Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1876 — Money-Getting as an Object of Life. [ARTICLE]

Money-Getting as an Object of Life.

The recent sudden death of A. T. Stewart, one of New York’s merchant princes, right on the eve of a contemplated civic pageant, and after a business career which for brilliancy of success and profitable results has rarely been surpassed, inevitably leads one to stop and muse awhile upon the enduring moral value of such a life. As thfe information passed from lip to lip last Monday night, about the only comment we heard was this: His money couldn’t save him after all. Is this all that can he said, or all which naturally comes to the lips for expression, after looking at such a career ? Has such a life no lesson beyond its own powerlessness to prevent the approach ana ravages of death ? If SO, then money-getting as an object of life is far from being so desirable as it has been usually considered to be. There must be some fatal defect iu a life which leaves so slight an impress upon the public mind. In estimating the value of such a lifework, there are two extremes of thought to be avoided. First, such a life must notbe under estimated, must not be passed over as entirely insignificant or worthless, because it contains, after all possible discounting, some really valuable elements and features. Such a life is infinitely superior to thgt of the lazy vagabond or the idle lounger; superior to that of the fashionable drone or scheming speculator. Mr. Stewart began bis career in business as a poor, humble boy; he employed none other than honorable and legitimate methods; he never failed or cheated his creditors out of a single dollar. What he gained was the result solely of his industry and capacity, his devotion and singleness of aim, his zeal and energy in outstripping competiton, his prudence and foresight in making investments and purchases. Whatever maybe said in regard to the use which he made of his vast wealth, nothing, certainly, can he brought against the method by which it was acquired. There is also the value of such a life as an example to others just commencing a like career, especially to young men filled with an honorable ambition to emulate, if not surpass, the virtues of predecessors in the same line ot work; its value upon the industries and accumulations of the Nation as a whole; its value upon the National reputation abroad, as well as upon the National prosperity at home. In ail these respects a life career like that of A. T. Stewart, just closed, is a bright and shining light in the Temple of Human Achievement, a pleasant and suggestive picture hung up in the galleries of National memory. But, on the other hand,such a life-work must not be over-estimated, because, with all its brilliancy of success and its immensely profitable results, there are some features and elements connected with it not worthy of universal imitation. It can safely be affirmed that the judgment of mankind has long ago settled itself upon the basis of not long remembering or highly applauding the career of any one who makes his life-object the acquisition of mere material gain. Such a life, in its best aspects, is nothing more than a supremely selfish life. Self-aggrandizement is its highest aim and end. The moral and intellectual welfare succumbs to the interests and necessities of gain and greed. All the higher and nobler elements of manhood are sacrificed before the altar of the golden god. When a scholar or a statesman dies, even though he be poor in material resources, the land and the world mourn over the departure from its activities of so much available mental and moral power. There is so much weight and power of character, so much ability, so much moral worth, literally subtracted from the sum total ol the world’s capital stock in higher good, and the vacuum created by such a loss is filled with resounding cries of sincere lamentation and grief. But let a man of mere physical wealth die, and about the only source of public anxiety is in respect to the disposition of his property. The man himself is passed by and speedily forgotten when once underground, and whatever interest attaches to his life-work has reference to the amount in dollars and cents which it bad gathered together. No man, therefore, can devote himselt exclusively to the acquisition affi hoarding of property, without sinking himself, by so doing, in the estimation of God. Valuable as money is, much as the world needs it, it instinctively declares by its judgments upon those who give themselves up, soul and body, to its accumulation, that there is something more valuable, something .more needed, while a higher than human authority hath confirmed this judgment by declaring that “ a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possessetb.” Mr Stewart’s life, rich and fruitful as It was in heroic perseverance, in concentration of energy', in wise adaptation of means to ends, yet in its lonely and desolate domestic isolation, its supreme selfishness, its practical forgetfulness of all higher good, can hardly be called a true ana complete success. It was successful in ope respect, and remarkably so, but in the rounded circle of character there are entirely wanting in his career the better possibilities ofhuman ttle—CKicagoJournal.