still worse,
the gambling element enters more largely into transactions of trade and
traffic. Divorces have become more easy and abundant, and, as Mr.
Gladstone once said to me: "This tends to sap one of the very
foundations of society," All these are deplorable evils to which none
but a fool will shut his eyes and by which none but a coward will be
frightened. _God reigns,_ even if the devil is trying to. The practical
questions for every one of us are: how can I become better? How can I
help to make this old sinning and sobbing world the better also?

CHAPTER XVII.

A RETROSPECT, CONTINUED.

As I look over the changes that half a century has wrought in the social
life of my beloved country, I see some which awaken satisfaction--others
which are not so exhilarating. The enormous and rapid increase of wealth
is unparalleled in human history. In my boyhood, millionaires were rare;
there were hardly a score of them in any one of our cities. The two
typical rich men were Stephen Girard in Philadelphia and John Jacob
Astor in New York; and their whole fortunes were not equal to the annual
income of several of the rich men of to-day. Some of our present
millionaires are reservoirs of munificence, and the outflow builds
churches, hospitals, asylums, and endows libraries--and sends broad
streams of charity through places parched by destitution and suffering.
Others are like pools at the base of a hill--they receive the inflow of
every descending streamlet or shower, and stagnate into selfishness.
Wealth is a tremendous trust; it becomes a dangerous one when it owns
its owner. Our Brooklyn philanthropist, the late Mr. Charles Pratt, once
said to me: "There is no greater humbug than the idea that the mere
possession of wealth makes any man happy. I never got any happiness out
of mine until I began to do good with it."

To the faithful steward there is a perpetual reward of good stewardship.
No investments yield a more covetable dividend than those made in gifts
of public beneficence. When Mr. Morris K. Jesup drives through New York
his eyes are gladdened in one street by the "Dewitt Memorial Chapel"
that he erected; in another by the Five Points House of Industry, of
which he is the president, and in still others by the Young Men's
Christian Association and kindred institutions, of which he is a liberal
supporter.

Mr. John D. Rockefeller is reputed to have an annual income equal to
that of three or four foreign so