their happiness, their power of self-development. That is not true kingdom. It is the manufacture of slaves. But if we lay up treasure in the kingdom of the mind, in the development of our sense of beauty, our faculty for joy, we have something here on earth which neither moth nor rust can corrupt, nor thieves steal. Our possessions then are things that can arouse no base covetousness, we need not hold them under lock and key, or make laws for their protection, for none can deprive us of them. And while you so hold them on such free and noble conditions, you do not fail to dispense something of their beauty and worth to those with whom you associate. These possessions, with which you have enriched your lives, make no man poorer, rob no fellow creature of his right, conflict not with the law of charity to all. Seeking possession upon those lines, you shall find that noble things do tend to make possible a form of possession in which all alike may share; that architecture, music, literature and painting do offer themselves to the service of a far nobler and more communal interpretation of wealth than that which would keep it for separate and individual enjoyment. A thousand may look upon the beauty of one picture, and detract nothing, in the enjoyment of each, from the enjoyment of all; nor has virtue or value gone out of it because so many have looked on it; and so it is (or so it may be) with all beauty whether we find it in nature or in art. If I were asked to name the man who in the last hundred years had the greatest possessions, I think I would name Wordsworth. Read his poetry with this thought in your mind, of how day by day he gathered possessions of an imperishable kind, which needed no guardianship beyond the purity of his mind, and excited in others no envy. Nay, how much of those wonderful possessions was he not able to give to others? Some of his loveliest lines of poetry are a record of possession rightly attained. I give here only one of his poems--one of his simplest in inspiration--to show what I mean: I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd-- A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay. I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.