Mr. Campbell ceased speaking, and there was a pause for a minute or two in the conversation, when Mary Percival said, "What, then, my dear uncle, do you consider as the most enviable position in life?" "I consider a moderate independence as the most enviable; not occupied in trade, as the spirit of barter is too apt to make us bend to that which is actually fraud. I should say, a country gentleman living on his own property and among his own tenants, employing the poor around him, holds a position in which he has the least temptation to do wrong, and the most opportunities of doing good." "I agree with you, my dear Campbell," said his wife; "and yet how few are satisfied even with that lot." "Because the craving after wealth is so strong, that every one would have more than he hath, and few men will be content. The desire of aggrandizement overcomes and masters us; and yet what can be more absurd than to witness the care and anxiety of those to gain riches, who have already more perhaps than is necessary for their wants,--thus 'heaping up riches, not knowing who may gather them,' and endangering the soul to obtain that which they must leave behind them when they die. Others amass wealth, not actuated by the avarice of hoarding it up, but by the appetite for expending it; who collect unjustly that they may lavish profusely; these are equally foolish, and how important is that lesson given in the Scriptures." Mr. Campbell opened the Bible which lay before him and read-- "And he spake a parable unto them. The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. "And he said, What shall I do? because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. "And he said: This will I do; I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. "And I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry. "But God said unto him: Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee."