Money Has Mastered Me

It is the experience of an old merchant that I am going to give you, who was entirely under the influence of covetousness. He was immensely rich, and had made his money by struggling hard, and by denying himself continually. In speaking about himself one day to a friend, he said, “I must confess that the older I grow, the more I love money, and the less I enjoy it. I am never satisfied unless I have a sum of money at hand, ready for any investment that may offer. My last thought at night, and my first thought in the morning, is about making money. And when I think what it has cost me to make the money I have; and how happy I might have been—and how much good I might have done, if I had spent more, and been content with less, I see plainly what a fool I have made of myself, and what a dreary waste my life has been! And still I find that the love of money grows stronger with me every day, and I cannot help it. I feel like an infant in the hands of a mighty giant. I am a perfect slave to the love of money. Money has mastered me. This feeling will grow worse every day, till the end of life, and then I shall have to give up for others to squander, the money which it has cost me so much labor, anxiety, and unhappiness, to make.”