It is no
longer a distinction to be rich. As a matter of fact, to be rich is no
longer a common ambition. People do not care for money as money, as they
once did. Certainly they do not stand in awe of it, nor of him who
possesses it. What we accumulate by way of useless surplus does us no
honour.
It takes only a moment's thought to see that as far as individual
personal advantage is concerned, vast accumulations of money mean
nothing. A human being is a human being and is nourished by the same
amount and quality of food, is warmed by the same weight of clothing,
whether he be rich or poor. And no one can inhabit more than one room at
a time.
But if one has visions of service, if one has vast plans which no
ordinary resources could possibly realize, if one has a life ambition to
make the industrial desert bloom like the rose, and the work-a-day life
suddenly blossom into fresh and enthusiastic human motives of higher
character and efficiency, then one sees in large sums of money what the
farmer sees in his seed corn--the beginning of new and richer harvests
whose benefits can no more be selfishly confined than can the sun's
rays.
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