accumulate this world's goods, they still feel they have not enough.
Nothing of earthly wealth—nothing great, or what the world calls magnificent—can satisfy, to the full extent, the desires of any human being; because the Creator has imbued man with a desire for immortality, and has endowed him with a soul that is immortal.
Man, in the unrenewed state, may accumulate gold that his children to the fourth generation may not expend; but, living, he would still labour for more. House unto house, and field unto field may be added, but the man has not enough. But the virtuous enjoy a kind of immortality even in this world; for when they depart out of it, their name is held in remembrance; while that of the wicked shall rot. It is not the worldly wealth which may have been acquired that immortalizes the virtuous, but the good they have done. What makes righteous poverty stand firm and unmoved in the midst of surrounding perils? Who, "although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail, the fields yield no meat, the flocks be cut off from the fold, and no herd in the stall;" yet "rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of their salvation?" It is because the principle of immortality asserts the righteousness of God, and trusts in the wisdom of his providence to effect ultimate deliverance from every kind and degree of suffering. The bodily suffering is comparatively momentary, but the immortal principle within, from that very suffering, exults in the prospect of a more speedy deliverance.
On the other hand, what makes wealth, unrighteously acquired, tremble at the most trifling pain? It is
