t help putting themselves and their own characters into their
works. The vulgar artist cannot paint a virtuous picture. The gross, the
bizarre, the sensitive, the delicate, all come out on the canvas and
tell the story of his life.

Who would not choose to be a millionaire of deeds with a Lincoln, a
Grant, a Florence Nightingale, a Childs; a millionaire of ideas with
Emerson, with Lowell, with Shakespeare, with Wordsworth; a millionaire
of statesmanship with a Gladstone, a Bright, a Sumner, a Washington?

Some men are rich in health, in constant cheerfulness, in a mercurial
temperament which floats them over troubles and trials enough to sink a
shipload of ordinary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, and
friends. There are some men so amiable that everybody loves them; some
so cheerful that they carry an atmosphere of jollity about them. Some
are rich in integrity and character.

"Who is the richest of men?" asked Socrates. "He who is content with the
least, for contentment is nature's riches."

"Do you know, sir," said a devotee of Mammon to John Bright, "that I am
worth a million sterling?" "Yes," said the irritated but calm-spirited
respondent, "I do; and I know that it is all you are worth."

A bankrupt merchant, returning home one night, said to his noble wife,
"My dear, I am ruined; everything we have is in the hands of the
sheriff." After a few moments of silence the wife looked into his face
and asked, "Will the sheriff sell you?" "Oh, no." "Will the sheriff sell
me?" "Oh, no." "Then do not say we have lost everything. All that is
most valuable remains to us--manhood, womanhood, childhood. We have lost
but the results of our skill and industry. We can make another fortune
if our hearts and hands are left us."

"We say a man is 'made'," said Beecher. "What do we mean? That he has
got the control of his lower instincts, so that they are only fuel to
his higher feelings, giving force to his nature? That his affections
are like vines, sending out on all sides blossoms and clustering fruits?
That his tastes are so cultivated that all beautiful things speak to
him, and bring him their delights? That his understanding is opened, so
that he walks through every hall of knowledge, and gathers its
treasures? That his moral feelings are so developed and quickened that
he holds sweet commerce with Heaven? O, no--none of these things. He is
cold and dead in heart, and mind, and soul. Only his passions are alive;