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Some years ago I heard of a poor woman who sent her boy to school and
college. When he was to graduate, he wrote his mother to come, but she
sent back word that she could not because her best skirt had already
been turned once. She was so shabby that she was afraid he would be
ashamed of her. He wrote back that he didn't care how she was dressed,
and urged so strongly that she went. He met her at the station, and
took her to a nice place to stay. The day came for his graduation, and
he walked down the broad aisle with that poor mother dressed very
shabbily, and put her into one of the best seats in the house. To her
great surprise he was the valedictorian of the class, and he carried
everything before him. He won a prize, and when it was given to him,
he stepped down before the whole audience and kissed his mother, and
said:

"Here, mother, here is the prize! It's yours. I would not have won it
if it had not been for you."

Thank God for such a man!

The Folly of Covetousness

The folly of covetousness is well shown in the following extract:

"If you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in
continual thirst, nor suffering himself to drink half a draught for
fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and
strength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet
always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late
to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running
greedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always
studying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you
should see him grow gray in these anxious labors, and at last end a
thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such
a one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish
enough to be reckoned among madmen? But foolish and absurd as this
character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd
disquiets of the covetous man."

I have read of a millionaire in France, who was a miser. In order to
make sure of his wealth, he dug a cave in his wine cellar so large and
deep that he could go down into it with a ladder. The entrance had a
door with a spring lock. After a time, he was missing. Search was
made, but they could find no trace of him. At last his house was sold,
and the purchaser discovered this door in the cellar. He opened it,
went down, and found the miser lying dead on the ground,