y give
occasion. St. Paul says in the text, that we ought to be content with
food and raiment; and the wise man says, "Give me neither poverty nor
riches; feed me with food convenient for me[1]." And our Lord would
have us "take no thought for the morrow," which surely is a dissuasion
from aggrandizing ourselves, accumulating wealth, or aiming at
distinction. And He has taught us when we pray to say, "Give us this
day our _daily_ bread." Yet a great number of persons, I may say,
nearly all men, are not content with enough, they are not satisfied
with sufficiency; they wish for something more than simplicity, and
plainness, and gravity, and modesty, in their mode of living; they like
show and splendour, and admiration from the many, and obsequiousness on
the part of those who have to do with them, and the ability to do as
they will; they like to attract the eye, to be received with
consideration and respect, to be heard with deference, to be obeyed
with promptitude; they love greetings in the markets, and the highest
seats; they like to be well dressed, and to have titles of honour.
Now, then, I will attempt to show that these gifts of the world which
men seek are not to be reckoned good things; that they are ill suited
to our nature and our present state, and are dangerous to us; that it
is on the whole best for our prospects of happiness even here, not to
say hereafter, that we should be without them.

Now, first, that these worldly advantages, as they are called, are not
productive of any great enjoyment even now to the persons possessing
them, it does not require many words to prove. I might indeed
maintain, with no slight show of reason, that these things, so far from
increasing happiness, are generally the source of much disquietude;
that as a person has more wealth, or more power, or more distinction,
his cares generally increase, and his time is less his own: thus, in
the words of the preacher, "the abundance of the rich will not suffer
him to sleep," and, "in much wisdom is much grief, and he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow[2]." But however this may be,
at least these outward advantages do not increase our happiness. Let
me ask any one who has succeeded in any object of his desire, has he
experienced in his success that full, that lasting satisfaction which
he anticipated? Did not some feeling of disappointment, of weariness,
of satiety, of disquietude, after a short time, steal over his mind