than wealth. Rome was imperial
Rome no more when the imperial purple became an article of traffic.

This is the evil of trade, as well as of partisan politics. As Emerson
remarks, it would put everything into market,--talent, beauty, virtue,
and man himself.

Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold as a slave. His purchaser
released him, and gave him charge of his household and of the education
of his children. He despised wealth and affectation, and lived in a
tub. "Do you want anything?" asked Alexander the Great, forcibly
impressed by the abounding cheerfulness of the philosopher under such
circumstances. "Yes," replied Diogenes, "I want you to stand out of my
sunshine and not to take from me what you cannot give me." "Were I not
Alexander," exclaimed the great conqueror, "I would be Diogenes."

Brave and honest men do not work for gold. They work for love, for
honor, for character. When Socrates suffered death rather than abandon
his views of right morality, when Las Casas endeavored to mitigate the
tortures of the poor Indians, they had no thought of money or country.
They worked for the elevation of all that thought, and for the relief
of all that suffered.

"I don't want such things," said Epictetus to the rich Roman orator who
was making light of his contempt for money-wealth; "and besides," said
the stoic, "you are poorer than I am, after all. You have silver
vessels, but earthenware reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me
a kingdom is, and it furnishes me with abundant and happy occupation in
lieu of your restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to
you; mine seem great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is
satisfied."

"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."

What power can pov