THE WAY TO BE RICH.

Patea Mail, 13 March 1882, Page 3

THE WAY TO BE RICH.

The only way to be rich is to keep ones desires within his income. If one wants what five cents will buy, and he has ten cents he is wealthy. A bright dime to the street Arab is greater wealth than ten thousand dollars to a merchant prince. The right way to be rich is never to want what you cannot buy ; then you always have as much money as you want. This is an easy way. No man can regulate the contents of his purse ; every man can regulate the quality of his desires. Capital is not within every man’s attainment ; contentment is. He is wealthy who has learned two acts : first, how to be contented with what he can get; second, how to use what he has. Abraham Lincoln had a better library in the single coverless book which he read by the light of the pitch-pine knots in the Kentucky cabin than the man who has lined the walls of what he ironically calls his library with calf-skin bindings at so much per square foot. It is always easy to have all the money you want: want less than you have. The cause of actual suffering from cold, nakedness, or hunger are in this country very rare. In all other cases Paul’s prescription for wealth is the best that was ever desired: “ Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.” The lesson he learned in prison in Rome is worth all the lessons taught in college —business or otherwise—since the world began : “ I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.— Christian Union.